27
votes
Why are no reasons given when (or even better before) removing a post?
Posted an WaPo article about "big food" paying dietitians / influencers to make let's say dubious claims about processed food with high sugar content. Discussion was healthy imho, so I really wonder why it got removed.
There were a lot of HAES-related threads that went off the rails in the past (back around the fallout of the r/FPH stuff), and I think Deimos is understandably not super enthusiastic about moderating yet another similar fiasco - but it was definitely a bit more preemptive of an action than usual this time.
It’s not a personal affront to your post at all, so please don’t feel like you did anything wrong.
Yeah, sorry @bj-rn - I'm fairly busy at work today, multiple Malice labels were starting to get thrown around in there in quick succession, and a quick glance at the thread showed that it was already starting to go in a direction that's repeatedly ended up going very, very poorly in the past if people had a chance to continue escalating the arguments with each other. The topic/article itself was totally fine, but the comments tend to turn into a mess where everyone involved ends up angry.
So I just shut it down, but didn't have the time to post an explanation along with doing that. I do usually try to post an explanation, but I can't always depending on what time it is, where I am, etc.
I don't think I said anything malicious but I definitely can see my comment helping to push the conversation in the direction of a HAES debate. I'm sorry if I helped contribute to the issues.
Thanks for the feedback.
I just wanted to chime in that even though long time Tildes users all obviously love Deimos and are very quick to come to his defense, it also doesn't mean that all these people thought you were doing anything wrong at all -- and that (if I may presume) we would all love it if you continued to submit topics and spark conversations. :)
It's more like, you brought cookies to a potluck and we all got super excited and climbed over ourselves to get one, and then the tray got tipped over in our collective excitement, not that your bringing cookies was why it got tipped.
Wow, Tildes has been around that long? The FPH culling happened like 7 or 8 years ago!
Not quite. Tildes will turn 6 years old on April 26. But Deimos was an Admin on reddit for a loooong time before he made Tildes, and a moderator for several large subreddits even before that, so he knows first-hand how toxic HAES vs "Calorie in, Calorie out" type diet discussions/debates can get. And worth noting is also that several similar topics about diet and weight loss have had to be locked here on Tildes over the years for similar reasons, so we're not completely immune from such topics devolving here either, which is likely why it was preemptively removed.
Edit: Looking at the topic, it appeared to already be getting a bit heated and contentious in places so I can definitely understand Deimos not wanting to deal with moderating it... especially on a
WednesdayThursday. ;)That would be impressive to do considering it's Thursday!
/joke
🤦 I am so bad at keeping track of which day it is. LOL... Though my point was just that it's a weekday, and he has a full-time job. And nobody in their right mind wants to be dealing with moderating contentious topics like that on a work day.
its okay, I literally panicked because I just want the week to be over and having another day would have destroyed my mental, haha
Reasons are never given because it opens up discussions that lead nowhere.
The lone administrator has better things to do than discuss removal/ban appeals that almost always turn out warranted anyway.
Often the entire thread is purged even if it's just one comment that crossed the line. Similar reasons, people will start to speculate what happened or discuss whether or not it was warranted.
And maybe sometimes it isn't, but I've certainly never stopped to care and most others don't either. Or at least not by derailing the topic.
This moderating style is effective, if a bit heavy handed. It only works because Deimos is consistent and doesn't seem to be very partisan. A less benevolent person in that position could use that same power to damage the discourse.
Yeah I generally don't dwell on the posts getting shut down too much, understanding it all comes down to one person controlling the site means you either accept it is what it is or you just aren't going to be happy with the way the site operates. I would say it has its downsides, it does seem to make outrage an easy way to shut down conversations. A few malice labels and some testy exchanges and its all over for everyone, even if only a few people were the ones that had the problem. But again, it is what it is, this site just isn't good for that type of conversation because there's not a more directed moderation and it's better to just accept that's the limitations.
As somebody who reads the site through RSS, I think it would be helpful if deleted posts had a brief note explaining what the problem was.
How did you get an RSS feed of Tildes?
Tildes has RSS feeds built into it. Main page:
https://tildes.net/topics.rss
Or ones for every individual group if you prefer:
https://tildes.net/~anime/topics.rss
https://tildes.net/~arts/topics.rss
https://tildes.net/~books/topics.rss
https://tildes.net/~comics/topics.rss
Etc.
Wow, thanks! Last time I searched for this I only managed to find a feature request, didn't know it's already implemented.
That's awesome, now I won't have to mindlessly check Tildes all the time
Oh, whoops. It looks like we forgot to close the RSS feature request issue when it got implemented by @talklittle. Fixed! :P
Just to add, Deimos is the only moderator. He works full time.
I'm a lawyer and I have gotten used to living with decisions by overworked judges that are made simply for efficiency and speed.
Hehe. Came to defend Deimos. Mission already politely delicately wonderfully accomplished. This community rules.