Moderation Principles
Lot of people are confused on the principles on which moderation works. Of course there is a set of Indiblogger rules one can go through. But to make things easy, I am creating a thread for any open discussion on the principles and rationale on which forum moderations work. (This is more or less the same for every online forum with minor variations)
Typically moderators are people from the community with powers to delete/lock threads and often to approve/ ban members as well. The reason for the existense can be one of the below:-
1. Prevent use of a public forum for commercial use.
2. To avoid spamming
3. To avoid topics irrelavent to forum theme
4. To prevent conflicts between members
5. To streamline discussions related to a particular topic in a single thread to ensure easy availability of information to people looking for information on a particular topic.
Items 1-3, constitute misconduct on part of user either deliberately or through ignorance. Any repetition indicating deliberate behavior usually leads to a ban of the member.
Item 4 is usually to diffuse an emotionally charged situation. But can be a case of misconduct as well when it is a result of insult or personal attack. Here also deliberate insults and personal attack on other members can invite ban of members.
Now moving on to item 5. This is usually done for benefit of members and does not constitute any misconduct on part of members. Threads on similar topic are usually merged to avoid loss of discussions. In a forum that lacks merge functionality, one of the threads has to be locked or deleted to stramline all discussions in one thread. Usually it is better to keep the earlier thread and lock/delete older thread. But in cases where discussion has progressed on both threads, it is better to lock the thread having lesser discussions and keep the one having more dicusssions in order to ensure lesser loss of discussions.
One point that members raise is about warning before locking/deleting threads. But the problem is time is of essence here and any delays, asking a member for explanation and waiting can defeat the purpose in a ll of the 5 cases.
Case 1 (Commercial) - In the 1-2 hours the thread remain commercial purpose would already be served
Case 2 (Spam) - In the 1-2 hours the threads remain the forum would look shabby for any new visitor
Case 3 (Irrelavent) - This case has some room for leeway and possibly warning can be given but depends on time moderator has. Here mostly threads are not locked/deleted for this reason.
Case 4 (Conflicts) - In the 1-2 hour waiting time, emotions can flare up out of control and one never knows how many people would have got involved making it a free for all.
Case 5 (Redundancy) - In 1-2 hours discussions can proceed simulataneously on both threads and more the delays, more the comments that will be lost on the thread that is locked/deleted.
Umm, From what I've observed, we do get a email notification whenever someone replies to a thread we create. So, I guess, if you reply to this thread, stating the reason for deleting it, and then delete it, they would still get an email notification of the reply. So, I guess that shouldn't be a problem.
@Ritwik - That is generally the practice. But most of what we discuss here is more like best practices. And individual moderators are not obliged to follow unless made a rule by Renie. Like I created the deletion reasons thread to maintain permanent record of all deletions. It is a best practice to call out all deletions there but all Indipolice are not obliged to do that.
I think one of the points raised by people is on the lines of - what if I give a link to my blog? It is for the readers to choose to go there or not. This is an argument that seems correct on the surface - but if the limitation on giving self-promoting links on forum threads is not maintained what is to stop the thread being filled with promotional links thereby making the forum useless for any discussion? It is about time that people realized that the limits on placing links are actually intended for the benefit of all and stop this activity.
I have one suggestion for the Inditeam, however. Is it not possible to enable editing/deletion of indvidual comments as well ? Also, is it possible to allow the concerned individual to edit his own comment? I can understand that the latter may sometimes make replies on that comment look out-of-place - but, if possible, it could be enabled till such time there is a direct reply.
I am actually against this idea of having an option for deleting or editing a comment, to be honest. As you said, this would result in people changing their replies, which would decrease the quality of forums.
However, if this is really to be done, I suggest we use what facebook does, that is, displaying "Edit history", so that we can know what the previous versions of the edit was. This way changing the comments completely would be useless, but this could be used for cases like when you have spell or grammatical errors and other such cases.
@RG: I do not know what yr objection is! If Indipolice can delete a thread, why can't they delete a comment? After all the reasons for deleting a comment would be the same as the reasons for deleting a thread - spamming, flaming etc. and if you have objections to deleting comments by them, the same objections would apply to deleting threads as well.
As for edits by the author of the comment, my only intention was to ensure that the concerned author does not put up 2-3 comments merely because he cannot edit his comment - even if he caught it immediately after posting it. So, whatever cuts the mustard there is good enough for me.
I'm not against the idea of IndiPolice deleting a comment for spam or something, I'm against the idea of giving an option to the author to delete or edit their comment. And If this is really necessary, we should have a edit history for it.
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