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Removed threads should still be reachable and interactive (beehaw.org)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/support@beehaw.org

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I posted an apparently off-topic post to !foss@beehaw.org. The moderator removed it from the timeline because discussion about software that should be FOSS was considered irrelevant to FOSS. Perhaps fair enough, but it’s an injustice that people in a discussion were cut off. The thread should continue even if it’s not linked in the community timeline. I received a reply that I could not reply to. What’s the point in blocking a discussion that’s no longer visible from the timeline?

It’s more than just an unwanted behavior because the UI is broken enough to render a dysfunctional reply mechanism. That is, I can click the reply button to a comment in an orphaned thread (via notifications) and the UI serves me with a blank form where I can then waste human time writing a msg, only to find that clicking submit causes it to go to lunch in an endless spinner loop. So time is wasted on the composition then time is wasted wondering what’s wrong with the network. When in fact the reply should simply go through.

(edit) this is similar to this issue. Slight difference though: @jarfil@beehaw.org merely expects to be able to reply to lingering notifications after a mod action. That’s good but I would go further and propose that the thread should still be reachable and functional (just not linked in the timeline where it was problematic).

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[–] Penguincoder@beehaw.org 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

the UI is broken enough to render a dysfunctional reply mechanism.

100% Agreed, a lot of dysfunctional with regards to the UI and BE interoperability. I'll add your specific issue into my list of Lemmy annoyances to try and fix for Beehaw.

Removed threads should still be reachable and interactive

Personal opinion; Nope. Utterly no. Defeats the point of removing a topic from discussion. Difference between hidden and removed and even deleted. You want the first. Admin or mods removing a thread, should not be accessible to anyone else. Maybe a certain subset of admins for review/restoration as needed. But certainly not the public facing internet, where even if it's hidden on a timeline, a direct link still gives access to it. That should not be the case.

What’s the point in blocking a discussion that’s no longer visible from the timeline?

The point is in removing said 'discussion' from the platform. This is not censorship, this is how we keep the purpose of Beehaw inline with the ethos.

[–] admin@beehaw.org 7 points 9 months ago

I agree with your reasoning here.

[–] debanqued@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Difference between hidden and removed and even deleted.

Does Lemmy give those three different actions?

I can imagine that something that’s illegal would be deleted in the fullest extent to support legal compliance. I can imagine that an uncivil shitshow would be removed, whereby the content is still reachable to admins but not to users. And I would expect something that is off topic for a community would be hidden, assuming that means just not visible in the timeline but still accessible by users who have the link.

Is my understanding of the 3 actions correct? Why would an off topic post be removed and not hidden?

The point is in removing said ‘discussion’ from the platform.

Does that mean a site-wide rule was broken? Because in the case at hand, it’s simply a matter of a civil conversation that was started in the wrong community.

[–] Penguincoder@beehaw.org 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Difference between hidden and removed and even deleted.

Does Lemmy give those three different actions?

Not in its native form no.

Why would an off topic post be removed and not hidden?

Say this again to yourself and thunk about it.

Does that mean a site-wide rule was broken?

Not going to play rules lawyer with you.

a civil conversation that was started in the wrong community.

Thus the item was removed from that community. What is the problem here?

[–] debanqued@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago

Thus the item was removed from that community. What is the problem here?

You may be talking from the confines of the software’s capability. But in effect the thread was more than removed from the community. The only meaningful tie a thread has to a community is the link appearing in the timeline. The URL in fact excludes the community name. If you simply remove the timeline link there is theoretically no technical or social reason a civil sitewide-rules-compliant conversation cannot continue. And no reason it should not continue.

There is likely a code limitation here. Lemmy was designed by folks who are overly gung ho on suppression (judging from how they ran dev.lemmy.ml, the deliberately hard-coding of the slur filter, their reputation, etc). I’ve not kept track of Lenny and other forks so it’s unclear if any of them offer more graceful functionality without the overbearing interventionalism for handling off topic posts. It certainly needs to evolve more in this regard because I’ve yet to see any Lemmy et al instances that enable a mod to move a thread to a more fitting community.