Inappropriate Moderation/Facilitation

[TheBramble]

I am increasingly concerned with the number of posts that are being deleted my moderators without reasonable cause.

While I maintain the mods and admin do a great job overall and abusive and personal posts do not belong on these boards, there appears to be a trend toward over-zealous editorial control over posts falling outside these commonly held areas of limitation.

I know there is an intention to post clear guidelines on posting standards and I welcome that.

But having recently been on the end of a number of post deletions which could not possibly have fallen foul of any reasonable constraint, I am wondering if I'm wasting my time.

Without a clear indication from t2w administration of what they deem is and is not acceptable, I do not feel moderation of anything outside of abusive, personal or inflammatory is acceptable.

If the off-topic card is to be played here, I suspect a good 50% of all posts in every thread should be deleted.

Public response from admin welcomed.

 

[dc2000]

I believe sharkey was drawing up a set of rules for members and moderators that was to come into effect on the appointment of the content manager but Im not sure if these have been written yet

 

[Bigbusiness]

I did find it strange that a thread I started in the lounge was deleted. I thought we were allowed to go off topic in the lounge and we were allowed to have a sense of humour but I was obviously mistaken. I have become fed up with the way some TTW members can say what they like with no censorship but others have been censored for expressing a perfectly reasonable opinion. I agree that in general the moderators do a fantastic job and 99% of the time they take the correct action but I just wish they could do a better job with the 1%

I suggest we all go on strike until this situation is sorted out

NOTE TO MODERATOR:-

My last comment was a joke. PLEASE don't delete my post.

 

[ChartMan]

There are four, maybe more now, moderators. We will all have our own interpretation of what is what and what is not. Clearly, I might let something go ( IF I see it), someone else may not.
It is your right to complain if you think you have been dealt the short straw, and I'm sure there are places where this has happened.
I have no idea why the lounge is being censored.......
The guidelines are in, and are being edited. Should hit the street soon......

CM

 

[Sharky]

Tony, I've replied to your pm this morning regarding this issue, but I'm happy to discuss it publicly on the site.

dc2000 is correct, we have been working on the site guidelines and Daniel, our new content manager, along with moderators have been assisting in this process. The site guidelines WILL be published next week, we're still making some final revisions to the text, but it's 99% there.

I think that in order to achieve the highest quality forums possible it is necessary to sometimes remove off topic posts. Whilst we do ask members to try and keep their posts as relevant and on-topic as possible at all times, inevitably there are times when posts stray off topic.

On the one hand these posts can really be an important part of creating a sense of community (the same sort of banter you might get down the pub), but at the same time with nearly 9,000 threads and over 100,000 posts finding good quality information quickly and efficiently becomes a much bigger chore.

At the time of posting those off topic posts are arguably an important and necessary interaction between members, but whether this is a need to keep them in the archive of posts to refer back to weeks or months later is questionable.

Part of the reason for creating 'The Lounge' forum was to give members the opportunity to 'bond' in an informal setting where pretty much anything goes that is not overly abusive, personal or inflammatory. Thus there being less of a need to use trading threads for general chit chat.

Chartman is right in that the moderators have their own interpretation as to what is off-topic and which of those can safely be removed. I don't think we'd ever want to remove all off-topic posts simply because we don't have the resources to do it - and increasingly there's a danger that members will take offence to what they consider to be legitimate posts that should not be removed.

Perhaps there is a need to publish certain guidelines as to what factors to consider when removing off topic posts. For example..

- how recently the posts were made
- whether the posts had the involvement of the thread starter
- to what extent the posts are 'bonding' rather than simply 'fluff'.

As always we welcome members comments and feedback.

 

[Airthrey Capital]

Whilst it is obviously a good idea to remove posts which are insulting and abusive, can I make a request to moderaters that you also ban all of these guys who post dodgy links to various sites which claim incredible money-making trading systems (often generating from overseas, and written in English which my 5 year old daughter would be ashamed to have written).

Just a request.......

Please?

 

[FTSE Beater]

HI Blairlogie

We try and delete as many of these as we can. If however we miss one, please press this "Report Bad Post" button

Found to the bottom-left of a post.
This is also the button to use if you have a complaint against any post.