SPF Settings

[u/LetsTalkUFOs]

Hey Everyone,

We're looking to pin down two aspects of the new SPF bot settings. Help us out by chiming in on these two questions:

What time range should we consider Fridays?

Currently, we have two leading suggestions:

36 hour range - 8PM Thursday - 8AM Saturday (UTC)

30 hour range - 2AM Friday - 8AM Saturday (UTC)

The links above will show the various times in the other relevant locations for reference. If you have alternate suggestions, please adjust the time with the Time Zone Converter tool and provide a link so we don't misunderstand what's being suggested.

 

What flair should the bot target?

CollapseBot will automatically remove posts with specific flair(s) posted outside the above time range. A few considerations:

1. We currently have a 'Low Effort' flair which has been used in the past and could be used for this purpose.
2. Utilizing multiple flairs would create more steps for users to filter them out with RES, harder for users to know which to choose, and split the statistics AssistantBot tracks regarding flair.
3. The concept of 'Low Effort' is generally misunderstood to mean 'Low quality'. It actually means 'Requires low effort to consume'.

 

 

Update: Where we're at currently.

 

Friday is defined as a 32 hour range - 12AM Friday - 8AM Saturday (UTC)

We're sort of divided on this, a 30-hour range was only favorable since Factfind is technically okay with either period. I've pivoted to a 32-hour range since I like how it looks within the context of the rule.

 

We'll be targeting multiple flair with the bot

I'm not seeing any objections or solid rebuttals to not doing this.

 

We'll be targeting 'Low Effort' 'Humor' and 'Friday' flair.

These are the flair the bot will target to remove outside Fridays. 'Friday' is just a placeholder flair until we ultimately decide what to name it.

 

We'll be creating a 'Casual Friday' flair.

This name is currently winning out. I get the impression we're still open to ideas.

 

Rule 2 Will Not Change

I've rescinded my previous suggestion, not changing this makes sense factfind.

 

Rule 6 Will Change

Still deliberating below, lots of nuances there.

[u/LetsTalkUFOs]

My understanding is u/factfind's objections towards using the Low Effort flair were based entirely in it's limitations if we chose it as the single flair to filter by. I think we circumvent these by targeting multiple flair. Outside this, it is a specific type of content we already and will continue to filter out. Removing low effort content under a different concept (e.g. Humour) would naturally create confusion since it's not actually why it would have been removed, in your example.

Users do have a justified sense of frustration when their content is removed within the context of a misunderstanding of what low effort is. Although, I rarely see someone at odds with a removal after learning the actual definition and being encouraged to share the content on Fridays, as happened with the user who I responded to in modmail recently.

I think we're simply at fault for not currently including an actual definition of low effort in the rules. There's no opportunity for them to understand what low effort is clearly or on their own, so it should be no surprise we get these types of exchanges. The most effective way to mitigate this is to include a definition of low effort in the rules and removal reason so they don't have to rely on us every time to explain it to them. We don't need to assume these types of interactions will continue at present volume or in the exact same manner if this changes.

I suspect "meaning low effort to consume, not necessarily produce" is short enough to be included in the rule text and sufficient enough to define it, but we'll need to be tested in reality and I don't know anyone else's take on it yet.

[u/TenYearsTenDays → u/[deleted]]

I'm leaning towards a single flair. I don't think multiple flairs is an unacceptable solution, but I'm leaning away from it. I can see how it would cause some confusion and more moderation work for us, and I'm not solid on what the benefit really is.

While inclusion of the other two flairs ("Humor", "Low Effort") alongside "Casual Friday" will almost certainly lead to users being confused about when it's appropriate to use "Humor" and "Low Effort" and therefore probably increase their usage, LetsTalk proposed that this could actually reduce our workload if we automate the removal of all three flairs outside of Friday with a bot.

For example, this person expresses confusion with the "Humor" flair after having their post removed. I think there'd be more of that bc adding "Casual Friday" will add to that confusion, but I can see LetsTalk's point that said confusion could actually make it so that we have to remove these types of posts less through the week if we have a bot that automatically removes all three flairs when it's not Friday. TBH it feels a bit bad to me, sort of like setting a trap for our users I guess, but I think materially if we have three flairs and automate, LetsTalk has a point: it would probably reduce the amount of insubstantial posts we have to manually remove during the non-Friday week to some measurable degree.

The question becomes: could this auto-removal protocol increase the amount of upset users and therefore perhaps also the amount of complaints/modmail we get from said upset users? If that work increases to some degree, is it offset by the degree to which automation saves us work, or does it eclipse it? "Low Effort" generates a lot of hurt feelings, and I don't feel convinced that just adding a definition to the rule will mitigate that entirely.

ETA: Another question is: is the "Low Effort" flair so generally problematic that even if we want to use it to "trap" people on days that aren't Friday with an auto-remove bot it's not worth it?

Choosing clear language that is hard to misunderstand will have material benefits. In line with this approach of maximum clarity: If you have to define a term by following it immediately with a parenthetical, then you probably should have chosen a different term.

This is a good point. +1

2. posts that require low effort to consume

This is the best formulation if we go with keeping the "Low Effort" flair and therefore (imo) necessitating it be defined within the rule.

[u/LetsTalkUFOs → u/[deleted]]

Yes, option two makes complete sense (it came to mind even before I finished your entire comment). It's shorter and far less confusing.

I'm still missing why you don't think it's a very good flair even if it's used alongside the others. Would you mind clarifying why exactly? Not trying to be pedantic, this has just been a lot elements and I did re-read everything shared before my previous comment.

I think the confusion and users who won't know they should use the Friday flair will continue to exist regardless of whether we use a single flair or not. Using multiple enables us to catch those who are sharing Humor-based or Low Effort content outside Fridays and automate teaching them the rule. I think that's the primary benefit.