Thanks for doing this, I do have some personal experience to share.
I was once a core moderator of a online community with approx. 10k members, at times there were heated debate, and of course there are plenty of misinformation, false claims, defamation, etc.
I don’t usually remove posts / threads as it doesn’t resolve conflicts, nor helping with busting myths. What I do was
Slow mode for heated debate where people were seemingly losing self-control.
Mediate and facilitate discussions, also to deescalate by asking relevant parties to chill out, help clarifying things to avoid miscommunications / misunderstanding, etc.
For people persistently acting bad baith (such as refuse to become civil, persistently abusive, continue to intentionally spread blatantly wrong information) , I would firstly warn, then warn + temporary mute, and then lastly ban. Each warn expires after certain period of time. Each moderation action was clearly logged with reasons quoting applicable group rules. The log can be inspected by anyone at anytime, by themselves.
For blatantly wrong information, I would request OP to clarify or remove, if they refuse, I would then clarify and then lock the thread.
There was appeal mechanism in place, where they could raise a thread, the moderator which took the initial decision needs to justify their action, and they are not allowed to vote in the appeal.
I remove contents if and only if
Contains links or files that is malicious for illegal.
Contains sensitive personal information without explicit consent from relevant persons.
Spams / scams (more or less equals to 1. but with subtle difference)
At OP’s request.
Received multiple reports and found the content could cause actual harm to personal safety.
I do find the above measures are quite effective in both moderation and community education perspective.
Just my 2 cents. Sorry it gets longer than I was expected.
This is the thing I find most frustrating: some threads get unlisted (which is fine in most cases) but then are completely deleted after a few days, as if they’re being memory-holed. What is the reason for not leaving an unlisted (and, in most cases, locked) thread alone instead of just completely nuking it?
I think everything you said basically makes sense, but I should clarify (if only for the purpose of making sure the feedback I provided is as useful to you as possible) that I was told that the reason for the silencing was the flags, not any replies. If that is not correct, then at minimum the explanation for my silencing I think should have been clearer. I also just reviewed the messages between myself and the moderators again while collecting links I’ll be sending to you in DMs and while I can’t see all my posts from the thread anymore I might have overstated in my first post here any amounts of replying I did to the off topic messages, because I specifically mention in those DMs that I was careful not to reply to those and just flag them, with no one correcting me on that point, so I now do think it’s more likely I didn’t reply to the posts I flagged.
That said, I am certainly much more sympathetic to concerns about individual members replying to off topic posts to in their view (but probably often not successfully) “help” stop a thread from being derailed, that just wasn’t what I was told the issue was, doesn’t seem to have been what happened going off my memory and the conversation in DMs with the mods about it, and even if I had I also don’t think a first offense there on my part (as far as I know) warranted much more than a warning TBH. A global silencing for almost two weeks was just not proportional if that was my mistake.
I appreciate you taking the time to hear me and everyone else out. I can’t speak for everyone but for me personally even just that helps restore a decent amount of confidence in the moderation here.
Edit: I tried to DM you as you asked but I am not able to apparently.
Just popping in to say that I have also found thread deletion to feel heavy handed at times, and have seen users quickly recreate essentially the same thread within a few days either because they could not find their original thread, or because they had the same/similar question as the OP of a deleted thread.
I can understand deleting entire threads where discussion of illegal activity or violations of user right to be forgotten is occurring, however using deleting whole threads (not just singular posts) in places where the violations are more minor can lead to confusion amongst users, and uncertainty regarding moderator action.
I hope this thread can act as a civil place to discuss these matter of moderation, so that confusion and perceived grudges can be reduced going forward. Privacy Guides, and privacy advocacy more generally is a niche community, and we need to stick together if we have any hope of making progress on the matters that are truly important to us as a community.
I can understand deleting entire threads where discussion of illegal activity or violations of user right to be forgotten is occurring, however using deleting whole threads (not just singular posts) in places where the violations are more minor can lead to confusion amongst users, and uncertainty regarding moderator action.
For the “right to be forgotten” This phrase is from the GDPR and the GDPR has a pretty clear definition what falls under personal information and what not.
And all posts where I was lurking or active and got deleted were not violating the GDPR.
Besides the fact that the talking about deleted users in this post didn’t fall under personal information, it should be also mentioned that the right to be forgotten doesn’t apply if right of freedom of expression and information is suppressed.
So this whole “violations of user right to be forgotten” is merely a complete nonsense.
This was why I contacted the mods. We did not get to any point of agreeing - no, which is even some of the worst things, a mod itself was objectively violating their own rules - and so the whole thing got locked after overall six messages.
I am completely OK with deleting the all-known deleted topic IF there is a rule about it. But there isn‘t and I can‘t live with that objectively false GDPR excuse.
I read the thread you shared as a PDF when it was on the forum and was pretty shocked by this reply from Jonah. “Just create a blog” really downplays the amount of work that goes into all aspects of blogging, and I agree it contradicts the whole point of a forum, so I found that quite dismissive coming from the person at the head of the forum.
It’s like calling a public town meeting and then telling a vocal participant to just go home and make a podcast if they have something to say that maybe doesn’t quite fit, is too lengthy or something that you don’t agree with.
I don’t think stuff should be deleted unless it is graphic or illegal/unethical. Even if someone is spreading FUD or being disruptive, I’d rather see their account locked with maybe a message implying what happened. It is more transparent and allows other users to decide their own opinions, with all the knowledge of the conversation. There can definitely be exceptions to this, just a general feeling I have.
I, frankly, still do not follow how someone can post:
title: Do you guys use whonix?
raw: Let’s have a good conversation about it and see how poor it became in recent years. I feel pity for those whose it for their anonymous activity.
…and then other people are upset with me for telling them to take it to their own venue. If you or one of the 10 people who reacted to your post can elaborate further, that’d be great, but this hardly tops the charts of things I’d do differently.
This place is the sanest online privacy community I have ever been into where people actually know how to communicate, answer questions, and engage in healthy discussions. I have learned a lot since I started participating, and I hope this discussion will resolve in the best way possible.
Hey there, I would simply suggest to communicate more on your intentions.
Meaning, if you unlist a topic, state which rule it violated.
Same with deleting. Sending a pm can help.
This has been going for some weeks now (or maybe more I don’t know) and when we’ve asked questions, we weren’t provided with answers. We were provided with unlisted and deleted topics.
Also, kindness goes a long way in these communication messages.
However, I do understand that moderating can be heavy and it’s not fun to receive criticism when you do that for free and just to help a community you want to see thrive.
Please note that this criticism also comes from a place of love with a desire to protect that same community. I think people have good intentions, they’re not here to bring it all down We all want it to see it thrive.
Thank you for that.
Would PG have engaged in that discussion if some of us didn’t push for it? Hopefully, yes.
If yes, then I believe it should have been mentioned in my post (which is now deleted and I’m still not sure why) or other people’s post simply asking questions.
It isn’t nonsense if it’s a policy of PG though. Not saying it is, but they could decide to implement such policy.
It’s dismissive. It’s like saying “go back to your own country if you don’t like it here.”
hTahaCi was clearly in good faith throughout all that “Is Constructive Feedback on Whonix/KickSecure Being Censored” topic. Disclaimer: I have not seen the content of the first topic and I’m not saying the moderation action was the wrong one. I don’t even know what whonix is, and it honestly doesn’t really matter to this topic.
hTahaCi also explained it themselves:
I’m really sad — you gys have full control to remove posts, and my threads are automatically marked as “solved” without my input. I don’t feel I have any control over my own contributions here in this privacy community. I’ve always used a covert account during my vacation days to quietly share knowledge and help others. But the way I’m being treated is deeply hurtful. I’m genuinely trying to help, and it’s painful when that effort is dismissed. I think I need to step away.
The fact is that they opened a new topic to understand why they thought they were being censored. You can objectively say they were in good faith.
Then that topic got unlisted and deleted. Again. At least a reason was provided in that one. But it shouldn’t have been deleted.
It was simply a third party tool supported by the platform. It allows automatic “announcement" of moderation actions done via that tool to a dedicated channel. Be it automatic triggers or manual actions. IIRC the format was something like:
{ACTIONTYPE}
DATE: {YYYY-MM-DD}
TIME: {HH:mm:ss}
MODERATOR: {MODERATOR_USERNAME}
AFFECTED USER: {USER_USERNAME}
MESSAGE LINK: {URL}
REASON: {REASONS}
I was not using Discourse, and I am not sure if discourse offers similar features.
post by privacy.slouchy on Mar 10
post by Anvil on Mar 10
post by lyricism on Mar 10
post by overdrawn98901 on Mar 10
post by kissu on Mar 10
post by parkerchandler1979 on Mar 10
post by pine on Mar 10
post by TinFoilHat on Mar 10
post by kissu on Mar 10
post by fiqiluvo.epileto on Mar 10
post by ignoramous on Mar 10
post by ThePrivacyDad on Mar 10
post by maltfield on Mar 10
post by FranklyFlawless on Mar 11
post by kissu on Mar 11
post by anonymous549 on Mar 11
post by overdrawn98901 on Mar 11
post by Blackbird on Mar 11
post by anon54537205 on Mar 11
post by ph00lt0 on Mar 11
post by Blackbird on Mar 11
post by ph00lt0 on Mar 11
post by parkerchandler1979 on Mar 11
Closed on Mar 11
post by jonah on Mar 11
Related topics
Topic list, column headers with buttons are sortable.
We all want it to see it thrive.