Also starting on November 7, 2002, the team began discussing the current state of what was and was not a violation. This conversation will eventually lead to some drastic shifts in policy over the next several months. One key element of this discussion is that the team began requiring users to submit specific links, rather than links to whole journals. The team also began to discuss whether a username should be a violation or not, as well as the concept of investigating entire situations as opposed to specific links. This discussion continued over the next several days.
On November 13, 2002, Sherm clarified policy regarding offsite material — namely, that we don’t take action on it.
On November 14, 2002, Sherm made a post that highlighted a problem that still persists — claiming requests and letting them sit. Jill attempted a policy change on November 28 regarding “mark-and-leave”.
The project to fix up the stock answers — the answers that are, as of this writing, present in the community dated February 7, 1990 — began with a call for opinions on November 20, 2002.
Starting on December 8, 2002, users who failed to provide links were asked to do so in a new request. This was because at the time there were no tools to insert or remove requests from queue, and it was difficult to track responses back.
It isn’t posted anywhere in the lj_abuse community, but on January 1, 2003, Rahaeli began working as an employee of LiveJournal.
On January 4, 2003, Jill posted the then-current version of the policy document.
On January 19, 2003, the first stirrings of what would eventually become the quota system was posted, to address the problem of even distribution of work.
On January 21, 2003, Jill decided that she was stepping down as manager of the team, and Malerin also stepped down as assistant manager. (Due to the vagaries of timezones, Malerin’s resignation post was actually posted before Jill’s.) Rahaeli stepped in as manager of the team, with assistance from Jesse when needed.
Over the next few weeks, a number of policy shifts happened — both procedural and how to handle specific requests. The quota system went through another revision, and then a few days later another. The quota system was finalized on February 1, 2003 — and oh, how low the numbers look now …
The guidelines for invasion of privacy were changed on January 23.
On January 31, 2003, the list of summary change abbreviations, which people had begun using while changing subjects, was clarified.
On February 4, 2003, the policy regarding kiddie porn (posted by users themselves) was clarified.
Starting on February 22, 2003, a 24 hour claim time was strictly spelled out as p
olicy, and a distinction was introduced in the subject marking code between “request that someone has claimed” and “followup request for someone who needs to see it”.
On February 26, 2003, the policies for marking requests closable (ie, not until user has complied) and how to answer requests that result in a suspension were clarified.
A number of policies were clarified on March 9, 2003, including phone numbers, spam, emails to suspended users, posting of abuse team email, and unsuspensions until compliance. The policies on invasion of privacy are brought up for further discussion on March 11.
On March 26, 2003, Rahaeli was provided with a zipfile of all abuse cases for search purposes. It’s only up-to-date until that date, but it can occasionally be useful for older things that weren’t written up in the community.
On March 27, 2003, the first revision of the ultimate abuse policy document was posted. It would sit, untouched and unloved, for over a year, gathering dust and un-updated, amended only by lj_abuse posts.
On April 2, 2003, Rahaeli posted an advice to new members thread, which contains many observations that are still valuable.
On April 12, 2003, the abuse team was invited to a barbecue. (Included for the amusement factor.)
On April 16, 2003, the thirty day suspension was removed, to be replaced by a concept known as “suspend until comply”, where a user is unsuspended immediately upon being willing to delete violating material.
On April 24, 2003, with workload still increasing, the concept of monthly assistant manager started.
On May 20, 2003, a code push broke minsecurity, thus causing some posts to lj_abuse to be public. Oops. Jesse suspended the community temporarily until it could get fixed. (That code upgrade made for some interesting bugs.)
On May 27, 2003, and subsequent days, a number of requests (which is why they’re not linked) were opened about a community adding members — an unwanted-friending situation with a twist. This has since been disabled, so it’s not added into the policy documents, but it’s a good example of how Abuse deals with a write-in situation.
Suspensions broke briefly on May 28, 2003. They were, thankfully, fixed quickly.
On May 29, 2003, the importance of reading carefully when changing summaries — still an issue — was emphasized.
On June 1, 2003, Solcita (a 911 dispatcher) posted information about how to make a call on a suicide threat.
On June 19, 2003, a post was made regarding the policy about not marking requests from support volunteers with your number. (They keep trying to figure out what our subject changing code is.)
On July 6, 2003, a policy regarding putting user numbers in suspend commands was developed.
On July 13, 2003, the team began discussions regarding eliminating the second email warning before suspension, since policiy changed to be “suspend until writein”. This was set in place on July 14, 2004.
On July 18, 2003, a FAQ regarding account trading was added.
On July 30, 2003, policy regarding timezones was posted. Abuse correspondence is in EST/EDT for historical reasons, mostly, but we’ve never changed it.
Also on July 30, policy regarding security of Abuse team member accounts was re-stated.
August of 2003 was mostly uneventful (aside from a steadily-increasing number of requests), as was September of 2003. In fact, the board was being so well-handled that on September 18, 2003, requests were being handled within approximately 24 hours — to the point where policy had to be implemented stating that requests should only be marked if you were planning on doing them immediately.
On September 22, 2003, Bubba reminded team members that it’s possible to shorten subject lines in writeups.
On September 25, 2003, after a massive situation involving celebrity RP journals, a policy of suspend on sight was implemented. (It’s since been overturned.) See the Celebrity Impersonation Journals section of document 05_abuse_historical_precedents.txt.
On October 10, 2003, markf joined rahaeli as co-manager of the team.
On November 14, a few minor policy clarifications were posted.
The privacy notice was removed from the email center on November 19, and a list of plans for improvements posted. Some of these have been implemented; some haven’t.
On November 29, the Abuse board reached 0 green, which is always impressive when it happens.
