Single-letter forum posts issue [resolved]

All suggestions about TPFC should be posted here. Discussions about changes to TPFC will also be carried out here.
Message
Author
User avatar
h3kt0r
Posts: 148
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:50 am
Location: France
Contact:

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#31 Post by h3kt0r »

Well, this is childish behaviour. Luck in misfortune : he's done that with a few dozen posts.
Imagine the same scenario with several hundred posts...
The guy could benefit from a few sessions with a psychiatrist to help him deal with conflictual situations.
I mean : think about a bunch of users all doing the same thing "Rudy" did.
Scary.

thepiney
Posts: 161
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:57 am

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#32 Post by thepiney »

How about having post edits needing to be confirmed by a moderator?

User avatar
Midas
Posts: 6705
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:09 am
Location: Sol3

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#33 Post by Midas »

Andrew Lee wrote: There are extensions that will auto lock a topic after a certain period of inactivity and/or a certain number of posts, but nothing that locks a topic and still allow new replies to be added.

You probably checked this already, but what about locking a post, not a topic? Or only for regular users, while still allowing administrator edits?

If something like that was possible, initial posts could get auto-locked after, say, a week and would require administrator privileges for editing after that...

h3kt0r wrote: The guy could benefit from a few sessions with a psychiatrist to help him deal with conflictual situations.

After being a contributor for little over a month, he displayed an appalling level of disrespect for a community that had welcomed him with open arms and for an open resource that has been decades, not mere years, in the making. So I say good riddance to him and anyone who thinks like him.

User avatar
Napiophelios
Posts: 610
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2009 5:48 pm

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#34 Post by Napiophelios »

Rudy5's actions didn't reveal a flaw in the system,
he abused a forum feature.

Unless this kind of behavior becomes a trend,
I would suggest you change nothing.

freakazoid
Posts: 1212
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2007 5:45 pm

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#35 Post by freakazoid »

webfork wrote: Wed Mar 18, 2020 9:23 pm However, I don't want to give the impression that when you post here, it's ours now and we do what we want with it. While I'm upset about losing Rudy5 as a contributor, anyone here should feel free to participate and then, if they change their minds later, they can pull the plug. That is a frustrating but important freedom.
This appropriately summarizes my feelings on the matter.

If a user no longer wants to be a member of a site, that user has the right to delete or edit the contents of their items unless there was some type of user or privacy policy at registration denoting exactly what happens with their data onto said site.

I know I've edited older posts (not all of them!) on other forums for privacy reasons, so I appreciate that this functionality exists.
is it stealth? ;)

User avatar
webfork
Posts: 10818
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:06 pm
Location: US, Texas
Contact:

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#36 Post by webfork »

First, I'd like to thank Midas for helping out with the post repair process I've been talking about. He took the initiative to start getting it sorted and bring the forums back into something readable. He's done most of the work already to push juverax's kind efforts to provide backup content, as well as some other posts.

On some of the points made above:
h3kt0r wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 7:04 pm... think about a bunch of users all doing the same thing
As Napiophelios suggests, I'm not sure this calls for a policy shift, such as the moderator confirmation thepiney suggested. While it has happened before, that was many years ago. And while there is a danger that someone's account could get hacked and delete all the posts, that's one of the reasons we have backups. The instances of someone intentionally removing posts are very rare.

User avatar
webfork
Posts: 10818
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:06 pm
Location: US, Texas
Contact:

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#37 Post by webfork »

One more update: I looked back and it turns out I misunderstood what thepiney was suggesting about locking threads. I somehow thought he was talking about locking the first post, but he actually saying:
thepiney wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2020 2:11 pm... if any forum post (from any site/forum) had a second or subsequent post the previous posts were locked to keep continuity
It might make sense to make posts static after a certain point to avoid a bunch of revisionist history that can happen in serious discussion. I recall an ugly situation where a friend of mine had to dig into archives to prove a guy he worked with was manually editing log files. However, as most of the work here on the site is fairly informal, I'd say that might be a little overprotective. For XYZ Security Protocols or discussions with impacts on people's jobs, that's a different beast, where some kind of posting lock would make a lot of sense.

Out of curiosity, what forum uses that model?

User avatar
Andrew Lee
Posts: 3048
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 9:19 am
Contact:

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#38 Post by Andrew Lee »

How about having post edits needing to be confirmed by a moderator?
Just checked. No such option in phpBB. Even if it could be done, I think that would potentially increase mods' workload due to many legit reasons why users might want to make minor edits to their posts.
You probably checked this already, but what about locking a post, not a topic? Or only for regular users, while still allowing administrator edits?
While I couldn't find any extension to do this, I strongly suspect this can be done with some kind of daily batch job. Not that I am personally in favour of this option. I think this kind of events are rare enough we don't have to over-react to it.

thepiney
Posts: 161
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:57 am

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#39 Post by thepiney »

@ Webfork

I believe it was the UBCD4Win forum maybe UBCD but with my memory failing over the last few years I can't for the life of me quite remember.

Perhaps it was just a discussion like this current subject.

User avatar
Midas
Posts: 6705
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:09 am
Location: Sol3

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#40 Post by Midas »

Andrew Lee wrote: While I couldn't find any extension to do this, I strongly suspect this can be done with some kind of daily batch job. Not that I am personally in favour of this option. I think this kind of events are rare enough we don't have to over-react to it.

And I fully agree with you. My concern was just that if any measures were to be taken, I'd like them to be the more technically sound, no the knee-jerk blanket authoritarian ones that often come to be. Our times are rife with examples.

freakazoid wrote: If a user no longer wants to be a member of a site, that user has the right to delete or edit the contents of their items unless there was some type of user or privacy policy at registration denoting exactly what happens with their data onto said site.

I don't fully agree with freakzoid on this one. While I support the right of everyone to freely express their views and opinions, this is a public space that results from the collaborative effort of many individuals over many years and pervasive deletion of ones contributions, as seen, can wreak havoc on the normal working of this resource.

IMHO, everyone has a sacred right to changes of mind; when that happens, two courses of action remain always open -- 1) make minor adjustments to what has been said (written), so that it better reflects the intent of the author; 2) issue a new statement referencing how the previous one was erroneous, misleading or mislead.

That's how public discourse progresses -- it's not in vain that this resource is called a forum (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_%28Roman%29).

User avatar
Andrew Lee
Posts: 3048
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 9:19 am
Contact:

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#41 Post by Andrew Lee »

I don't fully agree with freakzoid on this one. While I support the right of everyone to freely express their views and opinions, this is a public space that results from the collaborative effort of many individuals over many years and pervasive deletion of ones contributions, as seen, can wreak havoc on the normal working of this resource.

IMHO, everyone has a sacred right to changes of mind; when that happens, two courses of action remain always open -- 1) make minor adjustments to what has been said (written), so that it better reflects the intent of the author; 2) issue a new statement referencing how the previous one was erroneous, misleading or mislead.
I am personally rather persuaded by this line of argument. I am always of the view that we should show each other respect in a public forum, and one should always think twice about what we post online.

I am sure we have always gone back to a post soon after submission, or even 1 or 2 days after submission, to correct various typos or inaccuracies, but I don't remember ever having to gone back and edit a post 1 or 2 weeks after the fact.Like Midas said, if there's anything I want to add, it would be a new post to the topic referencing my previous one.

With that in mind, I can try to figure out a way to lock posts that are older than a certain period (say 1 or 2 weeks). But before I do that, I want to know if there are any violent objections.

I am thinking of implementing this not with the intent of stopping what happened recently (like I said, it's extremely rare), but simply to try to codify certain behaviour and norms that we expect from members of this commnuity. Of course, if this is implemented, we will add this in bold to the "new-user-please-read-this" text to remind new users that this is what our community expects and how we would like each other to be treated.

Specular
Posts: 443
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2014 10:54 pm

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#42 Post by Specular »

webfork wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:14 pmOut of curiosity, what forum uses that model?
One forum that implements locking posts to subsequent edits is hydrogenaud.io. After 24 hours (IIRC) posts can no longer be edited, for both OPs and regular posts. Their short-term lock approach is rather annoying tbh, though I know once in a while new users get into heated debates so maybe it was to prevent self-censorship, not sure. Developers and mods/admin get special privileges however that exempt them from this so they can keep things like OPs of their projects updated.

I know one or two others that similarly lock posts like that but can't recall them.

Some forum software keeps track of edits with diffs so it can be rolled back so it's probably less of a major concern in those cases.

---

As a side-note to this I'd like to point out that smaragdus, despite stopping posting following removal of a topic of theirs, was reasonable enough to still leave their useful past posts intact, so the currently discussed behavior is very rare for this site (though seems everyone agrees on that point).

User avatar
vevy
Posts: 795
Joined: Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:17 am

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#43 Post by vevy »

Andrew Lee wrote: Sun Mar 22, 2020 1:28 am I am sure we have always gone back to a post soon after submission, or even 1 or 2 days after submission, to correct various typos or inaccuracies, but I don't remember ever having to gone back and edit a post 1 or 2 weeks after the fact.Like Midas said, if there's anything I want to add, it would be a new post to the topic referencing my previous one.

With that in mind, I can try to figure out a way to lock posts that are older than a certain period (say 1 or 2 weeks). But before I do that, I want to know if there are any violent objections.
I still edit first posts I made weeks and months ago, like in the CLI Tool Index and the CLI Database Discussions threads. I'd like to think I earned some trust but I don't want to have to be a mod to be able to update these entries.

I may also want to correct a something in a regular post later, like something that turned out to be factually-incorrect or misleading. A new post may not be enough to prevent damage.
For example:
Tool xyz is a good alternative. Download it from here.
becomes:
Tool xyz is a good alternative. Download it from here. It turned out that this tool is actually malware. Do NOT download!

TLDR: as long as such abuse is rare (has it happened before?) and as our site does not deal with charged topics, I think the benefits of freedom-to-edit outweigh the drawbacks.

thepiney
Posts: 161
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:57 am

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#44 Post by thepiney »

I understand others points of view in regard to editing OPs and subsequent posts as some of you have mentioned but also understand where locking them can avoid future issue.

For example following vevy's example --> If someone makes a mistake, or intentionally states that a program is "malware" or similar and after being corrected or argued with later changes that OP or subsequent post and denies they said that... Vevy's becomes: example having the line through it would be good in my opinion as the original statement is still intact but to remove it outright could appear to make later posts incorrect/erroneous.

Also, if anyone spends the time to check out the program mentioned in an OP and makes a post explaining something like how to make the program portable/stealth or share a tutorial, it seems like that user's time was just wasted unless the OP can be restored.

User avatar
vevy
Posts: 795
Joined: Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:17 am

Re: Single-letter forum posts issue

#45 Post by vevy »

thepiney wrote: Sun Mar 22, 2020 2:34 pm I understand others points of view in regard to editing OPs and subsequent posts as some of you have mentioned but also understand where locking them can avoid future issue.

For example following vevy's example --> If someone makes a mistake, or intentionally states that a program is "malware" or similar and after being corrected or argued with later changes that OP or subsequent post and denies they said that... Vevy's becomes: example having the line through it would be good in my opinion as the original statement is still intact but to remove it outright could appear to make later posts incorrect/erroneous.

Also, if anyone spends the time to check out the program mentioned in an OP and makes a post explaining something like how to make the program portable/stealth or share a tutorial, it seems like that user's time was just wasted unless the OP can be restored.
Good points. But the solution is easy in most (although not all) cases if you are weary (edit: wary! :wink:): quote them! You can delete or modify your post, thepiney, but you can't delete mine with the quote!

It comes down to user etiquette in an informal forum. Like others said, my opinion is to be on the side of permissiveness as long as the issues are rare enough.
Last edited by vevy on Mon Mar 23, 2020 6:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Post Reply