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Moderating existing Answers and Comments

While going through questions that have votes for taking specific actions here's my opinion:

Even if an answer is very poor or even wrong, it is still an attempt at an answer.

A lot are just comments, that are posted as answers. IMHO these should not be deleted but just attached to the correct post.

A lot of the answer are basically "me too". If these are deleted the person never gets notified when a correct answer does come along so I attach them as comments to the OP.

Any suggestions as to how I moderate or why could be done right now on this post ;-)

There are no posted guidelines for moderation, @oldturkey03 and I do most of it. @danj, for the most part, still answers most of the Mac questions that I used to do and i have no problem with that. For the most part we both have arrived at the same criteria by using common sense and practice. Mike seems to have more patience and is kinder than I am and not nearly as obstreperous. But he's younger and probably doesn't ache as much as I do yet.

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@mayer, I am with you on that. Lets try and continue to convert those to comments unless they are way off.

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This is an example that three of you want moderated to a comment

https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/77/W...

However, it is not a comment. It's an answer. Yes, it's a wrong answer, but it is an answer. If you don't like it vote it down.

@pccheese @thethirdtwin @lpfaff1

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@mayer taking care off the OT way;-)

@pccheese @thethirdtwin @lpfaff1 definitely an answer, bad one but an answer.

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Also boys, I am not a maid and neither is Mike. I could sit here 8 hours a day for 6 months, going through questions and moving "me too" answers to comments, but I'm not going to, so please don't request me to use my time doing this on moderation.

Request moderation on real problems that need real moderation. I will do them when i run across them. i did over 20 "me too's" on just one question this morning @oldturkey03 @kelsea

@pccheese @thethirdtwin @lpfaff1

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@mayer @oldturkey03

Sorry, just started a new job, been hella busy.

Ok, so I've been looking through the mod tab lately and been giving it a go, I've said to myself, if it's in here it surely needs moderating, if I can I should sorta deal, although obviously by the looks of things this is causing more trouble than it's helping, I've been trying to keep the ambiguous answers to a minimum, but like I said I thought if it's in there I should at least give an opinion on the report.

Although, I'm not trying to start an argument here, I think that taking out the $@$*!& non-answers from a thread and moving them to comments or just deleting them improves the quality of the overall thread.

Regardless, I think I'll step back from the moderation for a while.

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You have a point. I agree with switch to a comment rather than remove as not an answer. However, often people will provide very basic answers with information covered in much better answers. When moderating anything, I ask myself, "will this ever do anyone any good?" or "Has this been covered?" And always de-clutter.

That's just my point of view.

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That's what voting does, the best answers get voted up and rise to the top.

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@pccheese I think we had a similar discussion about this prior. Check on here Possible solutions for OP's not coming back to there question I dread to delete any answer because of the work that someone did to write it. We should not be the judge about how good or how bad an answer is, for as long as it is not misleading or written with any malicious intent. Feel free to comment on those answers and utilize your voting powers to either validate or disprove an answer.

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@mayer I agree, an answer is an answer even if it's redundant, weak, or wrong and shouldn't be immediately deleted. Upvoting keeps the good stuff at the top and "me too" answers should just be attached as comments to the OP. (Deleting to de-clutter seems like a slippery slope, not that I don't trust our mods' judgement @pccheese .)

But it sounds like it's about time to start putting together some formal guidelines. Especially after reading through some of the other disucssions from this weekend. I'll start outlining some things with @kaykay when she gets back next week and we'll reach out to everyone for feedback. Sound good?

Oh also, Hi! I'm Kelsea. I moved out of the EDU team and onto @kay-kay 's Outreach team a few months ago. You'll see me in META and in the forums more in the future. :)

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Hi Kelsea! Where's @kaykay?

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She's in Costa Rica! Pretty nice vaycay right?

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Tell here to watch out for dinosaurs!

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First of all welcome to the paschel lamb assignment. IMHO You may now request hazardous duty pay.

Now if the management of iFixit feels like the moderators are doing something wrong please let us know. Both Mike and I have outlined the guidelines we do it by. BYW Mike was not in today if you hadn't noticed. I think your time might be better spent elsewhere where you actually have problems. I've spent far to much time on the site today. My main problem today has been a thirteen year old that wants to run things.

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@mayer @pccheese looks like we are in trouble again. @kaykay called in reinforcements by getting @kelsea on her team. Gentlemen we better start behaving....:-)

I took the liberty of checking your profile and since you are crazy about dogs, you are alright in my book. I am sure we'll grow on you (hopefully not quite like some kind of fungus ) and hopefully you recognize that we are actually a pretty compliant bunch,

Nice to meet you @kelsea and looking forward to working with you.

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mayer will be eternally grateful.