Topic: Force Moderators To Give A Reason For Deleted Posts (Read 937 times)

It shows multiple reports.
I have this example where a french user posted in the wrong board and, in the end, the reports arrived in my report list :



But it is better to have reports from several users than not at all.


I can't say (my situation is not representative), but in total on the whole forum there are several tens of thousands of reports handled per month.

Indeed, there are many types of reports and you guys handle every day to keep clean the forum... Thanks to all the Staff/Mods for the superb work.

There might be multiple reports for just one thread/post and this may double or triple the work, right?
I mean, if there is one spam post and 2-3 members reported the same post, so does it shows only 1 report to your end or it does show multiple reports for that 1 single post?

What is the highest number of reports do you handled in a day so far? Just curious to know the number...

While I don't think the OP is approaching this issue the best way, I think he has a point in at least one way. Without some sort of system of feedback how exactly do user know how to improve their behavior to be more in line with forum rules and general social norms for the community? Of course they could read old threads, but the fact that the target subject matter is spread all over hell as previous precedent setting incidents makes that very difficult.

I think some kind of pull down menu for the mod to select a small handful of reasons for a post deletion for example would be useful and be a minimal amount of disruption of the mods time. You could have options like "SPAM" "POOR QUALITY" "OFF TOPIC" "OTHER" and perhaps an optional note field, and just set "OTHER" to default and let the mods use it if they think feedback would be productive.

Specific features aside, I have been pointing out for a long time that the unofficial nature of all these arbitrarily enforced rules around here not just for the forum itself, but the overall community enforced rules, leads to a lot of unnecessary conflict and confusion that could be prevented with some simple standards, disclosure, and feedback mechanisms.

Hello and thank you for your feedback Welsh. I'm sorry I'm replying late, I was busy the whole weekend!

I understand your point, I almost never post "congratulation" posts but in that case I wanted to tell the developers "Please think where you want the project to go before you start spending these coins". Personally I believe GRIN has a bit divided community under the waters, mostly because of its block distribution model, that's the root of my message.
Reading my post again now though, I suppose my point was not written in a clear and constructive way; I tried to put it in a humble way as to not offend them or appear as a FUDer but I probably watered down my message too much! x)

Well... for this particular example the "magic word" that would help me improve this post was what you said about "It doesn't add anything to the discussion", that helped me and it WILL help me with my future posts!



Have you tried visit the "Patrol" feed? I have a few times tried to read an interesting post and find a new thread to watch in there but it's like a garbage generator!
Probably most of these threads are created so that the signature spammers can post short-nonsense-posts without going off-topic.

There are many threads with a bunch of signatures which are never being seen by other user users, still the campaign runners are paying for those!!!
It's their fault for choosing to go for quantity over quality; they also have the tools if they wanted, like choosing people based on Merit for their signature campaigns and not force them to do like 20+ posts per week.
But if the moderators would delete these threads, the spammers would invest other parts of the forums, so I believe it's best to leave them be.
Just focus on improving those of us who might occasionally break a small rule and have our posts deleted!

Yeah, the problem with threads on Bitcoin Discussion, Altcoin Discussion, and similar, is that there is rarely anything that could be considered a defined "end-point". Look at some examples from the first page of Bitcoin Discussion, threads such as "Do you think cryptocurrencies will be gone anytime soon?" or "Can bitcoin help countries in economic crisis?". You could go back and forth on these topics forever; everyone could have an opinion, even if it's been said before, and there is no 100% right answer. Even if this thread is dead for months, someone can come along a bump it with their opinion and not be off-topic. Furthermore, the OP very rarely sticks around to read what is being said or discuss it, and therefore very rarely locks the topic once they feel the thread has run its course. Once a thread in these boards hits 5+ pages, you are very unlikely to read anything worthwhile.

The bolded sentences are what I'm after. Genuine questions are fine, just seeing those dated open-ended or long-solved questions brought up after X years by those sig campaigners get on my nerves.


Gotcha, that's what I meant.

If we are considering the time it will take for mods to give out reasons one by one on each post that is being deleted I think a much better approach is to provide the “comment” of each report the moderator has receive without disclosing the member who has reported the post. With this you will get the chance to see why your post got deleted and why did the mod agree on their reasoning. Not disclosing the name of who reported it would also prevent future altercations happening from members involved with it.

My criteria for reporting necrobumps is pretty much the same as that for reporting general spam posts. Is it worthwhile? Does it add new and relevant information to the discussion?

Often necrobumps in boards like Technical Discussion and Technical Support are fine. Since topics in these boards are usually about a discrete issue or question, then adding and building on what has come before is often better than opening a new topic on the same issue and having to repeat many of the same points and discussion. Necrobumps in boards like Bitcoin Discussion are usually the exact opposite. The vast majority of the time necrobumps in boards like this are just a couple of lines of spam, often repeating almost exactly what has already been said before, and very rarely adding any new information. If I'm reporting necrobumps on spam megathreads in Bitcoin Discussion for example, I'll also go back and report the OP and ask to have the thread locked.

Do you mean users reporting their bounty activities? The posts which are lists of Facebook and Twitter links? I see absolutely zero point in reporting those. There are thousands of posts like that every day; it would be a massive waste of yours and moderators' time. As long as they post within the designated bounty section and aren't spilling out to the rest of the forum, then just ignore them.

If you are talking about general spammy posts from users wearing signatures, then yes, you should report them as you would any spam post.

Will action be taken against necroposts? On the one hand, it reduces the same topics posted over and over while on the other hand, the type of post could just be spammy.

Also, are those campaign-spammy posts acceptable in reports?

Varies. Some days can be quieter than others. It was specially crazy in the summer when the report badge proposal was posted. As for the types of reports we receive we don't always have good reports. Its quite common for arguments on the forum to leak into the report function, and users trying to get posts deleted etc. Reports can be made about trademarks, but they are left to theymos, and usually theymos receives a message directly rather than a report.

The main reports we get are spam, trolling, and wrong section. Then there's reports for necro bumping, plagiarism, double posts, bumping before 24 hours, multiple old bumps, quote pyramids, broken BB code, ref links, malicious software, fake announcements, ban evasion, and user who have made mistakes when posting a thread, and want it removed. That's probably not even all of it. Depending on the section that the moderator is handling greatly effects how many reports they're handling too.

I support the idea for an explanation for deleting a post by mods, but only if there is a semi-automated system something like one-click execution. The click will trigger both actions at a time "delete" and "msg the user with an explanation". The explanation is something prebuilt or another way could be that when we report a post or thread, we mention the reason in the comment field, so, that comment can be forwarded to the user as an explanation. And also I want to get notified when a thread gets deleted where I made a post.

Sometimes I wonder how many reports mods get each day in total and in how many types. Such as, low quality, ref spam, likely scam, wrong board, multiple threads, what else?

I'm not a big believer in forcing people to do stuff to appease people who make mountains out of molehills.  I'm far more likely to suggest people try to be less entitled and maybe consider that random people on the internet don't owe you an explanation for simply doing their job.  What have you done to earn an explanation?  Clearly your post being deleted hasn't had any adverse effect on the forum whatsoever.  But if such posts were not removed and were instead allowed to multiply, that would quickly begin to negatively impact the forum.  A hundred people lining up to say "congratulations" is not a discussion.  This is a discussion forum.  Send them a personal message next time.

I believe I was the one to deleted that message yesterday. It was reported as spam, and I agreed with the report that the message was of low quality. Also, the following sentence which you've posted again with more sentences I still consider low quality.


It doesn't add anything to the discussion, and almost always congratulation posts are unneeded. I'm not saying you can't congratulate other users, but bring something new to the discussion rather than just saying congratulations, and its one of your favorite coins. Can you imagine how much of a ball ache it would be to read the thread if everyone did that after an update?

Even with your revised comment I believe it should be removed. It doesn't really bring anything with substantial value to the thread, and is just added on to avoid getting deleted. If a reply has been deleted, its probably not the best of ideas to continue posting it. There's also other ways of congratulating users of something, that doesn't end up clogging up the thread. You are not the only user who gets these types of posts deleted, and there are several users who like to congratulate project owners when they reach a certain milestone etc. When they are reported they are usually deleted, unless they are otherwise not low quality.

I consider most congratulations posts to fall under rule number 1 for being low quality. Like I said, you can congratulate a project/user, and at the same time be a substantial post. However, I don't think yours was. As for your posts on the DAPP thread, I have no idea without context.

Its a good idea, and something that I would support. I already try, and message users if I believe its a complex reason why their posts have been deleted, and I also message users with an explanation on why I've marked their post bad if I believe it might be hard to establish.

As for the idea, its definitely something that would be beneficial. As others have stated it is part of newer versions of SMF. However, this forum runs on a highly modified SMF that doesn't have that feature. If it was a feature then I don't see any reason why moderators wouldn't take a couple of seconds more on each report to write a little something. Although, you could probably expect the obvious rule breaking posts that are deleted to not get an explanation.

Anyway, almost everyone on this forum has had a post deleted in their history including myself. It's usually not a big deal, and after a while you start to learn what sort of things you can, and can't post. Certain sections can be stricter than others, and certain moderators can be stricter than others.

Yes, I'm sure. It offers less clutter. The rest of your rant doesn't make sense. Edit the old stuff into the new post, you'll have your bump and no information will be lost.

Updates considered as bumps. Posts without questions, discusssion, replies from others considered as updates as I understand.

Sometimes moderators leave a note with PMs to posters with reasons why posts delete or merged (I got some) but it is not a must-do thing for moderators when they handle reports.

In April or May, when thousands of accounts banned, people created topics and asked links to posts that cause their bans. Moderators (hilariousandco, I remembered) replied that they don't have time to do this. I think the answer to OP is nearly the same.

Have you taken the time to read the forum rules out of interest?

Are you sure about the merging? I don't see what this would offer.

I understand that bumping a thread without having anything important to write is against the rules and it makes sense, it's an action that makes your thread overshadow other threads which might be more relevant to the other users.
But people have threads in their watchlists in order to be notified when something new is posted, I myself also WANT to be notified when an altcoin team I have money in puts a new announcement... I wouldn't want to them to silently edit their last post if no one has posted in the middle.

With hundred of posts being written every hour, I believe 1 post per week shouldn't be considered "bumping"... and debates like those are why I wished there was a reason-field when a post is deleted.

By the way, is there an official rule regarding merging new and old posts together or is this your personal suggestion as a good practice to behold?

You're supposed to delete or merge old bumps even if they're days apart. Here is one still there that should be removed:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.52302951

Just take care of that and make it less work for moderators. You can also take your deleted posts from your PMs and edit them back into the thread.

This is the only reason why I wouldn't support OP's idea--you're absolutely correct that just a few seconds per handled report would add up to way too much time being spent in order to explain why a post is being deleted.  Most of the time, we pretty much know why anyway and there are only a couple of reasons why any posts are ever deleted, e.g., being of low value or being off-topic.  And sometimes a post gets deleted because a thread is trashed entirely, though you don't get a PM for that anyway.

It would be nice if mods could tell members why their posts are being nuked, but it isn't necessary and it would take far too much time.  This isn't a forum with a couple thousand members actively posting, nor is it one with a hundred moderators.  There are millions of members registered here, and even though a lot of those accounts are inactive, there are still a lot of active members here and a lot of reports being made and tons of posts being deleted. 

Members shouldn't start threads when they end up having posts deleted, either.  Mods generally don't respond to those, and it's easy enough for the member to just take a guess.  I'm sure most of us have had this happen to us, and you just have to suck it up and move on.

Just get over it mate. Though you might still get a few posts deleted here and there even if you're not a shit poster, it shouldn't be a big deal. You wouldn't constantly be getting deleted posts on the daily if you don't post crap in the first place(not accusing you). Asking for reasons is just going to cost them A LOT more unnecessary manpower.

Heck, I also have a few posts in the past that got deleted that some of those posts I still don't know up to this day why they get deleted; but does it really matter that much? Not in my opinion. I simply just move on from it. It's not like they're censoring me or something, it's just that chances are, in their opinion, your reply simply isn't constructive enough or simply just doesn't contribute to the conversation.

There are thousands of shitposting on alternatif cryptocurrency board that are made by many users every day. If we need a moderator to check all shitposting and consider it, how much time should they spend?

Your post may have been identified by a reporter for removal by a moderator. Although the moderator has his own considerations before pressing the delete button, in many cases there may not be much time for that.

TMAN is right, and I would report that post if I came across it in a thread. It is little more than "Great project", just padded out in to a couple of lines. Don't fall in to the trap of thinking that a longer post automatically means it is more useful or less likely to be deleted.

The post doesn't add any new information to the thread. There is nothing in that post which will stimulate a discussion, and there is nothing for another user to reply to other than to simply agree. Why are they your favorite coin? What goals specifically do you want to see? What resources are you worried they are going to waste, what will they waste them on and why?

Imagine reading your post as someone else. Would reading that post give you some new knowledge or something to think about? No.

I think it would be helpful and is something I've suggested in the past. A lot of times people actually have no idea what their post was removed for so at least this will help people learn to not make the same mistake again. Giving mods a drop down menu with the most common infractions would be helpful (of topic, ref spam, undeleted bumps etc), but maybe also an additional comment box to expand further if needed (but not required).



But a lot of times it's not because they're off topic. In fact, most times it's probably something else, but I can't tell you the amount of reported messages I've had from people reporting their deleted post notification screaming that their post wasn't off topic because that's what they assumed it was removed for because it states it likely was in the message.

On recent versions of SMF maybe, but here on this (old) version, mods do not have this possibility. Good, bad, ignore, these are the only options we have. And I think (not sure) that the mods' report list is a page created by Theymos, so nothing standard.
On Epochtalk, mods will be able to leave comments on a user's profile and on a report.

see this is a shitpost pal, don't take it personally but the forum saw 10's of thousands of these posts in the ICO boom and mods come down on these hard. Can you imagine being a mod and having to justify all of those "great project" type posts?

not being a prick here, but you really need to think about what value something like the above brings

Sure, I have since re-posted the same comment by just adding one more sentence (the last sentence you see below) in order to reduce the likelihood of my post being considered spam and to also make it clear I'm not trolling GRIN but I'm being an honest supporter.


@eaLiTy thank you for enlightening us on this, I wasn't aware they already had a similar option. I guess they're just too busy to fill this field and also since most users don't care to improve... yea I can would probably be doing the same! Unless I was forced to choose a reason.

can you post the above mentioned deleted post here man? you need to realise that mods handle thousands of requests and are human, they ain't moony or loyce and they don't get paid enough to start writing war and peace, a simple delete should generally be enough to question yourself.

not saying every mod is right with every delete, but give the fuckers a break and work harder on your posts

In default the moderator can view the reason if someone reported and the moderator dealing the report has the option to write something in Moderator Comments on why he is taking action so that every other moderator or admin can view, and they have the option to see the detailed report and i am not sure about the permission moderators have in this forum but i am talking about the general SMF forum layout.
So in short it is possible by default to comment on the report why they are taking action but it does not mean that they will let every user know why your posts are deleted.