Why Should Thread Moderation Be Timely?

[Frabjous]

When a thread is closed for moderation, it would be nice if the moderation occured in a moderate amount of time (not days) so that the impact to the thread is minimized in the event that the thread is reopened, and so that participants can “move on” in the event that it remains closed.

Mandatory physics joke: these Schrodinger threads are in an indeterminate state. Let’s collapse the wave function in a timely manner.

 

[berkeman]

We do try to resolve them in a timely manner, but sometimes it takes a couple days for the Mentors to discuss the issues. We prefer to reopen threads when we can surgically delete the problematic posts, but some times we end up having to tie them off instead.

 

[berkeman]

See, sometimes the process can go relatively quickly...

Thread closed temporarily for Mentor review and possible cleanup...

A post violating our Global Warming rules has been deleted, along with a couple well-meaning replies to it. Thread is reopened provisionally.

 

[gmax137]

I don't think it is polite to tell volunteers that they need to work faster.

 

[Frabjous]

I don't think it is polite to tell volunteers that they need to work faster.

1) Where do you draw the line about volunteers?

2) There are other solutions than faster. If it takes days of mentor discussion to determine whether a thread should remain closed, why the urgency in provisionally closing the thread? They could hold the same discussion with the thread open.

 

[berkeman]

why the urgency in provisionally closing the thread? They could hold the same discussion with the thread open.

That's a fair question. When a thread/post is reported or we find a problematic one ourselves, often it is bad in a way that will attract many replies (including angry replies and/or crackpot replies). We close those while we discuss them to prevent a big mess that we will only have to clean up afterwards (and that can be a lot of work, depending on how many good points are mixed in with the angry/crackpot points). It's part of maintaining the high signal-to-noise ratio of PF.

 

[Frabjous]

That's a fair question. When a thread/post is reported or we find a problematic one ourselves, often it is bad in a way that will attract many replies (including angry replies and/or crackpot replies). We close those while we discuss them to prevent a big mess that we will only have to clean up afterwards (and that can be a lot of work, depending on how many good points are mixed in with the angry/crackpot points). It's part of maintaining the high signal-to-noise ratio of PF.

This is a legitimate reason to close a thread, but my concern is with provisional closures that last longer than a day. Multi-day moderator discussions appear to imply that the thread is “close” to some boundary, but not clearly over it. Why not give the thread the benefit of the doubt and not close it provisionally while the moderators discuss? If this is too risky, why not close the thread directly? People can always protest the closure.

 

[DaveC426913]

1) Where do you draw the line about volunteers?

I draw the line where the people aren't getting paid. The Mods are doing all this on their own time for the love of it.

Why not give the thread the benefit of the doubt and not close it provisionally

so that the impact to the thread is minimized in the event that the thread is reopened,

Note that these two things are in opposition.

The very purpose of closing the thread is to impact the direction thread is going. i.e. stop it in its tracks and redirect it.

Leaving it open would entirely defeat that purpose.

And that's ultimately for your benefit. Imagine if it were left open and you had a long drawn out discussion (over that day or more), and then the Mods had to go and delete it all because that was the portion that had gone off the rails. (You won't actually know that your contribution isn't part of the promematic portion. eg. there are lots of subjects peculiar to PF that are verboten but would not be elseweb.)

They could hold the same discussion with the thread open

No. They couldn't.

The thread would proceed apace off the cliff.

If the bus looks like it's about to skid off a cliff, you don't wait until after-the-fact to put the brakes on. You stop it.

 

[berkeman]

This is a legitimate reason to close a thread, but my concern is with provisional closures that last longer than a day. Multi-day moderator discussions appear to imply that the thread is “close” to some boundary, but not clearly over it. Why not give the thread the benefit of the doubt and not close it provisionally while the moderators discuss? If this is too risky, why not close the thread directly? People can always protest the closure.

Let's do this for now and see how it works -- If you think a thread has been closed for Moderation for too long, please click the Report link in that closure post and mention that the thread has been closed for a while and it would probably be good to decide one way or the other. That will be a reminder/motivator in our discussions to try to come to a consensus a bit more quickly for that thread. It still may take a while, but we can try to supply feedback to your report to let you know where we are in that discussion about the thread closure.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

but my concern is with provisional closures that last longer than a day. Multi-day moderator discussions appear to imply that the thread is “close” to some boundary, but not clearly over it. Why not give the thread the benefit of the doubt and not close it provisionally while the moderators discuss?

IMO it is necessary to close a thread temporarily to have a proper internal discussion about the contents. If the Mods are discussing, and during that, the thread diverges further, it would become more difficult to handle it as the discussions taken till now can be invalidated when taking into account the new replies to the thread.

Consider this: you have forked from a public repo and are working on some new feature in your fork. Meanwhile, the main repo has merged multiple PRs. When you open a PR for your feature, you may find that there are conflicting changes, and you have to either rebase your fork, or merge the main to your fork, and then resubmit the PR. Both of these are troublesome, but can't be avoided. Here, however, we have the option of preventing the main thread from diverging further, which will, IMHO, speed up decisions taken by the Mod team.

PF has been in existence for a long time, so I am pretty sure that the Mods already know how to deal with most situations. If, however, a decision for a thread is pending for some time, I believe it is because there is something which the Mod team is discussing at depth. I would just leave them to do their job; they know what's best for the site.

 

[russ_watters]

This is a legitimate reason to close a thread, but my concern is with provisional closures that last longer than a day. Multi-day moderator discussions appear to imply that the thread is “close” to some boundary, but not clearly over it. Why not give the thread the benefit of the doubt and not close it provisionally while the moderators discuss? If this is too risky, why not close the thread directly? People can always protest the closure.

I think you may misunderstand: a thread that is close to a boundary is like a person drowning in the ocean. You have to save them before they drown, not wait to see if they can figure out how to swim. Such threads are always headed for drowning and we close them to stop them from going further under. Stopping them early gives us a chance to save them, waiting longer to intervene always lets them become unsalvageable.

 

[Rive]

They could hold the same discussion with the thread open.

Generally, on the internet when things start to go wrong, they accelerate.
That wait might be inconvenient if you are too involved, but honestly, things often goes wrong exactly at the point when people get too deeply involved.
Just take that wait as a chance to chill.
I often do so.