A little background: I have been happily retired from the game since March, but last September I resumed work on my NS bot because a) Altino asked me for the NS Founders Discord server and it needed some renovations, and b) it was always kind of a fun hobby for me. One of the long-planned additions to that server was something called the Watchlist, and that is what brings me here today. With all the talk recently about blacklisting, community moderation, and the relationship between offsite platforms and the main site, it seems like a good time to take this public.
What is the Watchlist?
It is a centralized database of Discord accounts belonging to advertisers/spammers and people who are proven threats to the safety of online communities. When a spam account on the list enters a server that uses AugustinAndroid v2 and has the Watchlist feature enabled, the bot automatically bans it. When a dangerous person enters or is otherwise detected, the bot sends a warning to the server's staff. That warning includes a description and evidence of the activities that landed the person on the Watchlist.
What is its objective?
It is designed to be an unbiased, purely factual collector of evidence that works proactively to help regional administrators defend their communities. Some of the biggest problems with decentralized moderation are the lack of trust between admin teams, the difference in standards (both for offenses and evidence) between those teams, and the difficulty of identifying unwanted players and tracking down evidence for anyone without extensive gameplay connections. The Watchlist seeks to eliminate those problems.
What is the difference between this and the so-called "blacklist?"
1. The Watchlist makes no attempt to enforce itself or remove agency from regional administrators. It provides information and nothing more. While the "blacklist" is a construct of social pressure that comes with an expectation of consequences, for better or worse, Watchlist alerts can be ignored, switched off for a particular listed account on a particular server, or disabled altogether.
2. The Watchlist is fully transparent: all submissions, discussions, and votes take place in a set public location.
3. The Watchlist is held to an unchanging, publicly-available standard that excludes political and personal disagreements.
Who decides which accounts are placed on the list?
The Watchlist operates out of the NS Leaders Discord server, which is open to all founders, delegates, and senior delegates (full eligibility criteria here) and is currently host to 350ish members who represent regions containing over 70000 nations. The procedure for adding an account to the list is as follows:
1. Any NSL member proposes in #watchlist that a person be added to the list. They explain why, presenting a formal statement with evidence.
2. Server staff determine whether it qualifies.
4. Members may discuss and vote.
5. With 85% approval, server staff add the person to the list.
Spam accounts may be added directly to the list by server staff with less stringent requirements for evidence, due to the nature of spam accounts and the urgency required. A false report, should it occur, would result in a permanent ban from the server.
How can I view and contribute to the Watchlist?
Join the NSL server (link in my signature) or encourage your founder or delegate to do so. If you are not eligible yourself, your founder and delegate are your representatives there with the power to submit evidence. Members of the server can use the >nsl watchlist command to view the full list.
How can I use this system on my Discord server?
Add the bot. The Watchlist is enabled by default, although you will not get alerts if NSVerify is disabled. (Bonus: the bot does a lot more than just this.)
Who can I talk to about this if I have questions?
Any member of NSL staff: Altino (Altino#4453), Prybourne (TheRobocrat#7505), Lycos (WeirdoXVII#8247), or myself (August#4079).