RangerDave wrote:
DFK! wrote:
No post should ever be deleted except by the author, IMO.
I disagree, though I think a relatively light touch is called for. But if you leave a thread unlocked and an aggressive/rude comment sitting there, the target of that comment is probably going to feel the need to respond, and other people are probably going to chime in, and so the whole thing keeps spiraling. As we've seen on multiple occasions, most people here can't seem to leave snarky comments unanswered, even if only to "set the record straight." Better all around for the mod to just privately tell the offenders to grow the **** up and delete their b.s. from the public threads to spare everyone else the inevitable sh*tstorm.
Like Mook said, that's what locking threads is for, if it gets out of control.
There's no reason to delete posts; in fact people shouldn't even be deleting their own posts after the next post is made. That just creates new problems where someone says something inflammatory, gets everyone riled up, then deletes it and later claims they never said it. We already have enough problems with 3 crashed boards worth of history and people trying to deny that they acted a certain way on them..
What's "better" is to just let people argue it out a little bit. When it starts taking over multiple threads and getting really ridiculous the thread can be locked. The evidence should remain there though. When mods start deleting threads we start ending up with a Miss Manners board where you can't discuss anything except in the most mealy-mouthed way (i.e. every post has a line in it saying "please don't flame me!" or "not trying to offend anyone!" or some ****), and inevitably stuff starts getting deleted because someone finds the
viewpoint unacceptable.
The goal of moderation isn't to make the board perfect, it's to curb the excessive, out-of-control stuff where every thread becomes the same argument because some people are so disgusted that someone disagrees with them, and the simply repeating yourself over and over in multiple threads without answering anyone so that actual discussion can't move forward because no one can even find the disucssion amid the bullshit.