Deletions

Discuss the talk-polywell site itself, including appearance, policies, and help-wanted requests from the administrators.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Deletions

Post by MSimon »

Joe does not allow me to do deletions. And I like to run things as much as possible so he is not bothered. So asking for deletions of off topic will not do any good.

I kind of like the digressions. Some folks like strict on topic. Ya can't please everyone. And who I aim to please is Joe.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

pfrit
Posts: 256
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:04 pm

Re: Deletions

Post by pfrit »

MSimon wrote:Joe does not allow me to do deletions. And I like to run things as much as possible so he is not bothered. So asking for deletions of off topic will not do any good.

I kind of like the digressions. Some folks like strict on topic. Ya can't please everyone. And who I aim to please is Joe.
Perhaps just counting on people to follow thread rules and proper etiquette could be enough. Change the sticky in the news forum to say something along the lines of "If a topic is labeled ON TOPIC ONLY: users should avoid adding posts that drift the conversation off-topic." We seem to be a reasonable bunch of guys normally. And rarely does the vituperation start with the first few posts. An occasional "stay on target" would probably work.
What is the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Re: Deletions

Post by MSimon »

pfrit wrote:
MSimon wrote:Joe does not allow me to do deletions. And I like to run things as much as possible so he is not bothered. So asking for deletions of off topic will not do any good.

I kind of like the digressions. Some folks like strict on topic. Ya can't please everyone. And who I aim to please is Joe.
Perhaps just counting on people to follow thread rules and proper etiquette could be enough. Change the sticky in the news forum to say something along the lines of "If a topic is labeled ON TOPIC ONLY: users should avoid adding posts that drift the conversation off-topic." We seem to be a reasonable bunch of guys normally. And rarely does the vituperation start with the first few posts. An occasional "stay on target" would probably work.
No one reads the stickys. And after the first 15 posts te reminder is on another page.

I agree with this:
An occasional "stay on target" would probably work.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

pfrit
Posts: 256
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:04 pm

Re: Deletions

Post by pfrit »

MSimon wrote:
pfrit wrote:
MSimon wrote:Joe does not allow me to do deletions. And I like to run things as much as possible so he is not bothered. So asking for deletions of off topic will not do any good.

I kind of like the digressions. Some folks like strict on topic. Ya can't please everyone. And who I aim to please is Joe.
Perhaps just counting on people to follow thread rules and proper etiquette could be enough. Change the sticky in the news forum to say something along the lines of "If a topic is labeled ON TOPIC ONLY: users should avoid adding posts that drift the conversation off-topic." We seem to be a reasonable bunch of guys normally. And rarely does the vituperation start with the first few posts. An occasional "stay on target" would probably work.
No one reads the stickys. And after the first 15 posts te reminder is on another page.

I agree with this:
An occasional "stay on target" would probably work.
OK, how about the convention of titleing the threads in the format "ON TOPIC ONLY:ITER Delays"
What is the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Post by MSimon »

pfrit,

That might work. It offends my sensibilities, but I really do very little around here except keep an eye on things.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

pfrit
Posts: 256
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:04 pm

Post by pfrit »

Now all we need to test the theory is a peice of news that would benefit from no topic drift. It has been a while since we had one...
What is the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

Betruger
Posts: 2321
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 11:54 am

Post by Betruger »

Let's see that supporting evidence for MSimon not being a neutral and objective mod.

BenTC
Posts: 410
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2009 4:54 am

Re: Deletions

Post by BenTC »

An occasional "stay on target" would probably work.
OK, how about the convention of titleing the threads in the format "ON TOPIC ONLY:ITER Delays"
Not my favourite idea. The index page would end up quite ugly. You can try it though. The popularity will be judged by those who post the articles. I find a little topic drift is useful, otherwise conversation can lose its dynamic. What is offtopic differs between people. The real problem is when drift occurs on top of drift, on top of drift. I prefer a friendly reminder from the post author or whoever feels irritated by the drift.

The ideal solution would be an offtopic-vote button, such that the poster of a comment can be nudged to voluntarily move the comment to new thread - but that would require significant mods to the software.

BenTC
Posts: 410
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2009 4:54 am

Post by BenTC »

On topic... I think that a policy of no-deletions makes the task of moderation easier. It can burn time and concience weighing up whether something is legitimately off-topic, and is more likely to burn someone's feelings and cascade into a flame war. Leave the deletions to something unsual, like a level of vulgarity that will get a user banned.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

How about moving off topic "sub- thread" posts to their own, new threads?
So if a thread drifts into a completely different topic (I have seen it happen and I dont mind it and it may have even been my fault at times), then one could just as well move these posts into their own thread. Then the mod should post a link to the new thread in the old thread. So people know where the off topic discussion now is.
I have seen this before on other boards. I think it would be a good compromise also, because people dont feel offended because "their posts " have been deleted and the main thread still stays somewhat on topic.

Betruger
Posts: 2321
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 11:54 am

Post by Betruger »

It wouldn't be comprehensive enough. Posts containing both on topic and off topic conversation would have to be tailored by hand, etc. The simplest solution would probably be color coding the posts. Or just their header where the post time stamp and subject are.
On topic content- no change, off topic some color, both on and off topic some other color. Users would be expected to color their posts themselves, reducing the sorting work per person to its minimum.

But that'd require forum software changes. Doesn't seem feasible. Especially not if only a few users want this and it's not really warranted anyway.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

It wouldn't be comprehensive enough.
How, the posts in question are moved and the moderator posts a link to the new thread with the kind request for people to continue their off topic talks there. I dont see how this can be incomprehensive... Also, as I mentioned, this is the way it is done in many other forums that I am reading and posting in.

Anyway, the ultimate decision is with Msimon and Joe anyway.

Aero
Posts: 1200
Joined: Mon Jun 30, 2008 4:36 am
Location: 92111

Post by Aero »

We could just start flame wars with those who's posts offend us.

Or we could take a poll to see what percentage of active members are offended by off topic posts.

Or someone could survey inactive members to see if they dropped out due to off topic posts.

Or we could just get used to it.

It often works well simply to point out that a post is off topic and asking the posting members to stay on topic.

I would vote that members stay on topic when posting in News, Theory or Design. Off topic posts on the other threads don't bother me much unless it is my own topic but that is just the NIH syndrome.
Aero

Betruger
Posts: 2321
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 11:54 am

Post by Betruger »

Skipjack wrote:
It wouldn't be comprehensive enough.
How, the posts in question are moved and the moderator posts a link to the new thread with the kind request for people to continue their off topic talks there. I dont see how this can be incomprehensive... Also, as I mentioned, this is the way it is done in many other forums that I am reading and posting in.

Anyway, the ultimate decision is with Msimon and Joe anyway.
Because too often the off topic and on topic stuff is related. Conversation would suffer because fragments would be missing. If you've got something like color coding, you can skim thru posts like you skim news feeds, instantly picking out what posts you're looking for, while keeping thread integrity intact. I think that's more comprehensive than fragmenting conversations because while it's best to split conversations within a thread that are truly apart, it's not at all adapted to interwoven topics.
It would be a different form of the old nested thread format. It would require less work from mods, and only require self discipline from users where instead of asking them to not go off topic, that they color their post appropriately.

Of course you could then just as well have users be disciplined enough to simply agree to move tangents to separate threads.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

Well, the moderators would have to react rather quickly, in order to avoid to many off topic posts already cluttering the thread.
Deletions would have the same effect on the original thread too though.
Colorcoding seems very complicated because you would still get "mixed" posts (refering to on and off topic posts) and how would you colorcode those?

Post Reply