dukebound85: Thanks for the detailed comments!
Some of the rules seem a bit over the top......especially the consecutive posting one/thread bumping
It's hard to tell whether or not these rules are important to most users. It's probably a matter of degree. Some users routinely make 3 posts in a row and use up 6 or 9 of the 25 posts on a (default) forum page, until we ask them not to do this. We do get complaints about multi-posting and bumping, and we have rules about them because they take away the visibility of posts and threads by other users. Yes we could survive without these rules but since it's treated as very minor (post editing, sometimes PMs, but never punishment) and it gives us a chance to let users who never read the rules know about one of them, I don't think it should be a problem for anyone else.
Are you never bothered by bumps or multiple posts or are you suggesting that some of them are worse than others?
and post deletion for no apparent reasons
I've yet to see a post deleted for no reason, but we can't easily make the reason
apparent. We sometimes PM the user but most of the time explain only if they ask us. In the even rarer case we post in the thread to explain why posts were removed.
Is there a better solution?
Now I will report posts that I see are against the rules but do feel the rules could be improved when looking at the context of the post.
We do consider context but can't easily cover it in the rules. The context of the post is a factor in moderation, and also the context of the thread (News vs. Community Discussion, serious vs. silly). The specifics depend on each situation so we give guidelines to the moderators. For example, "+1" posts are routinely removed, because otherwise the forums would be cluttered with thousands of them, but sometimes a trivial post is in direct answer to a question or contributes to a discussion and is therefore left as is. But I don't think the statement of the rule about useless and one-word posts would benefit from explaining those nuances, so we leave the rule simple and deal with the nuances with common sense.
For instance, I feel there should only be moderator warnings on posts made within the last week for minor issues...aka consecutive posting, etc but have no such time limitation on posts that are say more extreme and have insults and the like. To get a warning for consecutive posting as one member said 2 months after the fact seems absurd in my view.
I agree. Sometimes we don't notice that a new post report is about an old post so we've sent unnecessary reminders thinking it's just happened. It's a mistake.
Perhaps this topic (like a statute of limitations type thing) could be discussed?
Most reports are about posts from the same day, so it hasn't been much of an issue, as far as I know.
Also, regarding cp and subsequently bumping, I think it should only apply for posts made very quickly within one another for cp and for bumping, if it is shorter than a day's time. I am not against bumping per say as the thread was started in most cases for assistance and that assistance is greatly appreciated but the volume of posts on this site can make it get lost fairly quickly.
I remembered that we had some previous discussions about this, so I looked for an example and found a
thread you started last year. The advantage of what you suggest is that a user who is still anxious for help or to make a Marketplace sale could get renewed attention. The question is whether the user who gets bumped off the first page of that forum would consider that fair, and which of those two threads other users would rather see.
Administratively, we also had the concern that a complicated rule (e.g., bumping allowed once a day based on the user's time zone, or bumping rules that differ by forum) would be harder to understand, follow, and moderate fairly than the simpler rule of "no bumps".
It's obviously a tradeoff so we could continue discussing it.
Also in regards to cp, how come there is not a script in place that can detect if a user made 2 subsequent posts within a short timespan that would automatically merge the two posts into 1? Is that possible?
There probably is, so we can take a renewed look. We've avoided most mods/hacks for vBulletin because they can be unstable, cause performance problems, or break when we do upgrades, but this may be a case where it would be worthwhile.
There are cases where we don't want posts merged, such as the
Free iTunes 2011 thread or when two posts together would overflow the maximum post size, so we'd probably need a tool that allows exceptions. The benefits of automation are speed and consistency but their lack of common sense can be a hindrance.
The recent change that automatically turns quoted images into links has been a great time-saver for the moderators, and it does a better job than we could do manually.
My issue with post deletion is that for often times, I have no idea why it was removed. In this area, I feel it is appropriate for a little explanation, unless it was very much off topic. Most times the post, while may not be significantly adding to the thread is perfectly fine within the context of the thread at hand, much like the previous poster's comments about the thread that made her laugh. Why delete that?
If you are talking about LOL-type posts in news threads, our assumption is that the forum members and site visitors who read these threads would rather not wade through them. If you mean off-topic posts in threads of less importance to the site, I see your point. Off-topic posts don't always leave a thread off-topic and sometimes they keep the tone friendlier. We tend to remove them only if it's a major thread or if somebody reported them. What approach do you suggest?
These are just my thoughts. However, with all this said, this site does employ a fairly good rules standard and is fair as opposed to some forums where members often get banned for merely say disagreeing with a mod or something like that.
It probably happens far too often at sites where moderators are hotheads and not subject to review. We do our best to select moderators who won't be on an ego trip or take things personally. Sometimes users are rather rude, but the moderators are well-practiced at shrugging it off.
EDIT:
While I am talking about the site, how about not allowing the poster to +1 or -1 themselves? Obviously everyone would agree with him/herself as they posted it! I have noticed/suspected this from time to time and not the largest fan of this ability
I'm not sure if the site programmers thought about that issue when they added the feature, or whether it would be easy or hard to change. Like you I wonder how often people vote themselves up, and whether users ever vote themselves down!
Edit: a couple more thoughts...
I forgot to mention that we have more evidence than in the past that users don't want to wade through frivolous and off-topic posts. If we don't catch these posts promptly, they tend to accumulate a lot of negative votes compared to the posts around them. A lot of users don't bother to submit post reports or vote on posts, but enough of them do to show us that these posts are unwanted. Conversely, if a reported post has positive votes it can make us think twice about whether it needs moderation. Then again, voting for a clever personal insult doesn't make it OK.
The forum system doesn't auto-report posts that reach a threshold of negative votes, and unpopular posts aren't necessarily breaking rules, but that would be a nice feature to have. :throws penny in wishing well:
