Posted by Wayne on August 29, 2001 at 10:22:43:
In Reply to: What makes good editing? posted by Chris on August 28, 2001 at 20:46:23:
I never had a problem with posts being deleted. If they broke the rules, then the authors set themselves up for censure. The stuff I have read about exclusion of portions of text within a post is disturbing -- although I can see its appropriateness in certain circumstanses with notice that some innapropriate text been deleted*.
I see the problem of trying to keep this operating at a high level. Somehow annonimity seems to allow some folks to bring downt he whole experience. I remember seeing this with C.B. radios 30 years ago and chat rooms more recently.
Congress has strict rules about personal attacks and I think that aids in a civil debate compared to places liek the U.K. I think we ought to have a similar thing here. Personal attack should get the post dumped as should language that might trigger the "net nannies" of the world.
The editors cannot spend all their time bogged down looking for bad stuff in the posts -- especially if it becomes "sport" to try to spam the board. So a rule that after X number of deleted posts you are off the board for X months might be nifty.
Anyway, that is how I would do it if it were my BBS. I think that many are whinning that the problems are between pro- and anti-DIR. I think it was really about rude behavior.
Wayne
* Here is what I was thinking about editing within a post. If there was some post that was really full of nifty and important information, but broke a rule (posting from a private email, for example), I can see where it could be considered good form to leave most of the post and put message that it had been edited by removing a block of text. I suspect that if this situation ever came up it would be better to delete the post and let the author know why. Then they could correct the problem and repost. Again, the proposed limit on deleted posts would encourage regulars to be careful to not mess up.