User A is really popular on the forum but sometimes goes around breaking the forum guidelines. These infractions show the true nature of User A but no one sees it because they are all being deleted. User A then proposes a crowdsale under the guise of his popular nature, but then in practice exercises his vile nature. The whole community loses out.
Just an example.
Funny that you @frabrunelle screenshot that particular example. Sorry to call you out on this @polpolrene, how do you find that was an appropriate response? From the guidelines:
Respect the privacy of PM (Personal Message) conversations, where what is acceptable is a matter for ALL parties and not just for one of the parties.
Taking into consideration the nature of the discussion, you would rather I pmād the guy, and above you claim that deletion protects us, yet through moderation you push it aside into a PM between users.
I donāt exactly know what you mean here? I asked in topic if people could stay on topic (instead of having personal chat in that discussion). later on I responded to a flag when there was a personal attack seen. I responded by deleting the personal attack and the reply to that attack. I donāt see how that part of the guidelines about PMs applies here. These werenāt PMs, I just asked IF people could use PM.
Where had people gone off-topic? Had someone flagged that? For you to think it was going off-topic you must have been reading the thread. Didnāt you state that off-topics will get moved to an off-topic thread? And apparently you didnāt think it is was a personal attack until it was flagged. I even stated in my now deleted post right before your mod post that it was a personal attack. And your response was the above screenshot. The whole process raises questions which as in the thread most people would rather ignore. And now there isnāt even a full public record of it.
Either way i have expressed my concerns for the current procedures. I appreciate the time. No offense to anyone I hope.
I will check out the discourse meta forum. Thanks.
I saw a discussion between 2 people about each other. Both replies werenāt about the subject of the OP. I responded by asking if people could use PM for personal chats. Thatās what you see as the screenshot above.
Later on a reply in that topic got flagged and several mods looked at it and agreed it had a personal attack in it. So I responded by deleting A.) the personal attack and B.) several replies to that personal attack and C.) my own yellow reply.
I didnāt move it off-topic as they where personal chats/fights where 1 had a personal attack in it as well. These donāt belong in Off-Topic or in another category.
The result of this all is that the flagged personal attack got removed, 2 replies to the personal attack got removed as well and my own mod reply is gone as well. The topic got cleaned up that way and I donāt see any problem with that at all.
I donāt read all replies all the time. I looked more into it when something got flagged.
If you think I did something wrong, feel free to PM @ moderators and make your case. Iāll let it to others to reply.
Just a personal view. I donāt post often but I do read and follow almost all the topics & posts on this forum every day for the past one year plus since I found out about Maidsafe. I even read on topics and discussions that I donāt comprehend 90% of the technical contents, which despite the difficulties I find it strange that I still have this interest to read on and on. I think this is mainly because of, in addition to the very fine personalities that frequent this forum contributing contents, knowledge and ideas etc, there exist here a lot of positive vibes in the midst of the āgeneral chaosā of social media cyberspace, which in my opinion nowadays is a rare thing indeed. Anyway I believe that this doesnāt happen on its own and I think the Mods in this Maidsafe forum have done a great job to help make this happen. Furthermore I feel that the mods here have earned a lot of respect and trust from the community in general to not abuse their ādeletingā power which can be seen by a very well managed forum, finely focused towards Maidsafe, which at the end of the day is why we are all here, with a growing community. Maybe one day this might change, but for now Iām enjoying my daily read. Keep it up guys!
I would put myself in a similar position as you @ade, I also donāt post often but I do read and follow a lot. I also donāt feel that mods abuse their power. That is not the point of this thread. The question is what purpose does deleting posts do?
Definitely agree, the question still remains, how do you know that these fine personalities are really who they seem to be? When they step out of line, it is quietly brushed under the rug and disappears from existence, except to the mods that is. Consequently, everything looks nice and pretty, which is never true of life.
Yes, and that community is growing, I sure hope the mods can keep track of all these incidents years down the road and never make mistakes.
For me it is not about there being no issue, but about weighing up the various issues (several of which I highlighted as more important to me than the issues which you have raised as important to you).
Consider if my response was that you seem not to care about having a well organised forum with in depth discussions?
I expect you also value this, but just have other things which to you are more important, such as the risk of censorship, or the possibility of unscrupulous types going undetected and so on.
Thereās a thing called trust involved as well. When you go to your local tennisclub not all discussions with all members are open to everyone as well. The people leading the club might decide A and later on B. They can even decide to spend x dollars on some new car or whatever. Not all people can be involved all the time and not everything has to always be public to everyone. And thereās a big privacy issue involved here as well, if we keep personal attacks online people might get in trouble when they try to find a job and their potential new boss finds out about their little fights on some forum, even while they did it just once in an emotional response.
Where do you draw the line? If someone is promoting a weight loss program to be paid in BTC is that freedom of speech? Should we allow it?
I am not an avid reader of reddit, but I am well aware of when a group of moderators basically overtook reddit. It caused a lot of problems. But this thread isnāt about abuse, it is about censoring.
You would have to quote me on that to understand what you are saying.
A valid point and something to consider. But there are solutionsā¦
Sure, why not leave it be? You could always just hide it or vote on it but we donāt use those features so instead we censor. Thatās all weāve got for now.
Although very kind of you I am not so sure that this is part of a moderators responsibility.
Weāre going around in circles here, but you where part of mods as well, wasnāt deleting replies a problem back then? And can you show me a cryptoforum somewhere without mods deleting personal attacks? It even happens on Bitcointalk where I see a plain personal attack by someone which is later removed by some mod (I guess though, could be that the attacker magically decided to remove it after all). Thereās no track of the post later on, so if I wouldāve missed that attack I never knew it was there in the first place. That has nothing to do with censorship but all with keeping a topic clean and freed from personal fights where no one really cares about.
I canāt quote on this device but Iām replying to a post with an example of what I called a sweeping statement. It begins with āIt surprises me thatā¦ā
Was it this one?[quote=ājm5, post:28, topic:13376ā]
It surprises me that those who read this see no issues with the current process of dealing with incidents.
[/quote]
The process was laid out step by step and was agreed by a mod that that is the process that is followed. Yes, it does surprise me that no one seems to see the implications and correlations. I am not sure how that is a sweeping statement about others.
As happybeing pointed out
ā¦
Magically? Yes on this forum users canāt delete comments only mods can.
Correct me if I am wrong but isnāt that a sweeping statement about others?
Frankly, I feel both sides have made their points and yes it is going around in circles. I can agree to disagree. No hard feelings. I will still read.
Sorry but thinking about this statement this morning. This is not just any forum, afaik Maidsafe foots the bill, which makes it the owner of the forum, so it is Maidsafeās forum, which then means that Maidsafe is indirectly supporting censorship. So, it is quite relevant. It seems mods have a hard time coming out and directly saying āYeah, we censor, deal with it.ā Instead justifications and reasons are made as to why censorship is acceptable.
IMO censorship has its place, it is not always bad, and Iād be concerned if maidsafe took that view. But perhaps Iām using the word in a general technical way, whereas you may mean āoppression through censorshipā.
To me, yes, deleting a post is censorship, but I see it as much about creating a safe, welcoming space for the many, as about suppressing the very occasional individual post.
Few actually take issue with it, but those who do tend to make extreme arguments - perhaps because they fear what it might mean, or lead to, and ignore the actuality of what it is achieving. Others do see this and accept it, as has been shown by support for moderation on this thread.
It depends on the context and how it is used, whether it is good or bad.
But again youāve made a statement that nobody can see the dangers because they donāt agree with your extreme position. Thatās not true and Iām not going to debate it if you are going to keep misrepresenting me and others in this way. Iāve raised this above but youāve not taken it in board, so thereās little room for debate.
It is not clear to me where this statement is that you are talking about. I also do not see how I am misrepresenting you and others. I have stated my concerns and my opinion. The mods have expresse d theirs. Imo, censoring is censoring, be it extreme or minimal. Yes, this no longer a debate. I withdraw myself from the community. I refuse to be part of a community that is content in their bubbled āsafe spaceā. I look forward to hopefully real communities on the safe network.
Ha, what a joke, Discourse has the policy of not deleting accounts, this is for " want[ing] to retain the integrity of your community, it doesnāt make sense to delete accounts." I agree with this, I was actually just looking for a way to disactivate my account. By the same logic how does the community retain integrity if mods delete replies? I will just remove my personal information and log out.
Iām a bit surprised to see you this angry and in leaving mode. Youāve been a mod for quite some time yourself and deleted spam/replies as well when they didnāt match the guidelines. And now (a year later?) in a switch you want to allow spam/personal attacks to be visible on the forum in some sort of hidden mode with a voting feature?? Even while we donāt have a voting feature for these types of hidden posts?
I think your reaction/demand is quite unreasonable. I asked you before to show me a cryptoforum somewhere where they allow spam and/or personal attacks to be visible. Iāve not had 1 simple example whatsoever. I guess weāre not that unreasonable here with some simple guidelines after all.
Then you said āit surprises me that no-one sees blah blah" (sorry, select doesnāt work so I canāt quote fully).
My point is that here you are making a sweeping statement that applies to everyone on this thread who disagrees with you. Iāve explained that I agree there are risks. Neither you or I know whether others agree there are risks, but you repeatedly state that they donāt with these statements about everyone/nobody.
Again, the issue comes down to where you want to draw the line on censorship, not whether there is censorship or not because youāve agreed some things should be deleted. Deleting child porn is censorship. Deleting spam is too, so I think you are using the term censorship to mean, āthings you donāt want to be deletedā which obscures the question of what you believe should and should not be deleted.
Any debate would IMO need to be about what should be deleted and why, and the effects of not deleting other things.
Iāve explained why I think what I do and you are welcome to disagree, but Iām not happy with your suggesting I donāt see risks from deleting posts, or moderators having power over members.
If you want to argue that the risks are more significant than I or others believe, by all means do so. Iām curious about what you think your ideal forum would look like, and why itās better than what we have here, because as you know Iām happy with how this one is working. I know things can always be improved, but Iām not clear about what you would still want deleted, and am not convinced that thereās a significant problem here (risks) that need solving.
I agree with this, I was actually just looking for a way to disactivate my account. By the same logic how does the community retain integrity if mods delete replies? I will just remove my personal information and log out.