Tom Hall why won't you allow a discussion of the problem

[Michael Stamps]

Well you moved the topic to the suggestion board then locked it.  Are you afraid of having a discussion about it?  I'm not asking that you not do your job as a moderator.  I'm asking that you tell us what you are changing.  A little note like "Edited to remove extraneous quotes.  Tom Hall" or "Edited to remove content that shouldn't be on a family board.  Tom Hall."  I see "Last edited by Tom Hall" all over the boards but I have no idea what you are changing on the post.  Maybe the poster would learn from their mistakes if you told them.  It would also let others know and learn.  I think this is a reasonable request.

Stampie

[Tom Hall 7485]

I haven't locked the other thread, Michael.  You've jumped to a conclusion there
I'm afraid.  You also haven't answered my questions e-mailed to you yesterday.

[Michael Stamps]

The other thread is locked and I haven't replied to your email because as I said yesterday I think this should be public instead of hidden behind doors.  So what do you think of my idea of just noting what you or any moderator changes?  You still do your job as you see fit but let us readers know what was done.

Stampie

[South_paw]

I think the moderators job would be a lot easier if there was a rule in regard to use of quote feature. Currently there is NO rule in place, only a suggestion to avoid this claimed abusive action. I use the word "claimed" because depending on how you read the forum, quotes may or may not be a problem for you. If you read the forum in the traditional sense it can seem cluttered with all of the quotes BUT if you read the forum using the "view most recent post" feature, the quotes help you follow along without the need to enter the thread and figure out what the person is responding to.   

IMO, without a hard rule to refer to, revisions of a post by a moderator will always be questioned. Especially if the person reads the forum using the recent post option.  Also because this isn't a hard rule, moderators should send out a courtesy email each and every time a revision is made in this case. It was standard practice to do so during my tour of duty and I feel it should still be done today. It's "good business".   

Just so I am clear this should not be read as a knock on the moderators of this board. Just trying to help find a way to improve our great message board and make the lives easier of those whom volunteer their time to keep it that way .

Lou

[Tom Hall 7485]

Everyone can rest assured that the only edits I perform are to remove repetitious quotes.

Our policy of not changing the text of the new message has not changed.  The new
portion of the message generally stands or falls in its entirety, with the exception of
illustrations and avatars, which have on occasion been removed.

We will also continue to deal with problem messages privately.  Thus, third parties may see
changes to a thread that they do not understand. 

[Glen]

I subscribe to several forums and none of those have a moderator that removes quoted text from a post. 

I sometimes find it hard to figure out what the poster is talking about if they do not include a quote from the post they are replying to. 

Removing the quote seems like a disservice to me.   

[Tom Hall 7485]

South Paw, I appreciate your thoughtful comments as well as your tact.

Indeed, there is no written rule allowing me or anyone to edit any message.
So, I until there is such a rule, I will stop deleting the repetition of previous
messages.

[Michael Stamps]

Sorry Tom but I'm a redneck originally from South Carolina.  I've never been known for my tact.  Thanks for your time on this subject.

Stampie

[Geoff Newcombe #4719]

"Indeed, there is no written rule allowing me or anyone to edit any message.
So, I until there is such a rule, I will stop deleting the repetition of previous
messages."

Tom,
The way I read it in Jeff Hansen's post dated April 28, 2007 titled "REVISED FORUM RULES -- Please read" (which is still there near the top of every forum discussion grouping), the moderators have every right and authority to delete or change posts as they see fit ----
"The CLC reserves the right to delete or edit any message for any reason"
Geoff N.

[Michael Stamps]

And I'm not asking that post not be edited.  I'm just asking that it be notated why they were edited.

Stampie

[Tom Hall 7485]

We have some different issues here.  One is whether all visitors have a right to know why editing has been done.  This issue has not been hashed out by moderators/management yet regarding "reply with quote" but has been with regard to other types of deletions.  For other types of deletions we don't feel compelled to tell the world why a message has been removed in its entirety.  Spam just disappears.  Obscenity just disappears.  Threads started by people who never provide any real name just disappear.  We don't make a public statement about that particular deletion because we already covered the topic generally in the rules.  If and when a rule is made, I think that duplicate messages should just disappear, too.  No notation why.  (Whether the world has a right to see the reason for an edit is separate from whether an e-mail has been sent to the message poster.  The poster has a right to know the reason.)

Should complete transparency be opted for, allowing all visitors to see why an edit occurred (in spite of the policy that most problem messages are discussed privately to spare the poster and/or moderator undue embarrassment), then there's the issue of how to indicate the edit.  If it was up to me, I'd want the notation to be in fine print within the edited message itself, right beside the notation "edited by so-and-so on such-and-such date".  However, I don't know a way to do that.  At the same time, I'm not eager to post a whole new message to discuss the edit, because (1) it's a break in the continuity of the conversation and (2) it may very well require more space than the redundant quote!  Apparently the software makers felt that only the fact of an edit, the editor, and the time of editing are desirable to show.  Michael is asking for more.  In the event that the edit is explained publicly, then no e-mail need be sent to the poster.
 
Some people have already been asked several times to lay off the "reply with quote" button.  You have no right to know who.

Another issue is who edits.  South Paw points out that there is a difference between the individual editor and the CLC.  This is true if the moderator hasn't got management approval.  I believe that I have both tacit and express approval to delete redundant quotes, but it's not specified in the Revised Forum Rules that redundant quotes are subject to removal at the discretion of the moderators.  There is a difference between advice (see "Reply with Quote" on Forum Tips and Help) and a rule.  If you feel a rule is best, we will try to make one when a successor to Jeff Hansen is installed.  I hope our Revised Rules can stay fairly simple, though. 

The next issue is who approves the rule.  I don't know the answer to that yet.  I can pretty well guess that it's not going to appear on any ballot for all CLC members to vote on.  We are, after all, discussing throwing away duplicate copies. 

There is also the possibility that the "reply with quote" control will simply be disabled, and for that I don't believe we need to make a rule.  Do you?

Incidentally, I have edited this message.  "My" message.  Can you tell where?  Does it matter that you can't?  Yes, it's a very different matter when I edit "my own" message, but it kinda makes you wonder how much transparency is appropriate.  What if I just changed my position in an argument?  Where would we look for my earlier statements that have been edited out?  They're gone forever, unless someone printed them.

[Otto Skorzeny]

The way I see it is like this:

The forum is a private enterprise operation. The creators and moderators can manage and operate it as they see fit - without explanation of any kind for their actions. We, the users, can like it, lump it, or dump it.

Creating more rules, explanations, etc. makes the site more cumbersome for the readers and the moderators. Leave it alone. I think the moderators can make the necessary judgments about what to do with a post on a case by case basis. There is no need to encumber them further with requirements to explain their actions to the forum or to the individual poster.

As for the "reply with quote" function, make corrections and deletions whenever you see fit. A lot of people who use it just aren't computer savvy and just hit the first button with the word "reply" in it that they see - whether or not the quote is necessary to the poster's reply. Moderators should just keep doing what they've been doing.

Trust me, it's not that difficult to figure out what's going on in a thread whether or not there's a quote from a previous post.

Mountains are being made out of mole hills here for no reason.

If the whole editing thing is that big a deal to some people, then I want to trade places with them. I would love to have the biggest worry in my life centered around what Tom Hall deleted from this forum and why.

Gimme a break. Let's just get on with enjoying the discussion of old cars and worry about what's really important.

Forrest Ward

[Michael Stamps]

Incidentally, I have edited this message.  "My" message.  Can you tell where?  Does it matter that you can't?  Yes, it's a very different matter when I edit "my own" message, but it kinda makes you wonder how much transparency is appropriate.  What if I just changed my position in an argument?  Where would we look for my earlier statements that have been edited out?  They're gone forever, unless someone printed them.

You have just proved my argument for why a moderator should note what was changed.  Say you edit my post.  Who is to know if you changed my wording to some totally different?  To me a moderator is like the old saying about children.  They should be seen not heard.  That means helping the board run smoothly but not so obtrusive that they show up like a sore thumb.

Just my two cents,
Stampie

[Tom Hall 7485]

Michael and South Paw, when you were moderators, did you ever delete a message?  Maybe some spam or a cheesecake photo or a thread that was uncivil?

If so, did you leave us a permanent marker or notation on the message boards that is still visible to all visitors to say, "There was spam here but we took it away"?  If so, please point it out to me.  If not, why didn't you?  I think you generally didn't.  Sometimes you moved deleted items to a private place called Deleted Post Forum, which is where they probably reside to this day, unless there has been a board cleaning that removed them.  In other cases, they were sent off into cyberspace with the "remove" button, rather than preserved for analysis by moderators and others who are privy to such things.  Some items were destroyed even after creation of Deleted Post Forum, and not by me.

When I remove a repeated quote, WE DO NOT LOSE ANY NEW MATERIAL.  We lose a duplicate.  The text of the previous message is somewhere above the edited message in the same thread. 

Should my finger slip or my eyesight fail me, and as a result I also cut off some new material by mistake, is there anyone who would know what used to be there?  Yes.  The person who posted can edit to restore, or can make a whole new message.  I will add a request to my form letter asking the person who posted to review to make sure that no vital organs got cut off during the editing operation.

If you owned a business and you had some file folders in which you kept invoices and letters, and you found that you had three copies of the same invoice or the same letter in the same folder, wouldn't you be inclined to throw away two of them and keep just one?  Or, would you prefer to have a bunch of duplicate stuff to trip over every time you looked into that folder?  Me, I prefer to save just the one invoice.  Does your secretary leave chits of paper in the folder saying, "Today I threw away two duplicate copies of invoice 08-01285"? 

If recording this activity is a concern, I recorded the dates of the edits and the names of the people whose messages got the quotes chopped off.  Ordinary visitors don't have access to those records, but they exist.  And, the message bears a permanent notation that an edit occurred.  It fails to say what the edit was.  So, your first concern is whether something nefarious is going on, whether text has been altered.  Again, the answer is that no new text was altered.

In editing messages of approximately 50 people to delete previously stated material, I have heard back from only two or three of them to ask why.  The other approximately 48 people whose messages got edited apparently didn't care enough about it to make an issue of it, and about a half dozen other posters said in subsequent e-mails to me, "Okay, thanks." So, I really don't think we're going to be able to make a federal case out of this.

Michael, you say, "They [moderators] should be seen[,] not heard.  That means helping the board run smoothly but not so obtrusive that they show up like a sore thumb."  Now we are really getting to the heard of your complaint.  It is that you think that I am "over-moderating".  You are arguing a double standard to the extent that on one hand you don't like seeing me on the forums very often, but on the other hand you're saying, "Tell us more about what you're taking off the forums and be accountable."  Now I am confused whether you want more of me or less of me.  ("All of me, why not take all of me?  Can't you see I'm no good without you...."  Insert emoticon of Billie Holiday here.)

I return to my question: "If I edit my own message and you can't tell what I did to it to change it, as an ordinary visitor do you have a right to know what I changed?"  Why? 

[South_paw]

Hi Tom,
My point of contention with this whole thing is, not everyone see's a "quote" as a duplicate. The "quote" is a feature of this software and for the most part it is used correctly, just like every other forum I am a member of (I believe Glen touched on this point as well). Yes on occasion there will be a quote that is done in error(the tell tale sign is when the response is inside the quote). A quick edit by the Moderator would be in order for something like that. And as Stampie recommended, a little text on that message by the mod stating the correction would explain it to all.

I guess what I am trying to say is, is it worth it? Revising the post of another, due to what may be a duplicate at the expense of possibly upsetting the author. Especially without any notification. 

Imagine this scenario if you will,

You finally get the nerve to speak at a meeting. You get up, address the members in the room and tell your story. Just as you finish, a board member comes up to you fixes your tie and dust off your shoulders and without a word takes his seat. How would that make you feel?

So in closing, you are 100% correct. We are not losing any new material.
I wonder though, how many of the 48 authors you said had no issues with it, actually came-back to post another day.   

PS, to answer your initial question,
Deleting messages is a different beast. A spam message is an obvious one, who would question the removal of such a post? We just moved them and in most cases I would block the IP address as well..  There are plenty of examples of edited post on the forum where we remove pictures, locked threads and such. Each are duly noted.

Lou 

   

[Michael Stamps]

To add to what Lou said so well,  our policy on the Modified Chapter board is delete the entire post or leave it as is.  That way there is no question about what is changed.

Stampie

[Glen]

I will agree 100 percent that spam and other nuisance post should be deleted without comment. 

But editing someone else’s post is a different thing.  But you don’t need to write an essay about it.  I’m betting Stampie would be satisfied with just a few words like “edited to remove inappropriate content” or “edited to remove excess quoted post”. 

When a post is moved because it is in the wrong section I have seen such remarks like “moved to Buy and Sell because it deals with selling a car” in this forum.  That is all that is needed. 

In the other forums I frequent the mods sometimes remind posters to edit the quoted post to only the pertinent parts.  I know sometimes you have to wade through 7 quoted post to get to the reply only to read “me too”.  But as I said in my earlier post using reply with quote really helps me to understand what the poster is referring to if they are responding to a post several post up.  A thread can sometimes get very convoluted if more than one subject is being discussed.  This can happen when answers to a question bring several divergent lines of thought. 

By the way Tom, thank you for being a mod.  It’s obviously not an easy job and the pay is not much to speak of. 

Glen

[Tom Hall 7485]

Okay, thanks for your comments.

To summarize the schools of thought, there are at least three schools opposing edits that remove
statements previously made by other people.

(1)  The No-Editing School.  All quotes should remain intact, even when the poster has not
      understood the difference between the controls and, I assume, even when the poster
      has intentionally combined the quote and his own new material in the pink box.  This
      school of thought emphasizes protection of the entire message as an indivisible unit
      which stands or falls in its entirety.  This view gives credit to the possessiveness that
      many people feel about their own messages and views the redundant quote as being as
      valuable as the new material for a variety of reasons, including the convenience of
      tracking conversations in a preview box that appears on the opening page of the forums.
      This view is an all-or-none approach to moderating that particular message.  It therefore
      raises the stakes for the moderator in determining what to do about the undesirable parts
      of any message, including the redundant quote.  The moderator is left with two choices: 
      remove the message or leave it untouched.  This school does not apply to illustrations, which
      have traditionally been seen as separate from the text; it's OK to remove illustrations but
      leave the text on display.

(2)  The Comment School.  This school would allow moderators to remove at least some redundant quotes. 
      The goal is transparency and accountability of moderators, but not necessarily of the poster himself.
      The moderator would be required to explain the edit on the forum itself but this requirement apparently
       would not apply to the person who posted the message and later modified it.  This is a more moderate
       approach to moderating.  At present, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to add the reason in
       fine print alongside the note that an edit has occurred.  The likely result would be that an edit would
       be indicated in a whole new message of its own.  This school of thought does not see deletion of
       entire messages in the same light.  Deletion of entire messages is OK even without the moderator
       leaving a notation on the forum where that message once appeared.  When it comes to deleting whole
       messages, the goal of moderator accountability is therefore a lower priority than leaving the most
       popular forums unblemished by markers saying, "Spam was removed from here," and so on.

(3)  The Rule School.  This viewpoint would allow an as yet unspecified amount of editing by the
      moderator as long as a rule is posted in advance and the moderator does not go beyond the
      scope of the rule.  The Rule School may also require a comment as the Comment School would,
      but we don't know yet because the Rule School hasn't been very vocal.

Does this pretty well sum it up so far?
     

[Fred Zwicker #23106]

Tom Hall,  Good analysis.

However, most of the problem could be minimized by adding the word, Reply just to the left of Reply with quote at the top right hand area of each post.  If doing so, it would be a good idea to make the word Reply in larger type than Reply with quote. I know that Reply is at the top of the posts in the red section, but when readers are arrowing down, the red area disappears, so when commenting on a post, it is natural to click on Reply with quote.

This has been suggested previously.  By not making this change, it seems as if we are making things complicated.  As long as Reply with quote is alone above each post, the problem will continue, especially with new users to the forum.  On the Internet, if it is possible for users to make an error it will happen, so my solution is to make everything 8th grade level (or even pre-school level).  You will still have some users use the Reply with quote excessively, but the above suggestion should minimize the problem

Just my .02.

Fred

[EAM 17806]

Why don't all of us just read the two posts made by "OTTOSKORZENY (FOREST WARD)", Reply #11 and "FRED ZWICKER, Reply # 18 and pay strict attention to those posts and stop all this nonsense and unnecessary complaining. Lets get off all this and allow our forum to continue to be a place where we all can enjoy each others comments. GET A LIFE!  EAM