Timeline for Removal of answer content by moderator --- edit detracts from the answer
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 30, 2021 at 6:19 | comment | added | Ben | Let us continue this discussion in chat. | |
| Jun 30, 2021 at 4:40 | comment | added | Ben | That is really one of the problems here.; if you say, "X might or might not be racist; seek more information" you have people on here say "you are excusing racist behaviour and are therefore ipso facto being rude and abusive to anyone who asserts that this behaviour is racist". That attitude forcloses any analysis of the subject and replaces it with smears. | |
| Jun 30, 2021 at 4:38 | comment | added | Ben | It did not excuse anything; it merely asked for a deeper inquiry into the reasoning of an anti-migrant sentiment (and explicitly noted that this might or might not have a racist basis on further inquiry). Nothing in the answer was remotely rude or abusive to OP. | |
| Jun 30, 2021 at 3:10 | comment | added | Bryan Krause Mod | @Ben I wasn't one of the flaggers, but yeah, I found your answer pretty rude and abusive, as it excuses a whole thread of racist behavior as somehow justified. I think it was charitable by the mods to consider it merely off-topic, and to edit by removing the (in my view) rude and abusive parts and letting the rest remain. | |
| Jun 30, 2021 at 0:15 | comment | added | Ben | The stated reason for the edit was that the answer was (found to be) off-topic; not rude or abusive. I'm not sure why people are asserting that. | |
| Jun 30, 2021 at 0:09 | comment | added | Bryan Krause Mod | @Ben I stand by it. I think you chose to read in something that wasn't said: to interpret "4 flags indicate your answer is problematic" (personally as a mod I don't think I have ever seen 4 flags on one post except for explicit spam) to mean "we don't review the validity of the flags and just count them". You can assert as much as you want that your answer wasn't rude or abusive, some people in the community thought otherwise and flagged as such, and the mods agreed the answer needed to be edited to stand. | |
| Jun 30, 2021 at 0:09 | comment | added | Ben | @BryanKrause: With regard to me focussing on that part, we naturally comment on parts of an answer we are concerned about, not the parts that are fine. I doubt you go through answers and write lots of comments about all the parts of the answer that raise no concerns to you. | |
| Jun 30, 2021 at 0:04 | comment | added | Ben | @BryanKrause: They are fine as far as it goes. If moderators look at things as a group, great. If they try to salvage the part of the answer not in dispute, also great. If the moderators tell you that the occurrance of multiple flags clearly indicates that the answer is problematic (and you take them at their word that this is what they do in deciding on the response) then that undermines the other two aspects of the process. Okay, I've answered your question; now, what do you think of calling someone disingenuous for taking moderators at their word in their description of the process? | |
| Jun 29, 2021 at 23:58 | comment | added | Bryan Krause Mod | @Ben What do you think of Massimo's first paragraph (and the third), and how that relates to your interpretation of the later sentence? | |
| Jun 29, 2021 at 23:40 | comment | added | Ben | @BryanKrause: That is a really unfair comment; I am surely entitled to assume that people mean what they say. If Massimo was indeed misdescribing the process then that is a fault in his answer, not a fault in my interpretation. To say that I am disingenuous to believe that he means what he said is totally unfair. The reactions to my complaint on Meta (which moderators suggest you raise in these cases) are really nasty stuff, and very disappointing. | |
| Jun 28, 2021 at 17:12 | comment | added | Bryan Krause Mod | I think Massimo was just a bit imprecise in the wording and was intending to convey that this number of flags is incredibly unusual and indicates a likely problem, not to imply that moderators don't also consider the validity of the flags and content of the post. Focusing on that sentence and ignoring the rest of this answer seems disingenuous. | |
| Jun 27, 2021 at 23:30 | comment | added | Ben | @jakebeal: In the present post, the moderator explicitly states, "The number and type of flags clearly indicate that your answer is problematic and not up to the standards of the site and the code of conduct." So this contradicts the view that moderators independently decide the matter; it is an explicit statement that the flags prove that the answer is problematic/not up to standard. | |
| Jun 27, 2021 at 17:00 | comment | added | jakebeal | @Ben I'm not a moderator, so they should feel free to correct me, but my understanding of the process goes like this: (1) Flags draw the attention of moderators, (2) Multiple flags indicate a situation worth the moderators discussing as a team rather than simply resolving individually, (3) The moderators then independently decide what to do about it, regardless of the nature of the flags or the opinion of the writer. You seem to be interpreting flags as votes, when they are not (except in the special case of spam). | |
| Jun 27, 2021 at 16:18 | comment | added | Ben | @Massimo: If you take a totally subjective view of what is rude then that is literally the heckler's veto. Anyone can flag a post as rude/abusive and if you are unwilling to engage in an objective analysis of that claim then that is a veto anytime a sufficient number of users choose to flag an answer. Deletion of an answer then becomes purely a popularity contest. | |
| Jun 27, 2021 at 16:16 | comment | added | Massimo Ortolano Mod | @Ben As I wrote, we had an internal discussion. Flags are indeed a way to indicate possible issues in answers and questions. They exist exactly for this purpose. For you, there may be nothing rude or abusive in your answer, for others there may clearly be. Since no one but the OP has witnessed those actions, disputing their characterization without enough ground can be considered rude. | |
| Jun 27, 2021 at 15:14 | comment | added | Ben | Nothing in the answer disputes anything witnessed by the OP; it takes this at face value. What the answer disputes is the characterisation of actions by the OP. Saying that this is rude is censorious, and non-scholarly; academics should have the ability to challenge subjective characterisations of actions in a question. | |
| Jun 27, 2021 at 15:11 | comment | added | Ben | Mere flags do not show that an answer is flawed. There is clearly nothing rude/abusive in the post, so flags that assert that are highly dubious. You seem to be giving a "heckler's veto" based on whoever is willing to flag posts. | |
| Jun 27, 2021 at 12:16 | comment | added | GoodDeeds | I see, thanks.. | |
| Jun 27, 2021 at 12:15 | comment | added | Massimo Ortolano Mod | @GoodDeeds Anyone can flag, but few do and an answer with four flags is a rare event. Simply controversial answers are usually just downvoted, not flagged. | |
| Jun 27, 2021 at 11:29 | comment | added | GoodDeeds | I agree with most of this answer, but I am curious why the number of flags raised is relevant to the suitability of a post. Since almost anyone can flag a post, isn't it more an indication of the controversial nature of the post, without necessarily being an indication of quality? | |
| Jun 27, 2021 at 10:58 | history | answered | Massimo OrtolanoMod | CC BY-SA 4.0 |