After how long a delay…and can we have the same privilege, please?
I’ll give Tom a break on the “I Thought I was in the PIT”- that happens. But deleting it after the normal time allowed to us Hoi polloi? Bogus. Misuse of powers.
Message posted 4.20 AM*
Message edited 11.28 AM*
7 hours and change.
(*London time, your time zone may vary)
I’m happy with how all this came down. If the whole point is to prevent future mis-behaviors, then these actions are spot on correct. I absolutely believe professional moderators should be held to a higher standard, but that’s not the case here, we have volunteer moderators so I’m okay with equal treatment or even a little more wiggle room.
TomnDebb didn’t argue the point, and that usually gains a bit favor for any of us.
I’m clarifying on terminology. Some people are conflating deleting an entire post with editing a post and thought it was a distinction worth clarifying.
Care to clarify on whether it was right to modify the post 7 hours later, when the rest of us are forbidden to do so?
I’ll give Tom a pass for thinking he was in the Pit, but in my opinion he should not have deleted the post, but added a note to it saying something like:
“My apologies to Peter Morris for the above post. I thought I was in the Pit, but it’s still no excuse. I have reported my post and will accept a warning if another moderator (or Ed Zotti), thinks I should be given one.”
Why bother Ed about it? Deleting the post seems a pretty clear abuse of mod powers. Perhaps he didn’t know that Jonathan Chance would refrain from a Warning over a deleted post, but that seems to have been the result.
At the very least, I would expect a Warning for “abuse of one’s position as a Mod”.
Regards,
Shodan
No moderator has ever denied me a request to modify my own post after the 5 minute window closes. They’ve always seemed happy to do so.
To remove an insult hours later?
Did they do that to remove a violation of the rules? This is a pretty serious case. Hopefully the mods will do the right thing and at a minimum make it a policy not to modify their own posts after the edit window closes. Then we can get back to hating them for the usual stuff.
I agree that he should have added an explanatory note, but if he reported the post it might have been intercepted by enemies of the state. It’s better practice to disseminate this sort of communiqué by steganographically hiding it in your SDMB Portrait Gallery photo. That’s only common sense.
IIRC, one of the reasons we originally weren’t allowed to edit our posts was to prevent people from doing just this – insulting someone, then when called on it, going back and deleting it. Isn’t that exactly what Tom did?
Just a clarification: the insult was not directed against me. I had no part in the discussion at all.
The only reason I even looked at the thread was because of Truthseeker’s warning and suspension, and Tom’s post was immediately before that.
As a matter of practicality though, is it possible to give a moderator a warning on vBulletin? I’m a moderator on another vB forum, and there’s no provision for warning a moderator. There’s no warning icon in a moderator’s post like there is for regular members and no way to give them one through their profile.
My apologies. Tom still should not have deleted the post and he should have publicly apologized to the poster in question.
I can think of one or two cases* where editing posts to remove content didn’t protect the person in question.
*One in particular, someone used some anti-Asian racist slur (zipper-something…zippermouth?..I’d never heard it before) and a few minutes after he posted it, he deleted or edited it. He nonetheless got into big trouble.
In the past we have asked posters to “take a break” and issued a suspension when they clearly and intentionally violated board rules. Any reason we cannot do the same for moderator powers?
This makes it more serious. If someone has posted something in anger, realized the mistake, edited the offending item out, and was still warned, then abusing moderator powers to do the same thing and receiving no warning is a clear double standard.
Agreed that the first instance is an inappropriate use of mod powers and that tom deserves that warning.
The second usage is worth addressing, though: tom repeatedly implied that someone wasn’t arguing in good faith, was lying about their stance. That behavior never helps. I don’t know that it deserves a warning, but it absolutely deserves a note to knock it off, and tom should desist from such behavior in the future; if he’s not able to argue without implying that his opponent is dishonest, he knows where the Pit is.