Notice of Thread/Post Moderation

[barmar]

I did that, but the big red space-consuming Forum title is still there, and every once in a while the minus'd forums reappear so that I can minus them again.

This forum option is apparently in a cookie, so they'll reappear if you clear cookies or use a different computer.

 

But I put it down at the bottom of the list so it won't be intrusive.

[inquiry]

Moved a post asking about the gaming software from beginner/novice forum to BBO support forum.

[barmar]

Removed the thread "Looking to add live chat plugin". It doesn't seem to be related to bridge or BBO.

[barmar]

Moved the latest incarnation of skill level thread from General Bridge Discussion to General BBO Discussion.

[inquiry]

The semi-annual spam about getting fake passports was deleted from five different threads. Of course all the this is spam replies went when the threads were deleted. Thanks to all the members who reported them. Keep up the good work!!!!

[barmar]

Moved the thread "Responding at the one level with 7 pts" from Intermediate/Advanced to Novice/Beginner.

[barmar]

Just moved three threads:

 

"A regular occurrance" (about partner chatting "?????" after you make a mistake) and "playing the 4 hands on BBO" (about the quality of the robots in the free web games) to General BBO Discussion.

 

"english" (about changing the language of the web client) to BBO Support Forum.

 

It probably won't help, but I updated the description of the General Bridge Discussion forum. I added the line "NOT for BBO-specific posts -- please use Bridge Base Online Discussion for that".

[Rain]

Deleted a bunch of spam. Thank you 1eyedjack and Bradley for the reports.

So much spam, all happening on Barry Margolin day too. :(

 

We will try to change it so posters need to have at least some BBO login to post.

[Bbradley62]

Isn't that Monday, or is he making a long weekend of it?

[Rain]

Isn't that Monday, or is he making a long weekend of it?

 

 

http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/news_fetch.php?id=1960

[aguahombre]

Isn't that Monday, or is he making a long weekend of it?

For us older folks, a BM day is a good day regardless.

[barmar]

I merged the new thread "More cheaters nailed" in General Bridge Forum into the old thread "Elinescu-Wladow banned" in Offline Bridge.

[barmar]

Moved the thread "Would you bid game" from General BBO Forum to General Bridge Forum. There's nothing BBO-specific in the question.

[barmar]

A duplicate thread on 'tournament "rules"' was started in both BBO Tournament Discussion and BBO Tournament Directors Forum. I removed the latter, as there are replies in the former.

[gwnn]

At the risk of repeating myself:

 

I don't really get it, you carefully document every time a thread has been moved from General Bridge Discussion to General BBO Discussion, but often remain silent when people would be actually interested in hearing a reason for closing a (for better or worse) popular and for most of us, fun thread. What's the point of this thread then?

 

No one cares if a mod moves a thread from one subforum to another. I thought the idea of this thread was to explain moderating decisions, in order for us to understand what is/is not acceptable. The rules are often unwritten, that is fine, but it would be helpful to write just a few words when threads with tens of replies get closed.

[inquiry]

At the risk of repeating myself:

 

 

 

No one cares if a mod moves a thread from one subforum to another. I thought the idea of this thread was to explain moderating decisions, in order for us to understand what is/is not acceptable. The rules are often unwritten, that is fine, but it would be helpful to write just a few words when threads with tens of replies get closed.

 

 

This might refer to the closing of the Judaism 101 thread, which I closed today. I am not quite as good as Barmar at posting changes in this thread.

 

Barmar asked my opinion on the thread via private type message, and I had to agree with him that it had run its course, so I just jumped over and closed it. Bad form on my part not to mention its closing here. Also, yesterday I deleted a bunch of duplicate post (there was some kind of posting problems, one post was duplicated six times, others from 2 to 4). I didn't mention those either (seemed redundant.... ) :)

 

The closing of the thread came after it degraded a good bit. Religion and political discussions are always have potential to get overly personal. Rather than talking about the principals of, say the democratic party, or the Methodist religion, it boils down to talking about democrats or Methodist as people... that personalizes it, and that can lead quickly to problems when a democrat or a Methodist takes exception. So when I saw I threat entitled simply Judaism 101 with the original post concluding that Islam, Judaism and Christianity were all going to merge into one religion, I thought the thread would surely get too personal. Some would clearly disagree with the originals posters view, but surely some would vocally question the original posters sanity or his knowledge (which brings it to a personal level). While the discussion had a chance to be interesting to some, it really was not good... in one place some called one religion's god an "asshole", and one comparing some religion's view of god to "A mafia don". There you go, that will not make any one irate. Then there was raft of post about "shouldn't respond to this:, "wish no one would respond to this", "wish I hadn't responded to this", and the insert silly cartoon responses. ... Human rights got dragged into the thread (off topic), then comment on Israeli human rights issues, then discrimination against religions, the US constitution, the appropriateness of the US war in Iraq over the non-existence of weapons of mass destruction, the list goes on and on, and off topic with some personal insults thrown in... ending with yet another cartoon by our own Barmar

 

Enough seems to be enough, the thread had clearly run out of any useful discussion and was drifting helplessly into the abyss. I just couldn't bring myself to delete the entire thing, but putting it out of its misery seemed appropriate. Sorry for not posting about it sooner.

[Antrax]

So when I saw I threat entitled simply Judaism 101 with the original post concluding that Islam, Judaism and Christianity were all going to merge into one religion, I thought the thread would surely get too personal. Some would clearly disagree with the originals posters view, but surely some would vocally question the original posters sanity or his knowledge (which brings it to a personal level). While the discussion had a chance to be interesting to some, it really was not good... in one place some called one religion's god an "asshole", and one comparing some religion's view of god to "A mafia don". There you go, that will not make any one irate. Then there was raft of post about "shouldn't respond to this:, "wish no one would respond to this", "wish I hadn't responded to this", and the insert silly cartoon responses. ... Human rights got dragged into the thread (off topic), then comment on Israeli human rights issues, then discrimination against religions, the US constitution, the appropriateness of the US war in Iraq over the non-existence of weapons of mass destruction, the list goes on and on, and off topic with some personal insults thrown in... ending with yet another cartoon by our own Barmar

I was going to ask you if you'd read the thing, but you clearly have, you just saw it very differently. Was the thread reported by anyone as offensive?

The points regarding Yehovah (another offense!) not being the benign wuss your "new testament" paints him to be were actually important to the discussion, and I doubt anyone meant it as an insult.

The derailing was in good fun because it was a thread started by one of the posters who's clearly having a laugh (I don't want to call him a troll because he doesn't seem to try to aggravate us). Also, water cooler.

 

So, as a participant (which I rarely do, in the water cooler) I'd like to state I wasn't offended by anything that went on in there and didn't mind the derailing. If others feel similarly, perhaps the thread can stay open until someone loses an eye.

[inquiry]

I was going to ask you if you'd read the thing, but you clearly have, you just saw it very differently. Was the thread reported by anyone as offensive?

The points regarding Yehovah (another offense!) not being the benign wuss your "new testament" paints him to be were actually important to the discussion, and I doubt anyone meant it as an insult.

The derailing was in good fun because it was a thread started by one of the posters who's clearly having a laugh (I don't want to call him a troll because he doesn't seem to try to aggravate us). Also, water cooler.

 

So, as a participant (which I rarely do, in the water cooler) I'd like to state I wasn't offended by anything that went on in there and didn't mind the derailing. If others feel similarly, perhaps the thread can stay open until someone loses an eye.

 

Yes someone complained. People complain about a lot of things. Sometimes we take action, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we take action without complaint. However, this one was unusual because we usually take action without consulting anyone else. Like I said on this one, Barmar asked my opinion. I went with the lock down idea. Usually I try to let long running threads (multi-pages) run, because there must be interest. I just thought much of what was in this thread could be posted in the "off-topic" thread or whatever that one is called, since the topic certainly wasn't focused on the premise in the original post. For what it is worth, my middle name is Fisher and I have German jewish great great grand parents who moved to the US and became, of all things, Baptist. So clearly people and groups can move from one religion to others so blending of religious ideas in a global society taking the best of different views is certainly possible. Too bad the discussion couldn't have stayed on that topic. However, this what we did thread is not the place to hash out conternt of other threads. I will leave it for Barmar to decide if locking the thread was too big a step (since I did it, I must think it was ok).

[cherdano]

Ben, with all respect, I think you have the priorities wrong. You care whether a watercooler thread is getting off-topic, whether it has run out of useful discussions, whether it generates "insert silly cartoon responses". Yet there is a completely non-sensical thread in the "Expert-Class Bridge" forum with 53 posts.

[jjbrr]

At the risk of repeating myself:

 

No one cares if a mod moves a thread from one subforum to another. I thought the idea of this thread was to explain moderating decisions, in order for us to understand what is/is not acceptable. The rules are often unwritten, that is fine, but it would be helpful to write just a few words when threads with tens of replies get closed.

 

I don't see any problem at all with a mod locking a thread about politics or religion without a written explanation. In fact I'd be in favor of moving those sorts of threads into a separate subforum entirely in an effort to prevent them from spreading their AIDS to the rest of the forum.

 

In a similar vein, can mods be more heavy-handed on posts that simply link to an external page without any accompanying content? I know there's some good poetry that gets linked once in a while, but more often than not the post just ends up fodder for the perpetuation of flaming.

[gwnn]

I don't see any problem at all with a mod locking a thread about politics or religion without a written explanation. In fact I'd be in favor of moving those sorts of threads into a separate subforum entirely in an effort to prevent them from spreading their AIDS to the rest of the forum.

So you think it is more important for us to know that some duplicate threads were deleted than if a popular-ish thread gets locked? I agree that the mods don't owe us explanations but uday specifically posted upthread that all mod decisions will be documented here (except perhaps very small changes) and it's a bit irritating to see the policy being forgotten in cases that would actually interest us.

[jjbrr]

So you think it is more important for us to know that some duplicate threads were deleted than if a popular-ish thread gets locked? I agree that the mods don't owe us explanations but uday specifically posted upthread that all mod decisions will be documented here (except perhaps very small changes) and it's a bit irritating to see the policy being forgotten in cases that would actually interest us.

 

I admit I don't find either matter particularly pressing. If it were up to me, I think it's silly that we can't trust the mods to merge duplicate posts/threads without public scrutiny, but I suspect it requires so little effort that it's not a big deal either way. I do feel strongly, though, that if the content of a post is edited for whatever reason, the mods should keep a record of the change for us to see. I assume legally BBO owns whatever content gets posted to this forum, but regardless they owe everyone an explanation if the message is changed to something that the poster didn't say. My impression is that they do a good job of this, and that's not the issue here, right?

 

As far as threads getting locked, I trust their judgment. "Popular-ish" is sort of irrelevant as far as that goes. We're a small enough family that we all generally know one another's position on a given topic, and nothing anyone has ever said has changed anyone's mind on any particular issue. Can you give us a reason why the thread in question needs to be unlocked other than policy or principle?

[gwnn]

I never said that I thought the thread should be unlocked. I just said it's pointless to document small, insignificant changes but forget to write about bigger decisions (i.e. locking threads). If I give you an inventory of our pet shop and I told you there were 13 rats, 3 cats, 5 dogs, 23 canaries, and 5 budgies, would you not be surprised if we were also selling tigers and sharks, completely unmentioned on the inventory? Of course, that, too, is a moot point by now since inquiry posted the reasons and that he's sorry, more than enough for me.

[32519]

For what it is worth, my middle name is Fisher and I have German jewish great great grand parents who moved to the US and became, of all things, Baptist. So clearly people and groups can move from one religion to others so blending of religious ideas in a global society taking the best of different views is certainly possible. Too bad the discussion couldn't have stayed on that topic.

I too have Jewish blood in me going back to the 1,800s when a distant relative moved first to Ireland, and from there another distant relative moved to South Africa. The Jewishness in the family tree has steadily got less and less from there. I was brought up as a Presbyterian but today regard myself as a Messianic Jew. I know little about how the Jews see their God and their religion and was truly fascinated by some of what Art and Antrax started posting. It’s a pity the thread was locked. I would have loved to find out more from the likes of them.

[inquiry]

Ben, with all respect, I think you have the priorities wrong. You care whether a watercooler thread is getting off-topic, whether it has run out of useful discussions, whether it generates "insert silly cartoon responses". Yet there is a completely non-sensical thread in the "Expert-Class Bridge" forum with 53 posts.

 

I am not certain which thread you are talking about, but for the sake of argument let's assume for decision making that you are talking about the thread for calculating distribution values of a hand. No need to let me know if this is the one or not, but let me give you an example of my thinking about this thread. First, let me start by saying I haven't read past the first few paragraphs of the original post in that thread. I am not interested in the topic nor do I care to study it to see if it is an improvement of how I evaluate a bridge hand. This is probably more a reflection of my personal view than an evaluation of the content of the ideas expressed (as I said, I stopped reading it, so it maybe the greatest thing since sliced-bread and I am missing out). Nor do I think an expert would care to plod through the content of that post. I doubt that experts bother with anything like what was being proposed in the thread or Blinky points or Zar points for that matter. They use experience, honor placement, and construction of partnership hands from the bidding to visualize each others hands and how the play might go as they bid.

 

But the question is, let's say for some reason, despite all the apparent effort the author put into building an idea and taking the time to share it with the world, I thought that thread was unsuited for the Expert thread where experts share ideas and delve into deep advanced or better situations, where should I move such a thread? That is, where should it go, is an essential part of moving a topic, and is even more important than it is in the wrong place. To move it, there must clearly be an APPROPRIATE place to put it.

 

So where would I move the hand evaluation thread if I was unhappy with it in the Expert forum? Certainly not to novice, intermediate or advanced threads. Plays have enough trouble counting to 13. . Certainly not to "general bridge discussion" because it wasn't general. And of course, it has nothing to do with the general off line bridge, natural or unnatural bidding, youth bridge, etc categories.

 

And unlike all of my post and many post by others, the author did appear to have put a lot of thought into his idea before posting it. So I would go with the assumption that he was looking for some kind of vetting of his idea of hand evaluation, so he put it in the expert forum. Hopefully, someone here was able to tell him either, "hey this is a great idea but it could be improved if you take into account x and y," or someone was able to point out that "it is overcomplicated and here is specifically why, with examples." Perhaps I should have read the whole thing and answered it myself, but quite frankly, I read as much as I needed to know I really didn't care about the topic. But as for moving it, lets assume that I am 100% certain it is not suitable for EXPERT forum, I would need a clear idea of where it should go, and for this topic with this much effort in it, I just don't see a place to move it.

 

As noted this might not be the topic you are hinting at, I used this thread as an example to illustrate because it is one that is probably not a great fit for any particular forum. I could easily have missed the thread you were hinting at, since while years ago I read every post on the forum, the last couple of years I only read post that A) interest me from the title, or B) get flagged by someone and Barmar or some other administrator has not removed the flag before I see it. So feel free to flag the thread you think is poorly placed.