Thread went bye-bye.
The discussion seemed cordial and respectful. Lots of relevant social issues out on the plate for consideration.
¿Que pasa?
See:
I’ve got email notifications for all responses, so checking my email…
One of the members posted a rather specific anecdote about how, decades ago, she planned to commit suicide. The how. Then the thread disappeared. I would guess Aspenglow (who had been active very recently in the thread) hid the thread and the mods are deciding how to handle that post.
~Max
ETA: PastTense, I don’t think anyone crossed the line into encouraging suicide. But posting specifics of how you planned to commit suicide, even if it was decades ago and you’re clearly not that person any more, is a red flag, rules-wise.
If that’s the case, then that particular post might well have been problematic. My first thought was that the OP (who was a new join and this thread start was their first post) was a sock, which is the primary reason that threads usually disappear.
But there didn’t seem to be anything trollish/sockish about the OP, nor was the thread about suicide. Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) is an important social and legal issue that has nothing to do with suicide. It’s certainly a subject worth discussing. I didn’t see the post you referenced, but it sounds like a major hijack/digression from the intent of the thread. I hope this isn’t yet another example of unintended consequences from otherwise well-intentioned rules.
Darn, it was a really good discussion and much of the subject matter is personal to me, it’s a real shame that it’s gone. 
Weird the way it vanished w/o a trace. So - no threads on assisted suicide? Seems odd. I woulda thought warnings for specific posts - or the thread in general - would have sufficed.
Started by a serial Trock who was caught pretty fast.
This is what happens to Trock threads, the subject was not the issue in the decision.
My google shows Trock = Time Lord rock or Scottish slang for truck.
Good you are on the lookout. Curious, tho, that it was spurring a seemingly worthwhile discussion.
Sorry, Trock is just a troll who serially socks. Same person keeps coming back. We have maybe a dozen of them? Not really sure.
OK, I’m glad to know it wasn’t about the topic.
Incidentally, I’ve never been fond of the “nuke any thread started by a sock” policy. Always seemed to me it would make more sense to nuke the original post and any subsequent posts by the banned OP but keep the rest of the conversation intact. But I’m sure you have your reasons and there are always tradeoffs.
Thanks for letting me know.
I often feel the same way so I sympathize but that is our policy.
Similar to the closing “rant” threads policy - which I disagree with - someone interested could always start another similar thread. Weird that the thread is “vanished” rather than just closed.
Simple form of the answer is that it is DNFTT in practice.
For a more nuanced answer I leave that up to someone else.
I can see the logic behind DNFTT = don’t give them the satisfaction of being able to generate conversation despite being banned. As I said, there are always tradeoffs.
In an utterly ideal world, I suppose it would be nice if people who had posted to a confielded thread could still get to the thread in a read-only mode and have the option of copying out what they’d posted, so as to repost it or a version of it as a new thread if they so desired. There the tradeoff would be the techno headache of making that happen and whether that’s the best use of time and personnel and all that.
Seconding this.
I was at an on-line Death Café held by a local library last night. (Death Cafés are for the purpose of bringing the subject of death and dying out for public discussion, as the society often tries to ignore the subject.) I brought up that part of the difficulty is the difficulty in discussing any possibility of choosing one’s own timing in death, including by MAID. I needed to talk about that. The group appeared to agree.
If these boards want to forbid, in such discussions, any explicit descriptions of ways to commit suicide: that in this context seems to me quite reasonable. But I hope they’re not forbidding the entire discussion of MAID, or of how to approach the end of one’s own or a loved one’s life.
Seconding.
Is it possible to make this a case-by-case? If the thread’s a trainwreck, or discussing only trivialities, then ditch it. If it draws good posts on a serious subject, then just remove all the trock’s posts. I don’t know whether that works from the moderators’ point of view, though.
There’s another good idea – though I’m including the caveat because again I don’t know if it would work.
Sometimes people have put a lot of time and effort into posts on a subject highly sensitive to them, and/or taken something major from others’ posts in the thread; and may not have saved a copy.
Huh, I didn’t know that. Sorry to anyone my post may have triggered. If it was my post… my post was about something that happened three years ago, so I’m not sure if it was my post, but I shouldn’t have included the details either way. I actually know better, I just wasn’t thinking.
I had no problems with the posts to the thread and in fact participated in it, as you know. But the OP bothered me enough to check the OP’s history. I suspected a trock, confirmed with @What_Exit and he cornfielded the thread while I banned the sock.
The subject matter was fine and I was sorry to see it all go.
As What_Exit said, sometimes there are unfortunate consequences to the DNFTT approach. But it would have been difficult to preserve the thread after having removed the OP, which was lengthy and involved, as well as encouraged the trock to return and try again. I’m sure they were delighted with their success on this go round.
Yes, it was a surprisingly coherent one for this Trock.
Usually this one gets many flags when they appear.
I’m pretty sure that’s not something we have the power to do.
If anyone wants to discuss the subject of MAID, I bumped an old thread on the subject over in the Pit since I received more info and wanted to post an update. It’s here.
I understand if people aren’t comfortable chatting in a Pit thread though, so alternatively a new thread elsewhere might be a good idea.