Howdy folks. Had a slightly controversial thread start up the other day that ended up locked, and we just want to clear the air about something.
Firstly, at no time, unless things get completely out of control, will a mod delete a thread on the Delaware board. It is our hope to get things in hand well before it gets to the point that we'd feel a need to delete.
Personally, I hate thread deletion, simply because it smacks of censorship in the eyes of many posters. People tend to assume that something is going on behind the scenes that leads to a thread getting deleted.
Moderation, when done well, is more about mediation than it is censorship, and I think we do pretty well here.
Understand however, (and most folks don't know this) that you CAN delete or lock your own thread provided you are the original poster. So 9 times out of 10, a deleted thread happened that way. (Mods usually hash it out with one another before deletes, bans, warnings, etc)
Having said that, as the main moderator on the Delaware boards, you have my word that no thread has ever, or wiill be deleted by my hand unless extreme circumstances call for it...and you'd know well in advance.
Procedure is this:
1. First will come a gentle reminder in the thread itself, then if things progress we got to
2: a red text reminder in the thread.
Then if things still get worse, we go to
3: PM the offending parties, we edit offending posts, and lock the thread with an explanation.
Yesterday's thread was no big deal...got a little heated, but it was fine to be left where it was. The main problem in that one was particular posters getting a little too personal with one another. (it stopped being about the topic and started being about the other posters) No one got any trouble other than a mild PM, and even then we all understood one another. We at CRO didn't delete it.
We'll sticky this thread just for a little while, and if there's any questions, I'll do my best to answer them.
Agreed. I generally operate on a theory that most of our parents should have taught us, 'If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all.'
It makes for slightly more boring forum chatter from myself, but it keeps me sane! ;D
I moderate on a sled forum, totallyamaha.com (<----shameless plug) and we get thrown the 'censorship' excuse on occasion but for the most part the petty bickering you can find on other sled boards is non-existant. We generally don't delete a thread unless it's a rule breaker from the word go (politics, religion etc.) and prefer to lock them. There are anywhere from 6-10 mods over there and we discuss most things behind the scenes on a daily basis.
Fortunately for me, they have opposite peak times from racing. ;D
Keep up the good work guys, most of the regular posters and lurkers appreciate it!
Well put.
The mods do talk on here as we have our own forum, as Shadowracer mention in his post above people think we delete posts and in fact the person that started deleted it. I'm not saying we have never removed a post but we try our hardest no to delete them and locking posts seems the way to go as not all replies in a locked post are bad.
I also get asked why do all replies in the post get deleted. To make it simple to understand. The message is a tree and the replies are branches.
If you cut the tree down the branches don't stay in that place without the tree. Tried to find one that would relate to racing but couldn't think of one.
I'm really enjoying the messages in this forum and thinking of maybe getting moderators that have a passion for their track like Shadowracer does to moderate their tracks forum. Something else to talk to the mods about.
Thank You
Evan
You mods here do a great job. Don't let anyone tell you any different! Now lets line em' up and drop the rag, [move][shadow=red,left]IT'S RACEDAY[/shadow][/move]
Updated pertinent parts of this to the "Welcome" post, and took sticky off this one.