Locking vs cutting

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Seen decent discussions absolutely
halted, by the locking of threads.

Personally, I don't think that this is the
best policy. If a flame war erupts, it seems
better to just cut all the offending posts out.
Locking leaves all the hateful comments in the
open, but stops the productive conversation (if
there is one).

Of course, the other side of the issue is that cutting
seems underhanded, and prone to abuse. A sort of
gestapo tactic. But, in this case, I've found it seems
to preserve more of value than the other solution.

Either method seems to warn the antagonists.

I tended to reserve locking for when a thread
continued to break into flames, and only as
a temporary measure.

Anyhow, curious to hear others' take on the
issue.

Edit a short warning into offending posts. It shows a mod's presence, whilst getting through to the individual culprits.

Yeah, but Alex is of the opinion
that aspies don't take well to warnings.

He has more experience than I do, on the
matter, though I think that if the wording
is particularly well done, there would be
no hazard.

I don't even know that something that
light wouldn't set some off. I've seen
people go WAY overboard at some
warnings.

Kinda comes down to knowing the
particular people involved, and what
touch to use. It's a big site, but most
of the personalities are fairly clear though.

I've been giving thought to ways of discouraging inappropriate behavior short of banning, which I prefer to think of as removing a person's posting privileges. For example, I removed an offensive avatar. When it reappeared, I removed the member's avater privileges. An avatar is not necessary to post, it is a luxury.

Locking a thread and leaving it for others to see provides a clear example of what will not be tolerated. it also makes people aware that we're serious about these things. Cut posts might not be noticed. It's not just about keeping the forum nice, it's also about helping people learn to respect certain boundries with respect to their behavior.

Still, let's take a look at the thread recently
locked in THIS forum. What your action did
is to leave the attacks up, with no chance for
any defense whatsoever.

I DO see the point of stating what is right and
wrong, but I think Anubis' suggestion (and yeah,
I know you'd have to convince Alex of this) of
putting a statement could serve THAT point). So,
let's take the firearms thread. Instead of locking,
make an executive decision of what to cut, and
edit ONE of the offending posts to indicate that
flame wars are NOT permitted.

It doesn't give the full image of what caused
the action, but does allow the thread to continue.

BTW - the avatar issue is a cool tool. I know that
we could have used that ability early on. Someone
changed there's to something wholly inappropriate,
and essentially we had to go around cutting all their
posts.

People who think they can discuss the issue without personal attacks can always resume the discussion in a new thread. These days, we put more emphasis on the spirit than the letter of the rules.

"What your action did is to leave the attacks up, with no chance for any defense whatsoever."
In my mind, no defense is necessary (because the attack is wrong in the first place, even if it's right) and it only leads to escalation anyway. Better to just tap a mod on the shoulder.

I presume that you WOULD cut real
hate speech, or pornography, however?


(just making certain - this isn't going anywhere)

The computer is your friend.

I'll throw in my two cents.

Personally I'd prefer a thread to be locked than to have posts cut. I admit that part of this is because I am a voyeur and would be curious to see all of the sordid details that would get a thread locked.

Sometimes though there will be a thread where I badly want to make a response and find that it has been locked. Most recently the guns thread which degenerated to the point of puerility.

I remember one time several months ago I made a post that was cut, and I did not like that one bit. That particular post was a masterpiece and it was not out of place either. It was in a thread in the adult section about "the most disturbing thing ever." Seriously, anything should be able to go in a thread like that with the exception of pornography. It was not pornographic, I just told a rather dirty story, that in all honesty I could have made much dirtier. I made the post and the first response I got was from a moderator who said that it was the funniest thing she had seen in a very long time. (Granted I believe that particular moderator has since been banned) The next day I checked that thread and saw that I got several other responses to that post from people who thought it was very funny. I also noticed that my post was cut. Apparently one moderator was offended and cut it. This left this particular thread out of balance. All of a sudden in the thread there were people talking about how funny my post was and my post wasn't even there. Cutting a post that disrupts the rhythm of a thread may not be good. I think if a moderator cuts a post he/she should at least leave a message explaining why it was cut.

Usually cuttings were some pretty damned
pure flame wars, where the topic was not
even being discussed. Actually, removing the
posts tended to make the threads more readable.

I still think that there was interesting discussion
going on in the gun thread, though there was
definitely a cadre of members engaged in some
pretty questionable flaming.

Actually, I probably wouldn't have touched
it at all, but I knew that the current staff were
getting pissed about the matter, so was hoping
to try and save the thread.

Somehow, starting a new one is just different.

I tend to agree, so I unlocked it. (Also, I had wanted to throw in my two cents, but I had to work.) Given popular support from well-mannered members I'm likely to unlock a worthwhile thread. Deletions are permanent. Now, as Alex has said elsewhere, "Play nice."