To be annoyed by the volume of deleted comments which are merely mildly provocative or robustly stating an opposing opinion, rather than being unacceptably rude or offensive?

[auserna]

NOT a TAAT.

Does anyone else find it highly irritating when threads end up having more holes than Swiss cheese due to so many posts having been deleted?

Much of the time the person at whom the contentious comment was aimed has replied (obviously before the deletion) in a manner that suggests they weren't in the least offended or bothered by it - but now you can no longer see what they were responding to.

It sometimes feels a bit like being back at school, with everyone running to the teacher and gleefully exclaiming, "Reported!" as if they're going to earn a gold star for doing so.

It's not actually injurious to one's health to be mildly ruffled by someone having a different opinion or viewpoint on a particular topic, as happens all the time in real life.

I may be an outlier here, and am happy to accept that if it's the case, but I'm curious to know how others feel.

Oh it’s endless. Threads completely bitty due to deleted comments that were so innocuous

I'm surprised you remember what the deleted comments actually said, unless it's your own comments that have been deleted. If I'm following a thread and there is an exceptionally unpleasant post then I might remember the comment but more often than not I see that a comnent has been deleted and have no knowledge if whether it was offensive or not.

I agree differences of opinion should not be deleted just because they are differences of opinion but it really depends on how they are worded doesn't it?

The moderation has always puzzled me over the 15 years I've posted on MN.

I think it largely depends on the POV of the moderator sometimes and of course the amount of reports.

What puzzles me more is how some posters continually get their posts deleted for being downright racist or ableist, yet they continue to post without being banned.

I'm not talking about a few 'arguable' posts either.

Justine has posted recently about wanting MNHQ to deal (better) with unpleasant and nasty posts on MN, accepting that the 'tone' - for want of a better word - has changed for the worse over the last few years.

I agree completely about it be dependent on which moderator deals with it. I’ve reported things and they’ve initially been left to stand, but when I’ve responded to challenge that they’ve subsequently been removed.

I didn't say I remembered, I said (para 3 of my OP) that the tone of the response makes it very clear the person it was aimed at didn't find it offensive in the slightest.

The other thing that has struck me recently is how often you see a new thread with a handful of deleted posts by the same poster right at the beginning. Of course it's possible that they were all beyond the pale, but I'm sceptical as to whether that's always the case.

YANBU - I had comments deleted and when I asked the mod which of the many explicit rules id broken they came back with a load of waffle and ultimately “not in the spirit of the site”. Really pathetic and not at all transparent.

I take the view that if I post asking a question and people respond in a way I don’t like but isn’t abusive/discriminatory etc it’s up to me to suck it up for seeking opinions. Otherwise this place will just become a tepid echo chamber.

Regarding inconsistencies, I once asked for a thread I started to be deleted and was told that only happened in cases where it is illegal in some way. This is patently not the case!

Also I was once suspended for posting an utterly ridiculous anti-vaxxer video and asking people with more medical/scientific knowledge than me to help me debunk it. My suspension was for spreading disinformation, which was (quite clearly!) the exact opposite of what I was trying to achieve.

Yanbu. I recently had a post deleted as a personal attack. All I had posted was ‘You’re being silly’ to an OP.

People can post all manner of racist or ableist crap and it’s left to stand though.

Out of interest are you an anti vaxxer?

Sometimes they will have been banned and all their posts deleted. So they might have posted something innocuous on one thread but something racist on another one and then everything will be removed, even if the other comments were perfectly normal

I totally agree with you about it depending on the pov of the moderator.

I rarely report anything now: first they inexcusably hid the report button to deter people from reporting and secondly if you report something now quite often all you get is a " we are looking at this" response and then nothing happens- no deletion and absolutely no explanation or follow up to say why the post has been allowed to stand.
I have no confidence at all in the report procedure.

I find it hard to believe that comments are deleted for merely stating a different or opposing point of view. I've never seen that on MN.

I bet these comments were/are rude, offensive, insulting and/or personal, and totally inappropriate in tone.

The only time I reported a comment made to me was when I got a semi-literate tirade of insults fired at me for no apparent reason.

Yes, that's why I described the video as ridiculous, and why I was asking people to help me debunk it. Also why I said spreading misinformation was the opposite of what I was trying to achieve.
🙄

No, of course I'm not.

People can post all manner of racist or ableist crap and it’s left to stand though.

MN only delete posts if they have been reported. So that's why you often see horrendous statements left to stand...it simply means that all the people who read it agreed with it or didn't find it offensive to report.

The only reason more innocuous comments get deleted is because you inadvertently picked an argument with someone who reports every comment that they don't agree with or feel attacked by. Or they have loads of sock puppet accounts and report you using each one so the chances are higher that you get deleted.

Never underestimate the insanity of people who are chronically online.

Ah, that's interesting to know. Makes sense, but I hadn't considered that as a possibility.

I missed you thought ridiculous

Do comments get hidden or removed simply because someone chose to report it, or does someone from MNHQ actually look at a reported post and decide whether it stays?

Was the thread deleted @auserna or you suspended but thread kept up?

I'm sure some of them are rude/insulting/personal, etc., but I don't believe they all are.

I've even seen replies thanking the person who made the deleted posts, so they clearly weren't that obnoxious.

Please tell me how I should state it more clearly than literally using the word "ridiculous"?

This is my exact grievance about the mod who deleted my post - they didn't read what I actually wrote.

Yep and if anything I think MN under deletes abelist and racist posts. I’ve seen some left after several have reported that absolutely are.

I think it varies, but afaik comments are automatically deleted simply for being reported.

The thread was deleted as well, so I never got any help trying to debunk it in my efforts to get the person (family member) who kept sending me such crap to desist.