Title says it all - The moderator responsible should post a reason for deleting the thread IMO
[OP]
Contributor
Title says it all - The moderator responsible should post a reason for deleting the thread IMO
Contributor
+1 on explanations from the moderator. I am a moderator on a BBS and we are required to explain why we remove posts.Originally Posted by Pat Barry
Of course, having kept up with the Japanese saw thread it isn't difficult to understand it was getting a little out of control.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Moderator
I did not personally remove the thread but I can pretty much guess the reasons. It degenerated into name calling, skirted and slightly got into religion, and during a holiday was not worth the time of a moderator to edit. We do have personal lives too. If allowed to continue the thread was likely to go from bad to worse and the original poster already had received the answers he requested.
Dave Anderson
Chester, NH
Moderator
Pat, you are kidding right? That thread degenerated into the same posturing and insults that turns everyone's stomachs except those posturing.
It happens again and again. If a thread gets removed from the neander thread 9x out of 10 it's for that reason.
Moderator
Pat, you are kidding right? That thread degenerated into the same posturing and insults that turns everyone's stomachs except those posturing.
It happens again and again. If a thread gets removed from the neander thread 9x out of 10 it's for that reason.
[OP]
Contributor
Maybe time for revocation of privileges for some who can't play well with others.
Contributor
Friends, none of us actually need an explanation, do we? I saw the same things Dave cited and it was pretty clear that thread was headed south in a hurry. Yes, it's always a nice courtesy to post a 'why', but it is a Holiday and maybe they just didnt have time to do more. I don't mean any disrespect to anyone. I'm just saying things got heated and, in my opinion, the Mods did the right thing weighing in.
The Mods work for free guys. And I think they do a good job for us.
Respectfully,
Fred
Edit: Thinking about it, we've had several very reasonable people question why we get no explanation lately. (IMO, we've also had a few folks deliberately fan the flames on this issue from time-to-time, just to stir the pot.) But if editing/deletion of a thread is a sore spot to most reasonable people, maybe folks should investigate Keith's process for proposing a change to the TOS. For example, maybe folks want to propose a new TOS like this: "When a thread is edited or pulled, post a brief explanation". Then you run it through Keith's process. I don't know that's possible. I'm just raising it in light of Jim K's comment about the forum he moderates. Bear in mind one obvious 'con' though - the harder we make the job, the fewer folks will have time to help with Moderating.
Last edited by Frederick Skelly; 12-25-2016 at 9:29 PM.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
Moderator
I removed the thread in question this morning, just as family was arriving for the day. I have cleaned it up and returned it to the Neander forum.
George, Stan, et al., give it a rest.
Please help support the Creek.
"It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone."
Andy Rooney
Contributor
Thanks Bruce for taking on what is mostly a thankless job.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
[OP]
Contributor
Thanks Bruce. Merry Christmas to you!
Member
I think it would be courteous to give a reason. It would not take much time to write "Thread deleted because of XXX." Much less work than going into individual posts and editing the content.
I discovered last week that a post I made in July had been edited without my knowledge. I first thought I must have been mistaken about what I wrote, but then found part of the deleted portion quoted in a subsequent post by someone else. I think it is unethical to secretly alter a post in this way, to misrepresent someone's work like this.
Marking the post as edited by a moderator, and notifying the writer so he has the option to delete the post if the editing renders the post unsuitable would be trivial matters. Much less work than the editing the moderator has done so freely.
Administrator
This is from the first section of our Terms Of Service (TOS):
Sawmill Creek reserves the right to refuse or delete any Content of which it becomes aware and reasonably deems not to fulfill its established purpose. In addition, SawMill Creek shall have the right (but not the obligation) in its sole discretion to edit, refuse or delete any Content that it reasonably considers to violate these Terms without notice. You understand and agree that the service is provided "AS-IS" and that SawMill Creek assumes no responsibility for the timeliness, deletion, mis-delivery or failure to store any user communications.
Some days, based on the declaration above, there are just to many edits and other fires to put out here that prevent us from notifying people concerning edits or deletions. Most of the time we do a pretty good job of notifying the OP when a thread is removed but we won't create a new thread to announce or provide a reason for a thread being removed. That would take way to much time, not to mention the number of new threads that would show up in the New Posts Search.
There are a large number of threads every year that are removed because those responding to the OP's post fail to abide by the rules here and the OP is punished by having his thread removed which is unfair. Time is valuable so in cases where we cannot perform a simple edit or two we have no choice but to remove an entire thread. The blame in the overwhelmingly large number of these cases is not a Moderator or and Administrator......its your peers.
If we have to accept any blame concerning these issues its because we have been way to lenient and to slow dealing with the people who refuse to be friendly or just won't follow the rules. Now its not that we don't look into these situations or just look the other way. On the contrary we spend a considerable amount of time in our Moderators Forum discussing issues in an effort to make the right decision among our group when cooler heads prevail. There are situations when people can test the patience of a Saint and it happens regularly here. From the front side of The Creek our Members never see the posts and Private Messages that happen behind the scenes. The majority of the time we are most concerned about how we can save a Member rather than take the easy way out and just remove their access. This is why we have been to slow taking corrective action against those who clearly deserve it, sometimes people have personal or health problems that affect their participation here so we don't want to be to quick to judge.
Its a very tough job to do when you do it responsibly.
.
Last edited by Keith Outten; 12-26-2016 at 1:29 PM.
Administrator
In February of 2017 I will celebrate my 14th year being the only Forum Administrator here. In spite of all the years and tens of thousands of hours working here I'm still a novice with little or no qualifications for the job that I have been asked to do.
Friends, I'm doing the best I can to try and please all of the people here all of the time
.
Contributor
Thanks Keith.
David
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