What are acceptable reasons for having a question taken down?
Asked by
janelle (
465
)
July 3rd, 2012
Other than I feel offended, what are specific reasons that a mod will accept?
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64 Answers
No primary question, lack of clarity, poorly written, misspelled or muddled presentation, too many secondary questions to claim to be only one…
To add to the list, we sometimes unwittingly ask something that’s been recently asked by someone else. Questions that are offensive in the extreme, or that are personal attacks on another member of the collective are Moderated.
When a question gets moderated, it is pushed to a special section where it is held, and you are notified by email that it has been pushed to moderation, and why. You can decide whether you prefer to rework and reword to cure the issue that got it moderated, or just abandon it. That’s your call unless you ask something that is truly egregious.
Oh, and welcome to Fluther @janelle. Great Question
If there has been no discussion on the question, it is more likely the moderation team would agree to remove your question. If there has been significant discussion by the community, and there is no legal/ethical reason to allow the removal of the question, its removal is unlikely to be approved.
The final decision will rest with the site manager.
Well, don’t expect one to be up there very long when you bust a mod doing something dumb. They tend to dislike that kind of sunlight. It happens.
@woodcutter I believe we’ve discussed that with you, at length. Enough, already.
@janelle The federal courts ruled today in a matter where OWS participants were trying to undo Tweets they sent from Occupy events. Nothing doing, the court said. They are in the public domain, and federal prosecutors can obtain them by subpoena. When you post something on the Internet, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy, the justices held.
As a Web developer, I counsel my clients that the Internet is absolutely the world’s worst hiding place for anything you don’t want known. I pass that same council on to you. Ignore it at your own peril.
@augustlan Again, I have been careful to not divulge. If some eventually figure out the deal, it’s out of my hands. Are you…..attempting too….sensor me? Oh this thread is going to be fun.
@woodcutter If I were attempting to censor you, I’d have, um, removed your post, silly.
@woodcutter Rule one of Web etiquette. The Web Mistress is God. Don’t argue with God.
You mean “I CAN NOT PETITION THE LORD?
Ha! Petiition, always. Order, never. :-)
I like you, man. I want you to be here tomorrow.
@janelle The problem is that just about everybody seems to be offended these days. If that was a criterion for removal, Fluther would run the risk of modding itself into non-existence
If your initials happen to be R.A.N.D.Y, then it’s more than likely your questions are going to be short lived.
@josie A contributing factor would be that people are constantly harassed online by bullies hiding behind a computer.
@janelle Since they are hiding behind a computer, they cannot hurt you. Another generation (My grandma) used to say “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me”. Seems to me it is sort of like any social organization. Some people are rude, some are polite, some are obstructive, some are helpful. You can’t exterminate the rude and obnoxious. All you can do is ignore them. Or maybe in some cases divorce them. Until they touch you or steal from you, they are usually just background noise. In my opinion, there are lots of real things to worry about. People are not going to suddenly change their respective natures on your account. Sorry
@josie I don’t agree. Megan Taylor Meier is one of many girls who have committed suicide because of cyberbullying. Sticks and stones can physically hurt you, words to a certain extent can be psychologically abusive.
It’s a little corny, but watch the movie Cyberbullying sometime and tell me what you think.
Welcome to Fluther, @janelle!
Any of the reasons that come up when you click to flag a question or answer are acceptable.
You can’t really compare cyberbullying to being upset or offended by someone’s question or response on this site. Yes, cyberbullying happens, and it’s awful; but in the context of this site, you shouldn’t encounter anything of that extent. Someone saying something that offends or upsets you does not mean that their question or response is worth removing, so don’t have that misconception. There is an age requirement on this site to help ensure the maturity of members. If you cannot handle people saying things that you might not want to hear, this site is probably not for you.
If someone goes to far as to personally attack another member, however, their response is immediately removed, so make sure to flag anything like that. And if for some reason you do feel that you are being repeatedly bullied or harassed by a member, be sure to tell a mod or the community manager.
What do you do when it is a mod(s) who you feel are attacking or bullying you, @Fly? Hypothetically of course.
Sulk, pout, attack and feel really put-upon? Or alternatively, laugh, suck it up and put it into perspective?
@woodcutter Someone said I mentioned Randy, so i’ll tell you. He’s a guy on here who asks questions he only wants nice people to answer.
Lets not derail from the question and pick on others now.
@janelle: Randy, in his multiple incarnations, is our resident troll. We can pick on him as much as we like, as long as we are nice about it.
@janelle What @gailcalled said sums up precisely my intent. So you see, not derailing the thread at all, perfectly justifiable to call out a trollish buffoon.
It’s irrelevant to the posted question.
“What are acceptable reasons for having a question taken down?”
Being an ignorant troll.
Stating that Randy specifically is a troll and picking on him didn’t exactly answer the question.
@janelle What was the question? We can tell you what the problem was. I had a question pulled 3 times for “spelling” and I could NOT figure out what I had spelled wrong (I didn’t know you could right click for a check spelling option when you write a question.) Turns out I’d spelled the word ‘wierd’ wrong!
Randy?
Oh..and you’ll get used to it. I used to be embarrassed but not any more. They’re usually right. Once in a great while I’ll throw a Hail Mary out there and when I hit “post” I’m going “They are SO going to mod this question!” One time, though, they didn’t. I was amazt!
@Dutchess_III You must still be having trouble with spell check- It’s spelled “weird.” ;)
@bkcunningham Quick, your bias is showing. You report it to the Community Manager.
You are correct, @Fly. Thank you for the reminder. Every now and then I need a nudge in the right direction.
My spell check is working, @Fly. I did it on purpust.
Been here several years and this is the first I’ve heard of this chap, Randy. He still here?
@woodcutter Randy comes in many forms, all with the name Randy in his name. He asks a question, usually about music, and states that he only wants nice people to answer his question. Then he is usually banned within a few minutes of his question. There have been several questions asked in Meta about him. People seem to get excited about “Randy sightings”, myself included.
Is there some king of reward for finding him? I was always pretty good at finding Waldo.
The reason you haven’t seen him is because his questions (many of them) are removed quickly by the mods. It is one of the things we do – along with getting rid of the spam so you aren’t buried under a pile of it.
Is this the same person or many impersonators taking advantage of this position?
Anyone who wants to impersonate a mod and clean up spam or ‘randy’ type behaviour is welcome to. I haven’t yet seen anyone impersonating as a mod.
No, I mean is the randy guy always a different person or the same one popping in to make trouble?
@woodcutter It’s the same guy. Over and over and over. Ugh.
@janelle Sorry to be so late getting back to this, but relative to your concerns about off topic responses, I would suggest that since the topic is what does it take to get a question removed, any response that gets to that issue is in fact on topic. What is a troll, and examples of such behavior qualify.
Ha! You didn’t expect that text string to generate a mailto link, did you, @Dutchess_III
@Dutchess_III Because all the characters were contiguous in the string, it looked for the world like an email address to the Textile interpreter Fluther uses to convert linkable strings to links.
@Bellatrix‘s first response completely affirms my original, legitimate answer.
So simple, never any reason to question it’s validity in the first place.
Actually, I think the randy torch is passed from user to user, carrying on the legacy, each person in turn expanding upon randy until his web existence becomes sentient.
I saw Randy once, and then I checked his profile and he didn’t exist anymore!
@Pied_Pfeffer Thanks for the tip! I do so enjoy it when Randywhatshisfuckingname visits us!
STOP IT Oly NICE FUCKING PEOPLE should answer this!
waaaaaahhhhhhhhhh
@bkcunningham Hey! Fuck saying only nice things Fuck you Fuck me Fuck it I fucking love you! :D
@Pied_Pfeffer Yet another Randy. The screen name must be honest, cause the guy sure does beg to be fucked over-and-over again.
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