37
votes
Should we have a small description for why a removed comment was removed?
It would be nice to give some context to removed comments so people can see what happened without seeing the offensive comment. I never really liked it on Reddit where when a comment was removed by a mod, you had no idea why. It would be nice for fellow curious people maybe. What are your thoughts?
it's a good idea that unfortunately, is very hard to implement in a practical way that doesn't introduce a host of issues that are a pain in the ass to deal with. the biggest limiting factor is that doing this takes manpower for one thing, so you have to consider that. the biggest outright problem with opening up these sorts of features is that in the future--when tildes is larger and has a bigger mod base than just deimos and people who fix tags and titles--it's going to be inconsistent because different people remove things for different reasons using different explanations, and people are inevitably going to bitch and be assholes about it.
if factors like that can be mitigated, it'd be worthwhile to implement--but finding a way to mitigate that is hard and takes time, so while this is a good idea, i think it's going to require a lot of collaboration and debate and experimentation before i think it'd be smart to make it a feature of the website.
If it's implemented, it'd be nice to standardize the reasons and have the people doing the removals select them from a list. I imagine there'd be sitewide standards/reasons and specific ones set up per group based on the content of that group. At least that would cut down on the inconsistencies.
To play devil's advocate: mods on social media websites normally aren't formally trained personnel. While I really like what you said and agree with it, I do think @alyaza is right. It would become a bad land scenario very easily with comments being removed for hundreds of different reasons.
Just like on reddit, with all the associated drama. Of course, reddit doesn't even offer anything like a 'guide to moderating' to help out either.
https://www.reddit.com/wiki/moderation
https://www.reddit.com/wiki/moddiquette
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/
edit: https://mods.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us
Yup, like I said, reddit's got nothing to help folks become good mods. That's complete corporate-friendly stereo-instruction level bullshit. Thanks for proving my point. <3
I love this mentality. We talked about this in the discussions about mod logs and reporting as well. As the trust level rises, more and more of the mod/editor/admin information becomes visible to people, and eventually, they get access to the controls themselves and become the mods/editors.
The best part of this is that the trust system is operating per-group, so you will only get in on this information in the places where you participate. That means, in this particular case, you wouldn't be seeing all the drama-inducing aspects of removals until you are a real member of that community. I think that would greatly lessen the drama-generating aspects because by then, folks seeing it are used to the norms for that group. They have to be, to get to those trust levels. There shouldn't be any drama there unless it's a mod going off half-cocked, and then there should be drama as that needs to be dealt with.
That'll keep the community members themselves aware of the goings on (and able to offer feedback/guarantee transparency) without most users being dragged into the dramamill. The number of highly trusted people in an given group is going to be much smaller than the number of people who are subscribed to that group.
How does it benefit you to know that a comment was removed because of racist content, or because someone was trolling? You can't see the comment itself, so it's not like you can learn from other people's mistakes. You'll just see "removed for racism" or "removed for trolling". What's the point of providing that information to you? What do you gain from that?
You don't need to know the exact comment to get context. Some people are curious. If a comment is removed and it for some reason generates interesting discussion, you'll have no idea what the discussion was based off of if there's nothing left of the original comment. It also adds to the overall transparency of the site, which I think is a good thing.
But you still won't have any idea. You won't see the content of the removed comment. There won't be anything left of the original comment.
You'll see only a placeholder saying something like "removed for racism". That's all. You won't know what was racist about it, and you won't know whether it was a single line saying "fucken boongs are stupid" or whether it was a 20-paragraph long academic essay with the word "nigger" included as part of a serious quotation. What will you learn about the removed comment by seeing "removed for racism"?
I've moderated a few subreddits over the years, and I've observed that posting a mod-comment when removing a comment can actually inflame the situation rather than calming things down. Particularly in one high-profile subreddit I used to moderate, leaving a mod-comment saying "Removed for breaking rule against X" was like a red rag to a bull. It was an opportunity for people to:
Complain that the moderation of the subreddit was too strict.
Ask in what way the removed comment broke the relevant rule.
Demand to see the removed comment anyway, because people should be able to see it and judge it for themselves.
Leaving a mod-comment just gave people an opportunity to air their complaints, rather than reassuring them.
I have a tendency to be the most visible moderator on any mod team, because I'm more likely to leave a mod-comment when removing a comment, while my fellow mods would tend to just remove comments silently. People even assumed I was removing more comments than other mods, just because my mod-comments were visible while noone saw the silent removals. And, as a visible moderator, I endured a lot of abuse and attacks. Mod-comments just attracted the malcontents.
This was in /r/AskHistorians, where the culture was very well publicised and widely known. And, even back then, we had nearly quarter of a million subscribers. Because of the high-profile nature of the subreddit, it continually attracted a lot of newcomers, who all had to be taught the culture. We were doing Eternal September every day. And that's not counting the people who came there with an agenda to cause trouble.
I also moderate /r/DaystromInstitute, where the culture is more like what you're describing. But high-profile subreddits with mass appeal (rather than niche geek-oriented subreddits like thine and mine) have different problems.
You're absolutely right - what you described is textbook for what happens in listentothis when comments get removed, or we post stickies with the rules. I'm not sure why or how it happened, but we have a slight edge - the votes usually have the moderator's backs in listentothis. Our mod comments get the red cross of controversiality, but they tend to get voted above the people bitching about 'evil mod censorship' most of the time, and we still get 'good mods' comments. We usually just ignore the bitching posts (or remove them directly if they are really hostile, which automod usually nails for us instantly).
I'd like to think that here on Tildes with the moderator club being a more organic, large, and participation-selected set of the group's own users that it'll end up being that much harder to attack them. It's one thing on reddit to hassle a mod team of ten people that have a deadlock they didn't 'earn' on a group that has fifteen million subscribers. It's quite another to hassle the core ten-plus thousand people who earned that power by using it well in a group that size on Tildes, if we ever get there. If that doesn't make a difference it'll destroy my faith in humanity a little bit.
I mean, it could still go to shit, but I think we're on the right track to making it work better here. I think, though, maybe we need to get rid of the word 'moderator' and call people something else. Editors, janitors, bailiffs, ombudsmen, I don't know. I think losing the 'mod' word might help people think about it differently, and since we'll likely have different roles for people at different trust levels, it might help make people more aware that there are more 'roles' at play than just 'the asshat mod who deletes my comments'.
I totally agree. And you left "curators" off the list.
I think we should have different names for different types of abilities. For example, moving topics to different groups and editing tags could be considered content curation. Changing titles and URLs could be considered editorial work. Removing comments (if & when that ability exists) could be considered civility enforcement. And so on. Rather than having one "moderator" role, we have a variety of roles which each focus on different aspects of keeping the site tidy and running (of course, some people may have multiple roles: they may be an editor and an enforcer, for example).
I did, and usually that's the first word I jump to. :P
I also like thinking of this as a 'separation of powers' mechanic. That's a good proven methodology, and I've known mods who were phenomenal at some things while being absolute rat-bastards with others. The one guy we ever had to kick off the listentothis team was the best spam-buster I've ever seen, but he was antisocial as hell and couldn't talk to people in modmail without offending them.
Several clearly defined roles would help us get the best out of people like that, and also could go a long way towards keeping teams able to check each other's abuses of power. I don't have any kind of well thought out framework for this yet but I'm sure it bears some serious investigation. I get excited just thinking about it. :D
The culture here holds people accountable for their quality of engagement and quality of ideas.
I love this fact but as an impulsive person who doesn't mind playing devils advocate for contrary ideas I often see instances of me failing to convey what I see as my "true meaning" and being misinterpreted.
For example, putting forth a controversial argument just to "work it out" but failing thus seeming like a hateful person.
I wouldn't mind the opportunity the justify myself.
Beyond me personally, sometimes we just get into fights that we either aren't prepared for or are failing in. If what is said doesn't even truly convey your mindset and isn't productive, I think it's okay to delete that.
There's a lot of reasons why you might want to take something down but when seen, it's hard to not imagine the worst.
I think this is worth considering.
I was thinking more it would be for when a mod deletes a post instead of when the commenter deletes their own post.
Oh, well then.
In a hypothetical arguments where feelings are heated and something needs to be removed I'm not sure it would be best to "editorialize" the specifics.
Best to let the offender calm down rather than them seeing their "wrongdoing" labeled as such.