I just posted this to the Infinite Wall:
OK. Let’s take a break…
I’m shutting down the Infinite Wall for the night.
The original idea was to let new users have a place to interact with other Graffitio users if they opened it up in a location without any walls nearby. It started out that way, but has quickly degraded into its current state.
For what it’s worth, I have not deleted a single post or banned a single user. I’ve been too busy fixing bugs and adding new features to Graffitio to deal with this crap.
I’ll be making a post to the blog tonight, and if you’d like to comment or have any ideas, feel free to post there:
So if you’re here from the Infinite Wall, I’d love to hear your opinion on how to proceed. Thanks!
the infinite wall is nice and the idea of banning people for rude or chastising remarks is great. However, some of us, like me, felt like we were getting banned for no reason at all. Maybe I wasn’t banned and you just shut it down and I misunderstood. And as for the whole thing about it not loading quick enough I’d say limit the infinite wall to show only the most recent 50 or 100 at the most.
Just my opinions
Thanks for the feedback!
I promise you, and anyone else, that I have not banned anybody. Banning people on the server is possible, but I haven’t even added the code to do it yet, cause I’d much rather be working on fun stuff.
The problem with banning individuals whenever they are rude is that there are thousands of you and one of me. We need a scalable solution. I’d love to hear some creative ideas.
Oh, BTW, for those of you wondering why your posts didn’t work if I wasn’t banning anyone. It’s simply because release 1 is very buggy. Release 2 and 3 stabilize a lot of things and add some cool features.
Is adding screen names a possibility?
A good scalable solution is to have unique user IDs of some sort and give the wall creators the ability and responsibility to patrol their own walls and ban users / delete posts that they find offensive.
I like it anonymity of the current system, but without a way to ID and control the users who make trouble, there really is no way to patrol that I can think of.
Deleting offensive anonymous posts on your walls would be a bit like fighting spam in your e-mail box…
Unless maybe you could set filters for your wall, but there are always ways to overcome filters and file inappropriate posts anyway…
Don’t give two shits about the infinity wall, but those of us in high density locations( San francisco) could use a more focused wall system. A wall from 1 mile away is across the world.
First of all, what a great app. I really wish more people in my area (Bay Area) would use it and make something useful of it. Perhaps in time, this will happen.
With regards to scalability and moderation, here’s an idea. Make the system like Digg or other similar sites, where there’s a system where X number of votes as “inappropriate behavior” causes the post to be deleted. A user doesn’t necessarily have to be banned for the first few post deletions. This could scale well if you add some math to the formula. Like if a particular wall was getting 10 posts an hour, it would take half of that number to cause an action (deletion or banning). There’s no way to moderate otherwise on such a large scale. Another idea (but IMO not the greatest) is to make the wall creator the moderator for their own wall.
But after saying all this - it really defeats the system of anonymity and free speech. My suggestion is just to leave things the way they are. If they get out of hand, I’m sure other walls will surface if one becomes ridden with spam.
I was just thinking about it… a way to preserve the anonymity…
What if you don’t need a user name to identify the user but could still ban them from your walls?
I’m assuming (since you said you could ban based on device) that the server knows what device posted what on a particular wall. If that’s the case then the creator of a wall could ban a user for posting a particular post and the server could then ban the device ID from that creator’s wall.
The creator need never know who the poster was specifically, the server would take care of that. So the server could deny access to that particular device if it tried to access the user’s wall again.
I feel sorry that such a good idea like graffitio degrades into obscenities and rubbish - even in local walls. I have yet to find a useful information for the places I see. I know that the idea of a wall is that you can write on it whatever you like - but the usefulness of the application is close to zero without a post-posting control. What about letting the users rate the content and remove content with low rating after 1 or more ratings?
I’d love to see quick +/- icons on each post made by users other than yourself. Each user/device can only vote on each post at most once; so a single user can’t needlessly push down (or up) single posts. Then, the default can be to only show posts which have a rating of.. well, greater than -1, for instance. But this filter level could also be changed in settings.
Banning is no fun. If a wall is for sleazy pickups, and that’s what it devolves into, that’s fine - it’s for a purpose, it represents the users of that wall/community. It can be self-moderating in that regard. On the flipside, a wall for some church can be self-moderating in a complete opposite way.
I made these suggestions on the wall but in case they got lost: The big problem is that people anonymity = idiots (credit John Gabriel). At the same time, registration sucks.
The best thing is to automaticdlly assign a device-specific code to a post. Phone numbers are off limits, but what about the last few digits of the phone IMEI or serial? That semi-identity would check people before they spout off. Also, since it would be constant (unlike IP) people would worry about later being linked to an inflamatory or racist comment they made.
Also, give us a way to globally view walls, by setting a mile range to scan, or post them on a webpsge like geocaching sites do it. I’d like to know where the closest hot spots are (1? 10? 100 miles?) so I can go there a get involved.
Thanks
JP
wall moderation is an excellent idea. some local walls have become a hookup spot for desperate gay men. undesirable to say the least. a seperate wall was created for these individuals but removing choice posts from the walls I have created for myself and friends (and others not looking to fornicate) is necessary for an enjoyable graffitio experience.
Instead of there being thousands of us and one of you would it be possible to add a moderator/report function? People
Can flag offensive posts which then get forwarded to the mod for review before possibly being deleted, and perhaps some sort of mark being put against the device server-side so persistant offenders say bye bye after x offences in x days?
P<<
Why not allow the immaturity and stupidity… and give it it’s own place to play? Why not instead of an infinite wall, have a few different categories, if these children want to talk about a/s/l, give em a place to do that, and then a place for us to do what the application was intended?
Oh my gosh I wrote a post and my iphone safari crashed and erased it!
Okay here is the redacted version.
Do you want people to impose their community standards on other walls?
True racists don’t care if an identifier is attached to their scrawls.
I don’t like the word “nigger” or “niggaz” but the latter one is pretty common in some areas and while I wish people wouldn’t use it, I’m not going to be afraid of its existence.
Do you really want responsibility for moderating “your” walls? If I travel, do I have to patrol the walls I make in San Francisco or Chicago from here in Minneapolis? Do you want moderated walls set up like little feifdoms, with competing walls on the same spot? So when I open the app I see three versions of something–like “Riverplace” “Riverplace” and “The Real Riverplace”?
Security goes both ways. I’ll feel a lot more anxious about a scrawl threatening me (a kind of speech that’s not protected) if there’s an identifier attached to all scrawls.
What do you want to have happen when the FBI knocks on Anoop’s door asking to see the user data for a wall where maybe someone is being tracked as an “undesirable”?
I have more but I’m out of time.
I think the infinite wall is awesome,but I think your not thinking in realistic terms. Thinking the wall is going to be some super rich utopian space where everyone posts something hi e and relavant is the wrong way to go about it.
I think the infinite wall is awesome,but I think your not thinking in realistic terms. Thinking the wall is going to be some super rich utopian space where everyone posts something nice relavant is the wrong way to go about it. But this is your creation and if you want it to survive you need to start cracking some skulls and ban some users. Because sexual ads and blatent racism should not be tolerated!!!
Looks like 2 specific needs are identified here…
1. The need for an AUTOMATED method of managing specific types of content is evident because of the very nature of the application, including expected scale of Users. User feedback (voting) is the key to this method.
2. The need for an effective MODERATION method of managing specific types of content is also evident because of the national/regional/local legal liabilities AND sensitivities. Perhaps this can be handled on a Country basis to start? There are definite differences in what is expected and permitted around the world. To implement this wisely and early is to avoid getting labelled with negative market publicity. Plus when done well it can drive User growth!
Of great importance is to recognize that the issues now being considered for the “Infinite Wall” are really critical for all walls. It’s good to see this discussion Anoop. A great solution to this will accelerate your application to the stratosphere! But it must be developed with the same passion as your code solution of the ‘old iPhone’ problem. Otherwise great code but no great service to the world. ;-)
Great new application with infinite potential if wisely developed.
D
I can’t post on any wall now…
First off, I love the concept, great job!
Regarding offensive/rude writings on the wall, why not carry the spray painting analogy through. If I have a can of spray paint, I can paint over anyone elses comments and write my own on top of it.
Now, the ‘delinquent’ user would use this ability to remove ‘nice’ comments and replace it with their own messages, so there would need to be some limits on this functionality.
Consider something like this. Provide users with a ‘whitewash’ function. They can whitewash a message they don’t like/agree with, but it’s thin paint, and one users whitewashing a posting isn’t enough. It takes a second (or third?) user to completely cover (delete) the message.
You could also put limits on the posting on walls. One message (or whitewash) per wall/per day.
Just my two cents.
I like a lot of what everyone has suggested.. What about personal moderating, we could be given an option to see explicit posts and other quality control filters.
Also, I don’t care for the immensity of the infinite wall, it would make users more inclined to use the location free walls if they were topic specific. I.e. I could turn on a “business infinite wall” a “space infinite wall”, “technology infinite wall” etc. Then the groups could assign additional moderators if necessary.
If the infinite wall is left as is it will continue to look like a sloppy forum which I will continue to ignore even after any moderation without adding categories or tagging of any sort.
To anoopr:
I like the simplicity of using Graffitio on my iPhone. I first heard about it when looking through the App Store in iTunes. Not knowing 100% what Graffitio truly is, I thought I was viewing local posts at first. But then I realized it was global (thank goodness). While I’m open for all kinds of chat, I too, was a bit annoyed by all the spam. Then again, this stuff is bound to happen as a few posters here already mentioned.
I really enjoy this idea. It’s creative and has lots of potential. I really hope you find some sort of solution and get the Wall back up and running.
Thanks for hearing us out. It was a pleasure!
Maybe make it a digg-like up/down approval - once a certain % is hit auto whitewash it.
Also user configurable settings would be nice. Distance, language filter perhaps, facebook/myspace integration :-p
I don’t know if someone has suggested this yet but I havnt read through all of the responses. I think a feature that put a thumbs up and thumbs down on posts on the infinite wall would be great. If one post gets enough thumbs downs (like 15) then that user cannot make another post for say 1 hour to a day.
Just an idea to keep it clean
I agree with the slashdot / digg style of moderation - posts that are deemed offensive get voted down, and posts that are useful get voted up - then in the application settings, users can set a threshold for what they want to see [from most useful down to completely uncensored].
You can decide if you want to set up an automatic suspension of users / phones that get voted down a lot, so they can’t post for a set period, and then after a certain number of suspensions, they would get banned.
This also makes it hard to justify usernames, or at least publicly seen usernames - if we can’t see any usernames, we have no idea who we’re voting up or down, and thusly cannot target specific users for suspension.
I know this is off topic, but it’s been mentioned here, so I’ll comment.
I also think that people should be able to change the search radius, but only to a maximum range (a few miles / kilometers). The whole idea of the walls means you have to be close to that area to see it.
For people who live in rural areas, this application may not be for them. The greater popularity in bigger cities is simply a byproduct of the fact that they are bigger cities and more people are likely to have iPhones.
If you’re in the middle of nowhere and want to be able to post and interact, there are other applications for that. Try Facebook.
The sex thing is what really gets my blood up. We have all left our houses before. We might have noticed consenting adults are out there having sex with strangers. Lots of it. Yes, sure, we’re all shocked comma shocked that the Larry Craigs of the world are getting off in our airport bathrooms!
This idea that it’s somehow requiring some kind of BANNING mechanism–oh and especially with regard to gay people–is totally bizarre to me.
Yeah, you’re right, some countries don’t allow that kind of thing. I’m not going to apologize to Saudi Arabia or China because some people in the U.S. or Europe don’t mind using an anonymous service to connect with same sex partners.
Several of the walls here in my city (Minneapolis) are for gay-friendly clubs and bars. Should those be shut down? Should we expect those to be sanitized and disneyfied because someone elsewhere (someone who can’t SEE those walls unless they’re HERE–jesus, doesn’t anybody GET that yet?) can’t handle it.
Why does everyone who gets a little uncomfortable immediately leap to talk of BANNING. This is very frustrating. Especially knowing that these are PLACE-SPECIFIC. There’s nothing “offensive” going on in Minneapolis or San Francisco that someone in rural Kentucky or China can see on these walls anyways!
Moderation of this will not scale–except maybe by voting and automatic triggers.
Back off, nannies. Back off.
I live in Colorado, and ot on the largest of towns and the only walls I see around town are the ones I have made. I really wish I had the option to widen the area I can see walls.
I have no solution to add, as it can be found many times over in different systems above, I just had to add: Please don’t give up! This app is going to become a repository for some absolutely wonderful first hand accounts, tidbits of brain teasing information, and no doubt a secret or two. Thank you for your hard work on what will become a living, breathing voice of local communities.
it would be really cool to have the option of user accounts / profiles with Avatars
so that with each users post a users avatar displays, which is a hot link to their profile
their profile can have there avatar, and a list of their most current wall posts
but if someone wants to remain anonymous, they could just have a ‘no photo’ and post just like they are posting now
I’m not sure I agree with the user accounts option. Anonymity is a great thing. I don’t believe that your intentions here are to create a place to meet new friends, but more to share information about locations that they visit. If it turns into another myspace or facebook, count me out. People are more free to express their ideas without having a name. I think it will allow people to express themselves without having any type of moniker attached to themselves.
Another way to keep some spammers out is to charge a fee for the app. Honestly, if the options that people have suggested (moderation and range settings) come to fruition, I’d be willing to pay for this app. If spammers want to pay to spam, let them. Either way it’s money in your pocket and hopefully reduces the spam from the freeloaders.
Funny, that’s the first time someone suggested charging for the app. I totally agree with that - I’d be willing to pay for it too.
Yeah me also, if we’re considering this a beta, why not a free trial also?
I don’t know what you expected. You ask for graffiti and you got it. I mean, why did you think that all the random people off the net would only submit PG rated posts? Your application is called graffiti for crying out loud. If you ask me the biggest problem is not the content it’s the response time and the bugs (other then people just not getting what the app is for). If it bothers people to much that they may come across a word they don’t like then I suggest that these people never ride the NYC subway and maybe you could create a “Safe infinite” wall. Or maybe you could create one for regions so that at least so many people arn’t hitting one wall. But really, where do you get off complaining about this? You got what you asked for.
johnny has a good point. The area is to small for us to find anyone right now, that’s why everyone is hitting the infinite wall.