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> That's not only completely false, it's a shameless misrepresentation that eats half the hope out of my soul. Nothing was "silent" [1] and nothing was "removed
by swombat 13y ago
> That's not only completely false, it's a shameless misrepresentation that eats half the hope out of my soul. Nothing was "silent" [1] and nothing was "removed"—users flagged the posts and I personally rolled the penalty back at least four times. I said above that I could understand how one misconception might have arisen, but I can't understand this one; it seems devoid of even a grain of good faith.
I have no opinion on that thread, as I didn't see it, but let me just say that this is a result of lack of transparency... what I referred to in my post a while back when your involvement was announced.
When you care about a topic emotionally and it gets buried, and you don't know why, you tend to assume not the reasonable explanation, but the worst explanation. I've seen that reaction in myself, so it's not surprising to see it in others.
If there had been some sign that the post was heavily flagged (hey, how about a flag counter?) and perhaps even a sign that you were rolling back the flag counter manually, buro would not have felt this way.
I think one simple, obvious start to a solution might be to make the flag counter visible. Worth a try?
- tptacek 13y agoMaking the flag count visible probably won't help, because you'd need to evaluate it in the context not just of the number of upvotes, but the number of upvotes within a window of time. Exposing it would probably just result in lots of unproductive subthreads about flagging conspiracies. A suggestion I have, though: let's get rid of the guideline that says not to explain your flags.
- swombat 13y agoThat could be a good solution too.
- dang 13y agoI can't agree that lack of transparency is the explanation here. The comments I posted to those threads at the time (and made sure were visible) contained more than enough information to make such an interpretation impossible.
- swombat 13y agoBuro9, did you see dang's explanations on that thread?
- buro9 13y agoOn the Barack Obama thread? No, as I was unable to find the thread again and still cannot find it.
- dang 13y agoThere were two threads. I linked to both of them in the comment you've already replied to.
- buro9 12y agoNow that I've read them, those responses are great. But... a moderation policy that relies on all users having read all comments on all stories is unrealistic. Just create a page somewhere and say "these are the moderators, they do this when necessary, but most of the time it's not necessary as the community is largely moderated by users, and these are roughly the switches that the users have to control things". I now know, as you've said. But I really wouldn't have guessed that people flag stories as much as they must do, nor that it carries such a penalty. And I'm a fairly heavy user and hadn't seen your comments and responses before.