Question about administration of this board

[Una Persson]

From the title page of the Board:

This is the place for all complaints and other discussion regarding administration of the SDMB

This is not a flame, or even a complaint, but a non-technical question about administration of this Board.

Why are the "bad posts" and "bad threads" kept around? Even when someone violates the rules as flagrantly as possible, their post (or thread) is often (not always) still preserved. May I ask why?

It seems to me if someone does something that warrants immediate closing of the thread and a warning of the poster, then that is good enough reason that the thread (or posts) should be deleted. Purged. Removed forever and forgotten. If one needs them as "evidence", which I believe I have heard said before, why not just save the HTML to an offline place? Keeping it in the message Board database does not guarantee in any way that it has not been altered. You can edit it via an Admin function, or via an SQL update query if one really wanted to "taint" the evidence.

And if a user is banned, why not delete all of their posts, threads, whatever from the Board? I don't mean people with thousands of posts, as that creates a continuity nightmare. But you know...the sockpuppets who are banned before their 10th post; the umpteen-million incarnations of concrete, etc. I know others may have posted to the short-lived sockpuppet's thread - so? It seems that one would delete the whole thread anyway - who really needs to see an OP by a troll or sockpuppet, followed by 20 more posts saying "look, it's a sockpuppet"?

So...I'm wondering, because it might help me out. Why keep the hurtful, bad, illegal, flagrantly rule violating, and gratuitously flaming posts (like smoke's recent trashing of techchick, or the RAWisSYDNEY IP spoofing GQ question) around?

[Medea's Child]

Not that I count...

But maybe its a matter of "Children, this is what we do not do." How can you say "Thou shalt not troll!" If people don't have a clear, painful curent memory of what trolling is? (I didn't know when I first showed up, not that I had any intention of doing so, but the term made no sence to me. But you hang around and hit some old threads and *poof* education wipes out ignorance!)

but, that's just my idea.

[JeffB]

There was some discussion of this not long ago in the thread Delete despicable lies from the board. Three of the main reasons that we talked about were 1) history/continuity, 2) evidence (such as IP address), and 3) too much extra work for the administrators. One issue specifically discussed was the idea of saving to HTML files, which loses a lot of data.

[SPOOFE]

Probably one of the most important reasons is that they want to keep around the evidence of someone's transgressions, so that if a thread is closed, we only need to link to the thread in question and we'll see why. And if someone is banned, we only need to link to their posts and we'll see why they got banned.

If you start deleting stuff, you'll have others come in and say "Hey, he wasn't so bad!" or "That thread wasn't inappropriate!", which'll be just another big hassle.

[Miller]

Plus, Lynn likes to keep their rotted carcasses hanging from the front gates. Her Feng Shui guy recommended it. I think the whole early "Vlad the Impaler" look is terribly passe, but whatever. It's her castle.

[Una Persson]

Ah, I missed that thread completely. While I disagree with the IP address and the evidence issue from a technical standpoint, my disagreement is irrelevant.

[SPOOFE]

Watch it, Nimune... decorations consisting of corpses with poles shove up their asses (and exiting through their mouths) is the sort of fashion that will NEVER go out of style.

[Esprix]

The world is not always a happy place, and I'd rather deal in reality than fantasy land, so leave it all there, better and worse, because that's who we are and what I want to experience.

Esprix

[SPOOFE]

'Sides, it's occasionally fun to go back and see some of the old flames.

[Una Persson]

Well, IMO if one is not being sneaky about it (speaking of message boards in general only), that is announcing in advance that the thread will be deleted such that all interested parties can get their own copy, then I still don't see it. For the SDMB in particular, my opinion is irrelevant and not desired.

There is no secure papertrail that could be used in defense in a court. The IP can be changed with one simple SQL "update" statement:

update post set ipaddress='666.666.666.666' where postid=12345

and post number 12345 now is assigned to a different IP - no record of what happened.

The content of the post is easily changed at will with no evidence - just by turning off the Admin Edit notification. vBulletin does no revision control in its database.

So, my point was just a technical one and a philosophical one mixed. If someone calls me a 'dirty cunt' and is banned, I certainly don't want that post sitting out there, posibly coming up whenever someone searches on my name (and apparantly, as I have discovered, people quite often log onto a Board just to search on theirs or someone else's name). Likewise if we have had a truly nasty flame war, and the parties have apologized and separated, why keep the war?

Those were my questions, I guess I have the answers based on past comments in a few other threads I found. I respectfully disagree, but as I said my approval or disapproval is irrelevant. I am trying to find some guidance about Board administration.

[Rube E. Tewesday]

Geez Anthracite, no need to be so reasonable about it.

[robgruver]

[token pit hatred]

What? Fuck you!

[/token pit hatred]

Thanks! I'll be here all week.

[dantheman]

Although there may be no solid reason to keep those threads that some or many may deem hateful or trollish or worse, it is probably not a good idea to attempt to remove only those threads. Doing so introduces subjectivity into the equation, and any time you allow human intervention into the decision-making process, there's a margin of error. What if someone decides to delete a thread that others think is perfectly okay? And who gets to decide which ones stay and which ones go? On one level, it's the same as the who-gets-banned decision, but while that decision will most often affect only the banned person, the thread decision will most often affect the majority of users.

Therefore I would suggest not eliminating threads on a case-by-case basis but on the basis of longevity. The criterion for this elimination could vary from forum to forum, but not from thread to thread. For example, stuff gets reposted all the time in MPSIMS and IMHO; there's a lot of turnover there. You could set the bar for, say, three months there and not lose anything that's very relevant. GQ and GD could go longer, perhaps six months. The column forums and ATMB could last a lot longer, perhaps up to a year. And the Pit? Just to make SPOOFE happy, maybe more like eight months.

As for the threads that would be eliminated by this plan, they could be stored, as Anthracite said, offline. It's true that the average user could not then call one up right off the bat, but you have to weigh the number of times an old thread is accessed against the amount of space available. Sure, there will be people who want to see a thread from GQ from a year ago, but if they really want to see it, they can perhaps email the admins.

I'm no technophile, so I don't know if saving the threads offline rather than online is a space saver at all, although I presume you could zip them up somehow, skrunch them so that they take up less space and then access them only when needed, rather than having them available all the time.

[Una Persson]

Originally posted by dantheman
What if someone decides to delete a thread that others think is perfectly okay? And who gets to decide which ones stay and which ones go? On one level, it's the same as the who-gets-banned decision, but while that decision will most often affect only the banned person, the thread decision will most often affect the majority of users.

I guess the question to ask is to what level the thread being deleted has any impact on users other than those directly involved in the thread in question.

For example...say I call someone a "arrogant asshole", and get warned about it by a Moderator. Does it really hurt anyone else to have that deleted - to be 'deprived' of reading it? OK, one may argue that deleting my post 'hides' my bad behavior - essentially lets me get off Scot-free. How about leaving the post, snipping the text, and having the Mod say "Gratuitous and childish insult deleted"? Or allowing the person who made the insult to apologize for a length of time, then deleting the whole mess? This is not something that there is a clear-cut answer for, and I have been pondering this (and other things like it) since February or so when I decided to start a Board.

As for the threads that would be eliminated by this plan, they could be stored, as Anthracite said, offline. It's true that the average user could not then call one up right off the bat, but you have to weigh the number of times an old thread is accessed against the amount of space available. Sure, there will be people who want to see a thread from GQ from a year ago, but if they really want to see it, they can perhaps email the admins.

Well, maybe not so much offline, but in vBulletin one can create all sorts of hidden Forums with different access levels on them. It's easy to use the "Move Thread" function to move the thread to the hidden Forum, and move it back to the main Forums for general viewing, if this is required. Perhaps this is the better way to do this - I don't really know.

I'm no technophile, so I don't know if saving the threads offline rather than online is a space saver at all, although I presume you could zip them up somehow, skrunch them so that they take up less space and then access them only when needed, rather than having them available all the time.

From what I can tell, the posts are compacted pretty tightly within the database. Of course, if the database behaves like a lot of other SQL databases I work with, deleting posts will not shrink the database. The database must be "rebuilt" to recover the space - a risky process that could take hours, or days on a huge database.

[Lynn Bodoni]

One reason we don't do a lot of this stuff is simply because we don't feel that it's the best use of our time. While I sometimes will go through older threads in ATMB and delete them if the board is running particularly fast, I generally feel that my time could be used more constructively by checking up on new posters, moderating the Pit, or reading other forums.

While I don't want to go into specifics and give trolls new ideas, I will say that we have noticed a pattern emerge, and we've blocked a few whole IP ranges because those particular ranges have ONLY produced trolls. So keeping "bad posts" has been helpful in a few instances, at least.

We do have an option to remove all of a poster's posts in one fell swoop, however, I'm told that this throws the server into a hissy fit, so I'm not supposed to do it, no matter HOW tempting it is. Pity.

[Drastic]

Originally posted by Anthracite
This is not something that there is a clear-cut answer for

Just so. So admins can get into a whole morass of time-consuming policies that will inevitably ruffle feathers at the best, and at the worst start ugly waves below the surface...or they can avoid all that and just leave what's said, be said. People will occasionally say things they later regret, and wish those things said could just disappear, but, frankly, fuck em. Deal. When those things really do just disappear, it just encourages lack of control--which in turn will give admins more to do.

This is probably less of an issue, though, then the effects of letting posters edit their own postings post-fact; the power that gives trolls to disrupt a place is hard to believe until you've seen it happen. One of the first initial attractions to the SDMB for me; that threads that ended up locked-up were kept around was a secondary one. In an area that's murky with no clear-cut benefits, and several more clear-cut downsides, it's easier to not even get into the practice in the first place.

[dantheman]

Originally posted by Anthracite
For example...say I call someone a "arrogant asshole", and get warned about it by a Moderator. Does it really hurt anyone else to have that deleted - to be 'deprived' of reading it? OK, one may argue that deleting my post 'hides' my bad behavior - essentially lets me get off Scot-free. How about leaving the post, snipping the text, and having the Mod say "Gratuitous and childish insult deleted"? Or allowing the person who made the insult to apologize for a length of time, then deleting the whole mess? This is not something that there is a clear-cut answer for, and I have been pondering this (and other things like it) since February or so when I decided to start a Board.

It probably doesn't hurt anyone, but there are a couple of considerations. First, as you said, such deletion may be construed as hiding what you've done, at least in the eyes of some people. In that event, people would disagree with the deletion, but not necessarily for your words. Second, what if the person in question really is an "arrogant asshole"? Sure, you got warned for it, because the words were inappopriate. But if person A is acting in such a manner as to warrant such an insult, then your words, while inappropriate, might pale in comparison with those of the other poster.

Well, maybe not so much offline, but in vBulletin one can create all sorts of hidden Forums with different access levels on them. It's easy to use the "Move Thread" function to move the thread to the hidden Forum, and move it back to the main Forums for general viewing, if this is required. Perhaps this is the better way to do this - I don't really know.

But that wouldn't help the problem of space, would it? It's one thing to move threads because of their offensiveness and another to completely remove them from the online database. It seems to me that the most pressing problem is one of space, not of what is appropriate and should therefore be moved or removed. Simply moving the offensive thread does not seem to save space; it seems (to me) to reallocate it.

From what I can tell, the posts are compacted pretty tightly within the database. Of course, if the database behaves like a lot of other SQL databases I work with, deleting posts will not shrink the database. The database must be "rebuilt" to recover the space - a risky process that could take hours, or days on a huge database.

If deleting the posts won't do the trick, then to increase space it seems that the logical move would be to remove entire threads, in lieu of a new, larger server. Is there a way to save an entire thread? Then you could save the file containing that thread on a ZIP disk or something of that nature, thereby saving space. But if by doing so you would still need to recover the unused space, as you put it, then the operation would be self defeating and rather pointless.

I just would like to find a way to save space for this board. In a sense, eliminating offensive posts or threads is fine, except that if you were to be consistent in doing so, you would wind up deleting most of the board. One could argue, for example, that many of the offensive parts are in the Pit. Do we eliminate all of them? Probably not; it's more likely that people would want that forum to remain as it always is. And that would mean that the elimination of threads and posts in other forums would make not even a tiny dent in the overall post/thread totals.

Anyway, I just feel that if deleting is the way to go, then removing things on the basis of how offensive they are is not the answer; setting a time bar for how long threads can remain on the active server seems less subjective and therefore might be more practical. But the limitations of the vBulletin software might preclude that.

[dantheman]

Lynn,

Most of us can readily appreciate how much work is entailed in this operation (and those of us who run boards, however small, do readily appreciate this). Since you're seeing the board from the nuts-and-bolts side, let me ask you this: Do you see the lack of space to be a problem at the present or in the near future?

If it is or will be a problem, then it seems to me there are a couple of choices. You could either find a way to have vBulletin automatically delete/archive old threads, or administrators or moderators could do so when they had the time. I think it's obvious that you guys simply don't have much time (especially since you perform your work here in addtion to full-time jobs), so it would seem that if deleting/archiving is the way to go, then you would either need to get vBulletin to automate it or add a new moderator whose task will be just to archive old threads. (Of course, I know that adding a new moderator is something the SDMB does not do very often at all, and even then with some reluctance, as giving an individual such a responsibility must be met with caution and discretion.)

From an outsider's perspective, I think that with the amount of members increasing exponentially, and with the amount of posts and threads doing the same, this problem will worsen before it gets better. There's been talk about a subscription-based SDMB; although this may never happen, it would probably thin out the number of posters, thereby slowing traffic and lessening the number of posts and threads to be retrieved by each in the future. Were this to happen, the problem of server space (and, as a by-product, retrieval time) would be lessened in the future, although it might take a while for the herd to be thinned enough to realize that improvement, anyway.

[dantheman]

Sorry for the triple-post, but I felt that if I combined all of these into one post, it would run into pages and pages..

Just wanted to add that I agree with Drastic. This place, like any message board, can get political regarding what posts are deleted, what posters are banned or reprimanded, and so on. It's the way things go; it's nothing against the people who are in charge of such things. But by deciding to delete certain posts because they're offensive simply introduces another layer of subjectivity that is unnecessary and something on which it's quite difficult to be consistent. If you post something here you later regret, it makes more sense not to have it deleted. We've all said things we didn't mean, but the way to deal with it is to post an apology or a clarification. Leave the original post up there.

[Cartooniverse]

Soooo, how 'bout this? Rent time on a Terrabyte Reader where TubaDiva lives. Archive to hard storage ALL old postings, as they appeared. That way, as Administrators need to, they can get to the old stuff to look for patterns, find evidence, etc.

I know that it would create an environment where people might post a query that was answered 3 years ago on AOL, but you know what? ( " No, what??" ). Some of the T.M. actually think that it's not a crime against humanity to have someone ask a question that's been asked in the dusty past. Sometimes the same query can go in a whole new direction.

Just a thought. Trying to insure that no matter how life's fortunes may smile upon her, Tuba will never leave our hallowed halls.
( NOT that I've any thought or clue that she ever might, but considering how amazing she is, call this a pre-emptive strike !)

And no, I'm not brown-nosing.
Cartooniverse