Editing of posts

[DaveW]

In general I think moderation is overdone here, posts are deleted far too quickly, but that is up to you guys.

A larger issue IMO is how mods EDIT posts of users and leave them on the site, that IMO is wrong as it completely changes the tone, reasoning and overall point of a post. A lot of it is happening by Carole in the Sano thread and I think it's wrong.

If you guys want to delete posts left and right...that's fine, but to edit someone's post how YOU see fit and how it works for YOU personally is wrong. 

Either leave posts as is, or delete. I think some mods are using the edit feature to shape the forums/convos etc to exactly how THEY want them to go, which sort of goes against the point of a forum to begin with. 

If you aren't going to stop editing people's posts you should give them the option to either have  for them to edit or delete themselves.

[ashbury]

In a fast-moving thread like yesterday's Sano announcement thread, the moderators don't have the luxury of time to enter into a discussion with each poster as to how they would prefer to be moderated - particularly when you consider that not every moderator is even "on duty" 24/7 and so the onus falls on one or two of them at most.

 

Editing a post is intended to be less drastic than simply removing the entire post; the words removed don't generally affect the direction of the post very much. The thread in question has actually received much greater latitude than the typical one - perhaps that decision will have to be revisited, as the thread descends into a free-for-all with multiple side topics introduced that aren't particularly relevant to the news that Sano will not be suspended.

[DaveW]

I just don't think Mods should edit posts at all, but if/when they do they should make it well known in bold at the beginning of the post perhaps.

I think this thread in particular was handled quite poorly because some of you guys know Betsy a little bit. I was admonished for 'victim blaming' because I criticized her public comments in re: to Butch Davis (even though I mentioned that I didn't think she was lying in re: to Sano)

Just seems like there is no way for people to have the open conversation, so it almost seems like you should just shut down/delete the thread instead of the obvious bias that is going on in that thread (and certainly don't edit posts IMO)

Up to you guys though.

[Squirrel]

That’s fair criticism and something we’ll take a look at.

 

Mostly, baseball forums are about baseball. It’s difficult to keep it ‘pure’ but when there is so much muck in life itself, it’s nice to come to a place and discuss baseball without the rest constantly filtering in because well, we’re human. To that end we try to keep the baseball forums on topic as much as possible and to keep the tangents to a minimum. Subjects such as this ... it’s impossible. And many of us have come to our own conclusions, which is fine. But then reaching out to support those issues through cultural, racial and sexual biases ... biases many of us lack real understanding or experience in ... it makes the impossible even worse. It’s sad we can’t have a discussion and truly listen without resorting to loud defensiveness. For now the thread is moved to a forum which invites the kinds of discussion and topics that thread is generating. Closing it will be a longer discussion and may yet happen.

[ashbury]

I just don't think Mods should edit posts at all, but if/when they do they should make it well known in bold at the beginning of the post perhaps.

I think this thread in particular was handled quite poorly because some of you guys know Betsy a little bit. I was admonished for 'victim blaming' because I criticized her public comments in re: to Butch Davis (even though I mentioned that I didn't think she was lying in re: to Sano)

Just seems like there is no way for people to have the open conversation, so it almost seems like you should just shut down/delete the thread instead of the obvious bias that is going on in that thread (and certainly don't edit posts IMO)

Up to you guys though.

 

The purpose of moderation here is to improve the discussion. Drawing attention to a moderation action, as you suggest, risks detracting from that purpose^*. It also exposes the poster to a degree of public singling-out that often isn't called for. By the same logic as you suggest regarding edits, we would also announce a deletion of a post, since that's an edit-with-extreme-prejudice. I don't see us adopting that policy.

 

Editing is rare. My own policy is to inform the poster via PM that it was done, and the reason why. Including the likely back-and-forth it creates, that can be time consuming. In a fast-moving thread like the one we're discussing, such communication might not be a reasonable option.

 

As for the insinuation of personal bias because of who made the accusation against Sano, moderation in this thread was performed by people who do not know the woman personally. The mod team looks over each others' shoulders - no system is perfect but we do have a system of checks and balances here which we take seriously.

 

Finally, moderators at TD are just regular members too. We post on subject matter with regard to our own convictions, and keep that separate from moderation actions. Please try to keep that separate in how you read threads where we participate, as well.

 

/ edit - I was composing my post at the same time Carole was, so please don't infer one thing or another from the ordering of the posts

 

^{* _{For that reason, in-thread warnings are not necessarily the first choice I personally go for.}}

[The_Phantom]

I agree with this thread 1000%. 

 

Moderators should not have the ability to arbitrarily edit a post made by another member. As stated above, it truly can change the meaning of the post - or at least the intended emphasis on which point was supposed to be getting across. It's hardly fair to have some sort of authoritative hand that can erase, cleanse, purge, add, do whatever they like to someone else's post. 

 

The idea of a bold headline "this comment has been edited by moderators" is a fairly decent compromise offer, although I really dislike the ability for that to happen at all UNLESS it is an actually offensive or profanity filled post. Not just because a moderator doesn't agree or like how someone worded their point. 

[The_Phantom]

 

The purpose of moderation here is to improve the discussion. Drawing attention to a moderation action, as you suggest, risks detracting from that purpose^*. It also exposes the poster to a degree of public singling-out that often isn't called for. By the same logic as you suggest regarding edits, we would also announce a deletion of a post, since that's an edit-with-extreme-prejudice. I don't see us adopting that policy.

 

 

 

 

I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I'd much rather it be well known that the site (IMO) overreached and changed my wording than for something that is not actually my own words to have my name by it. As is you're literally making our posts say whatever you decide they can say and having our signature beside them. That's not right.

[Craig Arko]

Yes, removing them is better than editing them, unless specifically requested to edit by the author.

[TheLeviathan]

I would suggest that the very fact that mods feel entitled to edit user posts may imply a problem in and of itself.  (One I believe to be true, full disclosure) I doubt most posters here would support that kind of moderation though.

 

A private message to discuss what needs to be edited is fine - but then leave it up to the poster to edit or remove what is problematic.  Perhaps the site could explore options to temporarily suspend a post during this process.

[ashbury]

I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I'd much rather it be well known that the site (IMO) overreached and changed my wording than for something that is not actually my own words to have my name by it. As is you're literally making our posts say whatever you decide they can say and having our signature beside them. That's not right.

You're making vast assumptions about the nature of the edits.

 

For example, taking a swipe at a fellow poster, in the course of making a point, is against site rules. So I've occasionally removed an introductory sentence, or a closing salvo, where its removal leaves the message about the subject matter unchanged, and PMed the poster to tell him why.

 

There's usually no reason, and even less value, to hold a person as an example in public, which would be the effect of what you propose. We also don't publicize when someone earns a warning point for a post, for example.

 

The proposal you offer would do more harm than good.

[The_Phantom]

 

You're making vast assumptions about the nature of the edits.

 

For example, taking a swipe at a fellow poster, in the course of making a point, is against site rules. So I've occasionally removed an introductory sentence, or a closing salvo, where its removal leaves the message about the subject matter unchanged, and PMed the poster to tell him why.

 

There's usually no reason, and even less value, to hold a person as an example in public, which would be the effect of what you propose. We also don't publicize when someone earns a warning point for a post, for example.

 

The proposal you offer would do more harm than good.

I am not really assuming anything, because earlier today I had a post edit that made no swipes at any posters and had an entire paragraph removed with no explanation whatsoever. The paragraph was, in my opinion, a pretty important part of my point and its removal changed the tone of the post completely. It was a two paragraph post. The theme of the first one was to point out that no one besides Betsy and Miguel know what actually happened, and everything else is pretty much hearsay, and if anyone had actually seen anything then they would have been interviewed as part of the MLB investigation. Then that flowed into the next point that MLB likely exhausted their resources to the best of their ability and didn't find anything so we need to move on the best we can and not point fingers.  

 

Apparently that second paragraph met the code of conduct, but not the first. There was no personal attack there, no foul language, nothing directed at any one person, really just (When tied into the second paragraph) tying into the thought that people need to be careful how hard they point their fingers in either direction. As edited, it was more just about that the investigation did its job. 

[ashbury]

I am not really assuming anything, because earlier today I had a post edit that made no swipes at any posters and had an entire paragraph removed with no explanation whatsoever. The paragraph was, in my opinion, a pretty important part of my point and its removal changed the tone of the post completely. It was a two paragraph post. The theme of the first one was to point out that no one besides Betsy and Miguel know what actually happened, and everything else is pretty much hearsay, and if anyone had actually seen anything then they would have been interviewed as part of the MLB investigation. Then that flowed into the next point that MLB likely exhausted their resources to the best of their ability and didn't find anything so we need to move on the best we can and not point fingers.  

 

Apparently that second paragraph met the code of conduct, but not the first. There was no personal attack there, no foul language, nothing directed at any one person, really just (When tied into the second paragraph) tying into the thought that people need to be careful how hard they point their fingers in either direction. As edited, it was more just about that the investigation did its job. 

OK, fair enough. The concerns you raised are more complicated than the simple view I was offering.

 

Please allow the mod team to confer a bit about this. We're geographically diverse, plus it's the weekend, and in sum we haven't all seen this discussion yet.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

A private message to discuss what needs to be edited is fine - but then leave it up to the poster to edit or remove what is problematic.  Perhaps the site could explore options to temporarily suspend a post during this process.

We've tried this and it simply doesn't work. When it comes to the type of poster who needs their post edited, they often simply ignore the edit request. And then that creates additional steps for the moderator: a PM, regular checking of the thread to see if it's been edited, and then the moderator having to edit the post themselves, rendering the entire rest of the process pointless.

 

Meanwhile, during this entire process, the offending thread is live on the site, just begging for people to respond to it negatively, derailing the thread and adding yet more work for the moderator team as they respond to people who have responded to the original post that doesn't belong on the website at all.

 

I'm not trying to talk down to anyone here but unless you've moderated a busy forum in the past, I don't think many of you realize just how many snap decisions need to be made and how much constant maintenance the forums require.

 

And then we get complaints about over-moderation, yet people seem to ignore that there's a reason why this place never becomes RubeChat and why discourse, in general, is at a much higher level than pretty much any other sports forum you'll find anywhere.

[The_Phantom]

 

We've tried this and it simply doesn't work. When it comes to the type of poster who needs their post edited, they often simply ignore the edit request. And then that creates additional steps for the moderator: a PM, regular checking of the thread to see if it's been edited, and then the moderator having to edit the post themselves, rendering the entire rest of the process pointless.

 

Meanwhile, during this entire process, the offending thread is live on the site, just begging for people to respond to it negatively, derailing the thread and adding yet more work for the moderator team as they respond to people who have responded to the original post that doesn't belong on the website at all.

 

I'm not trying to talk down to anyone here but unless you've moderated a busy forum in the past, I don't think many of you realize just how many snap decisions need to be made and how much constant maintenance the forums require.

 

And then we get complaints about over-moderation, yet people seem to ignore that there's a reason why this place never becomes RubeChat and why discourse, in general, is at a much higher level than pretty much any other sports forum you'll find anywhere.

 

Well, in fairness the suggestion you quoted actually included suspending/temporarily removing the post while it's "under review".

 

And as to the rest, I don't think anyone is actually trying to downplay the difficulty of a moderator role on a forum, especially a forum that clearly has more stringent rules than the average forum. Which, appears to be paying off. I think the biggest issue is the ability to edit. As stated above, I think a lot of us are in agreement that we'd rather you remove the post altogether than to take a (sorry if this is offensive) dictatorial approach that you can edit whatever you want without any warning to the poster, besides it being stated in the "comment policy" thread. 

 

There appears to be an entire team of moderators, which can be a great thing. But that means that your responsibility goes beyond just editing whatever you want to edit. Part of the role of editing should be every post that gets edited is accompanied at the very least by a private message explanation. Certainly, at least, to a first time "offender". Otherwise it very much comes across as the moderators simply not agreeing with what you had to say and cleansing it to a more "acceptable" (in their eyes) post. You ask us to understand that you're people too and that your job is difficult. I think it's fair to ask the same in reverse. That we are also people posting our thoughts on this message board, often thought out and edited a few times before hitting the "post" button and it's only fair to think about our message before a post is instantly "cleaned up" to fit what you think is acceptable. 

 

Either way, I know you've already acknowledged that it's a deeper issue than was previously stated and I don't expect an immediate response to this. Thank you for acknowledging that some things may need to be discussed and I look forward to hearing what you guys have to say.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Well, in fairness the suggestion you quoted actually included suspending/temporarily removing the post while it's "under review".

 

And as to the rest, I don't think anyone is actually trying to downplay the difficulty of a moderator role on a forum, especially a forum that clearly has more stringent rules than the average forum. Which, appears to be paying off. I think the biggest issue is the ability to edit. As stated above, I think a lot of us are in agreement that we'd rather you remove the post altogether than to take a (sorry if this is offensive) dictatorial approach that you can edit whatever you want without any warning to the poster, besides it being stated in the "comment policy" thread. 

 

There appears to be an entire team of moderators, which can be a great thing. But that means that your responsibility goes beyond just editing whatever you want to edit. Part of the role of editing should be every post that gets edited is accompanied at the very least by a private message explanation. Certainly, at least, to a first time "offender". Otherwise it very much comes across as the moderators simply not agreeing with what you had to say and cleansing it to a more "acceptable" (in their eyes) post. You ask us to understand that you're people too and that your job is difficult. I think it's fair to ask the same in reverse. That we are also people posting our thoughts on this message board, often thought out and edited a few times before hitting the "post" button and it's only fair to think about our message before a post is instantly "cleaned up" to fit what you think is acceptable. 

 

Either way, I know you've already acknowledged that it's a deeper issue than was previously stated and I don't expect an immediate response to this. Thank you for acknowledging that some things may need to be discussed and I look forward to hearing what you guys have to say.  

First off, thanks for the input.

 

We're discussing this now. As it currently stands, there is no option of a moderation queue for a post where the user can edit their post after a moderator puts it on "hold" or whatever you call it. It's a feature we can consider adding in the future but for the time being, that option is off the table.

 

Second, I understand while some (maybe even most) of you prefer removing the post over an edit, there are going to be a lot of posters who get really mad at us the first time we remove a six paragraph long, 1,000 word missive because literally one word was against policy. By and large, our editing is reductive. We remove content - not alter, only remove - to keep the majority of a poster's statement live on the site and furthering discussion. In other words, we try to take a "don't throw the baby out with the bath water" approach when we feel appropriate.

 

There are no surefire solutions here. Wherever we land on this decision, it's going to irritate a significant portion of the forum. All I ask is that all of you keep that in mind before assuming that your preference is the board's preference or that there's a magic bullet solution that will make everyone happy.

[The_Phantom]

 

 

 

Second, I understand while some (maybe even most) of you prefer removing the post over an edit, there are going to be a lot of posters who get really mad at us the first time we remove a six paragraph long, 1,000 word missive because literally one word was against policy.

 

And that is a completely fair response. I agree with you that I would be mad in that situation. I think in a case like that, it's certainly acceptable and a reasonable concession of posters for you to be able to change an offending word in the post. So I would agree that it is better for you to have the ability to edit out select words/maybe even partial sentences without having to remove an entire post. It's only when it is enough removal that it risks changing the meaning or intention of the post that it is an issue, at least for me. If I had a surefire solution, I'd offer it. 

[PseudoSABR]

I'd also echo the "under review" approach.   Editing feels like an invasion of personal privacy. It happened to me in TD's nascent days.  I can also say deletion doesn't feel a whole lot better.   

 

Rather than editing or deleting. Perhaps blacking out TOS violating language, which would be subject to change upon review, would be less offensive, as it would indicate there was something there, and would also perhaps encourage the poster to delete it.   

A PM is certainly in order on an action taken.  

 

All that said, I'd rather see the mods attempting to remedy the situation than handing out warning points.  Typically they do a bang up job, but they are people, and perhaps occasionally throw out the baby with the bath water.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

So I would agree that it is better for you to have the ability to edit out select words/maybe even partial sentences without having to remove an entire post. It's only when it is enough removal that it risks changing the meaning or intention of the post that it is an issue, at least for me.

Sure, and I'm totally hearing you on this. But I posted an extreme use case (six paragraph post, one word edited). What if it's a two paragraph post and one sentence is outside our guidelines? What about two sentences in a 12 sentence post? Do we lose ten good sentences and remove two or lose all 12 sentences in one fell swoop?

 

I'm not arguing with you, I'm merely trying to point out the enormous grey area we face when moderating the board. The black and white choices are easy and few complain about those decisions... but there are at least a dozen grey area choices made by moderators every day this forum is busy, as it was during the Sano discussion.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I'd also echo the "under review" approach. 

This is the ideal solution but it's simply off the table right now. To even get this forum back to the standard I expect of a site I run, I literally have 400 hours of work to update, redesign, fix all the nagging bugs, and get the major site features up and running.

 

I want to have it done by the end of 2018 but even that is probably an unreasonable timeline given my personal life constraints.

 

And that simply isn't a possibility given how this site operates and what makes it so great. We don't have investors, we don't have milestones we need to reach for funding, we're just five guys who do all this **** for pennies on the hour because we love Twins baseball and we want to build a community that can enjoy it as much as we do.

[PseudoSABR]

 

This is the ideal solution but it's simply off the table right now. To even get this forum back to the standard I expect of a site I run, I literally have 400 hours of work to update, redesign, fix all the nagging bugs, and get the major site features up and running.

 

I want to have it done by the end of 2018 but even that is probably an unreasonable timeline given my personal life constraints.

 

And that simply isn't a possibility given how this site operates and what makes it so great. We don't have investors, we don't have milestones we need to reach for funding, we're just five guys who do all this **** for pennies on the hour because we love Twins baseball and we want to build a community that can enjoy it as much as we do.

We understand, Brock. Thanks for keeping us appraised about what's possible/practical. Good luck with the work, and while it should go unsaid, great job on the site!

[USAFChief]

As promised, the moderation team spent a few days considering this issue.  Although USAFChief is posting this, consider it a team response.

 

We would summarize by first separating the question of how the recent Sano thread was handled, from the more general issue of editing.

 

In most baseball discussion threads, we emphasize (among various things) staying on topic and not turning things overly personal. Matters of character or broad-reaching social issues reside better in the Sports Bar forum, if anywhere.The Sano thread was a bit of an outlier because the issue concerned current events for the team but also revolved around an aspect of the player's very character. The article itself stuck with factual items in the news, but it was natural for readers to want to go beyond that. In my view the discussion remained mostly constructive (even if people took positions along all points of certain spectrums, and even though it eventually went into a death spiral and was closed).

 

At a certain point one of the moderators issued a warning to get back to focusing on the thread topic. After that, some tangential posts were removed. As part of that, a paragraph pertaining to a removed post was edited out from The_Phantom's post. Shortly after that, we thought of what seemed like a better solution: move the thread out of the Twins forum and into the Sports Bar.

 

With hindsight, the latter solution would have removed the need for the first solution. But the intent wasn't to change anyone's meaning - it was to remove a part of a response that no longer had a context.

We all agree that when a post is edited and/or removed, communicating to the poster of such is a must, and we will all do better moving forward. We apologize that this did not happen with Phantom in this instance.

 

Conversely, we take great issue with the characterization offered in the initial post of this discussion, both with regard to the intent ("completely changes the tone, reasoning and overall point of a post") and the frequency ("A lot of it is happening").

 

Some of the moderators make it a personal policy not to edit, at all, ever. Some of the moderation team will continue to use the edit function.  For example, earlier in this thread Ashburyjohn laid out a few reasons why he considers editing to be a useful tool - kinder and more effective than either 1) deleting a post entirely, if a clean excision can be done instead, or 2) an in-thread warning or a note within the post that an edit was necessary, or 3) simply issuing a warning point to the member and moving on with one's day. (Note that sometimes those other techniques have their place.)

 

Bottom line...we don't all agree on the subject of editing.  We ended up about where we were before...some of us will edit, some of us won't.  But we'll make it a priority to always PM anyone who's post is edited, with at minimum an explanation.  

 

We appreciate the opportunity to clarify this aspect of our efforts here. And again, our apologies for the mis-step on that particular post.

[jimmer]

Just yesterday, I was asked to remove part of a post of mine. The ending part. I agreed with the moderator's reasoning for asking me to do it (even though the moderator agreed with what I said) and I did the edit. It was no big deal, and the moderator was very courteous.

 

In fact, the first few private messages back and forth between the moderator and I didn't even discuss whether or not the post should be edited. Only after talking some did the moderator look at it again, then asked me to edit.

[Mike Sixel]

Thanks for disucssing this. I am not a fan of editing. I really liked the black out idea....and then ask for an edit. Or something. But it's a bear of a job and somehow this site has stayed nice enough, yet still allows for disagreements. As always, thanks for being moderators.