new underhand style of moderation

sydthebeat · 08-06-2023 9:33am #1

its been quite noticeable recently that there appears to be a new moderation style of clandestine removal of posts in threads,m without any acknowledgement by the moderator of:

who did it?

why it was done?

what charter rule it broke?

this moderation style makes it impossible to query or dispute. is this deliberate?

for example i received a warning yesterday from moderator ten of swords because i questioned where my post had gone in a thread on wind farms.

i do not know if ten of swords was the moderator who removed my post, nor do i know why it was removed. (i want to stress that the contents of the post is not why i am making this thread, i can do that after when i am given the information i refer to above, if i am given it)

i am around here long enough to know that there was a time when every moderation action was visible and signed. if post was edited it was easy to see due to the bold edit note left, and it was signed by the mod who edited the post. similarly if a post was removed it was noted in thread and signed by who did it, and why.

so i would like to discuss please, why this new secretive form of moderation has become commonplace?

who has allowed it? is it a deliberate policy set down by the administrators?

why do those that allow it think it is acceptable? when, as a long term poster, it is seen as nothing but antagonistic, underhand, secretive and as unhelpful as it possibly could be.

id like this to be an open discussion between posters and moderators please

Big Bag of Chips · 08-06-2023 10:13am

It is not done to be secretive. Sometimes it is purely time saving. A moderator may not have time, in that moment, to explain every action. Yet a thread needs to be tidied up, posts deleted etc. So that is the priority task in that moment. If a post has been removed the proper course of action is to PM a moderator of the forum. Not question it on thread. This has always been the way.

The Vanilla platform has brought with it a lot of changes and made moderation in general a lot more cumbersome.

Yes, a quick "off-topic post deleted" post would indicate that a post has been deleted but even at that the poster should not question on thread instead PM the moderator. If a post has been deleted, and no message left explaining this, or explaining who deleted it, then PM any moderator of the forum to ask why and it will be addressed.

Some forums are quieter than others and moderators have time to explain decisions or post mod notes. Some forums are extremely busy and fast moving and it is simply not feasible to expect every single action to be explained.

ohnonotgmail · 08-06-2023 11:12am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689290#Comment_120689290

How long does it take to add a post saying "Post deleted"? whatever about wanting explanations at least tell users that a post has been deleted. I've had a post deleted and I wasnt sure if it had been deleted or I just imagined I had posted something.

L1011 · 08-06-2023 11:16am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689534#Comment_120689534

Its impossible to put a post in the same position as the deleted post.

It is not possible to edit a quote out of a post, so posts that quote deleted posts need to be deleted in their entirety - a mod can't just edit out the content.

odyssey06 · 08-06-2023 11:21am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689534#Comment_120689534

Or even a single post to cover multiple similar actions: "Off topic posts deleted... stay on topic etc"

In the long run, without moderation messages on thread setting the tone / guiding users, my instinct is that ultimately there's more posts that will will need moderator action.

sydthebeat · 08-06-2023 11:23am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689555#Comment_120689555

ok so we're getting somewhere now, thanks L1011

so... as moderators, under vanilla tools, are you now saying you cannot edit a post to remove an offending remark? but you can write into a post to indicate a warning etc

can you post in place of a deleted post?

ohnonotgmail · 08-06-2023 11:24am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689555#Comment_120689555

well then edit the post saying "post removed by moderator and all replies deleted.

Shield · 08-06-2023 11:40am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689592#Comment_120689592

One of Vanilla’s failings is that we can’t edit other user’s posts. It’s delete or nothing. We have the ability to add notes to user’s profiles that are only visible to other moderators but that’s quite clunky. There’s a lot that Vanilla could do to make things a bit more transparent but that would come with a cost, as does anything we ask them to tweak for us.

Just FYI, I had a look at the deletion record, and it was @Ten of Swords who deleted your post. You are correct to PM him seeking further guidance on the issue.

Hope this helps.

-Shield

EDIT: The above is incorrect. Moderators can edit user’s posts. Apologies for my mistake.

sydthebeat · 08-06-2023 11:41am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689290#Comment_120689290

thanks BBoC

following on from your post i would respectfully suggest that if a moderator hasnt the time to leave a post in thread after removing a post, explaining why they removed the post, then they shouldn't have removed the post in the first place. The ethos of moderation should be to work with the posters, not against, in an adversarial way.

leaving it to the poster to discover their post has been secretly removed by an unknown moderator, and then to pm any of the moderators of the forum, for them to find out which other mod removed the post, and why, is a ridiculously cumbersome and time wasting process for everyone involved...... all due to one mod not taking the necessary 10 seconds to be upfront in the thread.

Some forums are quieter than others and moderators have time to explain decisions or post mod notes. Some forums are extremely busy and fast moving and it is simply not feasible to expect every single action to be explained.

again, respectfully, this isnt acceptable. it should be minimum policy for all moderation actions to be explained at the point of action. if a moderators hasnt the time to do this then again i suggest maybe they shouldnt be the one taking the action. surely all forum moderators talk to each other in pm groups. how quick would it be for a mod to drop a om into a group saying " lads the X forum is a bit of a shitshow right now, i havent time to deal, can someone else take it please".

all pms send an email notification, so the other mods will be notified immediately that something needs to happen

sydthebeat · 08-06-2023 11:43am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689658#Comment_120689658

thanks shield, as i noted above its not the content of the deleted post that i am discussing here, but just to get a general understanding of the moderation policy, as it has certainly become much more obscure since the vanilla move.

ohnonotgmail · 08-06-2023 11:44am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689658#Comment_120689658

One of Vanilla’s failings is that we can’t edit other user’s posts.

Am I misunderstanding something here? Mods can definitely edit the OP of a thread. is that an exception?

sydthebeat · 08-06-2023 11:48am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689658#Comment_120689658

One of Vanilla’s failings is that we can’t edit other user’s posts. It’s delete or nothing.

just checked, and well, no ... there is an option to add text to a post indicating a warning etc... such as the post in the screengrab below:

i can appreciate that this doesnt remove the offending remark, but what it certainly does do is show other posters what is considered to be a rule break / over the line, also what deserves a warning and who got it. i would suggest that this is much more valuable in a contentious thread than a disappearing post.

this type of moderation doesnt seem to be commonplace however.

bucketybuck · 08-06-2023 11:53am

New?

There's nothing new about it, Boards.ie mods have never seen a post they didn't want to delete. It was happening long before the forum changes.

Flaneur OBrien · 08-06-2023 11:57am

I miss moderator warnings on threads. Quite often they are necessary and have calmed down stormy threads.

I have found that there has been more of a clandestine approach to modding which hasn't been beneficial to the non-mod community. Like the poster above says, posts being removed but nothing written on thread. Surely if you are deleting something you have the time to put up a post that simply says, "posts deleted - stay on topic" or "posts deleted - no personal attacks". Something to let people know a mod has had to get involved.

I also hate that posts can't be edited by mods. I have had a couple of very long (for me!) posts which were deleted because there was an issue with an opening sentence, so all sense of the post and the follow up posts were gone. Because I have ADHD, I also completely forget what I said in that in that post, so I cant repost without the offending sentence removed. When you receive your warning and click on "view post" it brings you to a page where it says "Comment Not Found(.) The page you were looking for could not be found" It's also impossible to copy and paste the post from the warning on a phone, which I use 90% of the time.

sydthebeat · 08-06-2023 11:58am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689703#Comment_120689703

this is not whats being discussed and i kindly ask for this thread not to turn into a 'grievance against mods' thread please

Shield · 08-06-2023 12:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689676#Comment_120689676

I’m wrong. I can edit your posts, but I can’t edit the quoted post of yours above. That’s definitely changed. It used to be delete or nothing. Apologies.

-Shield

riffmongous · 08-06-2023 12:05pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689663#Comment_120689663

Id strongly disagree with most of this, the main priority should be to remove the post as quick as possible before people start replying to it and multiplying the work and end up pissing more people off, especially the way things can escalate between posters on certain forums.

I do agree a message should be left in a thread whenever possible, but mods don't sit on the computer all day, if you're on your phone on the go or on a short break, the actual moderation of the posts needs to be taken care of first and if you don't have time to leave behind a message then so be it, it's better than ignoring a potential shitstorm

sydthebeat · 08-06-2023 12:14pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689752#Comment_120689752

the speed at which a moderator can get at a post is completely arbitrary though, so suggesting it should be removed without any explanation why does not in any way mitigate against other posters responding to it. this cannot quantified, can it.

all we're asking for here is a note to show who removed the post / posts and why. this doenst have to be a dissertation.

ohnonotgmail · 08-06-2023 12:20pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689735#Comment_120689735

So you can edit the original offending post to say a mod has deleted it and then delete any posts that quote it?

riffmongous · 08-06-2023 12:22pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689790#Comment_120689790

The longer it's up the more people see it and the more might reply. The more replies there are worse they get. Not in every case of course and it will depend on the forum etc, but I would always say nip these things in the bud asap.

Not to mention that if a post has been reported the longer you wait to moderate it the more the person who reported it feels ignored and might eventually reply, and it really sucks if you have to moderate them too later.

Yes I understand it doesn't have to be a long post, but if I'm in work ( email alerts) even spending another 30 seconds can be too much.

sydthebeat · 08-06-2023 12:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689830#Comment_120689830

if you have the time to read that a post has been reported, and you can read the post to determine it needs to be removed, then respectfully i will suggest that you should have the time reply in thread who deleted it and why it was deleted. At that point an in thread warning would do way more to curb future reported posts, than a secretly disappeared post.

At the point of deletion you have no idea who has read it and who is replying at that point either.

on the "i cant afford to take 30 seconds to reply" point, again that is exactly what i mean when i say that moderation has taken an adversarial turn rather than the cooperative way it used to be.

These things need to be looked at holistically. Deleted posts without explanation does NOTHING to either inform the poster of what wrong was done, does not allow for querying of action and does NOTHING to warn other posters as to where the limits are.

Can other mods even seen the deleted posts as a matter of course?

if anything you are making more work on yourselves all the time.

How this can be seen as an acceptable moderation policy in the best interests of the site is very hard to grasp to be honest.

Shield · 08-06-2023 12:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689820#Comment_120689820

I can’t edit this post of yours because I’m quoting it so you’ll get a notification. If I delete it, you don’t get any notification.

If I deleted it, I would then have to manually go into any posts that quoted the deleted post, manually remove it, and leave a message saying so. Does that make sense?

Any edits made to a post are stamped in red automatically at the bottom. Have a look at my post #8 above of me correcting myself for an example.

-Shield

sydthebeat · 08-06-2023 12:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689886#Comment_120689886

So you can edit an offending post, remove the offending remark(s) without deleting the whole post, and you can add your own moderation text to that edited post. (EDIT: Like this, yes. -Shield)

this edited post doesnt automatically become edited in all posts quoting the original post, understood.

however deleting a post doesn't automatically delete it from all posts which have quoted it either, so no time has been saved when comparing the edit to the deletion, other than the length of time to post the mod words, usually a few seconds.

i am also to understand that neither of the above two actions will send a notification to the original poster either.

so the difference between the two options are one shows the poster who edited their post and why, while the other option doesnt.

Shield · 08-06-2023 12:58pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689927#Comment_120689927

Yes, I edited your post and it can be seen from the time of the edit forward. It’s not retrospective. See my edit in your post also appears here?

No automatic notifications to edited or deleted posts.

The edit stamp is missing for my edit of your post for some reason. Is this normal @Spear ?

sydthebeat · 08-06-2023 1:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689960#Comment_120689960

this is excellent, thank you.

bucketybuck · 08-06-2023 1:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120689722#Comment_120689722

Might want to edit the thread title and the opening post then, which uses terms like underhanded and clandestine to question the moderating style. Its literally a grievence about what the mods are doing.

Shield · 08-06-2023 1:43pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120690002#Comment_120690002

It was explained very well by a site administrator in the second post, and I’ve answered the questions that have been asked to the best of my knowledge. I see no reason to change the thread title.

”The mods” are not one homogeneous group. We disagree quite often in our private mod’s forum, and said disagreements can get quite heated. The only thing most of us share is the title. If you have a cogent point to make, then go ahead and state your position. If I can help, I will. But lumping us all together in a group and imagining that everyone in the group is frothing at the teeth to delete posts is hardly a good starting point.

-Shield

Kaybaykwah · 08-06-2023 1:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120690002#Comment_120690002

Well put, lol.

And another lol for the road!🍺

markodaly · 08-06-2023 1:52pm

. .

sydthebeat · 08-06-2023 1:54pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120690002#Comment_120690002

nah, if you actually read the OP youd see its a specific thing being discussed here, not the general 'catch all' that you suggested in your first post.

Kaybaykwah · 08-06-2023 1:54pm

There is also the point that if the post is deleted, and wasn’t backed up, it is very difficult to bring it up with a moderator.

The tone of a moderator may also be fairly off-putting to put it mildly, and discourages discussing the matter.

new underhand style of moderation

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