Airliners.net

Once again, another series of posts made by myself have been removed with no notifications as the the reason why.
Once again these posts contained nothing untoward or at odds with known a.net rules.
This leaves me having to make (probably unjustified) assumptions with regards to other members or means I'll keep repeating the same unknown 'err'.


Why the mods cannot inform users when posts are removed (and the reason why) is beyond me. It's a common courtesy and useful to educate with regards to the site's rules and standards.
I know, you'll come back with 'it's not automated' but that's really not a good excuse. It takes seconds to drop an affected user(s) a PM with a brief explanation. Something I've manage to do perfectly well in the various groups, forums and sites I've moderated or admin'd both now and in the past.
If you can't be bothered to type a PM, at least leave a note in the thread.

ChrisKen wrote:

Once again, another series of posts made by myself have been removed with no notifications as the the reason why.
Once again these posts contained nothing untoward or at odds with known a.net rules.
This leaves me having to make (probably unjustified) assumptions with regards to other members or means I'll keep repeating the same unknown 'err'.

We don't typically give notifications — that went away with the old site. We've asked the developers for deletion notifications since the new site went live two and a half years ago, and we're still waiting. As mentioned in the forum rules, users need to contact us to ask about a deletion. The vast majority of deletions are because the post references a post which was deleted. If we remove a post for a rules violation, then we have to remove any subsequent posts that quote it. Your post may not have violated the rules, but it may have fallen victim to someone who did.

ChrisKen wrote:

Why the mods cannot inform users when posts are removed (and the reason why) is beyond me. It's a common courtesy and useful to educate with regards to the site's rules and standards.

There are maybe five or six of us currently active, and we all have jobs and lives. I don't have time to notify each user individually. If I did it through PM, my inbox would be flooded with replies. Doing it via email requires a tedious search, and many users don't even have valid email addresses anymore. I volunteer here; this isn't a job that pays me, and I can't spend hours every day moderating and sending out notifications. That's exactly why they used to be automated.

I know you think it only takes seconds, but maybe you have more time on your hands than I do. Maybe the sites you moderated were better staffed or better behaved. It isn't ideal, and I'm sorry that the site is failing you and others in this respect. But, I can't apologize for not being able to devote more time and energy than I already do. We're short staffed, and we're doing what we can to keep the forums clean. Maybe it's something we can do if/when we bring on more moderators, but in the mean time, the onus is on you to ask about deletions.

If there aren't enough active mods, add more mods.

If someone has quoted my post with something untoward afterwards, delete their post. There is no need to delete my post as with all the other posts before it, they contained nothing to warrant such action.
As far as I can tell, three posts were removed from the thread. Two of mine.and one belonging to VSMUT. None of these contained anything remotely removeable.
If a subsequent post has quoted these and got removed, it does not require the perfectly decent posts preceeding the naughty one to be removed. It makes zero sense if thats policy. As anyone can destroy any thread by default simply quoting a preceeding post and making theirs wrong enough for removal.

The other alternative is someone is maliciously using the report post feature and mods are simply deleting without actually 'moderating' with the attention it requires.

Ironically, your response to this thread will have taken far more of that precious time than simply notifying in the first place. (and still no one is any the wiser as to why posts were removed).

ChrisKen wrote:

If there aren't enough active mods, add more mods.

Ultimately that is a decision for the Head Moderators, that is something we as moderators have little say in, if you don't like that take it up with them

If someone has quoted my post with something untoward afterwards, delete their post. There is no need to delete my post as with all the other posts before it, they contained nothing to warrant such action.
As far as I can tell, three posts were removed from the thread. Two of mine.and one belonging to VSMUT. None of these contained anything remotely removeable.
If a subsequent post has quoted these and got removed, it does not require the perfectly decent posts preceeding the naughty one to be removed. It makes zero sense if thats policy. As anyone can destroy any thread by default simply quoting a preceeding post and making theirs wrong enough for removal.

You actually need to get your story straight. Your first post was deleted for good reason, in your post you included the word "fuckup", all language used on the site must be safe for work plus there is plenty of other words in the dictionary you could use instead. Subsequently there were 2 posts that quoted the original post and as per our rules, reference posts were deleted. We are not permitted to edit the posts to remove the offending words, the whole post goes.

The other alternative is someone is maliciously using the report post feature and mods are simply deleting without actually 'moderating' with the attention it requires.

This is not the case here, see above, if it did happen this way we would be rather quick to take action against a user who abuses reporting posts

Ironically, your response to this thread will have taken far more of that precious time than simply notifying in the first place. (and still no one is any the wiser as to why posts were removed).

As already pointed out we do not have automated deletion notifications therefore it is too much work for us to do manually. Some days we will delete up to 200 posts, if that is carried out by 6 moderators that is around 35 emails for each moderator. Given that if we did email notifications we would need to look up a user's email address, add in the deletion notification, add in the deleted comment, then add in our comment for the user each email can easily take 5 minutes each. I have actually tried this on a few occassions and the average is about 5 minutes, essentially if each moderater averaged up to 35 deletions it would take at least 3 hours to do and that doesnt include the time it takes to read through topics, remove any violating posts, approve new posts etc. Its not the way we would like things to be but we have had to deal with this, so you will need to accept that and if you have any issues in the future you are free to email us of which we will reply with an answer. Furthermore you are not aware with other issues behind the scenes we have to deal with such as errors repetitively coming up with post approvals and post deletions requiring us to reapprove or delete posts again. Some post deletions at the moment, we are required to go back 3 or 4 times, my worst is actually 6 before it actually deleted. This again adds time to our moderating duties of which are out of our control as well.

qf789 wrote:

You actually need to get your story straight. Your first post was deleted for good reason, in your post you included the word "fuckup", all language used on the site must be safe for work plus there is plenty of other words in the dictionary you could use instead. Subsequently there were 2 posts that quoted the original post and as per our rules, reference posts were deleted. We are not permitted to edit the posts to remove the offending words, the whole post goes.

I can quite categorically state there was no such language used by myself in the posts being referred to.
If you believe there was, you are very much in error or more concerningly, just plain making it up.
I await your apology.

qf789 wrote:

ChrisKen wrote:

If there aren't enough active mods, add more mods.

Ultimately that is a decision for the Head Moderators, that is something we as moderators have little say in, if you don't like that take it up with them

Of course you have a say, you're part of the team. Most of which keep churning out the 'we're short staffed' routine month on month, year on year. Get together as a team and put the pressure on to recruit more mods which are clearly required (by your own admission & publicly visible actions).

The other alternative is someone is maliciously using the report post feature and mods are simply deleting without actually 'moderating' with the attention it requires.

This is not the case here, see above, if it did happen this way we would be rather quick to take action against a user who abuses reporting posts

It was merely a suggestion since, after not being informed as to the reason, the user has to try to figure out what's happened on their own. The second part of that sentence may well apply given your comment regards my supposed 'foul language'

As already pointed out we do not have automated deletion notifications therefore it is too much work for us to do manually. Some days we will delete up to 200 posts, if that is carried out by 6 moderators that is around 35 emails for each moderator. Given that if we did email notifications we would need to look up a user's email address, add in the deletion notification, add in the deleted comment, then add in our comment for the user each email can easily take 5 minutes each. I have actually tried this on a few occassions and the average is about 5 minutes, essentially if each moderater averaged up to 35 deletions it would take at least 3 hours to do and that doesnt include the time it takes to read through topics, remove any violating posts, approve new posts etc. Its not the way we would like things to be but we have had to deal with this, so you will need to accept that and if you have any issues in the future you are free to email us of which we will reply with an answer. Furthermore you are not aware with other issues behind the scenes we have to deal with such as errors repetitively coming up with post approvals and post deletions requiring us to reapprove or delete posts again. Some post deletions at the moment, we are required to go back 3 or 4 times, my worst is actually 6 before it actually deleted. This again adds time to our moderating duties of which are out of our control as well.

Use this to help make your (mod team's) case for recruiting more mods.
I haven't asked for an email, a short pm or removal of text within the post replace by a removal message would suffice. Posts disappearing without explanation help no one.

ChrisKen wrote:

qf789 wrote:

You actually need to get your story straight. Your first post was deleted for good reason, in your post you included the word "fuckup", all language used on the site must be safe for work plus there is plenty of other words in the dictionary you could use instead. Subsequently there were 2 posts that quoted the original post and as per our rules, reference posts were deleted. We are not permitted to edit the posts to remove the offending words, the whole post goes.

I can quite categorically state there was no such language used by myself in the posts being referred to.
If you believe there was, you are very much in error or more concerningly, just plain making it up.
I await your apology.

You absolutely did say that, and that's why your post was removed. Here is what you wrote:

Shouldn't make any difference since you never enter the UK from Schengen to International. Arrangements are the same at the moment post fuckup.

It looks to me like it might have been an autocorrection, but your post was still justifiably removed. I believe you owe qf789 an apology for accusing him of making it up. I'd be happy to email you screenshots if you remain unconvinced, but that would be a ridiculous thing for us to make up. We frankly have better things to do with our time, and there would have been no other reason to remove your post.

We have been asking for more moderators, and I've been told that something will happen soon. There's only so much that we can do. If you want to be upset, then be upset with the people who can actually do something about this — right now, you're kind of shooting the messengers. We can't act unilaterally when we're effectively users with additional privileges. I understand that you're upset, but there's nothing more that we can do. I work full time as an air traffic controller (plus overtime), I have a family, and I have a social life; if I did the work necessary to meet your standards, I'd get even less sleep than I already do. We try our best with what we have, and unfortunately what we have isn't enough to satisfy everyone on this site.

If that's what you claim it said, then that's what it said.
For what it's worth I would never spell the alleged offending words as a single word so it certainly wasn't a deliberate act. I would also make sure the sentence actually made some sense, it's missing a few words.

As for the rest, keep on asking, they are sorely needed. They aren't my standards, they are a common standard across the web and until the dodgy software change, supposedly a.net too.
My point still stands, all this could have easily been avoided with a simple notification.

atcsundevil wrote:

We don't typically give notifications — that went away with the old site. We've asked the developers for deletion notifications since the new site went live two and a half years ago, and we're still waiting. As mentioned in the forum rules, users need to contact us to ask about a deletion.

We hear that all the time. I'll go to a thread and think "Didn't I post something here? I guess not, since it isn't here." I guess the solution is to keep a list detailing the forum and thread where I make comments so I can see if they were deleted and e-mail the mods about it. Unfortunately, as you also said, I don't have the time or energy to do that much work here. Maybe I should just e-mail the mods any time I can't find a post I thought I made. That won't have any impact on your workload, will it?

You note that you've been asking the developers for automated notifications since the new site went live two and a half years ago. That reminds me - the new site went live two and a half years ago, and we were promised a whole list of things that would be fixed once it went live, and I don't see were many of those were dealt with, we simply get promises that the developers have it on their list, but there is no estimate on when, or if, anything will be taken care of. Don't get me wrong - I'm not blaming the mods, I know it is the VS developers who are responsible for these things, but you folks are our only means of contact with them, as other than Jeff, the VS GM, we have no way to contact anyone, and it appears as though no one from VS spends any time here to see what really happens. I guess this little airplane site isn't very important in the grand world of Vertical Scope.