Deleting your own posts should not be bannable. All critical information should be in the Wiki.

Discuss the LLORG's and HTLAL forum's past and its future here.
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Deinonysus
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Deleting your own posts should not be bannable. All critical information should be in the Wiki.

Postby Deinonysus » Mon May 11, 2020 5:56 pm

The appropriate place for crucial information is in the Wiki, not in a user's personal posts. A Wiki has the necessary version control tools to make vandalism easy to revert and restore. I would urge this site's administration to think of any other posts whose removal would be so disruptive that they would consider perma-banning a user for deleting them, and preemptively ask those users to add that information to the Wiki.

I do not believe that deleting your own personal posts should be a bannable offense. That is completely unprecedented and I have never heard of such a thing on any other forum, public or private. Broken quote chains are unfortunate but they are a fact of life on forums.

I am not trying to personally attack anyone or belittle the hard work that goes into keeping this site going. But this site is important to me as a user and I feel that I would be doing it a disservice if I didn't speak up against a policy that I believe would be harmful.
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Re: Deleting your own posts should not be bannable. All critical information should be in the Wiki.

Postby Deinonysus » Mon May 11, 2020 6:44 pm

ロータス wrote:...

I'm not trying to make this a hate-fest against the mods and/or admins. I think they do a good job in general, I just take issue with this particular policy and yes, how it was enforced on the fly before ever being stated outright. I feel like I respectfully stated my dissent, and I would like to stay on track and not get too sassy so this thread doesn't get locked.
Last edited by Deinonysus on Tue May 12, 2020 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Deleting your own posts should not be bannable. All critical information should be in the Wiki.

Postby Aloyse » Mon May 11, 2020 6:51 pm

Deinonysus wrote:I do not believe that deleting your own personal posts should be a bannable offense. That is completely unprecedented and I have never heard of such a thing on any other forum, public or private.


Err... I've been on other forums where this rule also existed... I've been banned from one of them. And I fully agreed with the rule that you should not delete all your posts if you intend to remain on the forum.
If you mass delete all your posts, why bother posting again? Why should anyone bother answering you again?

If you find that one of your posts was excessive, maybe edit it to say "I removed my previous answer because I was in a bad mood and posted dumb/offensive stuff, sorry about that." or whatever. This should not be bannable.
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Re: Deleting your own posts should not be bannable. All critical information should be in the Wiki.

Postby rdearman » Mon May 11, 2020 7:01 pm

Deinonysus wrote:The appropriate place for crucial information is in the Wiki, not in a user's personal posts. A Wiki has the necessary version control tools to make vandalism easy to revert and restore. I would urge this site's administration to think of any other posts whose removal would be so disruptive that they would consider perma-banning a user for deleting them, and preemptively ask those users to add that information to the Wiki.

I do not believe that deleting your own personal posts should be a bannable offense. That is completely unprecedented and I have never heard of such a thing on any other forum, public or private. Broken quote chains are unfortunate but they are a fact of life on forums.

I am not trying to personally attack anyone or belittle the hard work that goes into keeping this site going. But this site is important to me as a user and I feel that I would be doing it a disservice if I didn't speak up against a policy that I believe would be harmful.

Agree, people should be updating the wiki. How much work have you put into the Wiki? Let's be honest, nobody is updating the wiki. There is one, nobody uses it. They are putting it into forum posts. I cannot dictate where people post. Most of the resource links are scattered across various language study groups, and they aren't in the wiki either.

I would point out the member wasn't banned for editing their posts! They had already had 7 warnings and 2 temporary bans for breaking just about every rule on the forum as well as being abusive to other members. Then they decided to throw their toys out of the pram and ruin any good work they had done in the past by buggering up their former good work. So I banned them for good because no matter how many times you try to get people to change their behaviour, they don't.

Editing of posts was the last straw and it causes me HOURS of WORK! So yeah, I'm angry. As smallwhite pointed out others have done a similar thing and didn't get banned. But others weren't on their 7th warning, or removing stuff other people depend on. So basically if you're not a troll, and on multiple warnings, then we typically give the benefit of the doubt.
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Re: Deleting your own posts should not be bannable. All critical information should be in the Wiki.

Postby Aloyse » Mon May 11, 2020 7:13 pm

oh, someone was banned recently ? I'm glad I missed the drama.
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Re: Deleting your own posts should not be bannable. All critical information should be in the Wiki.

Postby Deinonysus » Mon May 11, 2020 7:23 pm

rdearman wrote:Agree, people should be updating the wiki. How much work have you put into the Wiki? Let's be honest, nobody is updating the wiki. There is one, nobody uses it. They are putting it into forum posts. I cannot dictate where people post. Most of the resource links are scattered across various language study groups, and they aren't in the wiki either.

I would point out the member wasn't banned for editing their posts! They had already had 7 warnings and 2 temporary bans for breaking just about every rule on the forum as well as being abusive to other members. Then they decided to throw their toys out of the pram and ruin any good work they had done in the past by buggering up their former good work. So I banned them for good because no matter how many times you try to get people to change their behaviour, they don't.

Editing of posts was the last straw and it causes me HOURS of WORK! So yeah, I'm angry. As smallwhite pointed out others have done a similar thing and didn't get banned. But others weren't on their 7th warning, or removing stuff other people depend on. So basically if you're not a troll, and on multiple warnings, then we typically give the benefit of the doubt.

I'd like to clarify that I'm not protesting whom you banned. I'm frankly surprised they made it this long without being perma-banned. I just think that deleting your own posts should not be bannable in general.

Because the resource list is stickied, that makes it a de facto official resource. If a Wiki section were linked in the sticky instead, I think that users would feel that the Wiki is more relevant, and would be more likely to contribute to it.
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Re: Deleting your own posts should not be bannable. All critical information should be in the Wiki.

Postby iguanamon » Mon May 11, 2020 8:42 pm

I wish the banned member had not made it so that they had to be banned. Forever, is such a long time. I know that a leopard doesn't change it's spots, but people can change. Could "for good" be changed to mean, say a year? Then after a year they might realize the error of their ways and play nice under a "one slip and you're done" rule. Other members who have been permanently banned have come back to be valuable members. So, could the member apply to come back after a a 12 month period in the "penalty box"?
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Re: Deleting your own posts should not be bannable. All critical information should be in the Wiki.

Postby badger » Mon May 11, 2020 9:25 pm

there's a wiki ?
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Re: Deleting your own posts should not be bannable. All critical information should be in the Wiki.

Postby rdearman » Mon May 11, 2020 9:42 pm

iguanamon wrote:I wish the banned member had not made it so that they had to be banned. Forever, is such a long time. I know that a leopard doesn't change it's spots, but people can change. Could "for good" be changed to mean, say a year? Then after a year they might realize the error of their ways and play nice under a "one slip and you're done" rule. Other members who have been permanently banned have come back to be valuable members. So, could the member apply to come back after a 12 month period in the "penalty box"?


We have had people reapply to return, and as you say a couple of them have returned and made many valuable contributions to the community. We don't ban people lightly, and the reason that people can get "time limited" bans such as the 7 day or month long ban is just to give people time to sit it out, maybe reflect on why they got banned and then come back and settle back in. However, banning ranges are typically 1 day, 7 days, 14 days, 1 month, or forever.

Reapplication is a painful moderation / administration task as well. Should someone be granted permission to re-apply for membership then they are typically put on a "watchlist" for 6 months or a year, which means all their posts are moderated and not allowed to be seen until approved by a moderator. This means even more work for the moderation team.

Decisions about banning people are done as a group and all aspects of offences and previous contributions are considered before any action to ban someone. However, a short ban of a couple of days or a week is normally sufficient to get someone's attention. Sometimes a person might get a temporary ban based on a single moderator's judgement, but very rarely. What would normally happen is an offence is put to the moderator group, and the person might get a one-week ban while the moderation team discuss.

I can only remember 4-5 people being banned in since the forum was started here, and most of those were for a week or 14 days. Most people just need someone to point out a problem, and they sort it out themselves. Very few people have allowed it to escalate to the point where they get banned.

Deinonysus wrote: I just think that deleting your own posts should not be bannable in general.

Depends on what you're deleting, and how much. The moderation team don't automatically ban people for deleting posts. Although full disclosure; I personally ask for this at every moderation meeting, because post restoration is an admin task, and I don't have the time or inclination to be doing DB restores because someone decides to be an asshat. This incident has strengthened my case for automatically banning for edited posts.

Honestly, if you wanted to delete your posts, and asked the moderators or an admin, we'd probably do it for you. Easier for us to check the impact and do the deletions. Especially since our deletions can be permanent, yours can't. We could also edit other posts where the posts to be deleted have been quoted. This would get your posts deleted, keep you in good faith with the moderation team, and allow you to come and go without being banned. If you have valid reasons for post removal we'll not stand in your way, but if you just start doing mass deletions, then I'm going to assume you're being an asshat.

badger wrote:there's a wiki ?

Yes, there is even a link to it in the menu bar at the top of the forum called Wiki. There is actually a lot of good stuff over there. You should check it out.
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Re: Deleting your own posts should not be bannable. All critical information should be in the Wiki.

Postby neumanc » Tue May 12, 2020 1:52 am

First of all I would like to make it clear that I appreciate the selfless work of the moderation team in every respect. Also, I am not concerned with the affected members or with the question whether there was actually a violation of forum rules. But: My legal perspective is that every member still has the right to delete his or her own posts--permanently. After all, isn't this a purely legal question? Unfortunately, I am not an expert on British copyright law, but from the perspective as a jurist from another jurisdiction, the situation looks like this at first glance: The deleted posts are clearly of a certain level of creation and therefore subject to the copyright of the member. The author has the sole right to decide on the publication of his or her work, unless he or she has given another person a license to publish it. When joining the forum we agree to the following rule, among others: "As a user you agree to any information you have entered to being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party (...)." I definitely wouldn't understand this rule as an irrevocable license to redistribute, because it would have to be clearly worded in this respect in order to be one. The wording rather suggests that there is no license for redistribution. Furthermore, in the forum called "Forum Rules & FAQ" in the post "GDPR Compliance" it says: "You have the 'right to be forgotten' however your posts are covered under the publication rules and we reserve the right to keep these posts in order to maintain the integrity of the message threads." Maybe this clause could justify the re-publication of posts deleted by the members, if the members had actually agreed to this rule. However, as far as I can see, this is not the case (if I am wrong, please correct me). As far as I can see, the members are not required to agree to this clause at any point in time whether upfront at the time of registration or thereafter. From my legal perspective the members, as authors of their own posts, are therefore still free to decide whether they want to delete a post or not, i.e. forbid the further publication. And of course no violation of "unwritten" forum rules can be derived from the exercise of the copyright. These are just my two cents. Perhaps there are copyright experts here who could comment on this. I think that this is important. Maybe the forums rules should be updated in order to avoid such issues in future.
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