Censorship!

Believe me, it was much worse before. The current forum moderators are more open to a wide spectrum of opinions on the workings of THS, whereas previously ‘dissent’ would more rapidly get shut down. So count your blessings! :slight_smile:

2 Likes

This exact message will be held for “approval”. I have been a member for over a year.

Comments on the THS insurance conversations frequently don’t become official.

Anything critical of THS itself is almost always fully blocked.

2 Likes

I have written plenty of critical things here. It is very rare that anything is blocked (and that is mostly by the algorithm, the forbidden words). I have constructive and even friendly exchanges with the moderators now and then.

More topics are allowed now here than before. It might be due to the competition with a different forum :slight_smile:

2 Likes

The allowance of critical things on THS may be expanding, you may be correct.

I clearly remember posts about insurance repayment from THS not going through and having a similar experience and my posts being blocked and nothing helpful coming out of it.

I also remember a thread where this woman was desperate for a couple to come and take care of basically a farm for free. She herself said the work would require two as it was too much for one. She said something silly like the work would require 45 minutes, I had posted I have lived on a farm and this work would require substantially more work. My comment was deleted as I “had not experienced the sit and could not accurately say how long it would take”.

I also remember a post where a HO complained that a sitter had used her shampoo and conditioner while she was away. I consider these basic bathroom toiletries - some may not. The mod team did not allow my comment.

I have not had an experience where “words” are held but messages were rewritten.

I always try to be respectful of my HO and leave something to say thanks for having me, the cost is not always insubstantial. This is of course my choice.

I believe that I have only recently frequented that other forum but I am now subscribed and it is different in conversation.

2 Likes

I think also that may have become less frequent. It is not very often that I now see the “Edited to comply with forum guidelines” or things like that, and in most of those cases I guess it was because a member had given a link to their own listing.

I have sometimes been invited by a moderator to change the wording of something that I had written. That is a good approach, I think.

The major change is that there is less moving around of new threads. This is a change that I am very happy about.

All my posts need to be approved by a moderator before they get posted. They sit in “awaiting approval” purgatory until such time as someone checks them and allows them to be posted. Some of my latest took a day to get approved.
Now I understand the technical process behind this but since this forum is run on Discourse (as far as I am aware) I would have expected to have reached a trust level by now where this is no longer required.
Does anyone else still need to have posts approved after or is it set like this for everyone?

1 Like

@cawosey Its been close to 18 months and counting that all my posts need moderator approval.

@cawosey @Manunited I moved your post here as it’s been discussed already on this thread and there are many helpful answers here. If you have any more questions about Discourse Trust Levels please feel free to DM the forum team :slight_smile:

I posted a reply to a thread that a moderator edited before it was published. I didn’t get a chance to say if I agreed to the amendment. The meaning of what I said was changed? I consider that censorship and a violation of free speech.

1 Like

None of us is promised free speech on privately owned platforms. These are businesses, running communities. They can decide the tone and content that are shared. That’s true agnostic of THS. Of course, each of us can decide whether to contribute or not.

Hello @Alicatorze I can help with that one. If a forum team member edits a post there will be a message for example saying ‘edited due to posting guidelines or edited to remove personal information’. We always try and remove only the part that is not in line with the posting terms, if it is a large part of the post that needs to be removed we will ask you to edit it before we publish it. I can see that you also received a DM at the time regarding why your post was edited. Please feel free to DM me if you have any more questions, I am always happy to help :slight_smile:

^^^ a much more appropriate reply would have been "Hello @Alicatorze, I have DM’ed you.

If a forum team member edits a post there will be a message for example saying ‘edited due to posting guidelines or edited to remove personal information’. We always try and remove only the part that is not in line with the posting terms, if it is a large part of the post that needs to be removed we will ask you to edit it before we publish it.

I can confirm that this is not always the case. One of my posts was moderated 2 days ago and no indication was made in the post that it had been edited by someone other than myself. Only the small edited icon in the top. Anyone noticing it had been edited would assume it was done by me.

Edited to meet posting guidelines

Hello @cawosey Thank you for pointing that out, appoligies as we are all human and can sometimes make the odd mistake. I have made sure that the ‘edited to meet posting guidelines’ update is on your original post.

I can see that you were DM’d at the time of the edit and if you or anyone have any questions about the moderation process here on the forum or think the team might have missed something please just reply to the original DM or drop us a new one!
Thank you :slight_smile:

Curious. I created a thread about all my posts needing to be approved after months of being on the forum and multiple posts. It was not about censorship just the technical limitation of my account and querying if anyone else had the same restriction. It got moved into a post about censorship when it wasn’t about censorship.
Then I suddenly (the very next post) was able to post immediately with no moderator approval needed. This lasted a couple of weeks until the moderators edited my post without indication they had done so. Now all my posts since then have had to be approved before being allowed.
So I guess the censorship thread is the place to go if your posts need approval.

Edited to meet posting guidelines

Hi @cawosey

Looking at your profile, your trust level hasn’t changed, in line with what @Carla has previously explained to you.

It’s entirely possible that when you’ve posted, one of the team have been able to immediately approve a previous post, so there wasn’t a wait for it to be approved by someone. We do our best to make sure approved posts go through as quickly as possible.

Jenny :slight_smile: