A post of mine was deleted.

[Shay]

This topic is more about feedback I'd like to give to the mods rather than an actual question. I got an email notice saying that one of my posts in a particular thread was deleted. There was no link to the thread in question or any explanation for why my post was deleted.

I did manage to find the topic and at the end of it there was an explanation that a number of posts in that thread had been deleted in the course of merging threads. It might not always be so easy though to find the topic or determine why a post was deleted in these circumstances.

I understand that the forum software might not allow for a link to the topic or an explanation for why the post was deleted, but if that is the case, I'd really appreciate a PM with a link to the topic, and explanation for why the post was deleted and a copy of the deleted post.

Thank you for your consideration.

[tma]

I'm not sure what the particular post was.

I know that recently, based on a suggestion by count- which we thought made sense- we pinned a thread with examples of stories and written works with sneezing. Posts were deleted that were deemed to be "redundant", not that they were redundant at the time, but with merging two or three threads. I wasn't the particular mod. involved- however, I do know that was done and it may have been the reason.

I can double check, or if any of the other Staff know they can answer that. To my knowledge: it wasn't anything that was on your part. And I don't want you to feel that it is anything personal.

[PuddinPop]

It was nothing personal, and I imagine it will have been the "Books" thread.

Posts were deleted that linked to other "Books" threads as they have all been merged together now, so there is only one thread as opposed to several.

I'm not sure if the forum software allows for a link to the thread where it was deleted from, and if it a thread that is deleted then we wouldn't be able to link to it as it wouldn't be there any more.

Maybe one of the higher-uppers on the staff can shed a bit more light on this

[Shay]

Yes that was the thread in question and as I said I was able to eventually find the thread and ascertain that was the reason why it was deleted. I'm just saying it might not always be so easy for me to figure it out for myself, which is why it would be considerate of the staff to give an explanation in a PM if the forum software doesn't allow for them to do this in the email notification. I'm not saying that the deleted post itself should be linked to but the topic it was deleted from.

[Vetinari]

I believe the e-mail notification was a standard message which was sent automatically when your post was deleted. Therefore the wording of it can't be altered. In general, if posts are being deleted on an individual basis, we do try to contact the member in question to explain why it is being done, and especially if there was any potentially important detail in the post. In the event that we had deleted a post because there was something unacceptable therein, then we would definitely be in touch.

In this case, the posts in question were just redundant posts with links to threads that no longer existed. From a practical point of view it would take a great deal longer for the staff member in question to contact each member personally, listing the details of their post, and in my personal opinion, in this case wholly unnecessary as the posts had no significant content.

On occasion, sections of the forum are pruned and very occasionally there are malfunctions which cause posts to be lost. We have said it before, but it is always worth repeating that if you have any material that is important to you, don't just entrust it to a post on the forum. Make sure you have it backed up.

[Shay]

Well in cases like this, if it is too much effort to contact each member individually, would it be a reasonable solution to make an announcement that might be more easily found than the topic in question? I had to do three separate searches in order to find the topic in question and I wasn't aware until finding it that it had been pinned for easy access.

Maybe in the future if I don't hear from the staff I should just assume a post wasn't deleted because I did anything wrong, but it would still be nice to know the reason why without having to do a lot of detective work.

[TheCakeIsAlive]

I did delete the post in question and as explained above, the reason was that your post only contained a link to the thread it was now situated in. There was a reasonably large number of such posts. I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that any notification would give some hint as to which topic it was deleted from (I have no experiencce with this system, so I do not know its inner workings, this notification is turned off for me).

For the reason of letting members who get this notification know what had happened to their post, I wrote an announcement in the thread itself that a number of posts were removed in order to make the thread more readable, as 4 separate threads are now merged. If you can suggest a better place where to announce this, I am of course open to suggestions.

[Shay]

Well there were multiple threads about books and in the past I had posted other things in them besides links to the other book threads so I couldn't just assume that it was my link post that was deleted and had no way of knowing that the topics had been merged. I did eventually find the post and your statement explaining what was going on but it wasn't easy for me to find considering that the merged topic was in a different section of the forum than last topic about books was posted in.

I did use the search function after I didn't see the topic by browsing in General Discussion, but the search feature can be rather finicky and it can take multiple tries for it to give you what you are looking for or to give you a reasonably small amount of results so that you aren't sifting through dozens of pages. Perhaps if I had looked in the media section I would have seen that the topic was pinned and easily accessible, but as I said before, I had no way of knowing the threads had been merged and pinned in that section.

When I suggested an announcement in cases where lots of posts are being deleted because of merging or whatever, I meant an announcement in the Announcements section at the top of the forum. Maybe something like that isn't important enough to go in the Announcements section, but I just figured that would be a way to let everyone know where it would be more easily seen if it's too much work to inform members individually.

Other than that I don't really have any other ideas. I just know that an announcement doesn't do much good if one doesn't know where to look for it. I find myself fondly thinking of that scene from the beginning of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Arthur Dent eventually finds the plans to demolish his house in the cellar of the planning office in locked filing cabinet inside a disused lavatory marked "Beware of the Leopard".

I apologize if I sound somewhat bitter, but it just seems to happen a lot(in general, not just on this forum) that what I consider to be the least I should expect in a given situation turns out to be expecting way too much. If nothing changes in the future because of my suggestions, then I will just try to remember that if I don't hear anything from staff that I didn't do anything wrong, though I know a big part of me will still want to know why even if it wasn't anything bad.

[TheCakeIsAlive]

As stated above, if there is anything wrong with a post, the staff will be in contact. If a post is removed and you were not contacted, it will most likely be a double-post or a post made redundant by merging threads or indeed a pruning of a certain subforum, in which case the staff generally will not notify individual users.

If it is distressing to you to receive these notifications, it is possible to turn them off in your settings to avoid future distress.

[Shay]

If it is distressing to you to receive these notifications, it is possible to turn them off in your settings to avoid future distress.

Towards the end of my last post I indicated a willingness to let the subject go and acknowledged that other people might find my expectations to be too high even if they do not seem so to me. I wish that had been the end of it because to be honest I find your above quoted statement to be incredibly offensive. This is not the snake pit though so I'm not going to explain why I am offended right now, but I will just close by saying that the message that the staff will not change the way they handle these matters is coming in loud and clear and I'm sure there is no need to discuss it any further.