With all due respect I don't think you've been looking at recent conversations. I quote Rule 2.
I think in some cases this is a good solution. However, I think it's dangerous to start editting many posts for 2 reasons:
Uhh I'm 100% sure it is the forum staffs job to moderate the the forums. Editing posts to filter out offense or irrelevant material is part of their job.
This was discussion, you not liking a new direction in the same topic is not "clogging up the thread and preventing discussion". As for it being back and forth arguing, well, congrats, you just defined discussion in layman's terms.
There was no memeing, every opinion that was deleted in this discussion was valid, on topic and civil. I respected parquette's opinion while disagreeing with it; it's possible. Strawmanning the opposing opinions and saying they're memes doesn't make it so in this discussion or any other.
But why do you think that the staff has the right to decide that someone can be offended without any indication of someone actually having been offended or any indication of intent to offend? You can't decide to be offended for a group of people that you're not a part of.
To moderate the forums? yes.
Specifically changing my content based on vague bias that I'm not privy to would make me equally as angry as if it was deleted outright. It's the same level of iron fisted censorship I'm against in the first place. I tend to agree with Vatumok in that it's not mod's jobs to write people's posts /for/ them
Let me rephrase what I said to what I meant.
I agree in principle with this idea,
There is a way, it's the history button.
like hunter said that's a good feature to have, and i've seen some staff use it occasionally which is good. making entering something into the notify author field mandatory would be a positive step imo because that way the poster has a clear reason given to them, and if they feel it was irrational they then have a means to open dialogue (as you said). at the moment it seems to get used very rarely if ever (i've seen some staff accompany the deletion with a pm instead of leaving a justification with the deletion, though it could be for convenience for them or a character limit i wouldn't know), you don't even see staff often notify the poster without a reason, which means you don't always notice that it's even gone. like has been discussed, rampant censorship is silly and not a positive method of moderation, so i'd definitely be in support of staff making a habit of giving justification. you could even do what some communities do and have a dedicated section where staff log deletions/edits/etc so that other staff are aware and can keep the standard of what's considered inappropriate at a standard (but again maybe staff can see deleted posts & the reason anyway i wouldn't know).Unfortunately, how do we make a guide for measuring text-based sarcasm?
One semi-new feature that we as administrators should use more often while deleting posts is:
as a means to open a dialog when a controversial post is deleted. Thoughts?
I like how you mentioned that Staff aren't giving reason as to the deletion. The only concern I have with the form filling is that if the staff member finds that the post is against regulations, they may want to get rid of it quickly. Wouldn't the form filling take a lot of time to do, especially if they want to delete it before someone else reads it?
I'm not sure about that - I think that explanations ought to supersede rushing so someone doesn't see it, 95% of the time. If we're talking about removing a post with gore, CP, etc (events that have never happened on our forums), sure, delete it right away. If we're removing a post because a user is derailing a thread or trolling, I think it's worth 30 seconds of extra exposure time for the moderator to write 'post derails thread, removed'.
me too, that's kind of one of the things this thread is discussing.
it's literally a short text box to put a few words in. things like 'trolling', 'flaming', 'inappropriate image' will do in a lot of cases. like nill said, a post that warrants typing out a slightly longer explanation generally won't do any harm by being up for a minute more, which is all the amount of time a deletion justification would really take.
I don't usually participate in threads like this because I feel that there are merits to both sides of the argument and it is hard for me to take an absolute stand on this matter. What I do feel strongly that needs to be addressed is that your limit to cursing is one that is rather extreme, though not unfounded. While I don't find anything wrong with harbouring such conservative views you do need to take in mind that others do not necessarily harbour the same mindset as yours. What you may find as acceptable filtering would be regarded as unjustified censorship on others' ends - which is why there needs to be greater clarification and communication on both sides. And even if such lines are drawn it may not exactly satisfy what you want, seeing that majority of the community find swearing acceptable and are comfortable with using "offensive" jokes to "insult" one another. There are a lot of grey areas in matters like these. What one finds offensive would come across as a casual joke to another that is not intended to offend. There are also times when you might have also misunderstood the intentions of people's jokes i.e. satirical humour where context is strongly needed and can bring about the opposite effect if not understood.
