Discussing Improper Red Flagging

Moving from Recommended Site Improvements to here for ongogin discussion:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/109274#2560506

Thanks!

Here's an example of what I consider to be improper red flagging. The member has linked to the websites of several authors whose books he has reviewed. These aren't copyright violations, nor are they spam (it's not his website to which he's linking). Blue flags, in some instances, yes, but not, I think, red.

2 I do agree that it's improper, based on the TOS as they are now.

I don't think this one should be red flagged either:

http://www.librarything.com/profile_reviews.php?view=salisb27

Back to your comment in the other thread with regards to the copyright issue...I do believe blurbs, and brief descriptions do fall within the free use guidelines with regards to copyright protection. They've been put there for the express purpose of marketing the book, a sneak peek as it were. It doesn't have a negative impact for any of the parties involved (author, publisher, bookseller, consumer). Come to think of it, spoilers in reviews don't violate copyright and they do have varying degrees of negative impact.

I may not like the type of reviewing in every instance but, as the unflagging line says : "abuse - my foot".

As Barking Matt suggested in the other thread, I agree there should be a notification when you're flagged. I was blue and red flagged and didn't know it. I would have made corrections a heckuva lot sooner had I only known. My mind is drawing a blank right now on whether there was any discussion from Tim on the suggestion on the times it was proposed in the past.

As Jeremy responded, there is a way for him to monitor flagging, but can he share more details without getting too specific?

Am I the only one that thinks the flagging system as it is now is an overall mess??

> 5

I wouldn't call it an "overall mess", though I do think it could stand improving. I absolutely agree that it would be good to have a notification system.

>5 debavp: - What do you want to know? I'm happy to give you the details, but honestly I don't know what you'd like.
:-)

>6 lilithcat: - Notification system that would do what, exactly?

Put a message on the profile to say that 'your review of book x was given a flag.'

This would at least let respectable members know that we had made a mistake. Or if we felt it was unwarented we could do something about it. Other members would at least see that they had upset people.

I'm not sure about red flags, but you can keep track of any blue flags of your reviews by going to your reviews from your home page, putting them in order by popularity and then scrolling down until you get to the break between the 1 thumbs and the no thumbs. If there are no blue flags in that space, you don't have any. I check mine every couple of weeks.

Note to Jeremy: The popularity used to sort blue thumbs to the bottom where they were easier to find. Now it puts them above no thumb reviews, which seems silly to me. No thumbs is better than a blue flag.

On fair use, wouldn't the book description need to be excerpted, rather than reproduced in full? And wouldn't it be a problem if someone copied and pasted from a book cover without indicating that it's not their own words?

10: Technically yes. But the blurbs and the book description are written by the publisher in order to sell that book, so they would be crazy to sue LT or anyone else for copying them and putting them where buyers might see them.

> 11

Whether the publisher would be crazy to sue or not is not really relevant to the question of whether using the blurbs, etc. is a TOS violation.

>9 aulsmith: - ewww. Can you do up a bug report for that? Blech. It shouldn't be sorting that way!

9>

The popularity used to sort blue thumbs to the bottom where they were easier to find. Now it puts them above no thumb reviews, which seems silly to me. No thumbs is better than a blue flag.

Yeah, I've more or less given up on reviews for exactly that reason. I'd prefer to see flagged (both blue and red) reviews sort to the bottom on either sort (date or thumbs), but I'd at least like to see this fixed.

I definitely, definitely support a notification for review-flags. A long time ago a few of my reviews were blue-flagged, I'm guessing because I didn't put much opinion into my summary of the book. I had no idea they were blue-flagged until I was going through my older reviews one day. The fact is, most people simply aren't going to check older reviews every week or so to make sure they haven't been flagged, and right now that's the only way that they will know, unless someone messages them about the reviews.

So yes, please, please (please?) notify us if our reviews get flagged. We get notified for things like badges and Early Reviewers, so it can't really be that hard to send an automated message when our review gets flagged.

I'll check with Tim - presumably it would involve the same system but I don't know that for sure.

Yes, just a simple notification for both blue and red flags would be nice, similar to the way image flagging works, though more anonymous.

Some ideas:

"This review {link} has been flagged as "Not a review." Think a mistake has been made? You can counter-flag, or discuss it in the Flaggers group."

"This review {link} has been flagged as an abuse of the terms of service. Please read the terms of service carefully {link}. Think a mistake has been made? You can counter-flag, or discuss the case in the Flaggers group."

17>

Wait, people can counter-flag their own reviews? Why the hell are we even bothering, then, if spammers can just undo the flags anyway?

>18 lorax: - No, they can't counter-flag their own.

>9 aulsmith:/14 - Can you check the review sorting again? I just checked mine and they sort with the flags at the bottom, as they should be.

19>

Thanks, that's a big relief.

20>

Here's one. Sort by thumbs; blue-flagged reviews sort below anything with a thumb, above things with neither. (PLEASE NOBODY UNFLAG THIS UNTIL JEREMY HAS SEEN IT. The blue flag is probably undeserved in this case but it's the first one I came to.)

>21 lorax: - ah, interesting, so it's on work pages that they sort funky. Thanks! Are member pages sorting right? They seemed to be when I tried a few out, but if anybody finds otherwise, please let me know.

No, they can't counter-flag their own.

Good to know. I assumed they could, but that like anyone's counter-flag, it counts for just 1/2 of the regular flag. (Actually, does that 2:1 flag/counter-flag ratio apply all over the site, or just in Talk? Or am I remembering that wrong?)

17 that's a great example of notification and I do agree with the others who have stated we should not be able to counter-flag our own reviews.

Jeremy, I guess I am a bit unsure of what I want to know as well. Maybe a good example would be if I were to go in and red flag all of a member's reviews, let's say the total was 100 and I did that this afternoon, and the affected member is not violating TOS. Is there something in place that alerts you to that? If so, what happens next. Do you look at what's being flagged and say hmmm, looks good to me and then send me an comment asking if there's a problem? Or do you send me a note asking me to stop? Do you do nothing unless someone speaks up(I don't mean that in a bad way)?

I do fully realize what I am asking/proposing could be total nightmare to utilize, but I also believe that if you are saying that there are means for you to monitor flagging and that you are watching (as best you can) I have no problem with that.

--
Going back to my earlier comment about the overall mess--It is true that flagging doesn't work anywhere near the levels it should. I think one of the biggest flaws is that there is a lot of non-review material being put in the review field simply because there aren't enough comment fields available for some users.

If fields and notifications were added, then that could change the field of play for those non-reviews to actually become TOS violations, thus eliminating a gray area.

edit: I fixed the most obvious two typos, shoot me if you find more :)

>24 debavp: - I have a "recent flags" page, where I can see all the flags given over a certain period (I think it's a day at the moment), who gave them and on what (review/post/profile).

If I see somebody flagging things I think are fine, I message them and ask why they're flagging that way (this does not happen often).

> 7: Notification system that would do what, exactly?

Simply a notification of the fact that your review has been flagged. Like I said in the other thread: as a newbie I mistakenly put some comments in the review field. They got blue-flagged, and quite rightly so, but I didn't notice until many months later.

25 What you're describing is pretty much what I was hoping to hear. I'm sure the majority of incidents that I would find if I looked further into it were done a while ago when there wasn't as much oversight as there is now. Thanks again for being so willing to help, I know all of us appreciate it !!

20: I don't have any blue flags, so I can't check. I was just assuming they sorted the same way as they do on the work page. I'll post a bug report for the work sorting.

12: I agree at it's a technical violation of the TOS, but I, personally wouldn't flag it (with a red flag) because I think the reason behind that particular TOS is to avoid lawsuits, and there's no lawsuit to avoid.

> 28

I think the reason behind that particular TOS is to avoid lawsuits

That may be one reason, but I also think that it's because Tim respects intellectual property rights, aside from the legal issue.

29: Since the book descriptions are work-for-hire for the publisher and the publisher wants them propagated, I'm not sure I see how copying them is anything worse than a technical violation of the copyright law. Though I suppose it would be clearer if the publishers issued them under a Creative Commons license that encouraged copying.

I haven't had enough coffee yet so bear with me. The TOS states that the poster, by the act of posting, is asserting that they have the appropriate right to post the item. Does that protect LT from the legal side of things? How is this different from the photo issue of a while back?

31: I'm not up on the current state of litigation of sites with user content, but the statement in the TOS is designed to protect LT (as opposed to the poster) from copyright infringement claims. Though, as lilthcat says, Tim personally is interested in the moral and ethical issues of copyright, not just the legal protections for LT.

I didn't follow the photograph debate, so I can't comment on that.

Yes the TOS statement is to protect LT, but does it actually?

And I agree with lilithcat and others believe that LT as a whole is just as concerned with the other issues of copyright beyond the legal.

But does it really protect LT and is there a better way to encompass it and make LT a better experience for those that chose to do things a bit differently than "norm"?

After threating another member with immediate painful death, copyright violation/plagerism should be the next bootable offense. Like a black flag in NASCAR. Maybe we need those?

You know, why can't we have a clause in the TOS that says "reviews are for your own review of the book. Do not copy or plagiarize text from elsewhere"? That would clarify and solve a lot of this.

@ 34, that's right, go ahead and make it simple :)

34: I've been advocating a distinct review-clause forever! Something simple and clear just like you stated, would most likely solve *most* of these problems. Because the fact is, many users who put non-reviews in the review field do it accidentally or because they don't realize that the field goes on the work pages or whatever.

>34 rsterling:/5/6 - Yeah I don't disagree with that; it would be nice to have something very straightforward in there :-) - phrasing like you suggest would probably cover 99% of cases.

I'll discuss with Tim.

That is assuming that people actually read the TOS.

It's not going to prevent this behaviour any more than the TOS about author spam prevent that. It does make it easier to deal with those who do it.

38: Very, very true. I'm really amazed at how many people, when messaged (privately of course) about inappropriate spam/author-spam/reviews/etc, say something like "well then maybe I need to read the TOS". .... Am I really such a minority that I read every word of the TOS and Help right after joining?

Personally, I think it would be better (and more helpful, and more obvious, etc) if that little review-clause was attached to the review field. There's a little help-text under the tags field ("Separate with commas, like "history, military history, Napoleon""), so I don't see why something couldn't be added for the review field.

Just look at Welcome to LT http://www.librarything.com/groups/welcometolibrarythin

The group description points to the TOS. Then the OP in the Welcome aboard thread particularly addresses authors. And still authors post about their 'wonderful books'. Oh, well. At least if they do it there we can discourage it nicely.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/113197

So is linking to your blog now spam?

This looks like flagging out of spite because people didn't like his tone in the subsequent discussion.

41>

This looks like flagging out of spite because people didn't like his tone in the subsequent discussion.

Probably. I mean, it's obvious that he's not acting in good faith and wants only two things out of LT -- blog traffic and book sales -- and my opinion of him is not something I can state because it would be flaggable, but I don't think the first post is flaggable; if he posted the same thing multiple places, it probably would be, though.

No, I'm almost positive that person is a repeat-offender. I know I've seen it before. Can't find the threads at the moment, tho.

I guess I really just don't understand the "line". Viagra/real estate/etc links are spam, but a thread started for the sole purpose of driving traffic to your own blog isn't? Where is the line?

> 43

"Viagra/real estate/etc links" are obvious. But determining someone's "sole purpose" for posting is a bit more difficult.

My guess is that people thought the first post was verging on self promotion, especially coming so soon after another thread 2 days ago plugging a different blog post. However, I don't see anything there that violates any specific part of the TOS. The post seems to be within the letter of the law, even if it is not really consistent with community discussion norms - and for that, the OP got a pretty strong community response in the discussion that followed.

The difference between adding viagra/real estate/etc. links and adding a link to your blog is that former are commercial; they're trying to sell something, to make money. Posting here just to drive up the page ranking on your blog is not cool, and is frowned upon, but it's not strictly speaking against the TOS (unless that blog/website is pretty explicitly selling something).

Argh. (and that's one place where I think the TOS needs to change. Posting here *just* to drive people to your blog is no less spammy then viagra! If there is no conversation, no attempt at all to make conversation, just posting links like that... Argh. But anyways.)

Oh. for frack's sake. Who's double flagging a review in the original legacy library?
http://www.librarything.com/work/12690/reviews/56308890

It's unconventional, sure, but a cursory look at the catalog would show that the members who worked on that library put quotes from Jefferson's notes and writings about the books in the review field. Most actually are evaluations of the book, and a short quote - and by the person whose legacy library it is - is absolutely, definitely, not copyright infringement. Not to mention I'm pretty sure stuff written in the late 18th and early 19th century would be available outside of copyright, but at any rate a short quote is definitely not against the TOS.
Ok, rant over.

ETA I counter flagged, which at least got rid of the blue flag.

I'm assuming... I'm *hoping*... that those flags were made by someone who doesn't know about the whole Legacy Library thing and figures those are either bogus quotes, a bogus account, or both.

>47 rsterling:. Wow. But yeah, I suspect/hope Heather's right about what happened. People flagged TJ's other reviews sometimes, too, but they've usually been quickly countered.

>I guess I really just don't understand the "line". Viagra/real estate/etc links are spam, but a thread started for the sole purpose of driving traffic to your own blog isn't? Where is the line?

Welcome to my world. I do webhosting and have to deal with this day after day. The Viagra/real estate/etc links you mention are easy to tell but then you have someone making an innocent post only to discover that they're having a field day doing so.

In this case, I agree with Lorax that the post only exists to drive traffic to their hubpage. I would call it spam. And +1 on the spam judgement scale for using hubpage, a well known spam support site. If they had asked for an honest opinion or presented themselves in such a way where they were trying to offer assistance, I would let it go by. Or if it had been put on their facebook.

On a personal note having spent a couple of semesters at Bates College, I wonder what ever happened to the ethics they used to brag about. May have something to do with all the arrests they have up there now.

edit:
>The difference between adding viagra/real estate/etc. links and adding a link to your blog is that former are commercial; they're trying to sell something, to make money.

Actually that would still be considered link spam by most. Commercial is a very fine line. I know in my AUP, we use the work Promotional instead and commercial never enters into the equation.

Example: http://spam.abuse.net/others/noncommercial.shtml

It's true that linking to a blog might be considered spam by many, in certain contexts. I would even consider it spam in many contexts, and certainly spamm-y. However, if we're talking about what counts for flagging, then we are talking about LibraryThing terms of service, i.e. the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it (or the spirit of community norms). The terms explicitly prohibit commercial/trying-to-make money spam, but not trying to drive up web traffic per se. The terms also have some wording prohibiting bulk postings and profile comments, which can capture some of the non-commercial spam IF it's being posted multiple times.

Here is relevant language from the Terms of Service page:

# LibraryThing is not an advertising medium. Egregious commercial solicitation is forbidden. No matter how great your novel, this does apply to authors. (See Tips and Guidelines for Authors.)
# Do not spam member comments or group invitations. Inviting people in your town to a new group is okay; inviting hundreds of members is not.

There's still some vagueness there, sure, but not enough, IMHO to make the post in question on this thread unequivocally against the TOS.

Here's some other relevant language from the rules for user flagging:

Flag user
Important rules
* Flagging is for commercial spam only.
* Overzealous bookstores, authors and publishers should be reported by email.
* Flagging members are not displayed, but they are recorded.
* Misuse of this feature is a violation of the Terms of Use.
* Flags do not generally or necessarily have any immediate effect.

That too suggests that for LT, the commercial/non-commercial distinction is particularly important.

The place in the LT rules where the commercial/non-commercial distinction is a little fuzzier, and the only one where the issue of driving up traffic to external sites is actually discussed, is in flagging spam works:
What is a spam work? "An illegitimate item added in order to direct someone to an external website or otherwise buy something."
Even that emphasizes buying something, though, and the key here is that it's an illegitimate item.

Surely any external link is partly intended to get people to click on it. We can, legitimately, put links on our profiles, in groups, in reviews, and even in posts. The key, for flagging, is that we have to judge the context. In a case like this one, my view is that it might be in bad taste for someone to post once with a link to their blog and then never reappear, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's against the TOS.

The TOS did *used* to have a line in there about not posting the same thread multiple times or somesuch, I specifically remember that line, but it seems to have been removed. Which really sucks for us flaggers. 'Cause now we can't even point to the TOS and go "look, while your blog-spam may not be flaggable, your multiple threads with the exact same content is".

None Few of these seem to me to be violations of the TOS:
http://www.librarything.com/profile_reviews.php?view=chrisbrooke

Not a review, ok. (Though this is a long-standing member, and most of the reviews are old; I remember several people using the review field to link to external reviews, back in the day, before the consensus formed that that was not how the field should be used.)

But TOS violation/red-flaggable? I can't see any reason why.

Edited to add - when I looked below the fold at more than the first 30, I did see a couple that had reproduced (and properly credited) reviews by someone else; those couple of reviews are probably copyrighted, and so those two do violate the TOS. But the ones with just the links, no.

Note that there are two reviews reproduced from elsewhere that are by the member himself, so those are fine.

Let's see, I see tons of reviews in that link that are links to reviews *by other people*, which is definitely blue-flaggable, and possibly red-flagable, depending on if those linked reviews are copyrighted. Since many of the linked-reviews seem to be from published places (Sunday Times, Washington Post, etc), it's most likely that they are indeed copyrighted.

So, almost all of the link-reviews seem blue-flaggable, and many seem red-flaggable as well.

54>

Linking to a copyrighted source is not itself a copyright violation.

"Linking to a copyrighted source is not itself a copyright violation."

Right.

55> Some reading material:

http://torrentfreak.com/tv-site-sued-for-linking-to-completely-legal-videos-1104...

http://torrentfreak.com/googles-the-largest-torrent-search-engine-isohunt-tells-...

http://torrentfreak.com/operation-in-our-sites-paperwork-shows-perils-linking-to...

Those reviews should actually be in the published reviews anyway, not the members review section. I'd say there's blue flaggable as their using the review section incorrectly although I realize people here will disagree with me on it.

Look at it as that user who was linking to Amazon as their reviews.

edit: It's really moot though. I;ve had a staff member contact me and state that they're more interested in copyright violations when it comes to reviews. They'll contact a member if a complaint is made but if the member states that they;re not going to change their methods, staff won't go any further.

57>

I;ve had a staff member contact me and state that they're more interested in copyright violations when it comes to reviews. They'll contact a member if a complaint is made but if the member states that they;re not going to change their methods, staff won't go any further.

That's right. Blue flags basically don't do anything -- they don't even affect the sort except under very specific and narrow circumstances.

Lorax, please review what I wrote. I didn't say blue flagging.

I'm sorry, then, I misunderstood you. Can you explain what you were referring to, if not to things that do not belong in the review field but are not copyright violations? Because that's certainly what it looked, and still does look, like to me.

If it were a copyright violation to link to copyrighted material, then almost every link ever put on the internet would be a copyright violation. No blog could ever link to a newspaper story; no newspaper site could ever link to a story on another site. Copyright violation surely has to involve reproducing the material in some way; telling other people where they can find the material is not a violation. Maybe if you link to a site where something is available illegally it could be a problem, but linking to the original site where the material is copyrighted, surely not.

(The US legal battles around movies may be a bit specific, since the concern there seems to be that people are file-sharing in ways that violate copyright, and linking to sites that violate copyright; as for the Greek lawsuit, I'm no legal expert, and maybe EU law is different, but the case sounds pretty unpersuasive to me.)

As for the examples I listed above, I do not disagree that they are blue-flaggable, though I tend to take a light hand with blue flags, and would personally let many of them be. I also agree that this information would be useful to have (and more appropriate) in the published review field, but it's worth remembering that that field was only introduced in 2010, and these reviews all predate that. So it's not as if the member was deliberately avoiding an available field.

Some j***a** has gone through my reviews (or at least the first couple of pages, date-sorted) and red- or blue-flagged a whole slew of them.

I wish there were a way to remove flags that were obviously maliciously placed. (I have emailed Tim, but I don't know if he can do that.)

#62 What in the world is going on - these are legitimate reviews and we are told not to flag the idiotic ones that have been happening this week. I have to agree with Lilithcat that something needs to be done here as someone is misusing the red flag.

62 - Tim or Jeremy said elsewhere that they can see when there's a spike in flagging from a particular member. So they should be able to look into it.

#62 - Bet you it was one of those middle school kiddies.

> 65

Probably. In any case, the flags are gone now. I assume Tim removed them.

66>

I counter-flagged a bunch; I bet other people did too.

> 67

Thanks!

#62

I believe that this is not an isolated incident with respect to the conduct of many LT members. In the past few years, I have noticed not only a lack of courtesy among some LT members, but also a tendency toward unnecessary personal attacks upon members who express their points of view. Consequently, I do not post messages as freely as I have in the past. I have experienced it, and it has affected my desire to participate in forums. At one time, I preferred to be a turtle, but life has taught me that I truly am a lobster; painful, yet liberating.

My message may not be appropriate to the topic at hand, but I feel my point of view has merit. Recently, I was the beneficiary of a "blue flag" (not as disturbing as a "red flag," but noticeably distressing when other LT members "reviews/or lack of" continue to be "flagless"). Since I assumed that it was "awarded" because I did not finish the book, with a bit of angst I finally removed it from my inventory. I do realize this is not the same as lilithcat's experience because I have read a number of her reviews, and I am sorry that an LT member would resort to such an abhorrent misuse of LT terms.

Perhaps we all need to step back, reflect, and move forward with a more positive attitude. If you disagree with my point of view, I really don't care; it isn't molting season yet. If our current weather is a preview of summer, I'm good til October.

Since I assumed that it was "awarded" because I did not finish the book,
That's not a valid reason for blue-flagging. If it happens again, I'd suggest posting in the flagging group to ask why it was flagged. Chances are then you'd get some counter-flags if it was wrongly flagged, and the blue flag would go away, or else someone would explain what the issue was with the review, and you could correct it.

Also, I do agree that the attitude could change, and I don't think a punitive attitude toward other members reviews is particularly good for the site.

70>

Well, I don't know the specific circumstances in this case, but I would blue-flag a review that consisted solely of the statement that the reader couldn't or didn't finish the book, without any indication of why, and I think that's justified.

71> Not the case, but thank you.

anyone know why this person's reviews are all being flagged?

73 - I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing for copyright violation. Just google some of the text from the reviews, and it becomes clear that the reviews are just copied text from some non-member-written description of the book (back cover, a website, or something).

74: thanks, I wondered if that was it.

Re: #71:

On the other hand, I think that a review that says "I could not finish this" is actually a very eloquent review; even without an explanation of why, it certainly tells you something about the reviewer's assessment of the book.