Tradeoffs. Do the mods have to deal with more BS because they show the text and a handful of people are like “but reeeeaaaallly? I got something good from that one comment!”
This, basically. A lot of individual Eugin comments look fine. It’s only when you know the entire history of him that it’s clear how important it is that he banned and stay banned. He optimizes his comments for soaking up as much time and attention as possible.
We delete about 10 Eugin comments around once a week. It’s a pain. Everything that makes it more of a pain is detracting from our ability to do things like:
give friendly responses to newcomers who look like they have something to offer but could use some help understanding the site culture
resolve disputes between longterm members
actually code stuff (since several of the mods are also developers)
A lot of individual Eugin comments look fine. It’s only when you know the entire history of him that it’s clear how important it is that be banned and stay banned.
But I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t ban him. I agree that you should ban him. I agree that you should delete his comments. I have zero quarrel with this.
What I still don’t see is how any of that implies that the text of his deleted comments—much less that of deleted comments in general—shouldn’t be visible in the moderation log.
Everything that makes it more of a pain …
But why would having the moderation log show the text of deleted comments, make it more of a pain to delete Eugin’s comments? I’m not trying to be dense here, but I’m afraid I just don’t see any connection…
Here’s a question, that might make me better understand your view on this. Is the issue here that you, for some reason, specifically object to having Eugin’s comments be displayed at all, in any way? And if the answer is “yes”, then would it be reasonable to suppose that you would have no objections to displaying the text of deleted comments in general, but having a special “Eugin exception” (i.e., where the text of the deleted comment would normally be, there might instead be some text in the vein of “REDACTED, because this was a comment by a Eugin.”)?
(Similarly, perhaps there could be—as I think I might’ve suggested in the past—a “doxxing exception”, and a “the contents of this comment violated U.S. law exception”, etc.)
I don’t have strong opinions on whether Eugine’s comments should or shouldn’t be visible in the deletion log, but here (I think) is the best argument for making them not be: It’s about incentives. Eugine wants LW to be his soapbox; in so far as his actions still have any motivation to them beyond mere malice, his goal is to propagate his opinions and punish those with conflicting opinions; the best hope of making him go away is for him to get nothing from posting to LW. If his comments’ text is preserved, then that gives him an incentive to keep posting them.
(I fear that in fact there is nothing left but malice, and the mere knowledge that he’s wasting moderators’ time is enough for him. But I hope he hasn’t gone so far down the path from “reasonable human being” to “entity of pure malice” for that to keep him at it indefinitely.)
[Note on spelling: definitely “Eugine” rather than “Eugin”, though I believe neither is his real name.]
This, basically. A lot of individual Eugin comments look fine. It’s only when you know the entire history of him that it’s clear how important it is that he banned and stay banned. He optimizes his comments for soaking up as much time and attention as possible.
We delete about 10 Eugin comments around once a week. It’s a pain. Everything that makes it more of a pain is detracting from our ability to do things like:
give friendly responses to newcomers who look like they have something to offer but could use some help understanding the site culture
resolve disputes between longterm members
actually code stuff (since several of the mods are also developers)
But I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t ban him. I agree that you should ban him. I agree that you should delete his comments. I have zero quarrel with this.
What I still don’t see is how any of that implies that the text of his deleted comments—much less that of deleted comments in general—shouldn’t be visible in the moderation log.
But why would having the moderation log show the text of deleted comments, make it more of a pain to delete Eugin’s comments? I’m not trying to be dense here, but I’m afraid I just don’t see any connection…
Here’s a question, that might make me better understand your view on this. Is the issue here that you, for some reason, specifically object to having Eugin’s comments be displayed at all, in any way? And if the answer is “yes”, then would it be reasonable to suppose that you would have no objections to displaying the text of deleted comments in general, but having a special “Eugin exception” (i.e., where the text of the deleted comment would normally be, there might instead be some text in the vein of “REDACTED, because this was a comment by a Eugin.”)?
(Similarly, perhaps there could be—as I think I might’ve suggested in the past—a “doxxing exception”, and a “the contents of this comment violated U.S. law exception”, etc.)
I don’t have strong opinions on whether Eugine’s comments should or shouldn’t be visible in the deletion log, but here (I think) is the best argument for making them not be: It’s about incentives. Eugine wants LW to be his soapbox; in so far as his actions still have any motivation to them beyond mere malice, his goal is to propagate his opinions and punish those with conflicting opinions; the best hope of making him go away is for him to get nothing from posting to LW. If his comments’ text is preserved, then that gives him an incentive to keep posting them.
(I fear that in fact there is nothing left but malice, and the mere knowledge that he’s wasting moderators’ time is enough for him. But I hope he hasn’t gone so far down the path from “reasonable human being” to “entity of pure malice” for that to keep him at it indefinitely.)
[Note on spelling: definitely “Eugine” rather than “Eugin”, though I believe neither is his real name.]
Alright, I suppose that’s an argument. Thank you.
In that case, my question about the “Eugine exception” approach stands.
seems reasonable to me. (including also tags in comment text if necessary)