To the Mods - Forum Feedback includes you too

[camieabz]

I posted today in a thread dated earlier this year (link 1). It was not grave-digging, as it related to earlier concerns, but raised new concerns. Rather than respond, the post was deleted, and the thread locked. The post was not offensive in the slightest, and the post's tone was justifiable (if a mod disagrees, this is the mod's problem, and not mine, and should give good reason as to why he/she disagrees). I have received no communication or feedback as to why the post was deleted, and presumably there's no malware deleting and locking threads.

At the time of posting, I took a screenshot (experience of forum moderators' behaviour, both at THGC, THG, and other places), and have since spliced the most relevant posts from the old thread, namely posts:

#1 - The OP
#4 - My original post
#5 - The response at the time, and until today my most recent post, as I had not posted since
#9 - The post prior to mine, to give some timeline context
#10 - Today's post

...and put them together into a screenshot (link 2).

Given the lack of availability of forum search for old posts, search for old posts in profile, and the recent moderator action (the old flick of the switch), I feel obliged to host this info externally to keep it free from interference. This post will be screen shotted too, as I am certain it will be deleted very quickly (but will probably appear elsewhere, where it can be farily judged).

Personal message to the moderator who deleted the post and locked the thread. Swallow your ego. Take feedback seriously. Ignore reasonable and serious feedback (the deletion of 3 years of post history from willing an industrious members), and it will bite you on the behind. If you feel I broke some rule, then get in touch with me and set me straight. If mods delete posts and lock threads with no person to person communication, it gives out a very bad vibe. Deleting posts without communication never ends the systemic problems of a forum. It only adds to them.

On the other hand, positive communication goes a long way. Perhaps my post was negative. If so, tell me, but be constructive within a context of addressing the complaint.

Anyway, that's it from me. It was a smack in the chops to see the place change the way it did, and I stayed away, but when I found out today that it had changed to the point that helpful people had their efforts erased, that saddened me on a different level. The wilful deletion of useful knowledge. Think of that very, very carefully before clicking the delete button arbitrarily.

Link 1 - https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...-old-design-where-are-my-forum-posts.3448098/

Link 2 - https://ibb.co/XzdfLS8

 

[Rogue Leader]

Instead of making a post to attack the moderation team, and to come up with some sort of conspiracy theory, you could have, I don't know, asked in a friendly way about it?

There have been multiple posts in forum feedback about this very issue (missing posts in activity)

example:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...t-answers-dissapeard-from-my-profile.3538322/

And one from the site admin
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/thread-creation-issues-user-profile-missing-bas.3538376/

This is a bug in the forum software, the posts are NOT gone, and developers are working on it. Your post was deleted because it was digging up an old post with a comment about a new issue that was irrelevant to the original post.

If you have a problem with this please feel free to reply here or PM me. We won't be deleting anything.

 

[bignastyid]

It was a necro post.
"Necro post. If a thread is clearly old (created more than 3 months ago) and the discussion is over, please don't post to it. However, feel free to link to the old thread in your new post, just to add additional context. The majority of necro posts are deleted, and those threads are then closed. "
https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/toms-forums-f-a-q.2305891/

 

[camieabz]

Cheers for the response(s). For the record I did not attack the moderation team, but took issue with the deletion/locking/zero response in isolation. Taking the three together, it was not a good look. I aimed a specific response to a specific moderator (identity unknown, and not required). I have no knowledge of recent forum postings, so have no way to gauge current mod response times, demand or moods, and made my post objectively, based on what little info I had.

For all I knew, there was one mod, under pressure, and responding after a busy stint of deleting spammers. I was hoping for more than the previous (non) response and got it. It's all cool.

I appreciate that other threads may or may not contain similar queries, but given that part of the problem was about search history, one can't be expected to trust any search results.

For what it's worth 'grave-digging' / 'necro posting' goes on in threads on another forum I use in threads that are more than 5 years old. This one was less than a year, and all forums have different definitions for what they consider 'old'. I now know TH's thread age mindset, and won't repeat the exercise. For what it's worth, I thought it less of problem to add a post to an old, forgettable thread, than create a new thread.

It's good to know the devs are working on things, and still a little sad that this has happened. Also good to know that the mods are alive and well and talking. 😀

 

[Rogue Leader]

It's good to know the devs are working on things, and still a little sad that this has happened. Also good to know that the mods are alive and well and talking. 😀

Trust me when i say forum bugs make it frustrating for us to do our jobs as well. But we do what we can nonetheless. I'm told this will be fixed soon, but i don't have any shareable timeline.