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Underground > Policy & Help >

Are deletions making subsequent policy discussions difficult?

08:21 / 25.05.04

I wanted to bring this up not so much as a point of argument as perhaps something for consideration. I have been reading several threads in Policy about various controversies and issues, and jumping around examining the threads that they are connected to. All too often, I go to examine what the fuss is about, and find that the offending post is deleted. How is one supposed to get a perspective on what is being discussed when what is being discussed can no longer be viewed? An example is Lord Morgue's lyric posting. Deva moved to have it deleted then linked to a web-page that contained it. Did the poster change anything in the poem, or substitute any words? Since I couldn't see the post, I couldn't tell. If I'm to give my opinion on anything, I would prefer to SEE THE POST. Another example is Rage's, (art? I don't know, as I can't see it), piece about the Nick Berg beheading.

I'm all for locking threads and letting them sink into the depth's of the Barbeloid sea. When there is a discussion about a controversial post, however, then IMO said conroversial post should not be deleted. Personally, I don't feel qualified to enter the discussion, as I haven't, and am unable to see the post. So how do people feel about this?

08:36 / 25.05.04

I'm not sure about the Morgue's lyric thread but Rage's thread wasn't deleted. It was moved from Conversation to Creation.

08:41 / 25.05.04

The link to the art itself is dead.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:46 / 25.05.04

Rage did that, I believe. If you PM her, she might give you the URL where it is now, or if she has decided that she doesn't want it on display, maybe she could email it to you. The moderators' only action there was to change the img tag to an a tag, AFAIK.

The Lord Morgue posts weren't controversial - they were, precisely, not interesting. More generally, I don't think we have the luxury of leaving disruptive posts until we have had a chat about each and every one, since moderation would slow to a crawl, so it's an unfortunate truth that sometimes, by the time the spectators arrive, the accident has been cleaned up. Also in that case, I'm not sure what there is to discuss. If you want to discuss those posts, then I think you're misreading the Policy thread that referenced them.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:48 / 25.05.04

I guess another option would be to ask Tom for the deleted post - he keeps records of everything said on Barbelith for legal reasons - but I'm not sure again how great the profit on that is against the time it would take.

14:07 / 25.05.04

Deva moved to have it deleted then linked to a web-page that contained it.

Like Haus said, I don't think there's any need to discuss LM's posts in particular, and I'm about to post to the Policy thread where they were originally mentioned. But since you pointed to this example and I can clarify it, I will, because I want to make it very clear that there is no controversy here. (Move along...)

The original post contained the lyrics exactly as they appear on the page linked to and nothing else - no comment or analysis on the part of the poster, just a cut'n'paste. The link I substituted thus does exactly what the original post did, but with no need for scrolling. The post was not deleted for controversial content, but for irrelevance and space-taking-upness, and the link contains anything you might want to refer to from the deleted post.

04:39 / 28.05.04

Well, I suppose I can see the point in what's been said, it would make moderating far more difficult than it already is to have such an arrangement as hanging on to offensive posts, and the Google-ing issue is one of import. Still, might it be possible perhaps to have an area for controversial deleted posts that in a policy discussion about said post could be linked to? Of course, I'm not sure whether it would be possible to keep such an area from being googled, and of course there are posts that are downright dangerous legally for Barbelith, and need to be destroyed outright. Thanks for the feedback.

04:42 / 28.05.04

I just wanted to add that there is a message board that I belong to that does that. When they lock a post, they send it to a place called "lamer-kin". People can then got to see it if for some reason they still wish too, (it remains locked of course).

08:28 / 28.05.04

Well, it's sort of a weird double-bind, I think, in that the point of deleting the posts is to have them off the board - I suspect that putting them all in an archive of evil (aside from any legal aspects) would lead to trolls digging up old deleted posts and trying to start new discussions on them ad infinitum (though I have no idea how big a problem that would be in practice). I think the LM example is a bad one in this context, as the lyrics posts alluded to were posts that were deleted not for offensive content but for threadrot/irrelevance, which we fight quite hard against in the Headshop - it's not a controversial policy decision to delete threads with no relevant/original content - and (as far as I know) there hasn't been any bad feeling or argument associated with it. More generally, though, I know what you mean - personally I think the best way to deal with it is, in cases where a Policy thread has been started to discuss issues arising from a deleted post, for Tom (or other moderator who knows how - personally I don't) to link to that post in the Policy thread. If this meant the post was Googlable, maybe the link could be taken off after the thread seemed to have come to the end of its life?