Do the mods delete personal comments?
Asked by
Fyrius (
14578
)
March 26th, 2010
I’ve had certain private message exchanges with some users here, of which any trace had disappeared a day later. What gives?
If this is the mods’ doing, then my dear mods, what are you even doing reading other people’s “private”-marked messages? “Private” means it’s my business and the receiver’s business, and that of nobody else.
Secondly, why delete them? As far as I recall, all the PMs I saw disappear might all have been rather unfriendly in nature, but that too would be entirely the business of the sender and the receiver. I can understand modding flame bait in a thread, but aren’t we allowed to criticise each other in private? It doesn’t bother anyone else.
If this is a mod policy, I find it disturbing.
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26 Answers
I don’t think it is a policy – I’ve had perfectly innocuous messages disappear from my home page, only for me to find them later – even ones from mods.
Maybe it’s a feature of the “in private” setting?
You should consider sending a personal message to a moderator asking about this directly to them before suspecting that they might be reading and deleting your personal messages. I highly, highly doubt they are doing that.
In fact, if memory serves me correctly, someone posted a question a while back about mods reading private/personal messages. I think the official answer was that only Fluther’s creators, Andrew, Ben, and Tim along with the community manager, Augustlan, are the only ones who can read private messages and will only do so out of extreme necessity.
Crap, have I been too indiscreet again?
Well, I don’t mean to accuse the mods of anything. It’s a question, I don’t know the answer.
The mods would just be the most sensible explanation I can think of, however weird that would be. And if that expectation is true, then I have to ask: what the heck?
But fair enough, perhaps I should wait with that until I have an answer.
@Fyrius. I didn’t see your question as necessarily accusatory and you have a right to be concerned. Asking the question is the best way to get the correct answer you’re looking for and mods will help you out with that.
I’ve only ever received positive PM’s so I wouldn’t know about any being deleted.I think someone said the other day that only a couple of mods have access to them & only then if someone on the receiving end of strong abuse has alerted them.
@Fyrius It just took me a lot of searching but here’s the question from the other day. You can read the answers and then pm the appropriate community manager to ask your specifics.
@janbb
Thanks for your efforts, I’ll read it.
I see.
I’ll take the mods’ word for it that they don’t do this sort of thing, then.
That changes the question, but does not entirely answer it yet. I still don’t understand what happens to those comments. Is it a technical issue?
I’m not sure. Maybe the other poster wanted them deleted? I would pm Augustlan with specific questions you have.
I was surprised a few months back, when The Compassionate Heretic commented on a PM I received from another user, so apparently they can look at them.
@filmfann No, they can’t. Only Ben, Andrew, Tim and Augustlan can look at them. Only Andrew and Augustlan look into PM issues and that is the only time they look at PMs. You need to read Ausgustlan’s post in the thread janbb found.
That Auggie. Always on pot.
Damn, I liked it better the other way.
Are you looking at your comments on your profile page or under “comments for you”? I had a moment when I though I was missing a great number of pm’s and then realized that on my profile page, only public comments are visible (even to me), but when I go to “comments”, they’re all there.
I do notice everything I received is all still there on my “comments” page.
I guess that answers my question.
Is this a recent change, though? I think my received private messages used to be visible to me on my profile page too. My sent private messages are also visible to me on other people’s profile pages, unless they deleted them.
[mod says:] When you’re viewing your profile page, only public PMs are visible. When you click to view your comments then you see public and private ones. When you view another users profile you see their public PMs as well as private PMs that you left them. If you’re looking at another users comments and notice some are missing from you (public or private) chances are the other user removed them. Also, to clear it up (again) @marinelife is correct – only Fluther staff (Bendrewim) and the community manager, Augustlan, can see private PMs, but they only look at those if the messages have been brought to their attention.
In addition, the user you sent it to can remove the comments (we still keep a record for cases of harassment).
There is one other reason that PMs can disappear, even from your ‘comments for you’ page… If the sender’s account has been banned, their private messages go ‘poof’. We still have a record of them, but they won’t appear for you.
So @Fyrius, should I keep yours or do you want me to delete ‘em? :-)
Thank you for answering, guys. I understand now. :)
@janbb
I’m generally in favour of record-keeping.
Fyrius, give me the names and let me handle them.
No one messes with my crazy dutch friend
@Mike_Hunt
Lolwut? Whose names?
I appreciate the offer, mate, but I don’t need anyone out of the way right now. And if there’s flaming to be done, I have way too much fun with that myself.
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