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Some users have been asking for top level deleted comments to be forbidden. So that is one case where deleted comments might be held against a user.
Otherwise not officially. But if you post a trolling comment towards a mod it doesn't go away when you delete it. And I'm not going to completely ignore the fact that they were trying to be a dick.
There was a very interesting debate about one of the J6 protesters being a fed, half of which is now gone, so I can understand that. The suddenly disappearing top level posts are also annoying, but I meant more this:
Surely, someone being a dick, and realizing afterwards they were out of line and deleting the comment should not be against the rules?
No, but it should be noted and if repeated it should be addressed.
It's one thing to let your temper get the better of you, but if deleted rude comments are considered out of bounds for moderation the obvious meta is to post an unpleasant reply you want the author to read, then delete it.
Yeah. It is kind of similar to mootness. If you suspect a repeated violation (followed by cessation to render the specific claim mootness) it is still appropriate for a court to rule notwithstanding the general rule.
Right, and we are assuming remzem did this to fuck with the moderators based on what exactly? Because from what I see remzem wrote a funny but insufficiently deferential comment, realised it wasn't going to fly and deleted it, and is now copping flak because someone in the future might abuse this deleting? This is fucking retarded, we are incentivising not fixing mistakes to ward off an issue we have never had a problem with.
Although admittedly, if I scrutinise my feelings, I probably would have just rolled my eyes at this thread if it hadn't begun with @cjet79 feeling slighted and wanting to clap back, SO HE UNDELETED A COMMENT SO HE COULD REPLY TO IT.
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As a moderator I'm typically trying to sort people into three buckets:
People in group 1 we generally want to ban. If you are going to self label yourself into that category, then no amount of following the strict letter of the rules will save you. We have a wildcard rule for a reason.
I'm not a lawyer, and certainly not a rules lawyer. If we thought it would be useful we'd probably only have the wildcard rule. In some sense the rules don't matter. They are guidelines for behavior.
Did they violate an explicit guideline? No. Did they violate the only guideline that really matters? Yes. Deleting their comment was an improvement over leaving it up. But they are letting me know what kind of contributor they are. And I don't see any reason to hobble myself in figuring out which bucket users fall into.
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