Forum Moderation Again

[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.