I think it should stop. I understand the good intentions, but this is the kind of power you see on really public websites with loads of bad posters, not on a small community site like this. No matter how bad a post is, it should be just editted out, with a mod comment, rather than removed with absolutely no trace. Not only is it an annoyance when you are trying to locate posts, it gives of the really bad taste of censorship and the idea that anything on the forum can be fabricated.

Does anyone else feel this way?

I hate that too. And editing a post, without indication that it was edited is just as bad.

We had a discussion recently:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2943

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Have you a particular example in mind?

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It depends. If there is a message that is clearly just spam (or a total abuse etc), IMNSHO it can be deleted without a trace. In other cases editing should be preferred to deleting, and the edit should be marked.

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What tj said.

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Is this currently happening? I think the current policy is to edit a post (including signing the edit and giving an explanation). The exception is robo-spam which is generally just deleted.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

I'm going to speculate that the post in question is a comment Joaz made in the Araban vs Magicwand game that is quoted but appears to be not there?

If so, that wasn't modding. I deleted my own post, as any member can do - without mod access.

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So, in the interest of addressing a potentially valid complaint satisfactorily, is this the post you are referring to Aphelion, or another one? If it is this one, do the following summarise the problem reasonably:

1) a poster removed a post that had been quoted elsewhere (in this case unfavourably, which I suspect magnified the unhappiness behind this thread)
2) this is a general bit of a breach of normal forum etiquette (due to lack of continuity, particularly when someone else has already quoted it)
3) coming from a mod or admin, this is deemed to be a worse breach than it would for normal users

If so, what's the resolution? As Joaz says, anyone can do this. Do we make it so no-one can delete their own posts? Or do we just put this down to a lack of understanding that this is "not a generally done thing", an understanding that people can be easily annoyed by it (and therefore try not to repeat it), and move on?

IMO, people should be able to delete their own posts, admin or not. Spam should be handled by moderators.

Inappropriate messages should not be deleted or edited by a mod, but the user should be warned by a mod. The mod could suggest that the user edit his/her post, even. If any modification is made to the message, perhaps text can simply be appended to the message, indicating that the user was warned.

Some people might think that my preference is too liberal.

In that case, an alternative solution could be:
* Instead of deleting or editing a message, the user can be warned. In the meantime, the mod can put the message in the HIDE tags, providing a message saying that the user was given a warning for that text.

This way, people can still view the message, but can choose not to if an admin edited the post to hide it.

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I will not comment on the resolution, particularly prior to comfirmation that this was the issue.

I do not agree with number 3) above - I do not think self deletion of the post by a moderator it is a worse breach than if someone else does it. I commend anyone who, on reflection, decides that he does not want words he regrets, or that are not important enough to inflame others, to remain.

I think moderators should try to stay above, or at least out of, the fray, and I think questionable posts by moderators are worse than questionable posts by "mere mortals".

But again, the error is not in the removal.

(by the way, if this is the instance (Joaz/MW)I could not glean enough info from what remains to have an opinion on post itself - the only opinion that matters is Joaz's since it was his post and it is now gone)

The observers were having an involved hidden conversation on something that had nothing to do with the game (which always makes the players wonder what the observers see), Joaz "accidentally" let slip that someone had posted an 86-move sequence, Ketchup had a hissy fit.

Yea, my post was sparked by Joaz's removal (I didnt' realize normal users could do that too), but now that I realize it had nothing to do with mod access I'm just as unhappy that this is a feature at all. I also feel that in general, mods are too willing to 'prune' this forum. (This isn't to say that I think the mods are in general, doing a great job)

Reasons 1 and 2 are my problems with that removal. In addition I think that removing a post is extremely drastic, even for spam. An internet forum is different from other social communication is that there is absolutely nothing to use as a reference besides the text on the forum. There's an element of trust involved here that the forum will preserve the history of us posting here, that threads won't be just washed away like so much sandcastle.

I may be overreacting here, and I agree that this isn't a big hinderance to the general forum experience, but I haven't read a single convincing reason why we need these kind of outright post deletions. Threads can be closed, and moved to a closed section of the forum. If a thread has strayed, it can be closed with a link to a new thread. If a post is over the line, it can be edited (possibly put in hide tags or just delete the contents) - but WITH a clear indication what was done. Users can be banned. But I find the idea that we can edit threads to the point of completely hiding something really uncomfortable. The most important thing here is that changes are transparent to the end user, that there is a placeholder, an indication that a 'event' has transpired. Can some one explain to me the advantage of completely deleting a post, instead of just editing it out with a mod warning? Or for a user to be allowed to totally delete his post instead of just saying 'edit, my bad?' This preserves both continuity and allows sensible filtering of content. Again, if there's a reason why my proposed solution is inferior, please explain to me and we can debate it.

Someone is watching you.

This has been discussed before. Here and Here. In my mind the result was that you can't please everybody and moderating is hard.

Redbeard, that post doesn't quite address my concern, but its my fault that I was not clear. What I am suggesting is that mods append comments to questionable posts, not edit the actual content. For example, it would work something like this:

Or if the post contains really objectionable content that needs to be removed:

Before:

After:


Mod edits should be transparent and trackable, and ought not change the content of the original post. I would agree with you that altering the content of the post with no explanation is worse than deletion, but thats not what I am advocating here. Moderators should be given power to police the forum, but it must be clear when a mod action is taken.

In the case of spam, the post and the user really have to be deleted, and quickly. For one, the forum would be clogged up with dozens of robo-spam posts per day, which would be annoying even if they were edited out by mods. Also, there are places in the user profile where spammers can hide links to their evil spammy websites. If the posts were just edited, it's possible that one of the links would be missed, and then spidered by search-engines, and the spammer would be rewarded and encouraged to do a lot more spamming.

In the case of spam, there is almost never any doubt that it's robot-generated spam. Robots and spammers aren't human, and don't have feelings, and the spam makes money for the spammer by stealing value from the forum, so I don't think there's any reason to not delete it. There have been one or two cases where we had particularly sneaky bots, and we had a discussion between mods about it.

Deleting a post for other reasons is very rare; the most common case is accidental double-posts (which is one reason why users have the power to delete their own post if it's the last in the thread). In that case, nothing is lost.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Fwiffo: wow, I had no idea phpbb didn't use nofollow tags. I guess I need to start linking to casino sites in my signature.

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It can be modified to add rel="nofollow", but it doesn't have it by default. The problem is that you'd have to modify it in several places to be sure you get all the links in the profile, messages, signature, etc. It would also punish everyone for spammer behavior. If you're a regular, valuable contributor to the forum, IMO there's no reason you shouldn't get search engine traffic from useful links you post (so long as they're not crap).

And even if we could handle the nofollow thing perfectly, the posts would still clutter up the forum with crap very quickly.

(I should add - I'm speaking for myself here, not necessarily as official policy.)

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku