A Suggestion

[Grandma]

9 hours ago, Raggydoll said:

@Grandma Am I allowed to call a friend?!

Yes dear, as long as your homework is finished and your chores are done.  And don't call that little girl who copies over your shoulder during tests.  She won't be any help.

[katrinka]

5 hours ago, gregory said:

If a mod needs to do that, there is usually a very good reason. And they will then also edit your quote of that post. I remember a whole series on AT where the (eventually banned) member posting while very very drunk but not for the first time, unleashed an INCREDIBLE series of foul-mouthed probably actionable in law posts.

That's a justifiable reason, and all they did was remove text, not add in other text and put words in his mouth. But the incident I was thinking of wasn't done in the spirit of sparing people from a wall-o-drunken-vitriol, nor was it at AT. The mod in question said something that someone else debunked, with citations, so he went in and changed that, deleting the salient points and putting something else there in an attempt to make his opponent look stupid. The other mods/admin were keeping a close eye on the thread, though, and they banned the rogue mod. That place has great mods (other than the one who ended up getting the boot.)

Mods used to rewrite peoples' posts at another board, too, one of the old big pagan boards, but the whole mod/admin team was corrupt at that place, a big, biased clique that backed each other up no matter how wrong they were. The place ended up with a horrible rep, though.

AT fell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. I never saw them change what anyone said into something else, and some of the things that got removed needed to be taken out, but some of them took out useful content, too, simply because they disagreed with it, or someone else didn't like it and reported it. (*cough*Lenormand threads*cough)

You see something kind of similar at facebook. (I know you don't go there, but facebook is famous for that stuff.) You can post virtually anything there with no problem, until someone gets mad at you because they disagree with your politics or what-have-you. Then they go to your profile and look for things to report. Sometimes you get posts removed with a message that they're "being reviewed" and after a few days, they reappear. But I know someone who was temp banned for a link about MoMA or some other gallery, with a preview photo that showed a painting with a boob in it. A lot of us shared the same link with no issues, as well as card images and other things with more nudity.  Banning-by-report is so common there that the first thing people ask when someone posts that they just got out of "facebook jail" is "who did you **** off?"

Good modding is tough. You need a clear, unambiguous set of rules (not something open to interpretation like "Our only rule is respect") and they need to be enforced impartially. That's hard, because there's always the possibility of having to offend people you like.

None of this is intended to throw shade at the mods here, BTW. From what I've seen so far, they're an excellent team. But I've hung out at too many forums, groups, social media, etc. to agree that there's "usually a good reason." Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't.
 

5 hours ago, gregory said:

But people who edit their posts after you post something else, and then PM you to say how dare you always try to make me look bad (when all I had done was say "you can buy that cheaper here" when they were - incorrectly - determined they were cheaper) NEED to be quoted so that they cannot deliberately mislead, with consequences for other members.

When people start acting like that, yes, quote them. And make few screenshots in case you need them - timestamps are useful in these situations. Again, Prudence.

That's a potential issue I'm seeing here, a lack of timestamps. The posts just say "5 hours ago", "16 hours ago", etc. If something like that happens here and you end up having to send a screenshot to a mod a day or two later, "X hours ago" means nothing. Something like this would be more precise: