Forum Moderation Again

[EEVblog]

I know there was lengthy debate in another thread on this, but I just edited a post that I think should have just been flat out deleted
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/what-soldering-iron-with-solder-feeder/msg531762/#msg531762
I know this is what many people wanted, they wanted the moderator to leave a public note and reason why a post was deleted or modified etc, but in this case it just seems so silly and counterproductive.

a) I had to spend time writing it instead of just hitting delete.
and
b) It leaves a horrible red mark in the thread potentially putting off newbies that this sort of thing is common etc

PLEASE limit talk to this exact question - should posts that deserve to be deleted:
a) just be deleted
b) just be deleted, but inform the poster by PM in all cases
c) just be deleted, but inform the poster by PM in selected cases where warranted
d) edit the post leaving it empty bar a public reason from the moderator as I did.

I don't really buy the reason that people might think there is something wrong with their system and it didn't post their message. Yes, that has happened in the odd case, but it seems rare, and if so does it warrant the moderator having to explain to the person each and every time why?

[GEuser]

Don't fret over it Dave imo .

Another who I've noticed going off the rails lately a tad , but at least he or she makes no excuses in the follow up in which is a plus I suppose .

(Now I'm not making excuse for anyone and it should not be a excuse either full stop , but it seems like since the world really seems to be going to shit , all the valid lying and straight out corruption and other bent things going on I sorta can see it effects people , and no wonder !)

Psychology is a tool and a weapon and its being used against the peoples , and you won't hear a qualified psychologist  say that! imo of course ...

[miguelvp]

In order of preference, but I'm fine with all 4.

b) just be deleted, but inform the poster by PM in all cases
d) edit the post leaving it empty bar a public reason from the moderator as I did.
c) just be deleted, but inform the poster by PM in selected cases where warranted
a) just be deleted

[TheBorg]

Same as miguelvp on this one. If anything warrants deletion that is not spam, PM them and let them know they are breaking the rules.

[sleemanj]

Edit post, just leave a non-red-text blanket marker including username of moderator, something like

  "[ Inappropriate/Off-Topic Content Removed - dave ]"

[Macbeth]

I totally agree with Dave - he should have just deleted my post. I'm sorry it's 2am in the UK and I am half-pissed. I really need to stay off the internet when I've had a few shandies.

I wish I was teetotal like Dave. I'm not being sarcastic, I mean it. I hope to be healthier soon!

[dr.diesel]

Edit post, just leave a non-red-text blanket marker including username of moderator, something like

  "[ Inappropriate/Off-Topic Content Removed - dave ]"

Most forums I'm a member of do the above.  Leaving the trail of known deletions per user also allows the rest of us gauge our ignore lists.

I assume this forum allows for username moderation tags, infractions or events.  Probably more time consuming is moderators need to document these events so as a community user banning can be properly gauged.  As the forum becomes more and more popular, this issue will become more necessary.

[GEuser]

I totally agree with Dave - he should have just deleted my post. I'm sorry it's 2am in the UK and I am half-pissed. I really need to stay off the internet when I've had a few shandies.

I wish I was teetotal like Dave. I'm not being sarcastic, I mean it. I hope to be healthier soon!

Ahhh , that the trouble Macbeth , half pissed is no good for one , either fully pissed or nothing!

[EEVblog]

I assume this forum allows for username moderation tags, infractions or events.

SMF does have the ability to put warning on users that can auto-expire after a time of good behavior, and also auto-ban after certain points are reached.
We can also put people on "watch".
My only real problem with this is that it might create bad blood and escalate thing were otherwise it shouldn't have. E.g. in this case if we gave an automatic set number of warning points for any post deletion then Macbeth may constantly see that "warning/watch" thing on his account for the next week/month and slowing get peeved off by it. But now, it's like done and dusted, everyone happy.

[kolonelkadat]

PLEASE limit talk to this exact question - should posts that deserve to be deleted:
a) just be deleted
b) just be deleted, but inform the poster by PM in all cases
c) just be deleted, but inform the poster by PM in selected cases where warranted
d) edit the post leaving it empty bar a public reason from the moderator as I did.

As a mod on some other forums, my preferred action is C. Usually I find that if a post is deletion worthy, then I dont need to explain why. If for some reason I do feel the need to explain myself, I do it in a pm. Publicly calling people out rarely does anything other than start an argument.

In rare cases, a post will have some useful information coupled with something not useful (eg name calling). I simply edit edit these posts. I dont ever leave a reason. Its enough that the system automatically marks it as being edited by a moderator. If another moderator wants to know why, they can review the logs. If the poster wants to know why it can be discussed in private. If a user wants to know why, thats too bad. Its really none of their business. If it were, the post shouldnt have been edited in the first place.
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

All that said, I really like the way the staff handle things here. I really wouldnt change a thing.

[pickle9000]

I have no problem with posts being deleted, or entire threads. Do I need to know why, not really that just starts up another conversation not related to electronics.

Put another way, I trust the mods. This isn't a board about religion, politics, aliens, animal rights and so on. That's why I like it. Even those topics can sneak in but to be honest I just as soon see none of them. That includes a red notice stating that something has been removed.

[c4757p]

If the deleted post warrants a ban as well (spam, for instance), then obviously just delete it, fuck the spammers and trolls. For posts which are moderated due to abuse, I personally prefer D, but that's also the hardest option for the mods.

My real preference, however, is that I'm sick to death of seeing the endless discussion over moderation styles here, and really wish you'd all just pick a style yourselves and lock all the whiny Stop Deleting My Threads threads as off-topic. Not every time someone complains that they had to sit in time-out and now they're sad should result in us dragging out the dead horse again.

[Tac Eht Xilef]

It depends a lot on the forum dynamic, but something that works well on other forums I frequent or have modded is:

• Have a mod-user discussion subforum or deletion discussion thread, make it real clear to everyone that "why was my post deleted?" questions go there and nowhere else, and make it perfectly clear that posts/comments there are not "was it a good/bad deletion?" polls.
• Delete the content of the original post, give a generic reason (as you did), and point further discussion to the mod forum / thread.
• Don't engage any further in the original thread (Dave, I think that was a huge mistake, though it worked out OK-ish in that case).
• Just flat-out delete without comment any responses in the original thread that refer to the deleted content or question the moderation - if they also contained useful info, then the poster or someone else can re-post it without the crap.
• Answer questions about deletions in the appropriate place only, and only if asked. Only in very rare cases should a mod start public discussion on a specific deletion - if you can't help yourself, then do it in a PM, and the person who had their post deleted can decide it they want to take it further.

If you want to be cynical, it's all about minimising the work of arguing with aggrieved posters and containing it when it does happen...

[zapta]

Any option that is distinguishable from the post not being published in the first place or deleted later by a bug should be OK IMO.  For example replacing the post with a canned 'deleted by moderators' text.

[tautech]

Dave, now the offender has apologized and there seem to be no offended parties, is it now appropriate to clean up the thread (delete OT posts) or leave them be as education for all?

Or let posters clean their own mess?
PM to encourage this? (added to notification PM?)

I don't believe you need to justify your actions in such a blatant case, the recent discussion of Moderation and the new procedures adopted get the thumbs up I'm sure.
You need to keep it simple so that is not a drag on your and the other Mods time.

Has the Mods work load of late altered?
Is it a consistent work load or unpredictable?

[EEVblog]

Dave, now the offender has apologized and there seem to be no offended parties, is it now appropriate to clean up the thread (delete OT posts) or leave them be as education for all?

You see, that's the whole point of this thread. There are those who say that it should remain as-is so that there is:
a) public oversight that delete happened
b) gives other uses info on who is getting their posts deleted so they can add them to their ignore list or whatever.

For me, I'm not buying any real advantage in this doing this. It seems to just make the place a mess, and new people coming in may get bad impression.

[n45048]

I go with just delete it (and maybe if it's worth while, a little PM to the author to say "pull your head in"). It's easier for the mods. At the end of the day if it doesn't benefit the thread constructively or the wider EEVblog community, then it might as well not exist.

I see it as a service to those taking the time to read posts, plus the idiot that wrote it in the first place to prevent them from looking foolish in public. Unfortunately public forums attract all sorts of people with an opinion. Some intelligent, others are just full of verbal diarrhoea.

[EEVblog]

Users are not psychic, communication is vital.

It is also more work for the moderators, and can provoke private arguments when none would have ordinarily happened.
At the end of the day, if someone writes something bad enough for a moderator to warrant deleting it for the good of the board, then, well, I think it should just be deleted, and the owner only informed if the moderator wishes to take it further and spend the time explaining. So long as the stated policy of the forum is to assume if your posts vanishes, then it's been deleted by a moderator, and if you didn't get a reason and want one, then you can ask.
IME, most people do not bother asking, they know what they said risked being deleted.
Remember, at the end of the day, very few posts get deleted on this forum. I'm talking maybe one in 1000 at best. With 700+ posts day on here, post deletions

[justanothercanuck]

I believe some combination of B and D should suffice.  That way the poster knows why it got edited/deleted, and other users don't think they're having a senile moment by remembering a post that disappeared.

[EEVblog]

Ok, decision made, I've updated the rules:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/forum-rules-please-read/msg357889/#msg357889

[Rufus]

For me, I'm not buying any real advantage in this doing this. It seems to just make the place a mess,

You keep saying hardly any posts get deleted so how much mess can there be?

and new people coming in may get bad impression.

But not as bad an impression as they will get when they eventually notice posts have been silently deleted and that they have been reading a selected truth for weeks or months.

[EEVblog]

You keep saying hardly any posts get deleted so how much mess can there be?

A lot if it's a popular thread and gets viewed by 10,000 people.
It's not really about the quantity.

But not as bad an impression as they will get when they eventually notice posts have been silently deleted and that they have been reading a selected truth for weeks or months.

That's not the way it works. Post are not deleted for "selected truth" they get deleted because you broke the rules and make a personal attack, something grossly off-topic, or you said something deliberately inflammatory etc. i.e. you broke the rules.
Don't break the rules and your post won't get deleted or edited.

Basically, I've simply gone back to how the forum has always worked.

[jancumps]

PLEASE limit talk to this exact question - should posts that deserve to be deleted:
a) just be deleted
b) just be deleted, but inform the poster by PM in all cases
c) just be deleted, but inform the poster by PM in selected cases where warranted
d) edit the post leaving it empty bar a public reason from the moderator as I did.

As a mod on some other forums, my preferred action is C. Usually I find that if a post is deletion worthy, then I dont need to explain why. If for some reason I do feel the need to explain myself, I do it in a pm. Publicly calling people out rarely does anything other than start an argument.

In rare cases, a post will have some useful information coupled with something not useful (eg name calling). I simply edit edit these posts. I dont ever leave a reason. Its enough that the system automatically marks it as being edited by a moderator. If another moderator wants to know why, they can review the logs. If the poster wants to know why it can be discussed in private. If a user wants to know why, thats too bad. Its really none of their business. If it were, the post shouldnt have been edited in the first place.
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

All that said, I really like the way the staff handle things here. I really wouldnt change a thing.

Hey, I'm taking the same approach on a programming forum where I'm one of the moderators.

[nctnico]

My personal preference would be to replace the contents of the post with 'deleted by moderator'. IMHO this is very transparent to everyone and also serves as a public warning to others to stay -more or less- on topic.

[EEVblog]

Okay, then why was my perfectly innocent post deleted?

Let it go.

[liquibyte]

Can we have a rule about non-inflammatory posts about operating systems too?  I certainly get tired of seeing the "why is (insert program here) on Linux such a heap of crap" stuff.  This seems to be a joy for some members to troll this way as if hiding the source code somehow makes things much less a heap of crap.  Why post a title such as this if it's not meant to be derogatory?  I may be picking nits here but I find this more offensive than someone calling me an a-hole as the title in and of itself it meant as a way to insult those of us that choose not to pay a weeks salary to run our computers.

[nitro2k01]

b, and additionally in select cases, d. Not telling the user might seem like an easy way to sweep the problem under the rug without creating a fuzz, but I think deleting posts without any kind of notice to the user is more likely to make people hold grudges against you/the moderation team.

[EEVblog]

I may be picking nits here but I find this more offensive than someone calling me an a-hole as the title in and of itself it meant as a way to insult those of us that choose not to pay a weeks salary to run our computers.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/forum-rules-please-read/

In a public forum you have no right NOT to be offended by something.

[EEVblog]

Not telling the user might seem like an easy way to sweep the problem under the rug without creating a fuzz, but I think deleting posts without any kind of notice to the user is more likely to make people hold grudges against you/the moderation team.

Actually, experience shows the opposite to usually be the case.
If you try and engage people on how and why, it almost always escalates in some way.

[sunnyhighway]

Not telling the user might seem like an easy way to sweep the problem under the rug without creating a fuzz, but I think deleting posts without any kind of notice to the user is more likely to make people hold grudges against you/the moderation team.

Actually, experience shows the opposite to usually be the case.
If you try and engage people on how and why, it almost always escalates in some way.

Seems like a contradiction in terms to me.

How would the mod in casu known if such person holds a grudge against him, without engaging that person.

[jeremy]

Normally I wouldn't post in a thread like this. But I just wanted to add my support your decision Dave.

Whether you like it or not, I think you are the BDFL for the eevblog forum As long as your ultimate goal is to simply encourage discussion and learning about electronics, I'm sure most people (yes, us less vocal people) here would be happy with whatever you think is appropriate.

[EEVblog]

By the way, is there a "proper" way to contact the moderators?

You can contact me by email.

[EEVblog]

Normally I wouldn't post in a thread like this. But I just wanted to add my support your decision Dave.
Whether you like it or not, I think you are the BDFL for the eevblog forum

I had to look that one up 
The forum isn't rocket science, it mostly runs itself, people are encouraged to lead by example, and there are only a couple of very simple rules. Break the rules and you are not welcome. Mods reserve the right to stop things getting out of control, by, as always, any means they deem necessary at the time
Doesn't matter how the forum is run, someone will always be unhappy with the approach, so it'll just be run the way it's always been run, and it seems pretty successful so far.

[EEVblog]

Seems like a contradiction in terms to me.
How would the mod in casu known if such person holds a grudge against him, without engaging that person.

Mods don't hold grudges, nor do they care if anyone has a grudge against them 

[mrflibble]

Actually, experience shows the opposite to usually be the case.
If you try and engage people on how and why, it almost always escalates in some way.

I think I understand what you mean. However, there is a distinction between "send notification of deletion" and "give room for debate and escalation".

I don't know if the forum software allows this but what usually "works" is:
- moderator presses delete button
- gets page/popup/whatever with a text field for "reason for deletion".
- post gets deleted (or moved to "safe" area, whatever's your thing)
- poster of the offending gets A PM along the lines of "your post such and such has been removed. reason given was <whats-in-the-text-field>. This message is intended purely as notification. ... some other stock message you think fits your forum".

The idea here being that the moderation action of "delete post" should be simple for the moderator. And notification of the user should be automatic, not extra work. That is, should you choose to have that as feature.

Main thing I am getting at that notification of the user should result in less grievances, not more. Just make sure that the stock message you plonk in there makes it clear this notification is a notification, not an invitation for debate of the moderation decision.

Anyways, the forum seems to work fairly well on the whole, so keep it up.

[nitro2k01]

Mods don't hold grudges, nor do they care if anyone has a grudge against them 

I knew it! The mods are robots!

Seriously though, what I was talking about was taking the bull by the horns vs sweeping something under the rug. If I had a post deleted with a notice, I might feel angry about it in the moment. If I had a post deleted without notice and discovered this a year later, I would feel betrayed, because the matter wasn't dealt with in clear terms. I think what you're saying is that most people never discover that a post was deleted, and you don't suffer from what you don't know. But surely some do, and feel surprised, confused as to why the post was deleted or a combination of both.

[mrflibble]

I think what you're saying is that most people never discover that a post was deleted, and you don't suffer from what you don't know. But surely some do, and feel surprised, confused as to why the post was deleted or a combination of both.

The feeling of surprise/anger/etc is indeed what you want to avoid, and can avoid by clear communication. I get from your (Dave) reaction that you have had some bad experiences where people go on and debate the mod decision. Well, if so I understand, and that is exactly what you do NOT want if you want to retain your sanity. Simply be clear and send the notification. Then follow up by feeling free to NOT engage people who want to start a debate. It will not take care of every cheeky bastard, but it should make the percentages work in your favor.

[nitro2k01]

If I had a post deleted without explanation I'd assume it was a forum bug or I forgot to hit "post" before closing the tab, and re-post it. That's what caused all the problems and what I'd really like to avoid seeing again.

I'd say the situation is worse now. If a post vanishes I'm supposed to email Dave, so he can waste time investigating what happened. Seems like it will just create more work, or more confusion and escalation.

And btw, add to this relatively frequent database error messages. Who knows in any single instance if the database was rolled back 1 hour before corruption might have happened, and some posts were lost?

[n45048]

If people don't like their posts simply disappearing, maybe the alternative is to replace it with:

POST FAIL!
I am a pelican and wrote something stupid, so a moderator corrected it for me.
 

[EEVblog]

The idea here being that the moderation action of "delete post" should be simple for the moderator. And notification of the user should be automatic, not extra work. That is, should you choose to have that as feature.

If there was a plugin for that then I'd install it.

[nihilism]

c) just be deleted, but inform the poster by PM in selected cases where warranted

[Zero999]

Seriously though, what I was talking about was taking the bull by the horns vs sweeping something under the rug. If I had a post deleted with a notice, I might feel angry about it in the moment. If I had a post deleted without notice and discovered this a year later, I would feel betrayed, because the matter wasn't dealt with in clear terms. I think what you're saying is that most people never discover that a post was deleted, and you don't suffer from what you don't know. But surely some do, and feel surprised, confused as to why the post was deleted or a combination of both.

If I had a post deleted without explanation I'd assume it was a forum bug or I forgot to hit "post" before closing the tab, and re-post it. That's what caused all the problems and what I'd really like to avoid seeing again.

I've done this before when I used to post on another forum where the moderation was very strict and posting the slightest thing which someone may not like resulted in the whole post being removed. This was very frustrating.

Why remove the whole post, when only a small part of it was the problem? At first I just assumed there was a problem with the connection or I'd forgotten to press reply so I reposted it which resulted in an argument and a ban.

[timb]

Edit post, just leave a non-red-text blanket marker including username of moderator, something like

  "[ Inappropriate/Off-Topic Content Removed - dave ]"

Most forums I'm a member of do the above.  Leaving the trail of known deletions per user also allows the rest of us gauge our ignore lists.

I assume this forum allows for username moderation tags, infractions or events.  Probably more time consuming is moderators need to document these events so as a community user banning can be properly gauged.  As the forum becomes more and more popular, this issue will become more necessary.

This is the best answer. Just deleting a post with no trace either makes people think there post never went up in the first place (and FSM knows this forum is about as stable as Macbeth's posting while drunk), or makes them think they're being unfairly censored somehow.

Just use a blanket statement in red with the mod's name.

In OS X, you can setup custom text actions so that if you type, say, "forumrem" it'll automatically be replaced with "[ Inappropriate/Off-Topic Content Removed - dave ]" or whatever. I'm sure that has to be available in Windows too, or at least an app for it.


Sent from my Smartphone

[nitro2k01]

Why remove the whole post, when only a small part of it was the problem? At first I just assumed there was a problem with the connection or I'd forgotten to press reply so I reposted it which resulted in an argument and a ban.

As you said, that was a forum with very strict moderation. I think the focus of the moderation here will rarely be conducive to removing a part of a post. The moderation here will be about preventing discussions from going downhill into a shitstorm, rather than policing the details of what someone is saying, such as swear words or certain phrases.