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Iāve always hated Ariel. Sheās always pretending to be something she isnāt.
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donāt hate the players, hate the game.
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Not when sheās Ariel Bold.
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Remember this āsomething?ā
If fonts matter so much how about one that is helpful?
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Out of curiosity, is the āGeneral Moderation Topicā still in use? Itās been over a month since thereās been any posts. I read the posts here to see what naughty things users have doneā¦ Thanks.
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None of the remaining handful of longstanding tr0lls have slipped up lately. A bunch of drive-bys and newbies got banned but theyāre so pathetic that theyāre not worthy of an entry here.
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Thatās amazing. Seriously.
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Itās a credit to the moderation here.
[ETA: the clock is always ticking on the regular tr0lls. Itās always a matter of time before they break a rule.]
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In all seriousness, a recent change has made this harder. Regular users can no longer see posts that have been flagged for review. I often looked at those posts to understand the kinds of things that get flagged. It was a valuable tool for understanding the accepted norms of the community here. Iām sad to see that change.
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writebastard anonymized at user request.
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I, too, am sad to see it change, because I, too, would look at the flagged/hidden posts to learn something.
But, knowing that not all posts that are flagged will actually get deleted by the moderators, Iād say that I learned what things some people take offense at and want to see expunged, rather than what the actual norms of the bbs are. So yeah, I think your phrase ānorms of the communityā does fit to an extent, but at the same time I think flags donāt necessarily tell us the norms of the bbs.
Until the mods make a decision yea or nay, a flag is just someoneās opinion. And since (unless Iām mistaken) just one flag from a Regular will hide a post [Edit: I was wrong about the extent that a single flag can hide a post. See gracchusās comments below.] it could just be someone who has an ax to grind, or who doesnāt like the other user, or who didnāt take time to carefully read and understand the post they flagged and jumped to a conclusion.
I donāt know if I stated that very clearlyā¦Iām not trying to argue with you, just saying that that distinction matters to me!
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I believe the only time that might happen is if a Trust Level 3+ user throws a Spam flag, which has a specific purpose (eliminating ads, copy pasta, and repetitive posts). A Regular deploying it to silence an opinion would likely be seen as engaging in flag abuse by the moderator and would have their trust level reduced or get banned.
I can still peek at the posts that get hidden. 90% of the time youāre not missing anything that wouldnāt already to be obvious to you as a longtime user.
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Out of curiosity, Is this a change to the whole platform, or is it an optional toggle that has BB chosen to enable?
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Thatās what I figure too. I just wanted to mention that some portion of flagged posts get restored and kept in the conversation.
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I have seen comments by orenwolf warning that users should not be flagging posts just because they disagree with the other userās opinion, so that tells us that flags do get used that way at times, I think.
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Yes, but the Spam flag is the only one where (per your earlier comment) ājust one flag from a Regular [TL3 user] will hide a postā. The other flags (Inappropriate and Off-Topic) will require several people flagging before the post is programmatically hidden for review by the moderator.
āSomething Elseā doesnāt hide comments at all and is more a means to bring edge cases or a particular userās patterns to the attention of the moderator through what is effectively a DM.
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Thank you for making that clear to me. Iāll edit my previous post.
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That 10% plagues me though. 
Iāve had a couple posts moderated over the years where I really didnāt understand the line I had crossed. That says more about me than the BBS, of course, but I do want to understand so I can be less obnoxious.
I agree that the vast majority of the time, I used to expand those posts and was taken aback that anyone would even say that. Sometimes though, it was more grey area and I might learn something.
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Bad actors love trophies. There is nothing to be gained by disruptive or inappropriate comments being visible in that sense. Often people would unhide the post and then continue to reply to it, and having them visible meant that if someone had posted something we wanted moderators or Leaders to be aware of but was a personal attack or other items we did not want to leave visible, our only option was to delete it, which meant the information was lost.
Discourse (rightly) decided to make hidden posts visible only to moderators and Leaders so that they maintain context, and bad actors canāt continue to see their negative posts, and perhaps most importantly, because we have no interest in making content that violates our guidelines visible to the public even if itās hidden behind a single click like some sort of spoiler warning.
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