Topic: Add link to the rules in the PMs for deleted posts. (Read 292 times)

Nothing New on the Western That Front
Shall I consider that theymos has seen this topic but thinks it's unnecessary to make any changes and the idea is not good, that's why he remained silent, or I shall keep bumping this until we get a positive/negative response?

Got it. I didn't know ref links are not allowed, since the rules says:

4. No referral code (ref link) spam. [1]

Is kind of confusing, but I won't post them anymore. Thanks!

As hilarious said above, an issue with this would be that there are no fixed rules.

But to that point, they could write out a few pretty obvious reasons for themselves to start with and send those out to people with a potential edit box.

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There might be an issue with going into the specifics of a cause though as it might make users want to contest their case and thus make a lot of threads on meta but it may still give others closure.

It would rather be better if the reason for the deletion is mentioned in the PM.
It is not that complicated to be honest. I don't know what options mods get when deleting a post, but if they don't already have it like this, then here I am suggesting it (mods, please confirm if this is how you delete posts).

When deleting a post, mods (self-moderators don't count in this) should get the options in check boxes among which they can select the options which are the reasons for the deletion of that post, and then those selected reasons should be included in the PM sent to the user after that post of theirs got deleted.

Once they check the PM, they would know that what mistake they've made, and they would probably avoid doing that in the future if their intentions are pure.

I don't think they should be blitzed with the entire list there and then, but they should be linked to at least. What I previously suggested was they get a brief welcome message with a few of the most important rules with a link to the full ones and also a few links to helpful guides and so on.


Ref links aren't allowed. You can have them in your signature but posting them on the forum they will be removed 99% of the time. The only exception they're sometimes allowed for is if the thread is of substantial value.

Ref links are not allowed with 2 exceptions: if you put them in your signature (but don't advertise it. LOOK AT MY SIGNATURE PEOPLE !! CLICK IT! JUST DO IT !) or as personal text. They should not be in the post itself

Not sure what to say about the main topic tho. I tried sending PM a couple of times. Saw a brand new account spamming some silly stuff (hello all or something similar) and after deleting the post also sent them a PM trying to explain and providing the link to the unofficial rules thread. Considered it a test. Did this 3-4 times tho. No reply to my PM and no more posts for any of them. Maybe I picked wrong, not sure what to say.
Maybe they get intimidated seeing that post with the rules.
Maybe we just need a "common sense rules". Something similar to this:

"Hi there newbie,

Please don't treat this forum like facebook and try to post some actual ideas, not one sentence spam,
Please try to stay on topic and follow the post flow,
Please do not add reflinks in your posts,
Please do not use shortened links,
Please add source link when copying something because plagiarism is a ban-able offense here
On the main boards write in english. you also have local boards for discussions in other languages,
Try to be decent human beings

Your posts will probably get deleted by mods if you break the rules above, or can even get you banned.
For a more in depth view see here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/unofficial-list-of-official-bitcointalkorg-rules-guidelines-faq-703657 "

Regarding the automated PM... that pretty much depends on mods. If they agree to leave a reason for deleting the post. Even if they are 100 reports or 5000 reports. Suppose some legendary users around here get the following message: "...deleted due to off-topic spam".(because this is also subjective) I can already smell the meta drama.
Good idea... waste of time ... that is the million btc question.

It could be added and reworded as a hyperlink in the deletion message (along with the reason for deletion), like Why was my message removed?

Since the rules are all "unofficial", the PM linking to the rules could even be done by a friendly user bot. All it needs is permission from Admin to send a PM (only once) to each low-ranking user who's post shows up as deleted in modlog, without being banned for sending unsolicited spam.

Since I don't want to start another topic I will ask this in here, if I may.

I have read the forum unofficial rules, guidelines as you called them and I saw (understood) that ref links are allowed, but not spamming them. I had one post with a ref link and a quote of it. Is this considered spam? I am asking because I had them deleted.

Thanks!

The rules are quite strictly enforced here even tho they are not official ones, but then just don't call them rules, maybe only guidelines how to avoid their posts to be deleted and direct them the unofficial rules. I know that theymos (following the satoshi's legacy) won't make an official rules, but we need to refer to something at least as a guide for the new ones here.

I don't think sending them the entire list of rules is really that helpful, you could maybe point them to it at the top of the screen (like until they become a JR member, there's an additional banner that says "please read the rules" or something like that).

I personally think I first found the rules once i'd been here for at least half a year (although I actually didn't get many posts deleted in that time, just the usual number)...

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I don't know if a mod could help me on this but do they actually read the reason? It might be possible to submit the reason through to the person once the mode has checked it and deems it an acceptible reason, as getting them to write their own short piece would be a lot more effort than it normally requires.

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As a forum that undermods in a lot of areas, this may just be something that can still just be sorted in meta though.

Well this is something I and others have suggested in the past as many users are just not aware of the rules and when they do have posts removed they have no idea what for or have to work it out for themselves, but along with this a better option would be to allow staff to give a reason why a specific post was removed to avoid confusion and that has also been recently discussed. I'm not sure why theymos doesn't include the link to the rules with the PM, but he has said in the past he's not a fan of strict rules and they are 'unofficial' after all, so maybe that's why, but we obviously do have some rules here and I do think people should be made aware of them. I also think they should be shown/linked to when users sign up which would help a lot.


If it was removed by a user they get a different message and that probably doesn't need to include the link to the rules. I think it should be made more clear or bolded when a user deleted the post though as its not uncommon for users to mistake it for a mod action.

There are 2 possible problems here.

1. Sometimes a post was deleted by the topic owner in a self-moderated topic and there's a chance the user didn't do anything wrong, just the topic owner didn't like the post (to say it nice).
Maybe there's a different PM for this or some sort of differentiation and then it's not the subject of this topic.

2. There's some sort of contradiction that has to be solved. A post removed is clearly something "official", while the rules are .. unofficial. Maybe we should have an official set of rules first if we want your proposal implemented?



And a proposal, somewhat related to yours. If that message is to be changed/improved, some way of appealing that may be good too. Just because I've already seen topics on posts deleted for unclear reason.

Question: Which user rank gets most to the posts deleted by the mods?
Answer: For sure those are the newbies.

^This is just my assumption based on my report stats. But in any case a link to the Rules in the PMs we get from the Forum regarding deleted post, would really increase the newbie awareness.
For the spammers, we really don't care, but there are some genuine newbies, quite confused sometimes, if we can manage to keep them easily informed is the best we can do.

The PM from the forum is like a warning, you did something wrong. But the users most of the times are like What the hell did I do wrong? The best thing we can do is just to show them what they did wrong but it's not easy for every single person, instead we can just guide them to the rules, and they can find themselves what they did wrong.

Here how the message looks now :