Code of conduct: Deleting entries here on Together

asked 2014-03-02 00:36:24 +0300

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2014-03-06 02:51:38 +0300

jgr
1589 ●123 ●155 ●177

Recommendation

Before deleting an item, it should be commented so that the original poster gets a corresponding information. ("Deletion comment: ...") In case of answers and comments to be deleted, this deletion comment should include the text to be deleted. This makes sure, that the original poster gets an information about the fact and reason for deletion and a copy of the text to be deleted.

Alternate procedure

If there are a lot of other comments/followers to a certain question/ answer and you do not want all of them to receive your comment, you can open up a new question and direct it to the original poster by adding a “@nick-name-of-original-poster”: Then the person of that nick name will get a corresponding e-mail (well, I am not sure that this works for the question itself, but it works if the @nick-name… is included in a comment). Immediately thereafter you can delete the question/comment so that the system is not clogged up with deletion notices.

Grace period

In an answer it has been recommended, to wait a couple of days after the deletion comment before actually deleting the item to allow for discussion. This option should be taken into account: It may depend on the item whether this is suitable.

Remaining problem

Users can have deactivated e-mail notifications. In this case they do not receive the deletion comment. However, at least under a deleted question they can find the deletion comment.

Items deleted without deletion comment

If an item has been deleted without deletion comment (and the original poster has not deactivated e-mail notifications), the original poster may just undelete/repost his/her question/answer/comment because s/he can safely assume that it has been deleted by mistake.

Background

Users with sufficient karma can delete any question, answer, comment – their own as well as third party ones. Askbot will not send an automatic deletion-note to the original poster. The original poster has no chance, to work out on his own, who has deleted the item and why. When an item has been deleted:

Questions are still listed on the user page of the original poster.
When the original poster is logged in, s/he can view and undelete the deleted question.
Answers and comments are deleted without any traces.

Post Scriptum 1:

In the answers to this question it has been recommended to deactivate the deletion function for "normal" users. This debate has been carrying on in several threads already. Although I started this question after a specific incident, I am against such restrictions (I may change my mind once this feature has been misused repeatedly):

The damage that can be done by altering items is greater than the damage by deleting
This specific incident showed, that the community and Jolla can handle inappropriate deletions appropriately.

The general editing as well as the deletion feature I regard as part of the Jolla experiment.

Post Scriptum 2:

Each question and answer has a "flag offensive" option. If this flag is set by several users, the item may eventually be deleted automatically by Askbot. However, in this case Askbot sends notification e-mails to the original poster informing her/him about the flagging.

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Comments

Basicly, I agree. Just one remark: Some users have email notifications disabled (I for example do), so leaving a comment or creating a new question doesn't necessarily send an email to the original poster. If you comment a question and then delete it, the op might see a notification next time he logs in here – I don't know how it works, if the question in question is deleted – but in any case, he won't be able to read the comment, as the question isn't there anymore.

ssahla ( 2014-03-02 00:50:43 +0300 )edit

Not the first case :( IMHO the delete functionality should be made admin /moderator privilege.

tokaru ( 2014-03-02 00:52:18 +0300 )edit

When seeing a question that should be deleted, regular users could just add a "delete-this" tag (or something like that, not just "delete" because that might be used for something else) and a comment why the question should be deleted, and admins/moderators could periodically check the tagged questions.

ssahla ( 2014-03-02 01:06:23 +0300 )edit

@ssahla there's also a "flag offensive" option for all questions and answers, in order to report them as "offensive, contains spam, advertising, malicious remarks, etc"

tokaru ( 2014-03-02 14:01:20 +0300 )edit

Hi, I commented recently, saying that I feel like zipping through and deleting inappropriate/unnecessary questions, especially those not pertaining to Jolla/Sailfish directly. I want it known that it is not me who is deleting posts on a random basis, I have had one of my posts deleted, but the user put his hands up and apologised, he made a mistake, cool, sorted. I have been asking other posters to consider moving and deleting their own posts, but the choice is up to them, I don't really feel comfortable telling others what to do, so I agree with other comments here that ADMIN/MODERATORS are really needed here at JTC.

Spam Hunter ( 2014-03-02 14:36:04 +0300 )edit

3 Answers

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answered 2014-03-02 02:42:48 +0300

MartinK
18500 ●154 ●178 ●174

updated 2014-03-02 02:43:54 +0300

I think it should just not be possible to delete questions and other content added by others - full stop. Like this, we might come one day and half of together might not be there anymore.

The only ones that should be able to delete a post should be the authors and even that is debatable - what if someone decides to rage-quit and just wipes all questions he originally created, even though they were modified and improved upon by many others, thus also wiping out their work.

Just look on typical Bugzilla deployments as an example - you normally just can't delete a bug. The most you can do is to close it, which makes it vanish from many of the usual views, but it is still there and can be for example linked and searched if you know the right search flags.

And for stuff that is clearly against the rules, there is the flag offensive button on every questions & moderators.

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Comments

I agree with this, with one addition - offensive and foul content should be deletable by admins (normal users should be able to report such content).

Mohjive ( 2014-03-02 13:24:34 +0300 )edit

My thoughts are similar, the control should ultimately be for moderators/admin. I like the idea that we all have some control over almost every post, but I also think abuses are going to take place, as they already are in other forms, like the willy-nilly chat going on surrounding questions that are not helpful or insightful. Example - "How do I wear my Jolla?" - wha...?, I could make some suggestions, probably better that I don;t as I want to remain part of Jolla Together and for those that don't quite get it, there is a clue in the heading/title of this website, 2 big clues; JOLLA & TOGETHER, not Nokia X Together, not Blackphone Together, not Nokia N9 Together - Am I being to picky?

Spam Hunter ( 2014-03-02 14:42:13 +0300 )edit

One thing that in my opinion could be safely deleted is clearly duplicate questions that are immediately identified as duplicates and closed – so that there aren't votes or comments to be lost. More of these are coming all the time. But also this I would leave to moderators, not all users.

ssahla ( 2014-03-02 22:18:42 +0300 )edit

We need to remember that the idea of together is that it is crowd-moderated. Those that are active enough to get much karma are also expected to care enough to do a good job. There are rare cases when high-karma users disagree, and in those cases we can call in a moderator, but in general, the idea is that we should all moderate the forum. So I disagree, users should absolutely be able to delete posts. Perhaps the karma limit for deletion should be raised though.

00prometheus ( 2014-03-03 00:16:08 +0300 )edit

Oh, by the way, I don't actually think you really can delete a post, in the sense that it becomes irretrievably lost for ever. I think you are always able to undelete a deleted post.

00prometheus ( 2014-03-03 00:17:56 +0300 )edit

answered 2014-03-02 00:58:31 +0300

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2014-03-02 13:25:09 +0300

TimTTK

4522 ●108 ●137 ●158

https://together.jolla.co...

There could be a similar kind of solution like used in "Cleaning up together" question/comment where there could be a "delete period" and after that the question could be eventually deleted. (Reason for deletion request is stated to original poster(s) and shown clearly why question/comment should be deleted). It should be noted though that directly offensive and malicious material is considered first for deleting. Then there would be no need for excess arguing why the question is deleted without actual proper reason. But in overall the deletion here on Together should not be considered by light means and we should use it very carefully.

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Comments

Good idea. Sounds kind of like the (awesomazing) remorse timer feature in SailfishOS.

Venty ( 2014-03-02 01:40:54 +0300 )edit

I think 2 days is too short.

MartinK ( 2014-03-02 02:35:24 +0300 )edit

removed two day period from answer.

TimTTK ( 2014-03-02 13:26:56 +0300 )edit

answered 2014-03-02 12:26:19 +0300

chappi

3238 ●46 ●60 ●67

I think it's a good idea to allow deletion. And of course it should be done responsibly and with respect towards an author.

Don't be afraid of changes. (Some) Things don't need 'to live forever' imho and it's important to keep entropy low.

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Comments

We have to be aware of one thing: the more people participate in here, the higher the probability of vandalism. If I someone wanted to, he could make this platform deserted with very few effort. Probably revertable but it would surely cost a few hours of work for admins/moderators to get everything back, eventually parts would still be lost and people would lose trust in this platform ("Why should I contribute if anyone can just trash it?")

Who would be doing such a thing? Maybe someone working at a competive company, or someone who participated previously and got disapppointed by something? There are a lot of people who like to mess things up if they can, at least in the www, sometimes just for the fun of it.

tokaru ( 2014-03-02 14:11:15 +0300 )edit

Yes, true. But I think the risk can be mitigated if a high (e.g. 200) Karma would be required (threshold could be raised/lowered if necessary).

chappi ( 2014-03-02 17:33:20 +0300 )edit

I think i have had 200 after the first weekend ;-) but anyway: even if you set it to 5.000, it just takes a little patience to reach it. So it is just the question how urgent a person wants to mess things up and how much spare time they have... I wouldn't bother that much if deleted content could be restored by other users - but if it is just gone forever, it is not acceptable that anyone can destroy content.

tokaru ( 2014-03-02 19:38:06 +0300 )edit

Code of conduct: Deleting entries here on Together

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