Moderator Alert / Report Discussion

I have a question about being flagged.

I recently participated in a discussion that was closed due to alerts. While I agree that the discussion was heated in a few places, I felt that for the most part everyone was respectful. Personally, I have always followed the TOS and I have never been issued a warning or TO. I am very careful that I don't because I care about the feelings of others and I respect this website.

My question is, are there any repercussions (warnings or TOs) for people who alert on posts that are not breaking any rules? For example, if I alert on a post and the poster has done nothing wrong, I just disagree with their position, is that ok to do? Because I feel like it is unfair that people react emotionally and get a discussion shut down even though for the most part everyone is playing nicely.

TexasLori said:

I have a question about being flagged.

I recently participated in a discussion that was closed due to alerts. While I agree that the discussion was heated in a few places, I felt that for the most part everyone was respectful. Personally, I have always followed the TOS and I have never been issued a warning or TO. I am very careful that I don't because I care about the feelings of others and I respect this website.

My question is, are there any repercussions (warnings or TOs) for people who alert on posts that are not breaking any rules? For example, if I alert on a post and the poster has done nothing wrong, I just disagree with their position, is that ok to do? Because I feel like it is unfair that people react emotionally and get a discussion shut down even though for the most part everyone is playing nicely.

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Disagreeing with another member's opinion on the thread is not a violation of TOS (unless the disagreement is being disrespectful or simply bickering). Do not report posts simply because you disagree with another member.

It is a very rare occasion when someone gets a TO for abusing the alert feature. The member would have to be alerting many times a day and being rude in the alerts. I've only known it to happen a couple of times in the four years I've been a mod and they were well-warned ahead of time.

If someone alerts on a post and there is nothing wrong, the mods just scroll on by. If a thread is closed and the mods say it's because of excessive alerts - they mean that the alerts were justified. It would probably be better if we as a mod team would be more specific and say it's because of forum infractions. We would never close a thread because of unwarranted alerts.

The reason you aren't seeing the posts that are in violation of the rules is that generally the mods are there immediately and remove the posts from viewing. We handle problem posts behind the scenes because we do not believe in publicly shaming our members. :nono:

The only time you might see some problematic posts is if the mods are hanging out in a donut shop and not paying attention. :yes:

Kimster said:

Disagreeing with another member's opinion on the thread is not a violation of TOS (unless the disagreement is being disrespectful or simply bickering). Do not report posts simply because you disagree with another member.

It is a very rare occasion when someone gets a TO for abusing the alert feature. The member would have to be alerting many times a day and being rude in the alerts. I've only known it to happen a couple of times in the four years I've been a mod and they were well-warned ahead of time.

If someone alerts on a post and there is nothing wrong, the mods just scroll on by. If a thread is closed and the mods say it's because of excessive alerts - they mean that the alerts were justified. It would probably be better if we as a mod team would be more specific and say it's because of forum infractions. We would never close a thread because of unwarranted alerts.

The reason you aren't seeing the posts that are in violation of the rules is that generally the mods are there immediately and remove the posts from viewing. We handle problem posts behind the scenes because we do not believe in publicly shaming our members. :nono:

The only time you might see some problematic posts is if the mods are hanging out in a donut shop and not paying attention. :yes:

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Thank you, Kimster, for taking the time to give this explanation. I really do appreciate it and all the mods here do to keep this place running smoothly. Thanks again!

I have tapatalk and have no idea how to alert or contact a mod. Please advise.

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk

To alert on a post via tapatalk click the post you want to call a moderator's attention to. It will become highlighted. click the three dots at the top right of your screen. Select report from the pulldown menu. A box appears with default text reading "its spam" replace that text with a brief explanation of why you are alerting. Hit send.

tlcya said:

To alert on a post via tapatalk click the post you want to call a moderator's attention to. It will become highlighted. click the three dots at the top right of your screen. Select report from the pulldown menu. A box appears with default text reading "its spam" replace that text with a brief explanation of why you are alerting. Hit send.

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But what if I just want to contact a mod?

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk

I have been told I need to verify myself how do I go abput doing this?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Drb said:

I have been told I need to verify myself how do I go abput doing this?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

You can click the alert button which is the explanation point in the lower left area of your post. This opens up a message box in which you can send a message to a mod asking how to become verified. The alert button is generally used to alert on a post that a person thinks is inappropriate or against TOS (terms of service for websleuths). You may want to include details about the case and in what capacity you wish to become verified. Welcome .

Razz said:

But what if I just want to contact a mod?

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Send a pm.

margarita25 said:

Send a pm.

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Doesn't work if you're on a TO.

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If you wish to reach out to administration while on a time out you may email websleuthscomments@gmail.com

tlcya said:

If you wish to reach out to administration while on a time out you may email websleuthscomments@gmail.com

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Done that too only to have the message returned as no such address. It's easy enough to leave a letter out however. At the moment, it's not an issue. But it may be again in the future.

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk

relay said:

You can click the alert button which is the explanation point in the lower left area of your post. This opens up a message box in which you can send a message to a mod asking how to become verified. The alert button is generally used to alert on a post that a person thinks is inappropriate or against TOS (terms of service for websleuths). You may want to include details about the case and in what capacity you wish to become verified. Welcome .

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Thank you i did email my details last night

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I think they are overworked and possible need more mods!

I've pm'd a couple and no response. It must be really hard to keep a rowdy bunch in line

Hello mods I have a question. I enjoy this website hugely and spend a lot of time reading and posting. On occasion like today I had a post deleted. I have no problem with that at all however I'm not sure which post it was that was deleted. So this is what it says in my alert:
Your post in the thread Canada - Lucas Fowler, Chynna Deese, and Leonard Dyck, all murdered, Alaska Hwy, BC, Jul 2019 #9 was deleted. Reason: Politicizing is not allowed and may result in Warning points that remain permanently on your WS membership account.
Today at 5:50 PM

Again I say I have no problem with deleting things that are inappropriate. But I do Post quite a bit and I can't remember maybe what I had said because it's been deleted... I do not know what I had said wrong. Is there any way for me to go back and find which post was deleted so that I can have a better understanding of what I said wrong?

Thank you so much

Sorry this reply is so late Xyzzia.

There is no way for members to go back to view deleted posts. It's actually difficult even for WS staff to find them because they do not come up when we do a search of the member's posting history. (They used to under the old software system but with the upgrading to the new software system we've had to forego some of the older software features.)

On the chance that I might find it quickly, I went back to July 30 but that particular thread was so busy, I would have to go through hundreds of deleted posts that were removed on July 30 alone, and I just ran out of time.

Just a miscellaneous comment to let members know that, under this newer Xenforo software that was installed in 2018 the term "Report" is used instead of the term "Alert".

The Report feature is at the bottom of each post where you see "Edit", "History", etc.

Couple of questions for mods.

Is it okay to ask here about specific deleted posts?

Is there a list somewhere of WS approved sources?

TIA

Smelly Squirrel said:

Couple of questions for mods.

Is it okay to ask here about specific deleted posts?

Is there a list somewhere of WS approved sources?

TIA

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This thread is for general discussion, not the venue for discussing specific individual deletions. If a member genuinely believes a post was removed in error, they can jump off any post by using the Report feature to enquire, but if it is a basic violation of TOS, we expect them to know and it may not be open to review. We rely on members to know TOS (The Rules) but will cut some slack for newer members who may not yet be totally familiar with how WS rolls (i.e. members are expected to be pretty familiar with WS requirements within max about 2 weeks after registration).

This thread is not a Moderator training thread, but hopefully this will help. Mods try to provide brief reasons for post removal when a post is actually removed, but they are not required to provide a reason at all, let alone long detailed explanations. Some sites have automated post removal or don't even provide a reason, and WS has too few busy Mods and far too many members to go into detail. Mods and Admins don't operate in isolation and we all see the same Reported posts. Moderators are trained but if a Mod needs the opinion of other WS staff, they ask and we can all provide input and discuss pros and cons of removing it. Moderators are well trained in interpretation of TOS, fairness, avoiding bias, and a lot of what we know is only gained through more experience over time. If members want to know what Mods and Admin know, they'll have to volunteer to become a Mod and eventually they'll understand

There is no published list of WS approved or non-approved sources. There are hundreds of approved, long established and trusted sources, and thousands of non-approved, random sources. Basically members are asked to stick to well-known MSM, info from LE, or scholarly articles, and the longer members are here, they come to know who/what is allowed, or to ask for pre-approval if they aren't sure (qualifying word "pre-approval" meaning don't post and ask for approval after the fact. That makes Mods cranky when they have to go through pages of posts to find what responses there may have been because nobody bothered to get approval). If in doubt, use the Report feature before hand to ask a Moderator.

There are thousands of new "true crime" blogs and podcasts on the internet with more cropping up each day and it is just not possible for us to listen to them all and vet them for various factors including factual content, credibility or history, or even what we may know about a particular host. Example: member only may be told "source not approved". Perhaps the reason is we are not familiar with them, or we know about them but there is some background information that we may or may not share with members (i.e. host is an activist re blah blah, or host allows conspiracy theories, or host promotes paranormal, etc etc etc) .. or we just don't know enough about them to make a quick determination.

Clear as mud?

Thanks for the detailed reply!