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Cleaning it up.

Jerry

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Suggestion: Delete posts which earn points, and make the banner showing where a post was deleted and why viewable to all members.

If someone has something worth saying, they'll be careful not to contaminate it with flame.
 
Suggestion: Delete posts which earn points, and make the banner showing where a post was deleted and why viewable to all members.

If someone has something worth saying, they'll be careful not to contaminate it with flame.

I just had a post taken down. It was an article written my a editorial person at the Washington Post. So it was part of a pretty well recognized newspaper. I copied and pasted the article as I do not know how to link stuff. In the title I mentioned it was from the Washington Post.

I understand that the article could irk some people, but as something from a national newspaper, not sure why you folks would try and exclude it.

Any advise/ help you could give me that would allow this editorial to be published here would be appreciated.
 
A few things:

1) Sometimes people make posts that contain unacceptable material, but the whole post is not unacceptable. You can sometimes have the good and the bad in one post.

2) Removing offending posts removes examples of what people should avoid doing.

3) Removing offending posts hinders due process for purposes of referencing the offense. People could no longer talk about it in the basement or approach mods in private, since they won't be able to look at what it is they wrote.

4) Sometimes people don't know that they are crossing a line when they post, and they shouldn't have their whole thought censored just because they let one unacceptable thing slip out. Also, a lot of people here, including yourself, know how to walk the line to avoid getting banned. It doesn't make you any less offensive sometimes. I would rather people be infracted than start to see a lot of posts disappearing on the boards. Infractions are better than empty space.

All in all, not the best idea. Sorry Jerry.
 
A few things:

1) Sometimes people make posts that contain unacceptable material, but the whole post is not unacceptable. You can sometimes have the good and the bad in one post.

IMO if you want the good in a post to survive then you'd better keep the whole thing civil or lose it all.

2) Removing offending posts removes examples of what people should avoid doing.

The Basement isn't enough of an example?

3) Removing offending posts hinders due process for purposes of referencing the offense. People could no longer talk about it in the basement or approach mods in private, since they won't be able to look at what it is they wrote.

Once the post is deleted, there's nothing left to need to be referenced.

4) Sometimes people don't know that they are crossing a line when they post, and they shouldn't have their whole thought censored just because they let one unacceptable thing slip out.

We all have to learn the lesson some time.

Also, a lot of people here, including yourself, know how to walk the line to avoid getting banned. It doesn't make you any less offensive sometimes. I would rather people be infracted than start to see a lot of posts disappearing on the boards. Infractions are better than empty space.

I've made another suggestion regarding what constitutes trolling in another thread. Basically the line should be up to the mod team's opinion at the moment, not clearly defined for anyone to know how to walk.

Take Felicity, for example. Mod discretion > following the letter of the rules, and I agree with their actions in that regard.
 
I would suggest you actually look at the deleted thread versus some hypothetical discussion. As I said it was a word for word cut and paste job from an editorial in the washington post. Not sure how your team justifies pulling the thread, but it is your forum and you can do what you want with it.
 
I would suggest you actually look at the deleted thread versus some hypothetical discussion. As I said it was a word for word cut and paste job from an editorial in the washington post. Not sure how your team justifies pulling the thread, but it is your forum and you can do what you want with it.

Link to the thread so we know where to go.

You said you didn't know how to link, so, you know where you type in a web site in your browser? highlight, copy & paste that into a post. That's all there is to it.

I'm on a few other debate forums in addition to this one so I'm not speaking from pury hypothesis. I've seen other forums implement similar practices and keep their forums clean. DP has the advantage over other forums with the Basement, so it's not like you just can't flame anyone at all ever.
 
Link to the thread so we know where to go.

You said you didn't know how to link, so, you know where you type in a web site in your browser? highlight, copy & paste that into a post. That's all there is to it.

I'm on a few other debate forums in addition to this one so I'm not speaking from pury hypothesis. I've seen other forums implement similar practices and keep their forums clean. DP has the advantage over other forums with the Basement, so it's not like you just can't flame anyone at all ever.

Thanks. The sad thing is I was not trying to flame. Rather get comments from the forum folks on an editorial that was written by Charles Krauthammer. While we may not agree with everything he says, oftentimes they are thought provoking.

Thanks for the tip on linking I will try it.

Regards
 
Suggestion: Delete posts which earn points, and make the banner showing where a post was deleted and why viewable to all members.

If someone has something worth saying, they'll be careful not to contaminate it with flame.

I believe an exception to such a rule might be BN threads which don't live up to the BN rules. In those cases, the OP isn't trying to flame, they were just to lazy to comply with the higher standard DP encourages of BN threads. I would suggest these threads simply be moved as normal instead of deleted/flushed.

An alternative to deleting posts might be flushing them to a Binky forum. I know that vauge generally frowns on deleting posts, and for good reason. I believe this would accomplish keeping up-stairs clean, not deleting posts, and folks can still use the post to flame or whatever where such is appropriate.
 
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I just had a post taken down. It was an article written my a editorial person at the Washington Post. So it was part of a pretty well recognized newspaper. I copied and pasted the article as I do not know how to link stuff. In the title I mentioned it was from the Washington Post.

I understand that the article could irk some people, but as something from a national newspaper, not sure why you folks would try and exclude it.

Any advise/ help you could give me that would allow this editorial to be published here would be appreciated.

Let me clear it up on a guess of what likely happened nad perhaps explain a bit for you.

Under the Forum Rules (you're find it in a forum in the same grouping as this particular one is in) you'll note there is a rule listed as "Fair Use". I will repost that here for you:

9a. Fair-Use - A limitation of two (2) medium-sized paragraphs per thread is allowed for the quoting and display of any external "same-source" material. Same-source material is considered to be material borrowed from the same author, the same internet article, the same web page, the same web site, or the same publication. Please do not exceed this limitation, nor attempt to bypass this limitation via consecutive/subsequent/plagiarized thread postings. Proper format is to Copy & Paste a maximum of two medium-sized paragraphs of same-source material and offer a link to the material source page for further reading. Moderator discretion shall prevail here.

I highlighted the important things for you. If your post was edited it was likely edited to shrink it down so as to be in accordance with our Fair Use rules. This is one of the few times that we edit peoples posts because at times it makes threads difficult to read with ho long it can be. This has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with the point made in the article and entirely with its length and how it applies to the rules.

The other possability is that you posted it in one of the two *Breaking News* forums, in which case it would have been a violation of the rules. Said violation would likely result in it being moved to a different forum. Again, this would not because the topic "irked" people but would be because it is, as you said, an Editorial. Opinion/Commentary/Op-Ed pieces are not allowable in the *Breaking News* sections as they are for hard news stories only. As such, that is a reason your thread may've been moved.

My suggestion in the future if you have confusion regarding the rules or why an action was taken would be to send a PM to the mod in question or to any other mod you'd like and ask it of them. They would happily explain the issue for you as best they could. In general questioning mod action in the open forum is not a wise idea nor a good way of getting answers regarding specific instances of action.
 
washunut, I don't see that any of your OPs were edited or any of your threads moved.
 
washunut, I don't see that any of your OPs were edited or any of your threads moved.

The message was simply deleted, not moved. Based on the other message I recieved it must have been because i cut and pasted the whole article instead of just copying the whole thing. I thought giving people the whole message would be better, so as not to take things out of context, but I now understand the rules of the forum and will work with them. Thanks
 
Suggestion: Delete posts which earn points, and make the banner showing where a post was deleted and why viewable to all members.

If someone has something worth saying, they'll be careful not to contaminate it with flame.

I think this would also cut down on mod hating, because someone who reports a post will see a result. If a post remains, then obviously it wasn't a big deal and the reporter needs to grow a thicker skin. If the post is taken out of the thread, then the insult is invalidated and looses it's sting. It can then be ignored and the conversation resume as though the flame never were. Alternatively, he target of flame can go to where that post were flushed to and take the troll on without muddying up a thread and earning points themselves.
 
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