My philosophy with the administrative tools in the software is to give moderators the most fine-grained control possible (a goal not yet fully realized) specifically to minimize censorship.
When the admin tools are crude, moderators are faced with unpalatable choices: Hesitate to do what's right; or delete entire threads and destroy valuable content along with offensive content. The moderators at the Zone can work with individual messages to prune threads rather than kill them.
I also try to avoid deletion in favor of moving material. The Flame board is an example of that: Instead of deleting flames, they can be moved to a place where they can burn themselves out naturally. Similarly, moderators can move entire threads to a "Dead Zone", instead of deleting them, so that the action can be reviewed and possibly reversed.
In a future version of the software, posters will be able to edit their posts. But the old text won't disappear; it'll be moved "behind" the latest version and will be available for comparison. Editing capability without version control and archiving only leads to disputes about what was said in a previous version and accusations of coverup.
So yeah, I have this strong aversion to destroying words, and I look for ways to manage content without destroying it.
--Robert
Off Topic » in reply to re: Either that...
Surgical censorship
The whole thread (57 posts)
- This is a wonderful example of what can happen when nonsense is given an open forum
- This board seems to be turning into the farce board.
- So contribute something else.
- When I had an E-Zine
- I think that is unfair, R.L
- Its a curious phenomena
- Well.........have a gander at the two lengthy threads on CE..... (n/t)
- Seems to be what folks of all stripes want to talk about...
- What nonsense?
- I've seen this so many times
- re: Do you still wonder?
- Speaking of loons...........