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Maybe it would be possible to modify one of the existing, not used mod profiles to hide posts and delete all other abilities, creating a new mod profile from scratch would most likely be a pain. I wasn’t aware there is an automated funcionality in the software to flag content, if its actually there it definitely failed the test this time.

Some answers to frequently asked questions (or paraphrases of questions) that have come up in moderation efforts or in the Support forum. This will be amended as needed. 1. Someperson is wrong! Why don't the moderators step in and do something? We don't do that. The role of the staff (when acting as staff) is to enforce the rules, so we don't make determinations on who is correct. We do, however, participate in discussions as members of the site, and may weigh in in that capacity, but generally do not mix the roles of enforcing moderation and participation in a discussion. (Some "housekeeping" actions, such as moving posts to a more appropriate area, can still happen while participating) 2. Why was what I posted called a hijack? Or off-topic? The topic of discussion is set by the first post in a thread. If your post is such that it changes the discussion from what the original post(er) (OP) was talking about to what you want to talk about, you are guilty of attempted hijacking. Posting your own pet theory anywhere but in its own thread in the Speculations forum is always considered a hijack. Off-topic is related to this, but this usually arises in the context of commentary on an answer or a subsequent post to the original. Rather than continue the side discussion, a new thread should be made. 3. What is soapboxing? It's when you are simply making a speech, rather than engaging in a discussion. This is what blogs are for. 4. Why was I yelled at for copyright/plagiarism? Copyright is a set of laws that protect things that people write, and mean you can't just paste entire screeds here without permission (and simply existing somewhere on the internet is not permission). Under the provision called Fair Use, you can post small excerpts for review and commentary. Copyright also protects pictures and drawings, so anything posted here should be done with permission or under some form of Creative Commons license. Plagiarism is an ethical violation that occurs when you present material as your own. That is, you have not attributed the work of others. Whenever you are using the creative work of others, you should post an attribution and whenever possible, a link to the source material. 5. What gives you the right to censor me? This is not a public place, and we are not the government, so any such free speech protections do not apply. The price of participation here is that you agree to follow the rules. The people who run the site are well within their authority to remove posts that violate the rules. Moving posts to an appropriate section is not censorship — your words are still there. There are a number of threads where this discussion has taken place. The search function should help you find them. 6. Will you delete my account or remove some post I made? No. We don't delete accounts. If you don't want to participate anymore, it's a simple matter of not coming here. We don't generally remove posts, because doing so after the fact is disruptive to conversations. If you aren't going to stand by something you post, you shouldn't post it. 7. Where is my post? Sometimes posts/threads get moved. Though we try and leave a trail, it doesn't always happen. If you go into your profile, you can click on either the topics or posts box to find your material. If you hover over your user name in a thread, there is a "my content" link. A third option is to use the advanced search function and type in your user name as the only entry, and you will get a list of everything you've posted. 8. Why was my thread locked? Threads are locked if they are duplicates or if the staff decides they have run their course. The latter happens when the thread originator is not engaging in useful discussion — usually by ignoring critiques and simply repeating the same points over and over again. 9. Why was my post moved to Speculations? This has its own FAQ 10. I was expressing my opinion. Why are you asking me for links? This means you probably weren't merely expressing an opinion. An opinion is a personal, subjective view, but if you are asserting a claim as an objective truth, i.e. something that others must accept as truth, then it's not an opinion. And in that case, it's perfectly reasonable for someone to call you on it and ask you to support your claim. Any factual reason(s) you might have given in order to justify your opinion are similarly open to a call for a link to confirm it.

Why? I'll make better posts with my new account. Thanks How do I delete this account?

If that was a potential course of action, would the forum software allow for a sub-moderator account status that had the ability to hide spam threads until a full moderator can delete it and ban the spammer?

Theres really not many things less relevant than this but I thought that bringing this up may help with some other SFN database issues that might come up. Looks like deleting your status triggered the apropriate DB behaviour so its a lesson for the future - if something doesn’t work, just delete it

The box is empty. There used to be little bit of Hope but it has run out now. I hadn't looked at trying to do this with the new forum. It is not as obvious as it used to be, but it is still there. Under the Activity tab at the top of the page (this is on the desktop view; haven't tried it in the mobile view) click on My Activity Streams and select Create New Stream. You can then select they types of things you want to see (content, unread, etc). Under Content Types select Topics. A little gear icon and down arrow appears next to it. Click on that and you can choose which subfora you want to see in the feed. Save this feed (give it a name first) and then you will see, by the name at the top, three little icons (Edit, Delete and Tick mark). The last sets this as the default feed and it will replace the default "Unread Items" at the top right of the page.

I had a similar problem and had to open a new account. I was unable to change my username. Please feel free to delete or suspend my previous account.

We don't delete ever, as part of our transparency policy and also because members take their valuable time to participate in science discussions. We're being respectful of everyone involved, in the best way we can. The fact that it looks like your head is on a pike as a warning to others is purely coincidence (and entirely your fault, yes?). But I'm assuming that's your grievance, that the posts make you look bad? If I'm wrong, please correct me.

agreed - it does seem hyper-susceptible to misinterpreting input Nope; the above done in wysiwyg mode, quote, quote, highlight&delete, highlight&delete

Not true, sir. I offered an answer to the question. I presented both sides of the argument for other members to consider, Let's try again. Consider the properties attributed to a unicorn: (i) a kinda horselike beast (ii) with a kinda horn on its head As far as we can ascertain there is nothing in nature which satisfies those criteria, and therefore, on one account at least, the term unicorn does not refer. There is no such thing! I also offered the following characterization of Newtonian gravity: Newtonian gravity, according to my layman's understanding (so please be gentle -- I'm not a physicist), is construed, among other things, as an attractive force which acts instantaneously over any distance, apparently with no expenditure of energy, against a backdrop of absolute space and absolute time. Is this correct? If so, I don't think anyone believes in Newtonian gravity these days, do they? http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/92140-newtons-inverse-square-law/ I asked you whether my layman's description captured the features of Newtonian gravity. You conspicuously ignored me. Assuming this characterization is more or less correct, and given our current state of knowledge, there is nothing in nature answering to this description, and thus the term Newtonian gravity does not refer -- there is no such thing. On one account, at least. I also presented a rival Kripke-Putnam inspired account of reference to which those wishing to defend inter-theoretical continuity might appeal. Your only answer was... Um, it's used all the time. By NASA, even, to send probes to planets, satellites into orbit and men to the moon. It works very well. (post 23 - same thread) ... once again failing to recognize the distinction I pointed out between a theory working (i.e. yielding true observational consequences) and a theory being true. Yes, the theory of Newtonian gravity can get us to the Moon. But the Ptolemaic theory of the cosmos can also get you around the world! It works extremely well. Most of us, I daresay, would maintain that the Ptolemaic model is not true: as a model of reality, Ptolemy got it quite wrong. You're a very clever man, and a very knowledgeable man, Swansont. In this case, though, you're pontificating on topics you know nothing about.

You may edit your profile to delete all of your personal info, but your posts will remain. Staff will not delete them. If you wish to leave the forum, the simple solution is just to log out and not return.

We're limited by the software that we run. If you have things in your profile you don't want viewed, you can edit them. But we don't delete accounts. Anyone is free to leave. It's easy. Log out and don't come back. As you've noted, email isn't PII, and it's trivial to get a "burner" email address of one so desired. Any association of identity with an email address lies with the service providing the email address, not us. IP addresses only resolve to regions, but even then there are those who use proxy servers (whether intentionally or not). I've run across a few examples in efforts to hunt down sockpuppets. A dozen or more different users who have used the same IP bloc, even though they don't physically live anywhere near each other. An IP address doesn't identify you, but as with other information, it could be used as a piece in a puzzle to do so. The bottom line is that any PII that is provided happens because a member volunteers it. And that genie will not go back in the bottle.

Their excuse is that post counts can vary. Moderators can see posts that were hidden for breaking the rules; posts may be deleted after members already referred to them by number; and posts may be in the mod queue awaiting approval. I could refer to post #48, but its number may be different by the time you look at it, because post #47 was deleted. I suppose every post could be assigned a permanent number, displayed at the top right, and if #47 is deleted the thread simply skips from 46 to 48, but then you could see when we delete things, and the more censorious forums would get upset that their members could see behind the curtain.

Because our protocols don't work in the way that you seem to want to interpret my statement. And seeing as you have presented yourself as an expert on how the site is run, I would expect that you would know that. I don't know if being obtuse is deliberate or not, but as I have explained previously, it is not the question that I have objected to, per se. It's the title. You offered that as a possibility and I confirmed it, and now we're back to to "my asking a question about a decision that you made" as if you did not read (or did not understand, or forgot) that exchange. You made it personal. You had options (as I said: report the post. You could also have posted the question in a more benign fashion, such as "What influences the decision to move a post or, as happened recently, locking one without telling the poster not to re-introduce the thread) There are probably other options, too. But no. As I said, you made it personal. It also insinuates that the decision was not objective and phrased the question as if I was coloring outside the lines (and, as I pointed out, you were wrong on that account)

That's mainly in a threads title not a user name. In the ADD NEW Thread function the last test should be. If the Thread Title contains "http" etc then BAN(user_name), Delete thread, Hide posts and exit

It doesn't delete it -- it makes the rest of the post bold, as you can see in studiot's example. It assumes the tag ends at the end of the post. I don't recall IPB 3.6 having this behavior, and I'd rather it leave the tag untouched than assume it should apply to the rest of the post.

Doesn't seem to be anything to do with cookies. My browser is set to delete all cookies at the end of a session. If I've checked "Keep me logged in" then I still get automatically logged in when I come here. I connect via a cellmodem so the IP address is different every time - that doesn't seem to affect it either.

Yes, you have to delete text that you don't want included. There are two editing modes, and you can switch between them with the little light switch in the upper left of the editing pane. In one of them you have to put in the quote tags by hand (or copy/paste), and this seems to be necessary of you want to quote multiple sections with your responses in between. In the other it no longer seems to allow you to do anything but have a single quoted section, and in that mode it is possible to accidentally delete the quote box.

I am not connected to the same network when I used AUDI R6 account.

There is nothing illegal about observing the obvious fact that you have created a sock-puppet account. However, that is against the rules the forum.

??? this account please

I have no previous account on this site, and if I created multiple accounts I would change the ip address every time, so you wouldn't be able to match them up with any existing account. I can prove this to you if you want, I can make another account with a different ip address and pm you, assuming you'd let me break the rules to do it. There's point #1, and not only that but if I got banned I should theoretically be able to unban myself using a slightly different method, so I don't think would ever have that problem unless the account itself got deleted. How about this: Any staff member, ban me right now, I'll see if my theory on unbanning will work. If it does, I have some evidence for my case, if not I don't care and I'll stop bothering you, I have 4 other places that I debate random things in-between assignments.

If you backspace exactly to the beginning of the first sentence without overshooting you keep the box. Probably the quickest way I've found is put your cursor in front of the first sentence and press Enter so it pushes it down to the next line then highlight and delete the sentence as normal. Edit: Just noticed if you place the cursor after doing the above back in the top row and press Delete the box will disappear. It would seem the code for the box is embedded invisibly on that line. Nope I did it exactly from start to finish of the first sentance still no box.

If you backspace exactly to the beginning of the first sentence without overshooting you keep the box. Probably the quickest way I've found is put your cursor in front of the first sentence and press Enter so it pushes it down to the next line then highlight and delete the sentence as normal. Edit: Just noticed if you place the cursor after doing the above back in the top row and press Delete the box will disappear. It would seem the code for the box is embedded invisibly on that line.

Whenever I try to quote posts, if I delete the first sentence it delete the quote box. Whats up with that?