# Mods deleting posts & threads-reasons given to member?



## Jarnhamar (5 Nov 2009)

Now and then the Mods delete either a users inappropriate post or thread.

As an example I had a thread of mine deleted, no big deal. Maybe it was offensive or inappropriate, I don't feel it was as I was stating something that happens ever year AND gets commented on and pointed out in this forum, but I'm not butt hurt over it.  The mods deleted it so that's that.

Considering we are basing our warning system off of the CF would it be an idea to carry this over to deleting posts and threads?
When a Mod deletes a members post of thread, PM said member and give them the reason why. Not to debate the decision or argue it, but to simply say your post has been deleted for the following reason and reference the army.ca rules/code of conduct to show the member where they deviated from the acceptable posting lanes. 

This way if a member were to repost the same thread or change the wording a little bit etc.. and repost,  there would be a paper trail so to speak and the member already been pointed out to what rule they are breaking?


Just a tough


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## dapaterson (5 Nov 2009)

Sometimes things are deleted as part of a clean-up; merging with other threads, or the information is elsewhere.

Remember the mods are all volunteers.


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## Mike Bobbitt (5 Nov 2009)

Notifying users when a post is deleted is not a bad idea on the surface.

The issue with it (which has been discussed in detail before) is that it adds significant overhead to what is currently a simple process. Instead of editing/deleting a thread, which is a one-step process, the Staff member now has to separately open a new window to compose a PM to the user in question. When you're doing a mass cleanup (often 10s or 100s of posts) this turns a long job into something that requires project plans, PowerPoint presentations and committees to get off the ground. 

Now imagine deleting a large thread, which has say 20 pages and posts by dozens of users. You're looking at an hour minimum to individually PM each user in the thread... it's simply not practical.

The other "intangible" is that in addition to the time consumed with the initial PM, we're now inviting users to open a dialogue about each and every deleted thread. Even if the PM informs the user that the issue is not open to debate, we all know - Staff more than anyone else - that some users will ignore that and start a discussion about something they otherwise would have been unaware of.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for transparency; this is not about the Staff trying to be sneaky or pull one over on the membership. As dapaterson pointed out, they're volunteers, and if I burden them with any more* admin overhead, I may have fewer of them to work with.

At the end of the day, if you notice that one of your posts is gone and you're not sure why, here are the best steps to follow:

1. It may have been moved or merged as part of an admin cleanup. Check your post history and see if you can find it. It may now be merged with another thread, moved to another board, etc. If it's an old post, keep looking deep into your post history.

2. Think objectively about the post and the thread it was in. If could be viewed as questionable, extraneous, argumentative, etc. then that's likely how it was viewed by the Staff. Try (hard, please ) to see your post through the eyes of a DS here ask yourself if there is any possible reason it could have been removed. Also consider that while your post may have been bang on, it may have been part of a thread or split that went off the rails. A perfectly valid and acceptable post may have been cleaned up in a sea of flotsam and jetsam. It's nothing personal.

3. It all else fails, contact the Staff. If you do this, please realize that it's likely only one of us will know what happened to your post. So each request will have to spark an internal conversation about who and why it was removed. Please be patient - the DS who removed your post may be offline and a response may take some time. Also be aware that chasing down requests like this does take Staff off "the front lines", and if things are busy, admin requests like this can fall to a lower priority.

Ultimately, I think the current process works best... it offloads some of the work to the user, and some to the DS. If there is no effort required on the part of the user, every delete will become a debate, which would seriously drain our resources. We have to share some of that burden around, if for no other reason to ensure that users who contact us are serious about the request, and not just looking to fill another rainy day with DS abuse. 

* Although not always visible, there is already a significant "admin" overhead with most Staff actions, to ensure accountability.


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## mellian (5 Nov 2009)

I agree that it would be nice to know why a thread or post was deleted, yet also understand what a pain in the pain it would be mod wise. Just that there is no mention what thread or post was deleted, hence annoying to go through old threads and posts that I made which some I cannot think from the top of my head. Some automation into what was deleted would be nice at the least, if possible.


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## GAP (5 Nov 2009)

I think the only time the poster should be notified is if they have violated guidelines on a specific post....other than that cleaning up threads and all the misc. garbage in them is just normal maintenance to keep the topic focused...if you didn't contribute, and/or went off on a tangent....bye bye....


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## dapaterson (5 Nov 2009)

GAP said:
			
		

> I think the only time the poster should be notified is if they have violated guidelines on a specific post....other than that cleaning up threads and all the misc. garbage in them is just normal maintenance to keep the topic focused...if you didn't contribute, and/or went off on a tangent....bye bye....



So that's where all my posts go...


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## JBoyd (5 Nov 2009)

Just a suggestion, but perhaops some type of programming that has the person deleting the thread(s)/post(s) enter in a reason. Have the reason entered tie to the milpoint's post so that when you view your mipoints you will have a generic reason with the deleted post/thread message. This would save the mod from having to pm everyone with the reason.


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## Fishbone Jones (5 Nov 2009)

I think I'll delete this thread next week, and see if anyone notices.


Many times, during a major cleaning, the janitor will delete numerous threads while killing kife, merging threads and general tidying up. There is no way we, volunteers, are going to spend that much time informing the poster of each thread, or post, that is sent to cyberspace. It's not practical, nor needed. It has been going on since day one. In most cases, if your post is removed as a serious guideline breech, you'll be notified with a warning. If you don't get a warning, fogedaboudit.


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## Bruce Monkhouse (5 Nov 2009)

As one of the major 'deleters' of stuff, let me chime in.

Here are two of my last posts in the CP cleaning thread.

[quote author=Bruce Monkhouse]
Spent the last 7 hours cleaning up the 'recruitment' forum, still have a long way to go, but managed to [mostly] merge together enough threads to knock it down from 145 pages to 138.
[/quote]

[quote author=Bruce Monkhouse]
Cleaned up a bunch of loose "Poppy" threads.

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/2775.0.html
Topic: The Poppy Selling Superthread- Merged

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/1746.0.html
The Wearing and Location of The Poppy- Uniform/Civilian
[maybe a good one to "link" somewhere?]

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/2531.0.html
Red/ White Poppies- Does The Colour Matter?- Merged 

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/50770.0.html
The Poppy Eradication Superthread-Merged 

as always, if you see stuff that should be added, let me know.
[/quote]

If you think I'm going to add an extra hour or two OF MY OWN TIME to tell people that I have deleted their threads than you can hoop your forehead........ :nod:


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## Michael OLeary (6 Nov 2009)

I suppose one alternative is that we never delete anything and just let people complain about all the irrelevant search results.  The end result is that there's no simple solution that will please everyone.  Regardless, any time a member wishes to express an opinion that staff members should do something extra, they first need to extrapolate that to how many times that voluntary act might have to be repeated across the forums and then assess the real viability of the proposal.


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## Jarnhamar (6 Nov 2009)

GAP said:
			
		

> I think the only time the poster should be notified is if they have violated guidelines on a specific post....other than that cleaning up threads and all the misc. garbage in them is just normal maintenance to keep the topic focused...if you didn't contribute, and/or went off on a tangent....bye bye....


This is what I mean.
If I make a new thread and it is deleted immediately or after a few posts, I think I should at least be notified as to exactly why it's inappropriate at amy.ca.    After all if I break a rule here, the reason why I get a recorded warning or banned gets not only sent to me BUT publicly posted.  Bottom line the member gets told WHAT they did wrong and why they are on the warning system.
I think this should extend to individual's who get their post/thread turfed.  Not even to argue, just so the member understands the WHY of it being deleted.

For a mass thread, cleaning house, merging etc.. of course the staff doesn't have the time or inclination to PM 50 users. 

*shrugs* just a thought.


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## Michael OLeary (6 Nov 2009)

Sometimes things get deleted because their content and/or intent is clearly not core content to Milnet.ca, and there's no point in waiting to see if it spirals.


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## dapaterson (6 Nov 2009)

Michael O'Leary said:
			
		

> Sometimes things get deleted because their content and/or intent is clearly not core content to Milnet.ca, and there's no point in waiting to see if it spirals.



And sometimes the Evil Monkey in the closet escapes and logs in under a Mod account...


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## Jarnhamar (6 Nov 2009)

Okay okay, you got me.

I was just trying to start a thread to get my MP count up. :blotto:


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## Bruce Monkhouse (6 Nov 2009)

..and 300 points to FD for being honest,......incredibly strange, but honest. :dileas:


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## Tetragrammaton (11 Apr 2010)

I seem to have quickly racked up 4 deleted posts in my brief time here.

If possible, time permitting, could I please be informed by PM the next time when I post "bad" stuff, so I can modify my behavior / language.

Thanks.


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## Mike Bobbitt (11 Apr 2010)

Hi Tetragrammaton,

It's probably worth pointing you to this discussion on deleting posts:

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/90250.0.html

Hopefully it has the background info to describe why we operate the way we do, but if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let me know.


Cheers
Mike


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## Bruce Monkhouse (11 Apr 2010)

Since I am usually the culprit  2 of your 4 were from a deleted thread and the other two were from natural clean up of some "cross-talk".
Bruce


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## Michael OLeary (11 Apr 2010)

Tetragrammaton said:
			
		

> I seem to have quickly racked up 4 deleted posts in my brief time here.
> 
> If possible, time permitting, could I please be informed by PM the next time when I post "bad" stuff, so I can modify my behavior / language.
> 
> Thanks.



I deleted this from the "Reality Rant" thread:



			
				Tetragrammaton said:
			
		

> Fair enough.



Can you explain how it added credibility to the topic?

When I remove frivolous posts I will not waste further time explaining myself to the members whose posts caused me to do so.


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## Tetragrammaton (11 Apr 2010)

I was wondering which post was deleted.

As to question of added credibility... I'd have to see it in context, but I can safely say that in this case there wasn't any.

I'll do better.

Sometimes I do believe that taking the time to explain to a member can save time and frustration for everyone in the long run and I thank you for doing so now.


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## Loachman (11 Apr 2010)

Posts get deleted for several reasons, and not necessarily because the poster did anything "wrong". Even some of mine have vanished during routine cleanups. We don't have time to tell everybody what we deleted and why. Mike doesn't pay us very much so we all have to have other jobs, and we also like to sleep sometimes.


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## George Wallace (11 Apr 2010)

When a "Cleaning" is done, it could be a very old topic, and perhaps a very long topic.  It would take forever to track down all the people who may have posted in it, and they may have long forgot what they may have posted, as it appears you may have in at least one of these instances.

Don't worry.  We are all suffering the same fate when a topic gets "Cleaned".  There is no favouritism or malice involved.


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