Simon Kissel – of CrossKylix fame and Alternative Roadmap infamy – apparently recently re-appeared in the Delphi forums. I say apparently because Embarcadero or TeamB have seemingly been doing their best to maintain his status as a non-person. Can this be A Good Thing™?
I don’t think so.
As I say in comments to another post on this subject, if someone misbehaves in a forum sufficiently to warrant being banned from further participation, then by all means ban them. But, with any legal considerations duly taken into account, leave the offending posts up so that people can judge for themselves.
By which I mean, if the posts contain liable language (libel, slander, incitement to racial hatred etc etc) then those parts of the post should be redacted, with a note explaining why. But the posts themselves should be left.
Surely removing them leaves, or rather creates, room for doubt?
Unable to judge for themselves whether a post is justifiably deleted, people will polarise into those who fall on the side of defending the “right” to free speech without knowing what was said and those who will defend the right of the forum moderators to moderate as they see fit without knowing whether the moderation was warranted.
In any event, the look is not a good one for Embarcadero who appear heavy handed and ungracious.
Simon Kissel, whatever his previous faults or shortcomings, is if nothing else a passionate and enthusiastic participant in a Delphi Community that desperately needs people with passion and enthusiasm.
The saddest part of this is that what should have been a piece of encouraging news has been swamped by the controversy over Embarcadero’s behaviour.
A Delphi Community project that delivered something that many people found to be of great use (though I do not count myself in that group), effectively withered on the vine for the past 6 years – CrossKylix. That project has now shown signs of life once more, indicating in turn, continuance of life in the Community – and talent – that fed that project in the first place.
But rather than celebrating this we are talking about the behaviour of Embarcadero for the second time in as many weeks.
What should have been a good, healthy sign for the Delphi Community has instead highlighted again the concerns that many of us have about those who currently (and I choose my phraseology deliberately here) hold Delphi in trust on behalf of that community.
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@Jolyon,
Follow-up question.
In the above scenario, what if people re-posted the unwanted messages over and over again or started questioning your ethics or calling you names for repressing poor Bruce? Would you allow those comments?
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w00t! Wrapped comments to page 2! Page 3 or bust!
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@Bruce:
You “suspect”…
Precisely!
You do not know because you cannot see.
But you are not being entirely sincere I suspect, since I *do* know that people have been complaining that posts that do NOT fall into these categories have also been deleted, seemingly for daring to even mention Simon’s name or the project he has been working on (Cross Kylix) – not as a reference to any forum moderation, but simply talking about it. I saw that you were cc’d on an email that I received just this morning from someone asking for our opinion, with some very specific details of posts that had been deleted and which clearly did not violate any forum guidelines.
As for my moderation of these forums, I only delete posts that are obviously spam, and even then I suspect I have given the benefit of the doubt to more spam than I have deleted non-spam by mistake (except in one instance that I can recall where I was over-zealous in pressing the “Delete” button on a comment – but having realised my mistake I posted my own comment apologising for that error and inviting the commenter to repost).
Even if people disagree with me, criticise me or insult me, I allow it, though I do redact offensive language.
If they want to make themselves look bad, who am I to stand in their way?
If I delete their post, they will only be inclined to find some other way to direct their comments, via means that I cannot control.
But why would you choose to abuse my blog in the ways you describe? I suspect that would be the escalation of a poorly managed relationship with you in the first instance and I would be partly to blame for that. If you swamped my comment box it might take me a few days to get around to redacting and approving them all, but I would.
As I said, I would put your folly on public view for others to decide.
But I trust you wont be tempted to test my resolve on that – I have far better things to be doing with my time and in the meantime I hope that by treating my commenters with respect, that they will afford me the same courtesy in return and be more inclined to bless my blog with their visits in the future.
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@Bruce: Follow up answer…
The repostings over again were *CAUSED* BY POSTS BEING DELETED. If the posts weren’t deleted they wouldn’t have been reposted, questions would have been asked about WHY posts were being deleted, people wouldn’t have been incensed at the arrogance of the replies (”You aren’t entitled to anything”) etc etc.
Even if some explanation had been given as to WHY posts were being deleted things might have been better…
It’s easy to see how things spiral when moderation is undertaken in the high handed and arrogant manner adopted by Borcaderoprise…
Someone posts something innocuous and within the rules… it get’s deleted.
Maybe it was deleted by accident…? Poster thinks “Ok, I’ll repost…”
Oh, deleted again.. !!?! Poster thinks: What’s going on? Why are my posts being deleted??!?! Maybe a forum bug, I’ll repost….
Dammit deleted AGAIN, OK I’ll ask what’s going on.
They get either silence or a non-apologetic, stiffly arrogant response (”We don’t discuss moderation policy – you aren’t entitled to an explanation”)Then the poster get’s REALLY mad….
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@Bruce: oh and if someone started calling me names… of course I would allow those posts. It could only help *me* to allow them to make a very public idiot of themselves.
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Bruce,
I simply refer you back to my 12:23 post on July 28th.
I would be interested to hear how you class that state of affairs as good customer relations ? -
Redacting could be as bad as deleting. Suppose the protesting and spamming was because I don’t like the way you edit my language?
I do know what was in some of the posts that were removed. Mostly follow-ups to deleted and reposts of deleted posts. I also don’t have any problem with posts being deleted that are whining about the person in question. Let them whine about moderation on someone else’s server.
I will agree with you on one very specific point. In the case of posts that don’t whine about he who must not be named, make accusations or repost deleted posts, but simply announce CrossKylix (for example), I don’t personally see any reason why these posts should be deleted.
If posts such as this were indeed deleted, then I think that is heavy handed.
What do you think? Common ground?
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@Joylon,
totally agree with you in those last three posts ! -
@Bruce:
If someone really wanted to demonstrate how petty they were by complaining that I had redacted offensive language by doing nothing more than throw more offensive language at me … well, it would be tiresome and tedious but I would much rather be able to point at that specific, demonstrable and incontrovertible behaviour to justify any other actions that I subsequently deemed fit, rather than having to spend yet more time and energy defending my actions to those who believed, rightly OR wrongly, that I had treated the person unfairly.
i.e. if someone really did take offense at my entirely reasonable and even handed moderation and for some that I simply cannot begin to conceive of chose to habitually abuse my site to teach me a lesson for being so reasonable, then yes ultimately I would be forced to seek to find ways to reduce their impact on my time. But any posts that that person managed to sneak around whatever measures I might put in place would *still* be allowed, to demonstrate what a continuing nuisance and fool that person insisted on being.
As for the common ground, yes I believe that is common ground, but I do not believe there is any question whether or not such posts were deleted in this debacle. It seems quite clear to me that they were.
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@Jolyon,
We don’t agree on the rest of this, but I’ll take the common ground and leave it at that.
And what’s-his-name can bite my shiny metal [REDACTED].
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@Joylon
There is no if about it posts merely mentioning the project were cancelled . I saw it with own eyes and in some cases within minutes. Hence all the furore that followed and people asking whats going on ,reposting replies etc etc.Shortly after this started its was noticable that google indexing of forums apparently stopped occurring. Why ? Who knows
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@Bruce: LOL (and thanks for the pre-emptive self redacting… it saved me a bit of time
)
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