Why was the Title on my Topic Changed - PHP Dev Call

Community
21

Ah the user title. Yes it’s a bit misleading, and perhaps should be changed. It’s just one of those things that probably wasn’t thought about. Seems cpradio is going to forward it appropriately.

So since it wasn’t repressive, sounds like we both agree it was good censorship.

Cpradio has given links to the staff member list. My orange username is probably another hint that I’m some sort of “speical” person on here (however you want to phrase it).

It’s not reserved for team members though; so that is moot.

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So, this is just a perhaps it should be changed, where the user title is clearly misleading, and yet my title had to be changed, because it was possibly misleading? Talk about double standards. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

There is no such thing as good censorship.

From what I, as a user, can directly see, I’d never guess you are staff. That is also fairly misleading. Would have been nice to know I was talking to a staff member the whole time.

You dodge the points as well as old Tony does. LOL! :smiley:

The issue is giving privileges to normal users (even regular, long term users), without giving them the clear responsibility to use those privileges properly. In most cases they probably will. However, in any business (and this is a community built on a business), there is no “hope”. Those who run a business hoping things will turn out alright…will ultimately fail.

Scott

23

Not to be crtical, but it was announced…

I’d encourage you to ask him a bunch of embarrassing questions in that topic as retribution to his views on censorship.

I’d have to go back and look, but they get some sort of notification of their TL 3 achievement which I believe may contains some instruction or that is a confirmed future feature to be in core Discourse at some point.

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Yes, definitely read some of my posts in that thread and feel free to contribute.

I’ll have to bow out now. I made my point. Seems arguing with you is going to lead nowhere :wink: .

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Pssh, not nowhere, but just in circles, you both have a firm belief on where you feel censorship lies and the two don’t match. Perfectly normal in a community setting.

What I can attest to, is we try not to censor, the alteration to the title did add clarity, but at the expense of Scott feeling it took something away from the original intent. We’ve corrected the wrong and now both sides are happy.

In the future, that is what we need to focus on more, ensuring that anyone who may have a problem with how a title was rephrased, to let us know (via flagging) and we’ll gladly help correct any unintentional wrong-doing that may have occurred.

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Which I never read or knew was announced. I don’t frequent many other sub-forums here.

Naw, I am not as serious as my posts might make me out to be. I actually want to have fun here, as I am sure most people do.

Ok. Still. If this were my forum, it simply wouldn’t happen. I can’t imagine the privilege means anything really good, other than the value of giving the achievement itself, and I highly doubt any noticeable work would be taken up from the staff by it being given. So hoping there will be less work or that the user will handle him or herself properly means the team here are just waiting for a problem to happen. And with me and my poll, a problem did happen, unfortunately.

Scott

27

One other rule should be added to the repertoire of rules you have here.

Don’t argue with customers/ users. Help them, get them to a solution, but avoid any argument. You won’t win!

:wink:

Scott

28

Unfortunately, it’s no one’s fault that you don’t read announcements.

So, this is just a perhaps it should be changed

FWIW, as a staff member (in case you didn’t know) I agree with Mitt’s title being changed 100%. My guess is that both he and the mods/admins just overlooked it. I could be wrong though.

There is no such thing as good censorship.

Yeah, we’ll have to agree to disagree. It’s not cloaked censorship - people can see clearly what was edited, by whom, and when. And making things more clear, correcting misleading topics, misspelled words, etc in a topic title are nothing but good, in my opinion, and can easily be flagged and discussed/changed again as we’ve established. That’s just a personal opinion.

In addition, you have to agree that there are things that could be posted in this forum that need censoring. Unless you mean that’s it is fine for people to post anything on any topic here. I’m curious how long you’d stay on an un-moderated and un-censored forum as it filled with spam and who knows what else. :wink:

But it’s not! I’m sure that your opinion is noted though.

And with me and my poll, a problem did happen, unfortunately.

Calling out the TL3 position for this is also somewhat moot, as at least some of the staff members very well might have done a similar thing. We can probably divorce your annoyance at the TL3 position from what happened here, which is a difference in opinion on how a forum must be censored.

It’s unfortunate that, in your opinion, all complaints or discussions on policy must result in a “winner” :smiley:
Guess, again, that we just have different outlooks on things.

2 Likes
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It needs moderation, yes. Censoring, no. It is a very fine line, which I am sure Mitt didn’t realize he was crossing. It is also a fine line regular users should never have the chance to cross.

It isn’t about “winning”, when arguing with a customer, but trying to determine who is right or wrong. That isn’t something that should be up for discussion or argumentation with a customer, ever. It is a rule of any good service org. You simply don’t argue with customers. What you must do is find solutions. It is up to the customer to determine his or her own “correctness”. It is a tough rule to follow and only great service organizations learn to follow it and why there are so few great service organizations out there.

Scott

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Well, again, we’ll just have to disagree that the title correction was inappropriate.

As far as your view on “customers” and “service organizations” - which model I don’t believe fits in this situation, but let’s pretend it does for the sake of the discussion - I’m genuinely curious. If you post in the open forum about an issue, with the obvious intent to be making a spectacle of it, a bit, would you, as a customer, prefer either to be ignored, or to get a “Thanks for your feedback! We’ll look into your complaints!” canned response without anything behind it? Especially if what you’re expressing is merely discontent with policy, I’m not sure I know what you actually believe the correct response would be. Obviously a company, organization, etc doesn’t just change policy every time someone asks, or the world would be a very different place. So what exactly do you intend?

Also, remember that the volunteer staff here are users, in addition to staff - it’s a bit of a hybrid role, if you will. Would you rob them of the ability to discuss such issues on the forum? (Luckily, again, this is a question of opinions on how a community should run, on which you and I have no direct say, anyway. You can express your disagreement, but that’s about that.)

Note that you haven’t seen an actual SPF administrator or SitePoint employee argue with your position here, or engage at all as far as I recall without looking back through it. I suspect that any of us would behave differently, in such a position.

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Thank you. This leaves the door open to the rest of my reply.

If you and I and also cpradio all can see the rewording of my title was inappropriate, then it was inappropriate for Ryan, as a staff member, to come at me with “My thread title was misleading”, like I made a mistake, which I didn’t. That is what got me fired up actually. Instead, he could have also taken the discussion with me to a private discussion. He could have asked what the issue is with the change, as I see it, etc. That is customer service.

Scott

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I completely disagree. He changed it to make it absolutely clear what was being collected, just because it didn’t match up with what you intended isn’t his fault. I can think of a dozen of people who would have came to the same conclusion that he did. Plus it is resolved, so we need not continue to focus on such a trivial problem involving the lack of a couple of words (seriously, 4 freakin’ words).

I also disagree on this, and you are just going to have to deal with it here if you continue to be a contributing member. This is a route we believe in, your disagreement is noted and understood.

Unfortunately, I didn’t see the rewording as inappropriate. I saw it as bringing clarity to what I assumed your intentions were too. I simply offered a way for you to help get your real intent established again since somehow three of us had the wrong idea of what it really was. :smile:

However, I do believe this discussion has gone on for well longer than any added benefit of said discussion. I believe everyone has a better understanding of what happened and how to approach it better (on both sides). One, use flagging to bring up your concern to the Staff and Two, let the staff work with you to find a good resolution.

Please note that following that procedure to start with would have put you in conversation with Advisors, Team Leaders and Admins and thus avoided some of the “mistakes” encountered previously.

1 Like
33

And why was my title edited?

answered by

Your title was asking one question, while you asked a completely different one in your actual post. Your title seemed misleading / inaccurate. I’m glad Mitt edited it.

I think that seems to be pretty simply a question, and an answer. If the question had been asked via flagging the post, you’d have A) circumvented Mentors altogether and B) not been in the position to be publicly disagreed with and feel the need to start a discussion on the topic (getting “fired up”).

So I think the takeaway is, now you know how things work a little better. You know who more staff are, and that it’s announced. You know that TL3 users can perform title edits and topic moves. And you know how to respond to moderation you deem to be inappropriate (or any other issue with a post, spam, personal attacks, etc - all can be dealt with via the flag system).

And presumably, anyone else reading this will at least be able to takeaway those points, too!

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Which I appreciate. You showed proper customer service.

I’ll do that next time for sure. However, I also think Ryan could have handled the situation better too. I was trying to avoid pointing fingers with my suggestion for adding the rule. Don’t argue with customers.

It will be all moot tomorrow anyway. Then I will also be one of the Sitepoint team, at least as an author. :smile:

Scott

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Yes, I agree that things could have been handled differently and next time I believe they will. As we’ve established a better way to approach this scenario.

Congratulations on the book? Or is it a Video series? An Article?

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Note, I said it SEEMED misleading. Never, in that post, did I tell you that you made a mistake or you should have gotten fired up. I was simply explaining what led to Mitt (a community member) editing your post.

Noted. I am human too, so when I see someone making a big deal out of nothing (I will echo cpradio here, “4 freaking words!”), it tends to befuddle me.

This isn’t a customer / employee situation.

I’m the volunteer guy at a carnival trying to get parking for everyone. I can’t help it if someone cut in front of you to grab a better parking spot. I can’t control him. Don’t blame the messenger for explaining the situation.

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Couldn’t have said it better. Either way, I think we have a good idea of what occurred and how, and we know better ways to approach it in the future (all accounts associated to this).

2 Likes
38

And that is a problem, that you don’t see it that way. It is a customer/ employee situation. You represent Sitepoint as a team member. The users are customers and community members. You must the follow rules. You must do your best to help Sitepoint do their best.

Scott

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Thank you!

Scott

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Of course. And I do. That’s why I was selected to join the staff. However I will now quote Jeff…

I feel as if there was no chance to get out of that conversation without being bullied, so I’ll just take the hit and call it a day.

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