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.

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

Really not always.

Plus in the past I've had one or two comments removed and when I argued with MNHQ about them, they've agreed they shouldn't have been removed and actually put them back.

And I'm not the only one.

You can now report posts for being aggressive and unhelpful. I imagine MNHQ are acting on such reports.

Yes, I've had this experience, too.

I do understand that the mods are volunteers, but they really should read the posts properly.

I have never in my life said anything nasty on Mn. I have absolutely robustly put an opposing view or said someone’s reaction to a minor slight was juvenile and melodramatic. But my most recent deletion was merely agreeing with another poster who had linked a thread she thought was by the same, very troubled individual as their stories were striking similar , and saying that if this was so, the poster urgently needed professional help.

No the Night Watch are volunteers and they only have the power to hide posts until the mods at MNHQ take a look at them.

Yep - mod hasn't read your post properly and has leapt to their own conclusions.

Or the people thanking someone who made the deleted posts are as unpleasant in their attitude as the posters who made them.

That's not true. If the comment doesn't break talk guidelines it won't be deleted. I have noticed there are more categories on the report form though.

Oh right - well in that case there's even less excuse.

Sorry - I missed out a crucial word!

I meant to say comments are not automatically deleted just for being reported.

Only the Night Watch are volunteers.

I have noticed there are more categories on the report form though.

This is true but sometimes when the same posters are continually being deleted on various threads without getting banned, it makes me wonder what the point is really.

If anything MNHQ are just making extra work for themselves.

My favourites are when someone posts something along the lines of "reasonable statement, followed by personal attack".

E.g. "no that's not a good idea you total cunt".

Post gets zapped.

Poster gets all butthurt because "all I said was it's not a good idea".

No, no that wasn't all you said.

This should say "afaik comments are NOT automatically deleted..."

That isn't the case. If you report a post, MNHQ will review it before deciding if it needs to be deleted.

And the mods are not volunteers. They are paid part of the community. Only The Night Watch are volunteers. Which is dreadful, given what they're actually doing!

Yes, I gather I was mistaken about this. As I said, even less excuse for indiscriminate deletions without reading posts properly then, if it's a paid position.

I think there are one or two auto-delete mechanisms like links to crowdfunders. But just reporting a post doesn't mean it gets auto-deleted.

Which is another of my favourite things. Poster A is being aggressive and attacking poster B, poster A posts get zapped, then they accuse B of "having" their posts deleted.

No other poster on here can "have" another's post deleted. It's up to the mods to apply the rules.

Next time stick within the guidelines.

Yeah, I've just corrected this - accidentally missed a critical word out of my post!

Got to be honest, I quite often report posts because they are aggressive and unhelpful. I’ve been here for quite a long time (well over a decade) and one thing I’ve noticed is that some posters are not great at debating without getting very personal or offensive. There was one who had a load of posts deleted because she said “You are ignorant” (or a variation) to anyone who even mildly disagreed with her.

It is sometimes surprising which posts don’t get deleted. I’ve seen at least one post using the word “moron” / “moronic” which I understood was extremely offensive.

I had one deleted for mildly pointing out a grammar error (should of, not should have). I wasn't nasty or anything...o.think I actually slightly took the piss out if myself for posting it and it got taken down

The bar for deletions are odd, posters on the Royal board can almost bully others & stay there & then on another thread something inoffensive gets deleted 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think correcting other posters SpaG is a no-no on here.

You used to be able to correct grammar but you can’t now.

Something doesn't have to be offensive to break guidelines though.

There's definitely bullying cliques on certain forums. The problem is the mods tend to only see individual posts when reported, so unless they're watching a wider pattern they won't see it.

I've always thought MN needs some active moderation (i.e. mods reviewing the boards) as well as relying on poster reports. The problem with the latter is that if the majority agree with a personal attack on another poster, then it's unlikely to get reported.

I agree OP. I read something offensive generalising about a group of people, it wasn't racist or albeist but it was sexist and bigoted and i thought it was really inappropriate. So I said to the OP something along the lines of 'maybe that's because you are a bigot and lack critical thinking'. It was reported because it was deemed a personal attack. Which I guess it was but the general bigoted comment was left stand. So basically MN says its not ok to be specific but you can generalise all you like. It's ok to say 'Londoners are all racist idiots' or 'women who wear high heels are sluts', or 'bricklayers are paedophiles' but not to call an individual out on it. It's ridiculous. I was also gobsmacked that the person brazen enough to post such a nasty comment ran off crying to have my relatively mild comment deleted.