If a moderator deletes a post entirely, he should send a PM to the poster letting him know that a post was deleted, and why.
When no explanation is given, it seems like it could just as well be a server bug.
In my recent experience, I had a post moderated (I think it was, anyway - how would I really know??). The reason, I believe, was that it was a response to an abusive poster, and not due to any violation on my part. It would have been nice to get a PM confirming this.
Edit: I have reason to believe that my deleted post got a couple recs - but again, I have no way to confirm -- 'search forums' has developed a bug. I get 5 pages of results when searching on my recent posts, but I can only look at page 1 of those results. If I try to go to any other page, it says "No results to display".
This forum probably needs 'quite a lot' moderating because it seems to attract some individuals who cannot use normal language or give a decent / respectfull statement about what they feel strong about. It's a daily job just to moderate and explain all your actions and such in your proposal. Would you like to do such a thing, would you like to explain all your actions? I wouldn't...
Originally posted by BigDoggProblemIt only wuld lead to a lot of extra work for moderators.
If a moderator deletes a post entirely, he should send a PM to the poster letting him know that a post was deleted, and why.
When no explanation is given, it seems like it could just as well be a server bug.
In my recent experience, I had a post moderated (I think it was, anyway - how would I really know??). The reason, I believe, was that it wa ...[text shortened]... 1 of those results. If I try to go to [b]any other page, it says "No results to display".[/b]
If your post quoted another deleted post with swear words in it that's why it has got deleted.
Here is my opinion:
First, those of us who haven't been here for longer than, say, 6 months, don't know
that the moderators used to manually remove posts. As such, more tolerant moderators
might ignore posts which less tolerant moderators might hide. Also, these removals
were subject to uncontrolable personal biases; for example, Phlabibit and I are friendly
towards each other and, as a result, he might be somewhat more lenient towards me
than towards someone he detested, even if the content of the posts were the same (this
is just an example, not a representation of real life). This means of hiding was dreadfully
time consuming, inefficient, led to fights, and was frustrating for all involved.
The 'auto-mod' process eliminated this problem. Things were removed automatically
once a certain alert-threshold was reached. Moderators then (presumably) sift through
a forum of removed posts (that only they can see) and verify that the removal was
justified.
The resulting problem is two-fold: first, without the 'hand's on' removal process, the
moderators no longer have a reasonable opportunity to apprise a user that their post
was removed and, thus, the poster often didn't even know that their post had been
removed in the first place (particularly if it is back a page or two and they are
assuming that people are considering responding to it); second, this could lead to a
different sort of abuse, where groups of people could unjustly alert posts to hide and
stifle a single person's writing. Russ addressed this second point when he made this
change to the system, saying:
If people alert posts continuously, and appear to be targeting the posts of one user
for no good reason, they could find themselves the recipient of a forum ban, in much
the same way as someone who posts inappropriate material continuously will be.
However, unless moderators keep track to who alerts whom, this is a hard rule to
enforce.
So, I suggest that, when a post is indeed hidden, a person receives an auto-response
by PM. To minimize confusion, the PM should contain a copy of the post that was
hidden and an indication that it was hidden. Any replies made to this PM should go to
a hidden 'Grievance' forum, where the appeal will be reviewed by moderators.
This will have a few immediate benefits:
1) This allows the poster to review the post and edit it where necessary; e.g., if a
post was hidden for a single indiscreet word, that person could repost it with that
word missing.
2) When a grievance is filed, this will focus attention on that post and poster. In a
forum filled with hidden posts, a moderator will be drawn to the one with a filed grievance.
If the grievance is just, the moderator can act and unhide a post and explain his actions
to the 'alerters.' If the grievance is unjust, the moderator can either ignore it or reprimand
that original post, explaining why his/her post will remain hidden.
Note that this will not cause the sort of problems that existed in the forums before,
because the notification will be automated and a grievance does not have to be honored
or even addressed by a moderator (if it unjust).
I hope that the moderators and administration will consider this, as I feel that it will
further improve the forum moderation system.
Nemesio
Would be interesting if Russ can get some time to do this, on top of some other things for the mods. Seems we used to be able to see all hidden posts page by page, now we can only view the last 15 as a page one. Other than that we go to a second list that lines them all up as long list you might see on a news group or message board. Easy to sort, but hard to view the whole message without another click.
I don't know about the other mods, but I look through most all the hidden stuff to be sure nothing strange has happened, and I have not seen any 'gangs' yet. Many things hidden are just someone too lazy to say 'crap' over bull$hit or something stupid like that. It really does amaze me sometimes how people can be such potty mouths and wonder why a fricking post was removed.
Good ideas Nems, I'll be thinking more and post if I can think of anything to add or debate about these ideas. The key would be Russ looking this over and finding time to work perhaps some of this out.
As it stands, and as you know... we can put some stuff back. For the most part, the hidden stuff stays hidden. Perhaps if Russ had more time to act like a mod he'd make the limit more clear, I do feel RHP has become somewhat more lax with what we can and can't post...
Sometimes I even wonder if I should alert something, or just strike it. An example would be my thread where I talked about things not to do with duct tape. Next thing you know you have people taping their nuts to their belly... I just don't know where the line should be drawn sometimes?!
P