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Moderation Decision - A Remix

Hi Meta!


@nick made a great thread to discuss moderation decisions and I loved seeing all of the teamwork, productive conversations, and support. However, that thread is loooooong. So, I'd like to pick up where you left off here. When it gets too long again, we'll start another.

To quote Nick:

If you wish to not be mentioned, leave your name in the comments. If someone asks to not get mentioned by name, please respect their wishes.

And to add: keep up the supportive and respectful dialogue. Y'all are amazing.

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@amber I never made a replacement right away, as I felt we wanted to feel things out. While the "mention your name if you want to be omitted" was more of a "preliminary" provision as it was such a new idea, I think it should stay as a permanent opt-out option. we should also keep track, and make sure the list follows each new post.

Just a tidbit about where the opt-out provision came from ;). I didn't anticipate any objections as it's meant to help, BUT I didn't want to make it seem like I didn't intend to throw caution to the wind either.

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Yep, that's no problem! I think that it was a super successful thread! I also agree with the idea of keeping track with a following list. Was anyone added to it that I missed, @nick?

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@amber AFAIK, nobody asked. I intended it to all be public for transparent opt out.

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forgot password and havent got disc to reset it - Compaq Presario CQ57 - iFixit

I voted to archive this since it is from 2015, hasn't had an answer which is usuable since 2018, and then now it seems like a honeypot for low quality answers. In addition, this is one of those "grey area" questions. I could probably find more which needs a forced answer, or archival if this is anything to go by.

Why does it not start? - Compaq Presario CQ57 - iFixit

I opted for archival here as well - the answer quality is poor, and the OP did not provide sufficient detail. This one may be contentious, feel free to say why I'm wrong if you believe I was.

Why is my computer so slow? - Compaq Presario CQ57 - iFixit - spam moderation was also required.

Why my wireless function key is not working? - Compaq Presario CQ57 - iFixit

I can't reboot my laptop - Compaq Presario CQ57 - iFixit

My computer will turn on but ask password then says system diabled - Compaq Presario CQ57 - iFixit - potential BIOS password

Reset log on password - Compaq Presario CQ57 - iFixit - user account reset

How do I change a passcode to a Compaq labtopcq57 - Compaq Presario CQ57 - iFixit - user account, most likely

does not show wifi connections. The Ethernet cable is working - Compaq Presario CQ57 - iFixit

Another potential contention - low quality answers/none, and some attract spam.

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Thanks @nick!

I'll look through these next week. We might want to lock some of these rather than archive them. I'll have to look into our code to see the implications of both on searches.

Do any of the ones you've archived contain helpful information for users?

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@amber It's rare and usually nonexistent, but a handful of those might in terms of how to do some of those things - I chose archival because they didn't attract quality answers, or the intent was grey.

That said, most archives are usually a total disaster. But if I see one I'm on the edge about I'll take no action and then let you or another admin decide, or let the community decide. Stuff like this may be best archived so people don't see it.

The issue is I can only archive, not lock. So if it's not good for much, then I either have to flag it or post it here.

Part of the issue is you're usually putting lipstick on a pig with some of these, so while I know there's a valid answer, I also am hesitant to legitimize these questions unless there's a really good answer that justifies it. Makes sense?

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https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/4947...

https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/1944...

Maybe this should be force accepted and locked? If the goal is to get these solved, then that may be the better compromise vs archival in edge cases like this.

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I'd have to dig into this but 194498 seems to have a solid answer of the startup may be corrupted, but the top answer in 494735 is just an external link to HP with error codes (which aren't even listed in the question) so it's not really all that helpful IMO. Thoughts?

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@amber 194498 may be recoverable by accepting the really good answer, sure. You can find the Windows ISOs online but I don't feel like we should mention that on Answers because the average person won't know what to look for, or what's the safest way to do it. Might be better off telling them to buy a disc off eBay.

4735 should probably be locked at this point, but that's your call.

We need to come up with a set of guidelines on what to do with edge cases. The issue is we're dealing with years of bad posts like this, so you have disagreements on what to do. You have different standards with each person, like my conservative approach to edge cases where I'll accept an answer on some, but not others like SW related questions since I'm not comfortable legitimizing the idea of post on an old question, get votes and accept 5 years later.

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How to transfer data from a dead phone? - Samsung Galaxy S II - iFixit

I ended up marking it as unanswerable. Needs a serious spam wipe as well.

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Thanks @nick! I took a look and from what I can tell, the spam is all already deleted. Do you mean to go through and ban accounts?

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@amber I flagged them as spam while posting it here. Up to you if you ban the spammers.

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Excellent. I looked through briefly. As it's a rather old post, they all seem to have left us alone after their brief spam sprinkling so I'll leave them be for now. :)

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I just noticed this, it was a while ago last time I saw a huge amount of moderation votes that have been made around the same time and a lot of them are in my opinion incorrect.

I ignore almost all votes about if an answer should be accepted, I don't feel like I know what helped the person writing the question and I don't want to vote against either, therefore I will just let them be.

But when there are a huge amount of votes for "Remove as spam/offensive" and almost all of them are fully possible and correct answers, some of them are even selected as the correct answer by the person asking the question while others have like 15+ upvotes.

I really have a hard time understanding why there are 4 votes out of 5 to remove answers that are selected as correct ones and I'm really curious if there is something I have totally missed in them.

I would really like to have your answers as to why you have chosen to vote to remove answers that are accepted or have 15+ votes.

Examples (check in the moderation page for all of them):

398067

@njaini Elvis+White @yvaneck @guardian10

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If I am on the fence about a moderation decision, I tend to go with what the more reputable users are going for. I have removed my previous votes and voted no on all of them.

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@guardian10 I'm not saying that you can't vote for what you feel like, if you are unsure I feel like the best way to go is to not vote for nor against something.

The biggest problem to me is that it feels like people are voting without opening the answer in question to check if it looks to be correct or not. If the answer is accepted or has a lot of upvotes and all links are safe, there is no reason for voting it as spam/offensive.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly "Remove as spam/offensive" should only be used for spam and things that are clearly meant to be offensive. It shouldn't be used if someone's tone sounds a bit negative/mean, it might just be that English is their second language. @amber

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@eke0909 I think you're on the right track. Tone is something that's really hard to interpret on the internet because there's literally no tone to what they're saying as it's in text. Of course, if they're saying something like "you're a stupid noodle head" or linking to "sellmeyourcreditcardinfomation.com" I'd moderate as spam.

Marking Spam/Offensive should be when things are spammy or offensive. But remember, there's also the tool to "remove as duplicate or off topic." This choice gives us the opportunity to remove things that don't belong without punishing people for being lost. You can always post here (on Meta in general) if you feel like an admin needs to reach out to a user.

I wrote a guide about our moderation choices. Check it out and let me know what you think!

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@amber That's about what I feel like, some users do in my opinion use that option way too often and I have seen a lot that is marked with "Remove as spam/offensive" for no reason whatsoever. It isn't unusual that the answer is selected as the correct answer or that it has like 15+ upvotes...

Thanks a lot for the guide, there is one thing regarding the "Accept as Answer", I feel like it is really overused and often voted for when it is clear that the user hasn't solved the problem and someone votes to accept an answer anyway just because one answer may work as a solution. I feel like it should be really clear that it should NOT be used in such cases, neither when it is unclear if the answer has solved the question. If it is clear that it hasn't solved the problem as well as when it is unclear if it has worked, you shouldn't vote for it to become the accepted answer since you don't know if it solved the problem or not.

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(Continuing the above)

In my opinion, it shouldn't be done for 1 year+ cases if you're not sure if it really helped the one asking the question, the one with the most votes will be in the top anyway and having one answer accepted as the solution won't make any difference for other users either.

It will only be weird for the person that has made the post to see an answer accepted when the problem wasn't solved at all.

I would feel okay with accepting 1+ year questions if you're not fully sure that it really solved the problem, but under one year I think this option shouldn't be used at all if there are any doubts about it actually working.

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Amber Taus will be eternally grateful.