My gut reaction is "Why is someone a moderator if they can't be trusted to delete troll posts".

Because, as seen throughout this thread, and as seen throughout the entire shitstorm that is ongoing on social media and on the main site, the definition of 'troll posts' is extremely variable person-by-person. And people may act on impulse when upset, panicked, or under severe stress.

This applies to Disciplinary as well, but at least the Disciplinary Team's job is to have good judgment with enforcing Site Rules. Someone on, say, the Technical Team (not meant to be a pointed example, it's just literally the original example we ever used) may be very qualified to use moderator powers in the course of their duties for the technical team, yet be totally unqualified to use moderator powers for disciplinary reasons.

My gut reaction is "Why is someone a moderator if they can't be trusted to delete troll posts". I don't think disciplinary action should be taken by the act of deleting posts, but they should be able to recommend it happen.

If I delete a post that I, in my judgement is trolling/baiting, I would recommend it be moved to disc. Until then, it goes in the non-disciplinary thread.

tl;dr disc staff handle disc stuff, but mods should be powered to delete troll posts while following the correct procedures.

I can definitely see cases where there should be exceptions, mind. Places where personal information, malicious coding or links, harassment, things that cause actual harm.

For low-effort troll posts, where is the actual harm in leaving them up? Blanking them shows we've taken care of it, and we'll have already banned the user. Users who are curious why can look at what's been deleted and see what we actually consider deletable and actionable.

• http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-6211853/disciplinary-dr-write
• http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-6181892/discplinary-dr-taka
• http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-6177171/disciplinary-cursedimageboard

I like what DrMagnus has suggested, and I believe we're ready to start a vote soon.

Only thing I can think of here is the exact method of archiving the visual records. Do we have a preference for Google Drive, dropbox, a staff-specific wiki, some other forums, or imgur? I personally am leaning towards a wiki since it seems more straightforward and easy to navigate.

If a moderator or above feels a post is trolling/inflammatory/needs to be removed for rule breaking/peace keeper purposes, they should do so.

Upon doing so, there should be a record of the deletion, where it was originally located, and a screenshot of the entire thread of that deletion.

If we only restrict this to disciplinary members, a not-small member of the mod team are basically lame duck'd at that point. Voting on removing posts would be extremely slow, given our usual voting frame.

As such, here's my proposal:

A moderator, admin, or member of the disciplinary team may delete posts they feel are trolling/not conducive to anything other than the harm of the wiki, or users. This does not apply to bad crit, just general discplinary problems, etc. This applies to overt trolling/flame bait.

A record must be kept of the posts original location, along with a visual record of the post in question, which should include a staff post with a notice that this is being deleted, if only for our own peace of mind, and a record of who actually is deleting it to avoid any kind of shenanigans about 'I didn't delete this, I just recorded it'. There must also be a witness to this deletion, like with any summary deletion.

Screenshots should be held in a publicly available, non-editable location, such as dropbox, google drive, imgur, who cares. It needs to be available to anyone who wants to see it.

Might have been before my time? Several staff members' time? How far back? I personally can't call to mind any specific cases, but it's been years.

(I'll follow up with you elsewhere, because I don't want to derail the thread! But in summary, yes, it's perfectly understandable that many current staff don't know this. Certainly, I can't recall anyone recently being written up for it in any serious way. Which could make it seem like there's no reason for the rule, and that it's not abusable in a well-meaning way… which there is, and which it is.)

Deleting posts with no record nearly resulted in the removal of certain mods & admins, way back

Might have been before my time? Several staff members' time? How far back? I personally can't call to mind any specific cases, but it's been years.

(I do not support deletion of posts which are merely low-content or rule-breaking in general.)

I think this is fine. Blank those, delete the instant-permaban-worthy stuff.

If necessary, we could even just create a succession of staff-only Wikidot sites to host the images.

This might be easier than Google Drive, if just for simplicity's sake. I would go with this.

Deleting posts with no record nearly resulted in the removal of certain mods & admins, way back. It is ripe for abuse, both intentional and accidental.

It is my opinion that this is not a power that should be granted to staff, and to my knowledge staff were never given this power. A record has always been required for any deletion, period.

While understandable, I do not agree with keeping records that are simply in the personal records of a staff member, accessible only by them.

Also, to be clear:

• Deletion of malicious/trolling posts has been acceptable in the past with mod/admin permission. (IIRC, Disciplinary is the only team that can give such permission, but any admin can; again IIRC, this follows "rule of three" with one admin being necessary within that three. This may have changed.)
  • Screenshots, accessible immediately to any staff member, were required. (At the time I was actively engaging in this staff duty, we posted them on Sandbox.)

EDIT: Zyn's post here, in other words, is exactly how it works, or at least used to. (Admin fiat can always be used to order emergency post deletion, though I would argue admin fiat can't be used to skip the 'record-keeping' part.)

• Deletion of "low-content" posts has never, ever been a power granted to staff in any way. I feel fairly confident about this, given that it would have to have been done on O5 by administration, and I would have seen that. Mind you, I don't know if that's what anyone meant to suggest!

All that said, as discussed with Zyn and ProcyonLotor last night, I am in full support of deletion of trolling, malicious, or harassing posts, so long as records are universally kept. (I do not support deletion of posts which are merely low-content or rule-breaking in general.)

ProcyonLotor's suggestion of a Google Drive or Dropbox account is more than satisfactory to me. If necessary, we could even just create a succession of staff-only Wikidot sites to host the images.

I think that if there is also an ongoing case then it might be prudent to blank posts and then delete them once a situation has been resolved.

I feel like it could be good to use a similar approach to the ban policy? Three Disciplinary Committee members and/or admins voting in favor to delete a post or series of posts, after they've been blanked/quarantined. Emergency deletions can occur as necessary in the case of extremes, and retroactive votes can be applied then as necessary.

Please provide a timeline of how long this practice has been going on and the standard procedure by example. This is to provide appropriate provenance towards this proposal

A quick 10 minute or so poking around the Disciplinary records and related Non-Disc threads gave me these:

• 17 Feb 2018 http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-5292021/non-disc-record-zanpio "Comment has since been deleted but has been copied over for record keeping purposes:"
• 28 Dec 2017 http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-4653608/disciplinary-minecraftswag420 (not explicitly stated, but the comment the user was banned for, posted to the It's an Anomalous World thread, no longer exists. I believe someone deleted it.)
• 26 April 2017 http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-2248073/disciplinary-ratlock "User posts have been deleted. Screenshots are available."
• 14 March 2015 (I skipped back several listed pages) http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-1147613/disciplinary-catthing "posted the following in a thread titled "d" of his own creation:" Said thread no longer exists.

Of note, a lot of the cases where I believe posts were deleted but that action was not outright stated included trolls deleting their own accounts. I can go digging further in the past if necessary, but given the thorough records we've been keeping, it shouldn't be too hard to find a couple more older cases.

I would also like to query who is in charge of determining if posts should be deleted.

Probably Disc Committee, or by admin fiat in case of emergency if there's a risk of a flame war erupting? Same with bans, pretty much.

I have some concerns that a low-effort post is not appropriately defined in this context the way a low-effort page is, and may place undue burden and extra responsibility on teams whose primary work is addressing low-effort behaviors.

I think kept simply, "if we permaban someone for such a comment, it's grounds for deletion of the comment". For cases of permaban due to accumulated behavioral issues and escalation, we would not need to delete those comments.

we have no way beyond doctorable images that we have removed posts and that the posts said what they said.

Given the current replies, it looks like staff is willing to accept this.

I don’t see anything that we could benefit from by leaving troll posts up that we can’t already do by just screenshotting the offending post.

That being said, I have concerns that what defines a low-content post is different from a low-content article. Low-content articles are usually articles that are incomplete. Low-content posts are usually shitcrit or one-word comments. The latter shouldn't be deleted in the way the former is, or if it is, then we need to discuss how forum crit handles low-effort posting. As far as I know, forum crit is not in the position to be deleting posts. This has broad-reaching changes from how we handle spammy posting and may change or be in addition to a revoking system. How should this be handled and what is the relationship between revoking from the site and deleting their posts? Is there existing precedent for this?

(In full clarity, I actually have almost no problems with removing trolling or otherwise inflammatory posts under the same guidelines as trolling or otherwise inflammatory articles. However, low-effort posts have also been highlighted in the original proposal, and thus must be addressed.)

Furthermore, I would also like to query who is in charge of determining if posts should be deleted. What is the role of disciplinary staff in post deletion? Should disciplinary staff have a vote to delete posts? Should all moderators be able to delete posts without further oversight from other staff members? In order to avoid inappropriate deletion, usually a certain number of witnesses are used. It is preferable that this is through disciplinary staff, but OS and non-disciplinary moderators have functioned suitably in a pinch. Will this be the same case here?

I would like to argue that while I agree with the general sentiment, I would like for further discussion to occur regarding low-effort posting. I have some concerns that a low-effort post is not appropriately defined in this context the way a low-effort page is, and may place undue burden and extra responsibility on teams whose primary work is addressing low-effort behaviors.

I would also like to ask if we are willing to accept that as a result of this, we have no way beyond doctorable images that we have removed posts and that the posts said what they said. If that is the case, then I have no further qualms. While I understand no staff member would actually do as such, I feel it is important that we look at how this will appear in the most negative possible light and evaluate whether or not it is "worth it".

TL;DR:

• We cannot determine how long or what the standard practice is without proof that this has become standard practice, and thus we need links to threads where this has already occurred.
• "Low content posting" has not been defined the way "low content pages" has been defined and has broad implications to forum crit, disciplinary teams, moderation, and non-disciplinary treatment as a whole. I would like this to be defined more clearly before this policy is in place.
• I am broadly in favor of removing posts deemed harmful to the SCP wiki community, so long as screenshots are taken appropriately, and threads made appropriately.
• Since we are moving to screenshots instead of linking the posts directly, staff should acknowledge and accept that a potential consequence is that we now have no defense other than "trust us" that no evidence is doctored to intentionally make a user look bad.

As a note of clarification, I would like to emphasize that I am in support of the general idea that certain posts should be deleted because they are harmful to the SCP wiki community. I am merely suggesting that a well-considered policy is put in place so that deleting posts will have foreseeable consequences that are addressed before they can become problems.

A repository would be trivial to produce and maintain. Google Drive and Dropbox are good options where space will not be an issue; I am certain there are others as well. Permissions may need to be played with beyond my personal experience, but I strongly doubt that that is an insurmountable obstacle.

Prior discussion has indicated that there are concerns about accountability and paper trails. Others have noted that screenshots and a repository would help with that. It shouldn't be hard to create a repository. We just need people willing to maintain it.

Our standards for summary page deletion should apply to trollposts. We should not leave blanked trollposts on places like the harassment policy, as that just leaves the trolls with a harmful legacy that would be instantly deleted in any other well-run forum on the internet.