Very confused why admins can not...

[LouieFevers]

I am very confused why admins can not edit normal users posts. If I am wrong and you can indeed edit other users posts please tell me how.

Btw I am loving the nabble2 forums, thank you.

[Will <Nabble>]

Thanks for loving nabble2.

Regarding editing another user's post, sorry, we just don't allow that. I do know that most other forums allow the owner to edit a normal user's post, we are different. To us, if a forum owner doesn't like a post, he can simply email the author to ask him to edit his post. Most likely, the author will honor the forum owner's request. If he doesn't agree with the owner's request, the owner can remove his post from the forum or even ban him. The owner has enough power to deal with users' posts.

Does this sound reasonable?

[a_priori]

Will,

The only issue I see in regard to this that while owners have to ability to remove posts that they want to, all the replies to that post must also be removed along with it and that becomes a big problem on busy threads because a lot of users instinctively reply to the last post in the thread when they really intend to reply to the parent post. This creates an extremely nested thread where removing individual posts can result in removing a lot of other posts that may have not even been direct replies to the post that needs to be removed. The means that owners have to weigh the the necessity to remove a post vs. how many other posts will be affected and can cause some users to become upset that their posts were removed because of something someone else posted.

Perhaps a good solution would be to allow forum owners to "block" a post instead of removing it from the thread leaving only "This message has been blocked by the forum Owner" so that no editing of the post can occur without the post owner's permission and an "unblock" option could be available. In addition, a "Reply to Parent" button at the bottom of each thread might prevent excessive nesting of the threads and eliminate the possibility of owners having to block the posts instead of just removing them.

Even if the idea of "blocking" posts is not something that Nabble wants to allow, adding the "Reply to Parent" button at the bottom of each thread would probably help out a lot in this regard by helping to prevent excessive nesting of threads.

[LouieFevers]

I agree with the guy above, I only have the option to remove his post along with others on the same topic. I think that you should allow admins to edit posts because we get a lot of spammers out there who like to spam links. I still like nabble2 what ever you do but I just think it would help a lot of the edit option was avaliable

[Will <Nabble>]

Thanks!

Regarding removing a post and the branch under it, we are open to suggestions.

To clarify one thing, as the forum owner you do have an option. You can move post and branch around as you like. So, suppose you have

post1
   post2
      pos3
         post4
   post5

You can move post3 to become a child of post1, and then remove post2, then you have:

post1
   post3
      post4
   post5

Regarding your point about spam, if post2 is spam, then I would expect that nobody would reply to it, right? So, removing post2 and the branch under it should have very little problem, right?

A_priori, you have a good point. But looking at it this way, if post3 shouldn't be under post2 in the first place, then you should move post3 to it's correct parent node anyways.

In any case, I cannot imagine a bad post will have many direct replies or branches under it. It is, after all, a bad post that deserve to be removed. So, I think moving nodes around and remove it shouldn't be a big hassle.

We have debated internally if we should remove a post but leave a placeholder there. It sounds reasonable on the surface, but is actually not.

For example, in a flame war, when two users go after each other in a death spiral, would you want to leave a placeholder there? You actually just want to remove the whole branch. Leaving a placeholder can be quite confusing as the branch under it will hardly make any sense. Why not just removing the whole thing?

In short, if post2 deserves to be removed, the most likely there is no posts/branch under it. Even if there are, they probably deserve to be removed as well. In very rare occasions, the branch may deserve to live, but then you can always let it live by moving it.

We are open to suggestions. If you actually have a real situation, tell us, and we may change the current design. We try not to make think about things before we see they really happen.

[Cry Vengeance]

In regard to the previous post.

Although it would seem more user friendly and courteous to leave the parent or original post(s) alone and remove entire sections of thread instead, it is actually a form of cutting corners.

V.Bulletin for example, is a simple forum script that utilizes the feature being discussed, removing and editing basic user posts. This does not neccasarily infract on other user's rights to the board, but gives the adminstration of that particular board an easy way to eliminate potential "stack" issues. For example, if you use a system like this...(I will attempt to dig up some screenshots from the site for a visaid, but I figure this should fair as a good representation.)

Post1
Post2
Post3
Post4 (Now for some reason or another, the Admin has chose to delete this post, in which case Post 4 would appear like this upon refreshing the page)

Post1
Post2
Post3
-------This Post Has Been Removed By The Admin---- (Normal post info would be displayed on the side, such as the posters Avatar and other info, so other users will know that the post was deleted and who posted it.)

It is also availible to allow a "reason" to be posted along with the "post has been removed" reply, such as

(I deleted this because you need to calm down a bit before posting)

Just a suggestion, no shots intended.

-Psycho

[Will <Nabble>]

Thanks for the suggestion. We are open-minded about this design, but I'm still not convinced that your suggestion is better than the current one.

For example, some users may find it condescending to have someone telling him that  "... you need to calm down a bit before posting... ". It would be less hurtful to a guy if it's just his post getting removed, vs having his post removed AND leaving his name there plus a condescending note to remind everyone.

Even if the user is indeed bad and indeed he needs to calm down, wouldn't it be better to just remove the entire branch under his post? What typically happens in a flame war is that one user go after the other into a death spiral which then annoys everyone in the thread. Now, suppose you want to stop this, would you remove each post and leave a note there? I think it's better to just remove the whole branch under a bad post.

As I said, we are open to suggestions, but we want to see a real situation where one solution is clearly better. Sofar, we are just arguing by hypothesis. If you have a real situation, where our current design couldn't handle, please contact us.

[Cry Vengeance]

Well they do say that ignorance is bliss, I think you may have taken my example a bit out of context. As stated earlier, to delete an entire stem of posts based on the actions of one post makes very little sense, deleting one post and leaving an explaination bites it on the head and shows others why. If things did get out of control simply lock/delete the thread since its original purpose isnt being met anyways.

That wasnt a made up scenario, that system is really used and those situations really do happen.

www.cf2142.com is your proof, look through the forums and take note of the involvment of administrators and how they run things as far as post removal.

Questions dont make the jump Nabble.

[Will <Nabble>]

Psychoanyletic wrote

www.cf2142.com is your proof, look through the forums and take note of the involvment of administrators and how they run things as far as post removal.

I checked it out, the forum seems to have moved to http://www.conflict-2142.com/forums/ - I checked a few active forums but couldn't find a post removal case. Can you point me to one instance?

[Cry Vengeance]

Hmm, hadnt realized that they moved, probably the new VBull setup. Anyways, I'll take a browse, may need to dig a bit deeper then a few active threads.

Stay tuned mate.

[stlsoapchick]

Will <Nabble> wrote

So far, we are just arguing by hypothesis. If you have a real situation, where our current design couldn't handle, please contact us.

Here's one for you.  I had this situation happen on another board I co-moderated several years ago (not a Nabble board).

A user posted copywritten material.  I didn't realize it was "stolen" material, therefore I saw no reason to remove it.  The original author asked that the information be removed and would prefer a link to the original article instead.

If this was the initial post in the thread, I can't delete it or it would delete all of the discussion attached to it.  If the person who posted it on my board is unable to be reached, what can I do as the owner/administrator?  I would have to post a new thread with the corrected information, get the permalink to post #2, move all of the replies to the new thread, then delete the "offending" original post.  Whereas on most other board systems I can just click edit, type the correction, then submit.  Three steps versus about 8-10 steps on Nabble.

[Will <Nabble>]

Thanks for giving an concrete example for discussion.

Given your example, I think we can provide a feature, such that a forum owner can replace a user post by his own post, this means you can do the task in one step, does that work?

[Nationwide]

Having the ability to remove, or edit an entire post or a portion thereof would be fantastic. Another example I have encountered on other forum platforms is where a poster responding to others adds in an inappropriate link or solicitation. While the majority of the post is acceptable and applicable, a moderator would like to have the ability to just remove the inappropriate portion.
In addition, having the ability to post in grey a brief explanation by the moderator, such as, "Edited by Moderator, no solicitations allowed", or "removed by moderator, no personal attacks are permitted" are beneficial explanations to both the poster and the other readers and responders as to why something was edited or removed. This is not condesending and allows the moderator to properly moderate the forum without multiple steps.
Currently, we only have the option to remove the entire post.

Thank you for your time.

Will B

[Graham Perrin]

Nationwide wrote

… the ability to post in grey a brief explanation by the moderator, such as, "Edited by Moderator, no solicitations allowed", or "removed by moderator, no personal attacks are permitted" are beneficial explanations to both the poster and the other readers and responders …

By coincidence I recently bookmarked <http://www.diigo.com/list/grahamperrin/freenode-highlights> relating to etiquette.

<http://www.diigo.com/04ioq> for a highlighted view of one of the two.

Defocusing from freenode, Nabble, fora and/or individual moderators: the guidelines and philosophy there are IMHO very reasonable.

Is there some URL to which we can refer — *not* directly associated with a network, service, forum or moderator — that expressed good etiquette?

by the moderator

If we can find and refer to a suitable document, something generic, then users of forums who receive direction should not be tempted to argue with the person who offers the direction.

[Dave :-)]

I'm new to Nabble, and so far I'm very impressed indeed, but this is one thing I find a bit odd.
I had a problem a year or so back elsewhere, where a frequent user always made brilliant posts, but was quite seriously dyslexic! Basically, I used to sort out his spelling for him. My current forum is still under construction, but once it's running I expect he will be along! I would like to offer him the same facility, rather than telling him to go away and try harder!
Is this possible?

[Will <Nabble>]

Sorry, but we just can't allow an owner to edit a user's post. The reason is that it can lead to abuse. You may have a legit case, but others may not.

As for your situation, is it possible that you ask the user to share his login/password with you, so that you can log in as him to edit his post?

[Dave :-)]

Cor, that's a prompt reply! Thank you,

 That's a good idea, but we've already thought of another one. I will copy and paste his posts into a reply, sort it out there, and he will replace it. Then I can delete the reply.

 I suppose the others not wanting to lose threads could start another topic with the same name, explaining the situation, and transfer the replies to that. They could even copy across any non controversial parts of the original post. Just an idea.

Having thought about it, I do appreciate your point about not editing posts. But you must admit it's unusual! Mind you, so are a lot of things about Nabble, that's what makes it so good.

All the best

Dave

[Beautty]

<quote author="Will &lt;Nabble&gt;">
Sorry, but we just can't allow an owner to edit a user's post. The reason is that it can lead to abuse.


Abusing posts could be simply removed from the thread. But i dont see any abuse in Edited post with a clear message ' Edited by Owner/Co-owner'. I came accross few forums long time ago saw Edited posts for misspelling and things like that. And the words that have corrections in them where highlighted or different colour with a message that this post been edited by <name>. So all that clearly stats what have been done with a post and abuse stoped this way. Could this be a solution?

One more thing:
What kind of Abuse we are talking here about? Example: 'A' makes a thread or a post and 'B' (owner) edit the content to make 'A' look as a bad person? who would do that if edited post would have a message stating who edited the post? And i cant see this happening because of the 'Ban' option that both 'A' and 'B' have.

To be able to Edit thread or a post is a must in every forum for million reasons stated in this Topic and others. After all Nabble keeps the option to 'remove' Editing option if you will really have problems with it.

Was there a reaserch done how other forums survive with actualy allowing Owners to Edit posts?

[Graham Perrin]

Re-ordering the quotes below, a little ...

Dave :-) wrote

a frequent user always made brilliant posts, but was quite seriously dyslexic! Basically, I used to sort out his spelling for him. My current forum is still under construction, but once it's running I expect he will be along! I would like to offer him the same facility, rather than telling him to go away and try harder!

My twopenneth: tell them to come along and be dyslexic!

That encouragement can go hand in hand with your continuing to offer a spelling service. The personal spelling service is laudable but need not be a feature of a forum.

Seriously: I have a few friends who enjoy varying degrees of dyslexia, the dyslexia undisguised in various personal and highly professional situations. It does them zero harm, for sure I'd hear about it in private if there was a problem.

From the early 1990s to 2005, I admired a colleague's e-mail signature that quoted Tennyson and ended with the line,

> My spelling is entirerly due to dyslexia, typos, and poetic license

Amusingly, it took me seventeen years to realise (this morning) the funny thing about that sentence and in any case: throughout the years, I neither sought nor found mistakes in what appeared above his signature.

Dave, might your user enjoy a web browser that offers a spell-check feature?

Beautty wrote

… Edited post with a clear message 'Edited by Owner/Co-owner'. I came accross few forums long time ago …

That was: a few.

Where uninvited edition does occur, and does succeed with neither confusion or offence, we may congratulate those forums. However: a practice demonstrated by a few should not set a precedent for all.

To be able to Edit thread or a post is a must in every forum

With all respect: not a must, and far from every forum. Maybe a few do so, maybe a majority do so, the percentage is IMHO irrelevant:

* if one size (other forum systems) fits all, then how does Nabble become so popular? ;)

Thinking far beyond Nabble and over a decade or so: none of the forums that I use or manage demonstrate (to posters) edition by the forum owner or moderator. Truly, none. But if it does work for other forums that I haven't encountered, absolutely fine :) and I should never ask them to rein themselves in.

If your concern for your forum is that people might post carelessly, then draw attention to your plea for care. The forefront description of your forum is an idea place for such pleas. Keep it brief and positive and if something more wordy is needed, offer a brief positive link to the longer form of wording.

(Hint: a week ago in this support forum, an owner shared with us their example Nabble-complementary terms of service.)

the 'Ban' option that both 'A' and 'B' have.

That *is* useful. I do ban posters of junk messages. I have *never* banned any other poster.

The ban is silent, non-contentious, so the temperature in the forum remains low. Key point:

* negativity of all sorts, including bans, become close to invisible.

What kind of Abuse we are talking here about?

Simple guidelines: allow members to (1) think before they post, and (2) not rush a response in a heated situation.

Allow both. If you prefer: encourage both.

The very few highlights at <http://www.diigo.com/annotated/7d9acdcea677e6c765a35b337b2c7486> set a very positive tone.

On the rare occasion when something online upsets me, maybe twice a year, I aim to follow the advice that I picked up from a (highly valued) manager:

* 24 hour rule! -- whatever the grievance, sleep soundly before responding.

Abusing posts could be simply removed from the thread.

…

Will <Nabble> wrote

… I think we can provide a feature, such that a forum owner can replace a user post by his own post…

With or without that enhancement from Nabble, the bottom lines for me:

1. An author's work sent via e-mail is simply: sent, and can be neither retracted nor corrected.

2. Some forum systems allow edition by the author but disallow edition after a few minutes have passed.

3. Nabble excels:

* authors can edit their work (do More with what they wrote)

* the window of opportunity to edit, to add, to correct is infinite.

Peace
Graham

[Paul Hadley]

As a moderator on a busy phbb forum with over 3000 members we consider it *essential* to jump in and edit posts containing spam.


Some (new) users creep in under the radar on apparently innocent topics, then post an inappropriate commercial advert, URL or spam...... spam is anything which has no relevance to the actual forum.

We jump in quickly and remove the offending lines adding "Edited by moderators" or similar. Experience has told us it is important to nip the problem in the bud quickly....and I mean minutes not hours.

Deleting a post does not teach the offender anything and asking them to edit the post is a waste of time/far too slow. When they see the edits they usually give up and never cause a problem again.

Yes we run a tight ship, but its important.


BTW I have just opened a Nabble forum and was searching for the admin edit topic command!