What is a Whistle Level?
The whistle level system is a a way of rewarding users for appropriately flagging abusive reviews or blowing the whistle on under-judgement flash entries that violate portal rules, as well as to punish those who abuse these systems, and also as an indicator (in that users profile) of his/her level.
What are the various Whistle Levels, and what are their pictures?
There are 6 levels (to see a level's picture, click the title):
Garbage
Normal
Bronze
Silver
Gold
Deity
See the bottom of this post for a picture showing these 6 levels, labeled and in order.
At what level do users start, and how do users raise or lower their whistle level?
Users start at the Normal level. Abuse (flagging legitimate reviews or flash entries) lowers a user's level, whereas proper use will gradually increase that user's level.
How does a user reach the "Deity" whistle status?
Only the user(s) with THE greatest number of whistle points are ranked at Deity. In this way, it is similar to Level 30.
What determines one's Whistle Level?
One's whistle level is determined by how many under-judgment flash entries and reviews that user has blown the whistle on or flagged as abusive. Doing this accurately increases one's level, and incorrect or abusive usage of the system lowers one's level. There are no specific set point requirements for entering the various levels, since it's a dynamic system, a sliding scale from bronze to deity. That is, the more points the deity user(s) have, the more points it takes to enter the levels between bronze and deity. Thus, one's whistle level is based on how many whistle points that user has, and how many whistle points the user(s) ranked at "Deity" have.
How are the point requirements for the Whistle Levels determined?
Correctly flagging a review as abusive will yield one whistle point when and if an administrator removes it. If the administrator determines that it was not abusive, all those who flagged it as such lose a point. The points gained from correctly blowing the whistle on under-judgment flash entries vary from whistle type. The punishment for mis-blowing the whistle is less than the gain from correctly doing it, so don't be afraid to do the right thing.
How are Whistle Points acquired?
You get points for blowing the whistle on a movie that violates the rules. A NG administrator will later review the quality of the movie, and remove it if it did indeed violate the rules. Upon removing it, all the users who blew the whistle on it get points for that. If, however, the administrator determines that it does not violate portal rules, it will return to the portal as normal, and all the users who flagged it will lose some points (to prevent users from flagging everything blindly) - although the point loss is less than the point gain, so don't be afraid of doing the right thing.
Points may also be gotten from flagging abusive or illegal reviews as such, and once enough users do this, an administrator will review it, and either remove it (giving points to those who flagged it), or determine that it's not abusive, punishing those users (but not by as much as they would have been rewarded) for their fallacious flagging.
When should a user blow the whistle on a Portal Entry under Judgment?
Reasons to blow each of the various whistles on an under-judgment flash entry are as follows:
Stolen: If the great majority of the flash entry was created by anybody other than the user(s) and anybody immediately associated with them submitting the Flash, then the movie is stolen, and should be flagged as such. Users who indicate that they are uploading the work of another with that person's permission are STILL stealing it.
Malicious: If a flash entry automatically leads viewers to any irrelevant outside links, or auto-spawns pop-up windows, or otherwise abuses or maliciously uses computer facilities, then that entry should be flagged as abusive.
Unsuitable: If a flash entry contains excessive amounts of or is composed almost entirely of pornography, racial, hateful, or profane language, disturbing images, or illegal material, then that entry should be flagged as unsuitable.
Read the Portal FAQ for more information.
When should a user flag a review as abusive?
In a nutshell, a review is probably abusive if it exists for reasons other than to give ideas, suggestions, comments, questions, feelings, or other kinds of useful feedback, compounded by any hostility or stupidity inherent in the review.
A review is abusive when it meets one or more of the following criteria:
• It is excessively racist, profane, or spammy.
• It attacks the author personally without providing any feedback on the actual entry.
• It advertises any irrelevant outside links (such as outwar) - keep in mind that some links are legitimate, such as a link to a BBS thread in which they discuss the flash entry, or their personal web page showcasing their high scores on a game, etc...
• It contains excessive use of CAPS or spam.
• It is completely irrelevant: copy-pasted unrelated text, babble (ggeafrkealkfjealfkjae), etc...
• It gives an extremely low score (0 or 1) without any basis or reasoning whatsoever.
• It's purpose is clearly and strictly to annoy or insult.
[ FAQ continued in next post ]
