With this thread, my hopes are to shed some light onto the aspects of the Scammer Accusation (hereon out, referred to as S/A) section. We are going to walk through and discuss every aspect to the S/A section that is known to the public (I've been told there is much more to the S/A system than the public is aware of. It's to "secret" for it to be public)
Let's get started.
Here is the known steps in the process.
1. Create a new thread and provide the requested information (link to accused user's profile, screenshots, brief summary of the situation, etc)
2. Bump your thread once every 24 hours until a staff member takes action
Yes, this is all there is to it in the public eye.
Here is my wild guess on what they do that is so "secret".
They review it, make a thread about it in their private moderator section, discuss it a bit, and then let it die. This is pure opinion here, but it seems logical. Notice how 95% of the threads don't ever have a staff member respond to them?
Ok, let's continue to the suggestions I have about how to improve this system to be effective. Effective in my book is to punish the convicted scammers in a timely manner (aka 72 hours or less).
1. Clean up the useless threads in the S/A section. If you can't post a thread in the proper manner, don't post at all. It just makes it a headache for everyone.
Solution: Promote a handful of users to have the ability to delete threads in the S/A section ONLY. There is already a list of "Approved Helpers". That could be a good place to start. These people will delete threads that do not follow the proper format for posting an accusation. This will cleanup a ton of threads in the S/A section. (Yes, delete them, not just lock them. Locking them does no good, as it still takes a thread spot in the list)
2. S/A "Specialists". These people will be the ones to oversee the S/A section. My honest opinion to make it run as smoothly as possible, is to "promote" 7-10 users to handle this task. These "specialists" will be the reviewers of the accusations.
3. If the "specialists" find there is sufficient evidence, it will get passed on to a group of people (current moderators?) to do a quick review (shouldn't take long as the specialists already spent the time reviewing the information) of the accusation, and grant the scammer/locked tag (whether Njag needs to handle this or not, I don't know).
The 'Approved Helpers' will do as they do now and gather the information and put it into a nice uniform post to make it quicker and easier for the "specialists" to do their job.
This process shouldn't take longer than 72 hours, however, there are circumstances where it may take a bit longer.
One big thing that needs to happen is that there needs to be communication from the reviewing staff to the accuser. I looked through the S/A section briefly, and there are very few threads where a staff member has posted any sort of update. What good is a accusation thread if there isn't going to be any action taken or any updates? There isn't.
My "suggestions" are just some idea's off the top of my head. I understand they may need some tweaking and what not, but it is a starting point.
If we can improve the S/A section and eliminate the scammers as fast as possible, we can eliminate the multiple scams these guys do.
I am all for spending the time to try and help improve the system.