Silent mod deletions/edits

[_dobbo_]

This evening I saw an utterly disgusting (even for PH) misogynistic reply on a thread so I felt compelled to respond.

At some point afterwards a mod has come in, deleted the offending post, deleted all quotes, and deleted any evidence that any of this ever happened.

That includes editing my posts, and not leaving any trace that they had done so.

Just to be clear, for a mod to come in and edit my posts without a trace in order to cover up the disgusting behavior of another member is absolutely categorically not acceptable in any way.

As a consequence the thread continues and I'm getting abuse from other people, because stuff was deleted from my posts.

I've never felt inclined to complain about the moderation here but this is stunningly bad.

[_dobbo_]

Even since I've posted this thread another post abusing me has been deleted from the same thread without a trace.

So, is the new PH moderation model to just brush the most disgusting stuff under the rug? What happened to the "mod edit" stuff that used to appear?

[Scrump]

I am not sure which thread you are referring to but posts which breach our rules of posting are usually deleted and this leaves no trace in the thread that a post has been removed. It is routine to delete any quotes of an offending post, as the quote would also breach our rules.

When the orginal offending post is deleted the poster will receive an email. Often the posters of the quotes will not be notified as the thread is pruned and this does not give the option of emailing every affected poster.

HTH

[_dobbo_]

No it doesn't really help.

I've been here nearly 20 years and seen countless posts edited by mods, and every time it shows something like "mod edit" to indicate this has happened.


New members and returning banned members make this forum more toxic day by day . Anyway, if this is the new normal that's fine, noted.

[Ben Lowden]

Our moderation guidelines do not require a moderator to post in a thread or leave a comment on a post that they have edited. As far as I'm aware this has been the case for the seven years that I've worked at PH.

Occasionally a moderator may feel the need to step in and remind members to abide by the rules of posting, but this is done by their choosing. Moderation can be a pretty thankless task and we're extremely grateful to those that give up their time to help keep PH a nice place to be.

I can't see why other members would give you abuse for having your posts edited/deleted if this is simply to remove offensive content posted by someone else that you've quoted, but please feel free to share a link here so I can take a look.

[Starfighter]

Perhaps the mods could just delete the content and replace it with text stating why.

This works well on other sites would avid all the gaps and give us a better idea of where “the line” may be.

[Tom Logan]

In the past I've seen the word 'BINNED' in red script at an angle across the deleted post area, perhaps that is the answer.

[Pixelpeep 135]

Tom Logan said:

In the past I've seen the word 'BINNED' in red script at an angle across the deleted post area, perhaps that is the answer.

That was usually on images that broke the rules.

[deckster]

I would echo that simply deleting offending content and pretending it never existed is not a great approach.

Far better would be to replace it with a "This content was removed because it broke posting guidelines X, Y, and Z". This would both help people maintain the flow of conversation and also serve as a bit of a warning for future posters.

[Ben Lowden]

deckster said:

I would echo that simply deleting offending content and pretending it never existed is not a great approach.

Far better would be to replace it with a "This content was removed because it broke posting guidelines X, Y, and Z". This would both help people maintain the flow of conversation and also serve as a bit of a warning for future posters.

It's not really a case of pretending that it never existed – if content breaks our rules then of course we will delete it once it has been reported to us.

Asking our moderators who mostly volunteer their time to start posting in a thread why a post has been deleted is, in my opinion, too much to expect. The only feasible way to do this would be to automate the process, which we may look at in the future, but not something that's on our roadmap right now.