Deleted thread in Politics...

Darragh29

I started up a thread in Politics tonight which was titled, "Prayers for our economy...." This thread was intended to be a light humoured thread for folks to make up their own prayers for our economic recovery with a tongue in cheek approach to our current woes. Nothing offensive or religously intolerant, but not for the first time, I've found the thread deleted without any PM to point as to why, just a casual removal of a thread for no objective reason that I can see. It isn't off topic, it isn't offensive, so why not allow adult political discussion, albeit tongue in cheek with some political humour???

I'm a long time contributor here and I'm not happy with the way people's genuinely held opinions are being airbrushed out of the forum in recent times. This seems to be a recent thing and I'd like to know why all of a sudden, a forum that I thought was open to fair dialogue and discussion, is starting to resemble the kind of moderation that I would expect to see on indymedia.

sceptre

I deleted it.

It had already been posted by someone else on the Politics board, about an hour before you posted it. That thread had been moved to After Hours, with a redirect you could and should have seen. In AH that thread was locked as it had already been posted there by someone else. Hence I dumped it.

As a long time contributor, as you put it, you'll additionally be aware of the politics rules, which insist on a comment or analysis from the poster of a thread where the poster is just posting an article from elsewhere, either the Internet or print media (I believe this one came from the Metro, not that there was any attribution or citation included, which is desirable as a bare minimum to give someone else their due for whatever copyrighted material is posted). That comment/analysis wasn't included. That rule is there specifically so that people have to make an effort to make posts that encourage discussion (Politics is very much a discussion board) rather than just copying and pasting stuff they find in their rambles around the Internet.

Personal comment: I may have high standards of humour but it wasn't funny either. This wasn't a factor in the deletion of the thread (though people could really make more of an effort in what they find funny - there is a Humour forum after all).

Looking back through the forum, in the past week-odd, three threads have been deleted. The one you're referring to, one that contained a gaza video with no included comment and one hilarious chappie who decided to post up Sean FitzPatrick's home address, presumably so we could all go and toilet paper his house. We don't delete threads for fun.

Darragh29

Its not for me to question your judgement on what is humourous or what isn't. If we all saw things the same, life wouldn't be worth living. My issue is more along the lines of not even getting a PM about it. If you have a fussy taste when it comes to humour, grand, but I think I should be given the courtesy of a PM to briefly outline why a thread I created was deleted. Even Indymedia, a backward Stalinist website, tells you if they have deleted a contribution and more importantly, why.

Also, iirc, I couldn't post my own post which is at issue here, on that other thead referrred to above because as far as I can remember, it was locked at the time I posted...

GuanYin

A similar locked thread is a good indication of what will happen if you start a new one.

Think of it as an evolutionary imperative of discussion fora, only the fittest survive. Your thread was deemed unfit so it died.

As for your complaint about notification. It was moved from politics and closed, two politics moderators posted on the thread with minimalist comments but both implying the topic wasn't fit for the politics forum.

If you aren't smart enough to figure out that you shouldn't repost the thread in politics nor why the thread was deleted when you did, I'm not quite sure what you think any of us PMing you would do, if you hadn't already gotten the message nothing short of us coming over with sirens and painting the point in excrement in 6 foot letters across your wall would send the message clearer.

I think a case in point is that you most likely still won't take this application of simple causality at face value and labor debating the point further. Prove me wrong

RoundyMooney

Before we all line up to bash the OP into submission... (6 foot high statements, written in shit. Intriguing.)

...he does raise an interesting idea.

The modutils that forum mods on boards are using these days, could that not be configured in some way (and I'm not familiar with it at all) to automate a PM notification to a user when their thread is soft-deleted? Moved threads are different in that they generally remain visible, and everybody can see a remark a mod may generally make about where it came from, and why.

Or perhaps people just wanna jump down the guy's throat, I dunno.

GuanYin

Maybe an autogen is the way to go.

Maybe I'm being harsh, but then again, I read the thread deleted.

seamus

RoundyMooney wrote: »

The modutils that forum mods on boards are using these days, could that not be configured in some way (and I'm not familiar with it at all) to automate a PM notification to a user when their thread is soft-deleted? Moved threads are different in that they generally remain visible, and everybody can see a remark a mod may generally make about where it came from, and why.

Not a bad idea, but we don't use modutils for deleting posts. It's generally done in-line. I'm sure some form of plug-in could be coded, but it would have to be strictly opt-in only, i.e. it doesn't automatically send a PM unless a box is checked at the time or something. Reason being that when a spammer or asshat's 40 crap threads get deleted all at once by me or another C/S/mod, it's a waste of resources (and an early heads up to them) if they get a PM for each one.

If you did do this, it would also be prudent to send it from "System" and not from the mod in question. Many people will do nothing if their thread is deleted, but some people cannot help themselves except to respond to a moderating PM with hostility.

sceptre

Darragh29 wrote: »

Its not for me to question your judgement on what is humourous or what isn't. If we all saw things the same, life wouldn't be worth living. My issue is more along the lines of not even getting a PM about it. If you have a fussy taste when it comes to humour, grand...<snip>

Like I said (see above), that wasn't an issue or a consideration when I deleted the thread (the decision was made before I needed to get to that consideration). See everything that isn't preceded by "Personal comment" (that's everything except one paragraph above).

I like the idea of an automatic notification that would include the reason for deletion that I type in anyway. Benefit of notification (with the consideration of seamus' point about the asshat spammers) with no extra time expended on typing a message when a thread is deleted.