On Thursday, 2 May 2024 at 12:08:26 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
>
> The policy I operate under is basically two items:
>
> 1. Is there an obvious personal insult in the post?
> 2. Is the poster disrupting the thread?

Basically, I'm suggesting the first item to be replaced with:

1. Does the poster have to know their post is likely to anger or annoy others, insult or no?
2. If so, is it necessary or understandable given the point they are trying to make?

> The thing is, though, we have limited moderation tools available to us because of the nature of our forums. I can't put anyone in a timeout, I can't suspend an account, I can't lock threads or move posts, I can't DM people to give them private warnings...
>
> The biggest problem is that once I delete a post, it's gone. I can't restore it. So because of that, I always prefer to give people more leeway than I would if I could restore a post I shouldn't have deleted.

This explains a lot. Thanks - I can see why it's worth erring to the side of not intervening. So that even with my proposal, you will have to keep a light touch - and that's fine.

> What I suggest is that anyone who thinks a poster is being combative, please email me and let me know. I've take a closer look at the thread in question and, if I don't agree anything should be deleted, I'll ask that the language be toned down. Then I can start deleting if it isn't. Does that sound better?

It's a good idea. But could you go further? I think you can give a warning right away when you, using your own judgement, find something combative. When people have been warned, you can hardly do a gross injustice by deleting posts of someone ignoring the warnings. If they really think you're suppressing any valid talking points they can privately tell you.

To be clear, while there is one thread that gave me the impulse to write this, it's not that I'm particulary annoyed with it or any other of them, and certainly not with any of your decisions. If you think the two examples I devised and/or the DIP thread weren't that combative, I'm not complaining - I might be wrong easily as well as you. It's just a general policy improvement idea.

On Thursday, 2 May 2024 at 12:08:26 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> On Thursday, 2 May 2024 at 10:47:49 UTC, Dukc wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm writing this because there are two parts of moderation: the policy, and it's enforcement. I'm very happy with the enforcement part (although see Razvan's idea earlier in this thread), but I suggest a change to the policy.
>>
>> Also it's not that I'd think there's anything wrong with the current policy. There are many possible policies all right and reasonable, it's only about what works best for each community. I feel my proposed policy might work better - reasonable poeple can disagree of course.
>
> The policy I operate under is basically two items:
>
> 1. Is there an obvious personal insult in the post?
> 2. Is the poster disrupting the thread?
>
> Some people have a lower threshold for what constitutes an obvious personal insult, and they sometimes let me know. These days, I tend to act when they do let me know. In the past, I would often try to convince them of why we should let it go.
>
> Given my timezone, threads unfortunately tend to get disrupted while I'm in bed. Then I wake up to several emails and DMs on Discord. So I do sometimes step in when it looks like things are heading that way.
>
> The thing is, though, we have limited moderation tools available to us because of the nature of our forums. I can't put anyone in a timeout, I can't suspend an account, I can't lock threads or move posts, I can't DM people to give them private warnings...
>
> The biggest problem is that once I delete a post, it's gone. I can't restore it. So because of that, I always prefer to give people more leeway than I would if I could restore a post I shouldn't have deleted.
>
> I've been accused of censorship and I've been accused of letting trolls run rampant. I've been accused of bias and I've been accused of allowing overly negative people to ruin our image. I'm never going to make everyone happy. I've adapted my approach over time based on feedback, so I'm always open to that.
>
> In this case, what you consider combative, I consider annoying. Some people are just abrasive in their online communications. But they still can further a discussion or debate.
>
> What I suggest is that anyone who thinks a poster is being combative, please email me and let me know. I've take a closer look at the thread in question and, if I don't agree anything should be deleted, I'll ask that the language be toned down. Then I can start deleting if it isn't. Does that sound better?
>
> I've been deleting posts in the new DIP forums that don't contain any information relevant to the discussion. I could also start doing that in other forums for posts that are just angry rants. But again, some posts that raise red flags for some people raise any for me, so I encourage others to let me know if they see something like that.

I've come to trust Mike too. He's doing a great job already. Happy to have things be the way it is.

On Friday, 3 May 2024 at 20:46:54 UTC, aberba wrote:
> ..
> ...
> I've come to trust Mike too. He's doing a great job already. Happy to have things be the way it is.

The problem is, nobody know what exactly it is, that he his deleting, or why.

I've not in favor of moderators not being accountable.

For example, there is a thread in DIP Ideas that wants to do: "I want to propose that we provide a mechanism to semantically detach unit tests from the scope they are written in. Such unittests would be treated as if they were not in the same scope or module".

I proposed putting the unittest in a separate module, as that would ensure it was out of the scope and semantically detached. I pointed out also,  that was the same response that people gave me when i asked for the same thing (i.e. the issue I have with unittests outside the scope of a class, but within the same module, still behaving as if it were in the scope of the class.).

There was nothing rude or insulting in my comment. It got deleted. And the justification was ?? .. Mike just didn't like it.

If you could see my post, you would see how benign it was.. but you can't see it, so you don't even know it existed, or why it was deleted.

I'm sure Mike will want to jump in here and show the contents of my response, as he also explains why he deleted it.

On Thursday, 2 May 2024 at 12:08:26 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> ..
> The biggest problem is that once I delete a post, it's gone. I can't restore it. ....

Yes, that is a real problem...still.. and decades later...it's still the biggest problem. As to why, seem my point further below.

> I've been accused of censorship and I've been accused of letting trolls run rampant. I've been accused of bias and I've been accused of allowing overly negative people to ruin our image. I'm never going to make everyone happy. I've adapted my approach over time based on feedback, so I'm always open to that.
>
> ...

If you don't want to be accused of censorship, and bias, then the obvious thing to do is keep a record of the actual contents of a post that you've decide to delete, the reason you've decided to delete it (incuding if someone has asked you to delete it).

Then there is a record, should anyone decide to challenge you as to whether it's censoring or moderating, or moderating with personal bias.

Without an opportunity for due process, you just open yourself to the exact criticism that you don't think is warranted.

One of the real problems with this forum, and any forum really, is the extent that people identify with the product that the forum is about... it's a kind of tribal thing really. If someone outside your tribe criticises something about the product, which they should be free to do btw, then certain members of the tribe will all go and pound on that person. But if a member of you tribe criticises something about the product, then they've 'earned' the right to do so, being a member of the tribe.

Most people are still so tribal, it seems.

Anyway.. back to my main point.... make moderation a process that people can have confidence in, and then people can judge for themselves whether you're just censoring, or whether you're own biases (or others biases) are coming into play.

On Saturday, 4 May 2024 at 08:24:22 UTC, NotYouAgain wrote:
> One of the real problems with this forum, and any forum really, is the extent that people identify with the product that the forum is about... it's a kind of tribal thing really.

May be. But I think its a matter of taste.
If I don't like choco-cake (as I happen to do) and say so, this should not be a problem.
But if I come and call choco-cake "wrong" and "unprofessional", I'm pretty sure to annoy a lot of people and can expect strong reactions and "resistance". Because this will bring up the whole choco-cake-liker "tribe".

On Saturday, 4 May 2024 at 08:44:03 UTC, Dom DiSc wrote:
> On Saturday, 4 May 2024 at 08:24:22 UTC, NotYouAgain wrote:
>> One of the real problems with this forum, and any forum really, is the extent that people identify with the product that the forum is about... it's a kind of tribal thing really.
>
> May be. But I think its a matter of taste.
> If I don't like choco-cake (as I happen to do) and say so, this should not be a problem.
> But if I come and call choco-cake "wrong" and "unprofessional", I'm pretty sure to annoy a lot of people and can expect strong reactions and "resistance". Because this will bring up the whole choco-cake-liker "tribe".

So, for example, if I say Walter was wrong in not allowing a class to be an encapsulated type, then I'm going to anger the Walter-loving tribe members?

And therefore, I really should rephrase what I want to say, in put it in a way that doesn't anger the Walter-loving tribe members?

I mean Walter can handle that sort of criticism very well .. he doesn't need protection from anyone. That's the thing I like most about Walter actually.

But still, he was WRONG!