Noticing a lot of posts being "removed" by moderators recently. I've always appreciated WSO for the unfiltered opinions and willingness to let professionals speak. What's the deal with this? We do not need another content platform trying to censor their users...
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Patrick Is over here trying to build a company and pay his bills, and he has incel virgins like neink literally calling for liberals to be nuked and killed
Yeah.. I’m with Patrick on this, all you snowflakes can take your ass to parler, truth social, and now twitter. Adios!
Bro that’s literally you crying about the censorship 😭🤣
That is not how "snowflakes" comments work....the snowflake is supposed to not be able to take disagreeing speech.
I think OP was just wondering and missed the drama with the "reporter".
In case Patrick sees this, I do hope you or someone in charge is reviewing the moderation. I had what I would characterize as a pretty harmless / uncontroversial comment out there on another thread that got removed by a moderator which was a bit shocking.
I did @WSO and no response. I get it's not practical, but there's no explanation and there's also not even an alert that says one of your comments has been removed, which I think is a pretty shit Cx.
Are removals at least getting the placeholder to show the removal? I'd prefer no removals except in the most extreme cases. But if there's going to be removals I think it's critical that the removal be shown. I thought WSO was doing that now. The old method of simply making the comment disappear into thin air was messed up. Not only did it leave mods with zero accountability, it also fused together disparate threads because the removal wasn't technically sound.
I seriously wonder if you’re okay, UCSD. Virtually all of your posts are politically driven, attempting to stir up or rustle feathers of people on the right.
If it’s not outright hateful, it needs to stay. I used to love this forum because it actually had some genuine discussion on hard topics. Sure, you got some idiots on both sides digging in on their questionable views. But I thought the vast majority of threads had good conversations.
Can’t say I didn’t see this coming once the initial thread came out. Can’t believe this site capitulated to some dipshit from buzzfeed
If it's intentionally hateful or harmful, scrub it. There's ways to be articulate and word wise without attacking someone/something. Not going to give any examples because I agree with you and don't want this scrubbed for saying something "wrong" just by invoking an example.
"Intentially hateful or harmful" is a much, much higher bar than the bar they've been using to delete comments. I'm seeing the most innocuous stuff get deleted.
Not sure I would connect "letting professionals speak" with the posts being removed. Nothing truly professional about the topics in that content.
There was a long post about this a month or so ago; the short version is, this site was being taken over by what was probably a small number of users on a large number of burner accounts, posting a lot of extreme right wing and "incel" shit, to the point that it was (a) destroying the quality of discourse for real users and (b) attracting unwanted attention from outside media. So there is a lot more stringent moderation going on, now.
Frankly, it has been for the better. Nice that you see topics other than "does girl of XX ethnicity give better head?" or another in the nearly infinitely long list of "I'm a moderately qualified white college/banking applicant blaming minorities and Affirmative Action for stealing my spot"
Would you be supportive of a reddit type of approach where instead of removing comments altogether it just gets suppressed / hidden with a warning but you're still able to see the comment if you really wanted to?
Maybe not forever, but in the near term I think it would be helpful and allow regulars to see if the moderation has been "appropriate".
As a verified user that would characterize my post / comment history as lacking drama I was shocked that 1 or 2 of mine have been removed (no inbox alert, no explanation or reason, etc.)
Yeah, I had a couple inoffensive comments removed, and a couple others that quoted someone else and I got a warning for.
I support WSO doing whatever it thinks necessary to preserve the integrity of it's brand. I was called out by name by a few folks in that original post about new moderation policies as the kind of person who would be an awful moderator, and those people were 100% correct. I don't pretend to have an answer that satisfies all comers. In fact, I would wager that the vast majority of people who are getting their posts removed on a consistent basis aren't interested in any compromise. They're here to stir shit up and "own the libs," not have an intelligent discussion or debate. My guess is that this new moderation policy takes a while to get the kinks worked out, and afterwards means a modicum of civility and seriousness is necessary but otherwise there will be few problems
Removed your response which also didn't seem problematic. Guess I'll take a break, can't be bothered reading half of some fucking conversations or losing total context because there are 12 comments nuked into fucking oblivion on every post that generates conversation other than "How do bonuses look"
FYI for anyone reading, Ozymandia's "short version" is his own opinion.
The undisputed facts are that Buzzfeed was looking to cherry pick a few bad moments from WSO (really bad posts that didn't get scrubbed) and try and paint a misleading picture of the site. Very few, if any users would dispute that.
Another undisputed fact is that Buzzfeed has yet to release anything, over a month after making it seem that an article was imminent. I'd guess the project is dead at this point, due to lack of substance, but I can't say for sure.
The view that these instances of extreme right wing posts were so widespread that they were destroying the experience is highly debatable to say the least. Even more debatable is the view that the moderation has been for the better. I for one think the moderation has been silly. Bordering on complete shitshow when we have examples like this very thread when @FinanceIsWacc has completely appropriate messages deleted.
Who else's would it be?
I'm sorry, but that is not an undisputed fact. It was not a "few bad moments". It was a fairly long trend of pretty obnoxious, perhaps even offensive, posts with very little redeeming value. I agree that they painted a misleading picture of the site as a whole. But there is a strong argument to be made that if WSO isn't moderating those posts, they are tacitly endorsing them. If it was one or two posts, I'd agree wholeheartedly. But I don't think any visitor to the Off Topic forum could possibly say with a straight face that it was the kind of thing that cropped up once a month. It was happening near daily.
You may be correct. An alternate read on the situation is that WSO took action, and as a result, the impetus for the article lost momentum.
What is indisputable is that several long time participants in this forum, people who were contributing content far more valuable than mine is, explicitly said that they had minimized their involvement with WSO because they found a lot of the recent content objectionable. AndyLouis made this pretty explicit, that he valued their participation more than he valued the much larger number of one time posters who were driving a lot of that bigotry. At the end of the day, it is his call whose opinions he values more - he's running a site that is nominally for the purpose of giving good advice/discussion around finance, and he'd rather have the people who are contributing valuable content than the ones who aren't
WSO stays afloat by selling tutorials and classes to prospective or current finance professionals. Edgy political discussions (I heard people yesterday saying Aaron Carter was killed by the Jews for trying to talk to Kanye) are not going to bring in customers, so Patrick is moving away from that.
But the message boards are lead-gen for all the tutorials. If the message boards start to suck then the rest of that business is pretty screwed as well. Granted it's a balancing act, they need to have some moderation to keep the worst stuff off. But they've been overdoing it. This thread alone is Exhibit A, several complaints about innocuous comments taken down.
Overall, gaining twitter and losing WSO is a good trade if we can't have both
You must be very happy that you are allowed to tweet racist, hate mongering non sense.
I hope moderators are paid enough to chase me everywhere. I do it for fun
I think it's a bit overactive right now as they work to tweak it, I had a post removed that didn't really have anything wrong with it, but I used to f-word, so I'm assuming the filter was overeager.
The “filter” is a user named blackbubble
I had the exact same thing, and my account received a violation. I dont think cursing should result in comments being removed. Saying I f***ing hate my job or XYZ company treated me like s**t should not result in a violation.
The straw that broke the camel's back was a Buzzfeed reporter looking to write an article about WSO allowing / condoning some of the really egregious posts on here - and for a while, you would come to the OT forum and see 3-4 openly racist, sexist etc topics that were days old and getting views. This site is a business at the end of the day.
It's a business that relies on engagement. For people who've already broken in, there's not a lot of benefit if they can't view the site as a fun place to check in once in a while. A smoke break of sorts.
Also I dont' see what's so hard about just quickly removing the obviously egregious stuff. Users will throw MS, someone checks it out, and deletes if it's bad. How could that be hard? Instead what we see is all kinds of ridiculous deletions for nothing, and then still somehow a horrific comment stays up. It really can't be this hard.
4+ comments already removed from this thread... Good thing we have hall monitors to protect us!
The moderation isn't there to protect your delicate eyes and ears, it's to protect the image and integrity of the site, which after all is a business.
If you are that desperate to see the kind of content that is being moderated or removed, there are plenty of corners of the internet for that. As is often pointed out, your (generic you) freedom of speech is only protected from government interference. Private entities can do what they please. If you think it is diminishing the quality of content on WSO, go somewhere else! No one is forcing you to be here. WSO has made a judgement call that they are more likely to retain a larger net number of users by disallowing certain content. Pretty simple stuff!
I'm speaking about the removal of content that uses profanity or expresses a contrarian viewpoint, not hate related speech, which should certainly be removed. The purpose of this post was to understand why an excessive amount of content is now being heavily restricted. Simply addressing the fact that many, myself included, enjoy the general discourse that can result from a difference of opinions.
Keep your hall pass with you!
I actually think they have dialed it back a bit. In the days right after the moderator was announced, you really couldn't even discuss anything related to economics because any semblance of anything controversial would be removed from the site. I think Patrick finally addressed the real problem that WSO was being spoiled by a few users who couldn't conduct themselves with even the slightest bit of decency and banned them and that the moderation team that existed before was wildly ineffective and got new mods. After that he loosened up the filters a bit allowing a lot of politics/race discussions to go through again.
Serious question: Why not make moderation optional, example i don't want a post to be moderated even if it has hate speech, I want to read it, if XYZ does just give him/her an option to see moderated posts, even if idiots post something that is ABCDistic i still like reading them, if someone's feelings are hurt by a random stranger on the internet he/she can see the moderated versions. After all isn't free speech some sort of a right in America. You don't supress the thoughts, rather you let them stay so that in a few years they'll see how stupid it was.
Free speech? Come on man. Go start your own website and platform since you have it figured out
I have to defer to management on this issue. They probably know what is best for the company. The only comments/topics I object to are the ones that are insulting and or targeting. I have a very low tolerance for these type of comments. If you insult, I basically write you off as an idiot. I do not mind the political comments as long as people are polite about it.
Seems to arise from a situation about a month ago where some loser at Buzzfeed was going to do a hit piece on WSO and WSO reacted with some moderation changes.
Curious if anyone knows what came of that article. I was looking forward to seeing it drop & flop. But maybe one of the very few smart folks over there stopped it in its tracks.
I'm still amazed that a publication as sullied and low brow as Buzzfeed is all it takes to make Andy and Patrick put their tails between their legs and just completely change policies. As if anyone who reads that toilet paper is a potential customer for WSO.
So far it seems the article wasn't even good enough for Buzzfeed. Imagine that.
My assumption is that Andy and Patrick figured that if Buzzfeed does a hit piece, it will encourage actual journalists to do some digging and that is where it becomes an issue. I agree that Buzzfeed isn't exactly the New York Times (say what you will about their bias, it's a highly regarded outlet), but it would get around.
Look, I've had a bunch of inoffensive posts removed (or I thought they were inoffensive). But at the end of the day... who cares? If I have a post removed here or there for getting a little too personal, or for using a swear word, I think it's a net positive if I don't have to wade through a bunch of bigots brigading every other topic. I imagine we all agree that there were at least a few posters who were contributing absolutely nothing to the site, and who were doing so in the most bigoted and prejudiced manner possible. You and I don't often see eye to eye on a given topic, but there is a huge difference between honest disagreements and straight up trolling. I'm willing to give Andy and Patrick the benefit of the doubt that they;ll figure out a happy medium when it comes to moderation - it hasn't been that long since they've instituted it, and if they don't get it right in my opinion... well, no one is forcing me to participate.
When will Elon Musk buy WSO?
11 comments removed from this thread...
Patrick - I appreciate the work you have done to make this a safer community, but I hope you will audit this thread and axe your trigger happy moderator.
I've had a couple of completely benign comments taken down on politically related topics. I don't know what else is being taken down elsewhere, but this has made me believe that the new content moderation is miscalibrated too heavy-handed.
I think that the intent was to remove posts that were explicitly racist or any of the other ists. I had a post saying recommending that someone not read too much into odd interactions they were having w/ another analyst because it sounded like he was genuinely autistic based on his behavior. That was taken down and the only reason I can think it would have been is because it contained the word autistic. Something like that is not good moderation and does not address the issue(s) that the increased moderation was instituted to address.
Wow. The mod team removed my comment that was literally just a meme (no words, no insults, nothing) and it had 45+ silver bananas for being funny. Is this seriously where this website is fucking headed? We can't even post a meme as a reply to someone in an off topic thread. Goldie may have taken the right route honestly, this is just so pathetic.
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