# Removal of threads in CD



## geve

[The part in purple is a repetition of a post I had posted in a now closed thread; I realize I should have started my own thread from the beginning, this might be the reason why my question wasn't adressed. But now that I've let the question out, I feel compelled to ask again...] 

I wonder about threads that are removed from the forums after they have stayed for a while and got a few replies. 

I can think of two specific examples of threads in CD, where I wasn't able to figure out why they were deleted. Since they were deleted the hard way, there was no convenient note from the mod that would have explained it ("I deleted it because I hate you muahahaha" or something alike )

There was a thread about the World Jump Day; and one on chain letters. There had been a few replies to both threads (even from forer@s-mods ), the one on the WJD had even been running for a couple of days, and really I don't see how they didn't fit here.
Maybe these threads were of little interest, it is your call to judge. But why weren't they closed (in which case generally one of you leaves a closing post for everyone to see), or even deleted (the "soft" way, ie. leaving a note with the reason for deletion)? 
What's the difference between those threads and those that are simply closed? 
How do we know what was so wrong with them that they deserved to vanish from the forums in a kind of "this-thread-never-existed-you-can't-prove-it-you-must-have-dreamt-it" way? (here come the men in black... )


Just to make it clear (in case lack of clarity was the reason I didn't get an answer in the first place):
- My question is not about whether these two particular threads were appropriate on this forum; it's about the way they were dealt with (especially considering they were not particularly heated threads compared to some topics we've had!)
- It's not about threads that are blatant spam, or completely outside the scope of the forums, or ignoring the rules, or poorly phrased, and that are removed before I even can see them; it's about threads that might ot might not be in the scope of the forums according to one's perspective, and had been considered fine at first (so I can only guess that it was something in the discussion that caused the removal)
- Also, note that my thread title names specifically CD threads - I know the CD forum is no piece of cake to manage, since more subjectivity is involved.

Sorry for the long post - but I don't want any misunderstanding to arise because of a lack of clarity. 

I don't think this needs to be controversial; it is really a question about practices. No reason to fly off the handle.


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## cuchuflete

Hi Geve,

I had a look at the WJD thread...it was posted while I was away, so I hadn't seen it before, and had no pre-conceived ideas about it.

It looks like it was started, whether in jest or seriously we may never know, by a highly respected member of the forums.  The topic was a little fluffy, but it was a lively and interesting conversation.  That conversation included a member who also happens to be a mod.

After a while, a mod discovered that the entire World Jump Day matter was just a hoax.  The thread was then deleted.

There was apparently no point to leaving an honest and sincere conversation in the forum when it turned out that the basis for the conversation was a prank and a falsehood.  

I suppose the whole thing might have been merged with the jokes thread, but the vB software would have mixed the posts by day and time of posting.


I'll see what I can learn about the other one.


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## geve

cuchuflete said:


> There was apparently no point to leaving an honest and sincere conversation in the forum when it turned out that the basis for the conversation was a prank and a falsehood.


I guess that's where we differ then. I understand the need to close the thread, because it might have drifted to discuss hoaxes (or that particular form of hoax, since -if I remember correctly- the point of this hoax was to prove the power of the internet media); I'm not sure I understand the need to remove the discussion...

(For the other one, search with "sourdough" - I remember I had looked up this word in the dictionary )


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## cuchuflete

Thanks Geve,
As I said, I am speculating after the fact.  I'll be sure the mod who removed the post has a look at this thread, if he or she hasn't already done so.  There is always the opportunity to consider another viewpoint.  

Off to hunt for sourdough!

c.


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## zebedee

Hello there,

I wasn't the mod who deleted those 2 threads so my two chocolate coins here are to try to explain my criteria for dealing with threads in the CD.

As you say, CD is no piece of cake to moderate. We - the CD mods - did a lot of brainstorming over a long period of time before we came up with a series of guidelines to help foreros as to what fits or doesn't fit in. They're here.

 But I see your question isn't really about what fits in but rather about methods of dealing with threads.

I just looked up the chain letters thread, and I see it was opened at 00:36am my time and closed at 04:06am. I was happily snoring at the time!  If I'd been online would I have closed it with an explanatory note or instead would I have taken the thread away? I don't know. I could easily have done either. If I do take a thread away I always PM the thread starter to explain to him or her why their thread's been taken away but I guess the posters who have posted in that thread don't get that explanation. So from now on I'll try to close more than take away threads.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to give this issue a think!


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## geve

Thanks for taking the time to give it a think! 

In the thread where I first posted about this, someone with a flower in their avatar said something about threads that _add value_ to the forums. As you must have guessed from my prior posts, I would be in favour of closing (rather than removing) threads that don't _devalue_ the forums (and I'm thinking _threads_ here, not just opening posts). But there might be constraints that I don't know of and that make this impractical.


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## Bonjules

Thanks for bringing this up again, Geve.
I have complained about threads  vanishing into thin air before
and never got a good explanation for it.
If a thread is monitored well, I do not ever see a good reason
for permanently depriving everybody of the content later.
The decision to allow a post/thread needs to be made at the time
it appears, not after.


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## cuchuflete

Bonjules said:


> I have complained about threads  vanishing into thin air before
> and never got a good explanation for it.
> If a thread is monitored well, I do not ever see a good reason
> for permanently depriving everybody of the content later.
> The decision to allow a post/thread needs to be made at the time
> it appears, not after.



Well, I guess you want a forum in which all threads are pre-moderated.  We can turn that on for CD, and have discussed the possibility.

The decision to allow a post/thread is often made when a moderator returns from such quotidian activities as eating and sleeping, buying groceries, walking the dog....

We are not nearly numerous enough {or sufficiently insane?}  to stare at the screen 24x7, waiting to review every new thread that appears.
When we are here, we mostly like to be foreros, and _also_ scan as many threads and posts as we can, in case they need attention.  

While mods are asleep, out for illness or vacation or family time, some threads get started that are outside the forum's scope, and some of them attract replies.   I see no "deprivation" in removing such content.  I suspect that if you were to see some of the vile obscenities, spam, personal vendettas, and fluffy nonsense we have removed, you wouldn't feel especially deprived either.  Some of the removed threads are illegal.  We are not going to leave such things for casual browsers to glance at.


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## maxiogee

Bonjules said:


> If a thread is monitored well, I do not ever see a good reason
> for permanently depriving everybody of the content later.
> The decision to allow a post/thread needs to be made at the time
> it appears, not after.



Just how much work do you expect the volunteer fire-brigade to do here?

I can't believe you wrote that.
There are four moderators in the Cultural Discussions forum - more than enough as I see it, but you would appear to want one or more of them to be always on duty, reading every post as it appears —> good grief have you any idea of the traffic here?

Here's a wee exercise for you.
The "Additional Forums" page shows the following details for the Cultural Duscussion sub-forum at 11:13 today

.....Forum.........................Threads...........Posts
Cultural Discussions...............3,145.........75,366

I suggest that you have a look at that in a day or two, and don't forget to add in the number of posts which have been deleted in the meantime!


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## GenJen54

Cuchuflete said:
			
		

> The decision to allow a post/thread is often made when a moderator returns from such quotidian activities as eating and sleeping, buying groceries, walking the dog....


And don't forget the time some of us must spend actually earning a living, since our Mod time here is *voluntary*.

Back to the question at hand.  I was the one who deleted both of those threads.  In general, the way I look at it is follows:

If a thread in CD is getting out of hand, too far-gone off-topic, or otherwise not following the "spirit" of CD, then that thread is closed.

If a thread, from its start, is violating what is deemed acceptable in CD (i.e. thread invites list, promotes, chat, asks for comments about literary criticism, etc.), I remove the thread altogether.  Why should a thread that is "out of the scope" of the forum remain there?  In my opinion, it shouldn't.

The person who started the thread is sent a PM letting them know their thread was removed, and are given an explanation for its removal.

It's pretty simple to me:  If it belongs, it stays.  If it doesn't belong, it doesn't stay.  Why clutter up the forum with threads that don't belong there in the first place?


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## cuchuflete

> Why should a thread that is "out of the scope" of the forum remain there?  In my opinion, it shouldn't.





> Why clutter up the forum with threads that don't belong there in the first place?


Nicely stated, GenJen!

We have at least two schools of thought here, GenJen's, which I heartily embrace, and that of people who have had threads or posts deleted.  As I understand the latter, the fact that someone has gone to the trouble of writing something makes that something worthy of remaining visible in the forums, whether or not the thread in which it appears happens to be within the scope of the forums.  I disagree.

Signing on, I first check reported posts.  That often leads me to English Only forum threads in French, Spanish or some other language.  These are easily moved, with an explanatory post, to the appropriate multilingual forum.  They were misplaced, but "deserve" to remain visible.

Next come the new threads, some with two or three replies, that are a clear violation of forum guidelines.  I just saw one of these that a fellow mod had pulled out of Cultural Discussions.  It was a brief and pointed howl resulting from a forero's unhappy experience with a commercial establishment.
Another forero had made a friendly, jocular comment.  Neither post was trollish, spammy, obscene, or in violation of the provisions of the Geneva Convention.  Neither post had anything to do with the purposes of the WR forums.  A moderator made a quiet display of common sense, and removed them.  

Yes, we could lock down such things, and leave them for the idle curiosity of people who come looking for something else, thus wasting people's time.  It might make some of those who posted feel good.  But it would be clutter.  Maintaining a public archive of such stuff is not part of our mission.


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## geve

cuchuflete said:


> We have at least two schools of thought here, GenJen's, which I heartily embrace, and that of people who have had threads or posts deleted. As I understand the latter, the fact that someone has gone to the trouble of writing something makes that something worthy of remaining visible in the forums, whether or not the thread in which it appears happens to be within the scope of the forums. I disagree.


I disagree with that too, Cuchu, as I thought I had stated clearly in my first post. 

I must indeed belong to a third school. I had no threads removed, my intent when opening this thread was not to "get my posts back" or question the legitimacy of threads as I said earlier. I am just a curious forera (you are welcome to read "curious" as pleases you) inquiring about ways of doing - not about the general principles of the forums, not about the rules, not even about the moderating staff's prerogatives! 

I have to say I have difficulties with the expression "worthy of remaining visible in the forums". There's an innumerable amount of threads that aren't worthy of remaining visible "IMVHO"  but that's not the point.
In language forums the worth of threads can be evaluated with what they bring to the dictionaries; but in the cultural one? How do you evaluate worthiness? It involves a bit of subjectivity, alas. Which means that there will always be members who'll argue endlessly to prove that their thread was legitimate, and which can explain that the moderating team is on its guard when the topic of deleted threads is brought up. So let me say it once more: I trust the mods to do a good job to evaluate what threads should remain opened for discussion and what threads shouldn't. Someone has to make decisions, and it's an ungrateful job.



GenJen54 said:


> If a thread in CD is getting out of hand, too far-gone off-topic, or otherwise not following the "spirit" of CD, then that thread is closed.
> 
> If a thread, from its start, is violating what is deemed acceptable in CD (i.e. thread invites list, promotes, chat, asks for comments about literary criticism, etc.), I remove the thread altogether. Why should a thread that is "out of the scope" of the forum remain there? In my opinion, it shouldn't.


As I said in my first post, I totally agree with that (though sometimes even threads of this kind are simply closed and left visible on the forums, eg. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). I am not speaking about this kind of threads. As I wrote earlier:


geve said:


> - It's not about threads that are blatant spam, or completely outside the scope of the forums, or ignoring the rules, or poorly phrased, and that are removed before I even can see them; it's about threads that might ot might not be in the scope of the forums according to one's perspective, and had been considered fine at first (so I can only guess that it was something in the discussion that caused the removal)


Once again, please please please don't see this as an attack on your moderating work, but I am just left clueless when threads (threads where a real discussion had started, threads that were in the scope of the forum or very close to the border of it in any case, threads that maybe didn't add much value to the forum but didn't harm it either) simply vanish in the depths of the forums with no apparent reason - which doesn't mean that there isn't one, but how could I know?

Of course, I could give way to complete paranoia and start making local copies of every thread I participate in or am interested in, just-in-case


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## Bonjules

maxiogee said:


> There are four moderators in the Cultural Discussions forum - more than enough as I see it, but you would appear to want one or more of them to be always on duty, reading every post as it appears —> good grief have you any idea of the traffic here


 
Same point cuchu made, and GenJen - well taken. We all appreciate the tremendous time and effort the mods make to help keep this place going; I certainly would not want to interfere with essential  functions, walking the dog or have anything seriously disrupt their lives.
 I also admit that despite good communication between them and a system of 'covering' for each other which I'm sure they must have established, it will not always be possible to have atc coverage or would be jstified to expect.
 But I also feel there is a 'duty of care' towards those who have participated and have a reasonable expectation that the content of their
or other's thought will be around (again, not talking about illegal,spam, grossly inppropriate etc..).
 The longer a thread is allowed, the more reasonable - I believe- is the
expectation that it will be there for a while, albeit poosibly closed.
That is all I am saying, along with quite a few others, as it seems.
To later - sometimes significantly later - delete the whole thing
seems arbitrary and is extremely frustrating.


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## TrentinaNE

Bonjules said:


> To later - sometimes significantly later - delete the whole thing seems arbitrary and is extremely frustrating.


And as we've seen from this thread, seems to happen extremely *in*frequently and almost never outside of CD. 

I think all the mods have learned some valuable tips about forer@ perceptions from this discussion. I know I have.   

Elisabetta


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## cuchuflete

Bonjules said:


> .
> But I also feel there is a 'duty of care' towards those who have participated and have a reasonable expectation that the content of their or other's thought will be around.
> 
> The longer a thread is allowed, the more reasonable - I believe- is the expectation that it will be there for a while, albeit poosibly closed.
> 
> 
> That is all I am saying, along with quite a few others, as it seems. To later - sometimes significantly later - delete the whole thing seems arbitrary and is extremely frustrating.



Very good points!

Geve gave 9 examples of closed threads, all still visible.  7 of them were closed, fortuitously, before there were any replies.
That's the ideal for inoffensive, yet out-of-scope, topics. We generally try to do it that way.  By leaving research and other questions in that form, those generous souls who may wish to offer help can do so by PM.

One of the 9 had quite a few replies.  In hindsight, it might have been better to remove it, but its continued existence seems to meet the "does no harm" standard.

Of course the entire topic is replete with the subjectivity Geve mentioned.   For nearly two years, CD suffered a pendular motion between weeks of mostly serious conversations spiced with what we came to call phluph (fluff in standard English), and periods in which the collective intellectual and cultural weight of new threads wouldn't lift a bag of beetles on a see-saw.  The mods for that forum finally crafted a pretty straightforward code, to get past the somewhat arbitary, but cohesive, standards previously used to decide what did and didn't belong.  

The "Read before posting" thread goes mostly unread, which is fine for most members of the community, who have spent enough time in the forums to have a good intuitive sense of what 'fits'.  Newbies and a few others will always ask homework and travel research questions, or request a list of favorite somethings.  That's a manageable problem.  The threads can be closed and/or removed.

The difficulty comes from those who would never start such threads, knowing, by the seat of the pants or other means, that the thread doesn't belong, but who are often quick to post an answer to such misplaced topics.  I've done it myself more than once, only to feel very embarassed when a CD mod deleted the thread!

In the language forums, people are quick to click the red triangle, to alert the mods that a thread has been started that doesn't belong in a forum.  I've never seen such warnings from foreros regarding CD threads.  So sometimes the mods arrive after the thread has attracted some replies.  That can create the dilemma Bonjoules stated so clearly...the reasonable expectation that the content....will be around. 

I'm not sure that there is a single 'right' answer to this.

A piece of the solution is to enlarge the mod team--always under discussion--so that problem threads can be spotted and dealt with more quickly (and consistently!). 

We could post a permanent, bold, ugly, hard-to-hide-from, announcement:  No research, No lists.... but that would probably escape attention just as all rules and regulations seem to, and it would be ugly. 

What else do you think would be helpful?


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## GenJen54

Here's another question to ponder, and one which sometimes aids in the decision to "delete" threads.

Would you rather have a "public" closing of your thread, with moderator comments out there for the entire world to see (especially if you are new and learning the ropes), or would you choose to have a thread deleted, then be told about it privately, sparing you a certain amount of potential embarrassment?


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## Bonjules

GenJen said:
			
		

> Would you rather have a "public" closing of your thread, with moderator comments out there for the entire world to see (especially if you are new and learning the ropes), or would you choose to have a thread deleted, then be told about it privately, sparing you a certain amount of potential embarrassment?


 
In terms of a learning process for everybody, GenJen, the first
option would seem beneficial. The comments could be made in
a gentle, non-offensive fashion, couldn't they?


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## Paulfromitaly

This, in my humble opinion, is the right way to close a thread, unless it's spam  (it must be deleted then):

http://forum.wordreference.com/showpost.php?p=1662326&postcount=2


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## duckie

GenJen54 said:


> Here's another question to ponder, and one which sometimes aids in the decision to "delete" threads.
> 
> Would you rather have a "public" closing of your thread, with moderator comments out there for the entire world to see (especially if you are new and learning the ropes), or would you choose to have a thread deleted, then be told about it privately, sparing you a certain amount of potential embarrassment?



I don't see any embarrassment in politely closing any thread and explaining the reason why.. on the contrary I consider it courteous and a potential learning experience for everyone else who may happen to read the same thread and thus won't recreate the scenario five minutes later.

I truly don't see the point in deleting threads that cause no harm. I do see a lot of downsides to it, though.


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## TrentinaNE

duckie said:


> I truly don't see the point in deleting threads that cause no harm.


Do you see room for differing interpretations about what "cause no harm" means? 

For example, every closed CD thread that never should have been opened to begin with takes up a space on the CD thread menu that could be occupied by a valid thread instead. I can envision circumstances where half of the menu page would consist of closed threads with the moderator note: *Outside the scope of this forum, please read the "READ BEFORE POSTING!" sticky.* 

Come to think of it, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea.  Maybe people would start to get the idea.  

Elisabetta


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## duckie

Trentina, of course everything can be interpreted. With threads causing no harm I mean they have not been created with ill intents - i.e. not troll or spam threads.

Given that most threads in any of the forums I have seen here are not deleted I don't know how half the threads of any menu page would consist of closed threads. And as we seem to agree, such examples make it less likely people will repeat the same thread five minutes later 

I have never seen any other forum where threads are deleted like this, and although I appreciate that the moderators try to help make things run smoothly I think deletion is the wrong approach. Last thread when I tried to explain _why_ I think it's the wrong approach my points were twisted in a rather disingenuous way and then the thread was closed so I couldn't reply.


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## Jana337

Closed topics are still searchable (both within the forum and by search engines like Google). There are perfectly legitimate topics the forum simply does not want to be associated with and neither does it want to attract people interested in dicussing them.

In the language subforums, it would be unfortunate if dictionary users were forced to wade through language-unrelated closed threads, created with ill intent or not. It would greatly impair the usefulness of the dictionary feature that links to thread titles. I see no good reason to tolerate visual pollution. 

Unlike you, I am not very confident that examples of closed threads would reduce the tendency to open more off-topic thread. A visible request for tips about affordable hotels in Venice is likely to provoke a private reply from a kind soul - I am in fact sure that more and more people would resort to this way of getting around the rules: OK, I will have my thread closed but I will get what I want privately.

We are a successful and fast growing forum. An indirect proof that by and large, we do things quite well. 

Jana


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## cuchuflete

I just had a casual look at some of the threads that were removed, not closed, but taken away, from the CD forum over the past few months.   They included many research questions, including recipes for pizza for school projects, a literary work by a newbie (who wrote a scathing PM, stating that the cultural quality of her poem was far superior to anything else in the forum!), requests for opinions about a popular movie relative to its best-selling novel source, and a lot of political screeds which called some group of people or other by vile names.

Most of these were swept out before any replies had appeared.  A few had some answering posts.  None of this stuff belonged here in the first place.  Could we leave it visible?  We could.  Would it clutter the forum. Yes. Do closed threads promote discussion? (That is the objective of the CD forum.)? No, so why bother with the clutter?  

In the language forums, we have removed such gems as this:

*Post #1.*  i need to know the following phrases in french
1)curry makes me feel sick
2)they like curry
thankyou*

#2  Re: urgent...again*
please help i need it for my coursework!

*#3 *Hi - you're in the wrong forum. You need English-French, not English-Spanish.
Ta.

The poster was advised of our homework policy, and was directed to the right forum.

Should this have been left closed and visible?  I fail to grasp how that would contribute anything.  We could have dozens or  hundreds of closed threads showing up in the dictionary re-directs to the forums.  That would waste the time of the dictionary users.  Those closed threads are as likely to promote more questions on the same topics as they are to enlighten people about what doesn't belong here.


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