On thread moderation...

[XiaoXi]

Admin Edit: This thread has been split off from discussion here

 

Seem to be some deleted posts here....can we try and keep this forum a bit more western ie freedom of speech and a bit less like it's controlled by the Chinese government.

[imron]

1 hour ago, XiaoXi said:

Seem to be some deleted posts here

I'm not seeing anything that was deleted.  Most 'deleted' are still visible to admin, although it is possible to delete things entirely, but in both cases the admin deleting things will usually leave a note that things were deleted and people should stay on topic.  Was there some post in particular you were thinking of that was deleted?

[XiaoXi]

1 hour ago, imron said:

I'm not seeing anything that was deleted.  Most 'deleted' are still visible to admin, although it is possible to delete things entirely, but in both cases the admin deleting things will usually leave a note that things were deleted and people should stay on topic.  Was there some post in particular you were thinking of that was deleted?

Yes one post in particular was deleted, my notification of his post quoting me now opens to nothing. Also I remember there were more posts than this already in the thread. The responses to the OP in this thread were already weird enough as it is.

[陳德聰]

Sorry, I didn’t realise that it would appear shady and draconian to stealthily delete a tasteless and off-topic Michael Jackson joke. I will remember to leave a note in the future.

[roddy]

There's only the one post been removed, as above. There's perhaps been more than the usual user self-editing going on - I'm not going to go through people's edit history, but it's possible they're removing chunks of text and you're assuming it's being deleted. 

Quote

can we try and keep this forum a bit more western ie freedom of speech and a bit less like it's controlled by the Chinese government.

 

We plan to just continue doing what seems appropriate at the time and get complained about from both sides. It's worked well for the last decade and a half. Constructive suggestions on moderation policy are, as always, welcome either privately, or in their own public topic. 

[XiaoXi]

19 hours ago, roddy said:

There's only the one post been removed, as above. There's perhaps been more than the usual user self-editing going on - I'm not going to go through people's edit history, but it's possible they're removing chunks of text and you're assuming it's being deleted. 

It seems that 陳德聰 removed someone else's post, how is that self editing? Also self editing wouldn't affect the overall post count. I'm sure the pages are segmented by post count rather than word count? I seem to only be able to edit my own posts, not delete them, are others able to delete their own posts? In any case, like I said it was a deletion of someone else's post, hence moderation.

 

Not sure what other posts were deleted but since I was assured by admin that no posts were deleted at all we have no way of knowing. If it wasn't for my comment leading to nowhere I doubt we'd even have mention of that post.

19 hours ago, roddy said:

We plan to just continue doing what seems appropriate at the time and get complained about from both sides.

"Both sides"? The plot thickens....

[imron]

1 hour ago, XiaoXi said:

It seems that 陳德聰 removed someone else's post, how is that self editing?

You're confusing two separate statements that roddy made. 

 

1. There's only the one post been removed, as above.

2. There's perhaps been more than the usual user self-editing going on

 

陳德聰 removed one post - an off-topic joke.  He's a mod, and removing off-topic posts is part of the job description, so nothing sinister going on.  Then, separately, other people have likely been self-editing their own posts, which perhaps is what makes the thread feel like the replies are weird.

 

1 hour ago, XiaoXi said:

I was assured by admin that no posts were deleted at all

Erm, I don't think my post was assuring any such thing.  I said it didn't look like anything had been deleted and then asked you for clarification.  I then privately asked other mods if they had deleted anything, and they turned up to clarify.  Situation resolved.

 

1 hour ago, XiaoXi said:

are others able to delete their own posts

Only mods, and we usually only do it for off-topic or offensive posts.  We rarely/never do it just because a user asks to delete their posts.

 

1 hour ago, XiaoXi said:

"Both sides"? The plot thickens...

Not really, roddy was speaking generally, as in over the nearly 2 decades that the forums have been running, whatever decisions mods take with moderating usually leads to someone complaining that we're doing it wrong.  If we pay the complaints too much attention then no moderating would get done, and so the best course of actions for mods is to keep modding as we've always been modding.

 

Speaking of which, this discussion is getting way off-topic, and so I've moved it all to a new thread.  P.S. that's not Chinese government style controlling free speech, it's just keeping things on topic.

[陳德聰]

For the record, I went through all the edit history of every post in that thread and while there were a very high number of self edits, the edits were mostly punctuation and in one case addition of content rather than self-pruning so... I dunno, if it feels like there is a silencing conspiracy going on here, there’s not much more I can do.

[AaronUK]

Thanks for your diligence in moderation, I really don’t want to see potentially racial jokes about the late MJ.

[DavyJonesLocker]

9 hours ago, AaronUK said:

Thanks for your diligence in moderation, I really don’t want to see potentially racial jokes about the late MJ.

 

That was my post Aaron, wasn't remotely racial (or in bad taste like one of the mods suggested) but if people don't like it fair enough, delete away. I don't care really.

 

By the way did you actual read my post it Aaron ?

 

 

 

[AaronUK]

1 hour ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

By the way did you actual read my post it Aaron 

 

Nope, I read some others but didn’t see that. 

Are you feeling particularly censored? Haha

[XiaoXi]

22 hours ago, imron said:

Erm, I don't think my post was assuring any such thing.  I said it didn't look like anything had been deleted and then asked you for clarification.  I then privately asked other mods if they had deleted anything, and they turned up to clarify.  Situation resolved.

That wasn't apparent, the mod appeared to just speak up for himself, I didn't know you had done anything behind the scenes. All I got was that you didn't see anything that was deleted so it seemed odd that in fact there was. I guess I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes.

 

5 hours ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

That was my post Aaron, wasn't remotely racial (or in bad taste like one of the mods suggested) but if people don't like it fair enough, delete away. I don't care really.

 

By the way did you actual read my post it Aaron ?

Yes there was nothing wrong with your post.

 

22 hours ago, imron said:

Speaking of which, this discussion is getting way off-topic, and so I've moved it all to a new thread.  P.S. that's not Chinese government style controlling free speech, it's just keeping things on topic.

Yes that's very sensible, it was certainly ruining the thread.

 

22 hours ago, imron said:

Not really, roddy was speaking generally, as in over the nearly 2 decades that the forums have been running, whatever decisions mods take with moderating usually leads to someone complaining that we're doing it wrong.  If we pay the complaints too much attention then no moderating would get done, and so the best course of actions for mods is to keep modding as we've always been modding.

Well it was interesting the way he said it.

 

This is not an isolated incident. I think the mods are too easy to delete posts and close threads unnecessarily.

[DavyJonesLocker]

Hi @AaronUKNo-no, as far as I can recall someone said a black person can't change their skin color to become white (or words to that effect)

I jokingly said, well "Michael Jackson did it" but seemed to have cause offence .

 

By the way I am die hard MJ fan and possibly only person on Chinese forums to have actually seen him live in concert in his prime. 1988. Unbelievable fantastic!

 

I am not bothered at all about this incident of deleting my post but I would like to comment on a more general point. 

 

I think the forums are great but I do feel that maybe people need to lighten up and not be so anal all the time. I have been on forums since AOL chat rooms . This forum has a wealth of great information but I personally think it's overly moderated. I am hard pressed to think of any other forum that takes it to this extend. It seems like you have walk on eggshells around here at times in case someone throws a hissy fit at the slightest provocation at anything remotely non PC  It's cringy to see a grown man acting like an overly emotional school girl over a (debatable) ever so slightly nonPC post

 

I seen nothing wrong with a thread going off track for one or two posts. It is a public internet forum after all not a university debating forum. 

It adds flow, humour and a sense of charisma to often dull topics. 

 

Anyway that's my view, everyone us welcome to disagree naturally.

[imron]

1 hour ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

I am hard pressed to think of any other forum that takes it to this extend.

I on the other hand am not hard pressed to think of other forums that have little or no moderation, and that subsequently turn in to cesspools with little productive discussion.  So yes, chinese-forums is different in this regard - and by choice.  We prefer discussions with a high signal to noise ratio and moderate accordingly.  That's what leads to wealth of great information.

 

1 hour ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

It is a public internet forum after all

Public internet forums are like public toilets, some are nice, clean and well maintained, others are dirty and smell like piss and shit, and there's a range of everything in between.  We aim more towards the nice, clean and well maintained side of the spectrum, and I think many or even most of our members appreciate it.

[Lu]

3 hours ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

I think the forums are great but I do feel that maybe people need to lighten up and not be so anal all the time. I have been on forums since AOL chat rooms . This forum has a wealth of great information but I personally think it's overly moderated. I am hard pressed to think of any other forum that takes it to this extend. It seems like you have walk on eggshells around here at times in case someone throws a hissy fit at the slightest provocation at anything remotely non PC  It's cringy to see a grown man acting like an overly emotional school girl over a (debatable) ever so slightly nonPC post

Funny that you are the only one I'm aware of who is regularly complaining about this. If you want to be rude, there are plenty of places on the internet where you can do that. Here, you better be polite and considerate of other people and their experiences that may be different from yours. AKA politically correct.

[mungouk]

2 hours ago, imron said:

We aim more towards the nice, clean and well maintained side of the spectrum, and I think many or even most of our members appreciate it.

 

Absolutely.  I know how bad it can get out there, and this place is much the better for the regular TLC it gets.

 

Thank you mods!

 

[roddy]

Frankly, it's the old story of 20% of the people generating 80% of the work. 

 

[DavyJonesLocker]

Well mods, 

 

Don't you think your responses say it all, you are 100% in the  right and I am in the wrong.

Case closed

 

Roddy suggested before that I make a thread for suggestions for improvement. I didn't bother because I knew exactly this would transpire . Now you can note  that when  I do, 3 mods come back with that. Basically your saying that I need to change but you don't?

 

Does that cause the need for self reflection? 

[Flickserve]

16 minutes ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

, 3 mods come back with that. Basically your saying that I need to change but you don't?

 

I am a Moderator on another forum and we get this problem as well. 

 

On one hand some people say we are too strict, on the other hand, people try to get other people banned! So, I just strike a fair balance as best possible. I also tell the members if they pay, they would have a greater say but since the costs are already covered we have to make the final decision.

 

We have actually lost a number of people because of the slightly relaxed approach. But it is impossible to please everyone. 

 

Our own forum has been running and surviving for 18years now. 

 

 

[roddy]

22 minutes ago, DavyJonesLocker said:

I didn't bother because I knew exactly this would transpire

What, a mix of 'change things!' and 'no, it's fine!'? I knew that would happen too. Happens every single time. It's hardly a surprise that the mods are happy with the moderation policy - if they weren't, they wouldn't be mods. Happily, I suspect the bulk of members feel the same way (or are entirely oblivious to the fact any moderation even goes on).

 

You can't just cycle into town and expect the local hotel to start accommodating foreigners.