Moderator deleted my comment on his answer and wrongfully accused me of insult

Question

I've left a comment on an answer asking the answers's author to follow serverfault's guidelines, namely "quote the most relevant part of an important link". I'm sure it had no epithets or insults and was straight to the point.

My comment was (it was made available to me now):

@MichaelHampton according to serverfault answer guidelines you should provide context to your links: "Always quote the most relevant part of an important link, in case the target site is unreachable or goes permanently offline." serverfault.com/help/how-to-answer – naktinis

The answers's author has then removed my comment followed by a reply:

@naktins Insults are inappropriate here. Do not do it again.

If you look at his other responses under the same answer they all seem to be trying to ignore the style guideline in question and attacking anyone who suggests otherwise.

The only way I could now interpret the insult is "How dare you recite rules to me". But this is the same as "I'm lawyer/parliament member/president how dare you recite laws to me". Rules are equal to everyone and reciting them should not be censored, because someone feels insulted. To quote some more rules of SE, moderators should be patient and fair (especially when editing comments on their own answers).

My comment could have seemed unnecessary at most. But actually, I keep to the opinion that the answer should be extended as some other user suggested in comments (it's now locked, so I can't edit). From:

Are you referring to nginx_ensite and nginx_dissite?

To:

You are probably referring to nginx_ensite and nginx_dissite. They are 3rd party scripts – that's why you couldn't find them in nginx package.

I think the moderator is being emotional and reactive instead of patient and fair.

Can I dispute this biased decision to remove my comment? Can something be done about biased and unfair moderators?

The answer in question: Nginx enable site command

Updated: Added my exact comment and a better explanation, why I think the moderator overreacted.

Answer 1

I would like to throw in my 2 cents here (I am sorry), as I get the feeling that people are talking past the posed question(s).

Talking past the question for a moment:
Let me pre-face it quickly by saying that I personally think this is all an exaggerated response. The moderators response was not overly harsh, and the way he perceives the comment is wholly up to him. As such I don't agree that he should apologize, or be apologized to.

It is a reality of working with others that at times you will but heads.
Learn to let it go, or you will create more problems in the long run.

As for the actual questions:

Can I dispute this biased decision to remove my comment?
Yes, you just did. You posted it on meta. Whether you should have is a different matter.

Can something be done about biased and unfair moderators?
Yes, they can be removed by the stackexchange network staff.
However, that would be an out of proportion response here.

What should have perhaps happened here, was that the moderator should have asked another moderator to take a look at the comment.
Or just removed it without any added comment.
But that's in the past now, as I said before I believe the best response now would be to let it go. Nothing substantial happened, and as is often the case in life both sides feel wronged.

Answer 2

I don't see any outright insults here on the part of naktinis, at least as far as I would be insulted, but your comment was also completely unnecessary and outright wrong in the situation.

To recapitulate: The question was in a nutshell "how are these commands named, I forgot". The complete answer to this is nginx_ensite and nginx_dissite. The link Michael Hampton gave was not at all necessary but added value to the answer, and in fact his answer did exactly gave the most/only relevant part of the link, namely the name of the commands (with the name of the command, all else is at worst a quick google search away).

This policy you cite is meant for situations where people link to outside resources without additional details, like "Find how this is done in my linked blogpost" or "MS described it in this linked Technet article".

Asking for more based on your apparent misunderstanding of the question, the answer and the policy regarding links is inappropriate and removing the comment was the correct action in this situation and I would have done the same.

Answer 3

"Do not do it again" is an order (an imperative statement), not a threat. A threat would be "If you do it again, I'll come to your house with a cream pie and throw it into your face while shouting, 'Mit Schlag!'" Or some other statement that included potential consequences. Moderators are allowed to make imperative statements.

As for whether or not it's insulting, well. What we say in the south is "Don't teach your grandma to suck eggs." Or, to quote Shadow Wizard on your closed meta.se post,

"As for your comment, it is insulting since being a moderator and long time member, that other user obviously knows the rules. No need to throw it in his face. Besides, we can't control what offend people. For all I know, you might be offended if I'll show you picture of a cat. So you can flag it, while the other user happens to be a moderator - he didn't suspend you or anything, just removed what he considered offensive (and wrong) comment."

Offense is in the eye of the beholder. You're certainly offended; do you have a right to be? Who's the judge of whether you have a right to be offended or not? Are we going to take a vote, or does the right to be offended require consensus? If we take a vote and the majority decide that you have no right to be offended, will you magically stop being upset and say, "Oh, well, that's all right, then"?

Michael is a person with the same right to be offended that you have.

The implied question seems to me to be, "Are moderators allowed to be human beings, or must they be perfect emotionless automatons who never get offended or make mistakes?" If you find any perfect people, let me know and I'll vote for them for moderator in the next election. In the mean time, I think Michael does a good job.

Answer 4

Was the comment insulting? No. There was nothing there that was objectively insulting. In my opinion, a reasonable person should not be insulted, and the comment shouldn't be removed on grounds that it is offensive or insulting.

Was the moderator abusing their power? No. It was a comment. Comments are transient and deleted all the time. Suggestions that the moderators are out of control or have a holier-than-thou attitude seem over-the-top and unfounded.

I think it would be helpful to tone this down a bit. SF moderators work hard and have a huge workload. They're volunteers and they make a tremendous contribution to the community. They handle hundreds or thousands of flags, and let's be realistic: occasionally they're going to make a judgement call that with the benefit of hindsight might not have been the best one. We're all human -- we make mistakes. That doesn't mean they are abusing their power or consider themselves above the law.

But, at the same time... the first step to improving is to acknowledge the mistakes and reflect on how one can do better in the future.

One way to avoid the situation in the future is: if a moderator is insulted by someone's comment on their answer, it's probably better to let another moderator handle it. This is standard guidance for moderators: it's usually better not to moderate issues that arise on your own question/answer. It's not a hard-and-fast rule -- especially when the case is clearcut -- but it's often helpful.

If a user flags a comment and offensive, moderators will review the flag and make a judgement call on whether they agree that the comment is potentially offensive to a reasonable person. This involves some judgement -- an "offensive" flag doesn't automatically lead to deletion -- but it generally works pretty well. If two people judge it to be offensive (the flagger and the moderator), odds are we don't want it here.

This gets circumvented a bit when a comment is removed by a moderator, without anyone flagging it. In clearcut cases or cases where the moderator is not personally involved in the situation, that's still fine and probably not too error-prone. But in a situation that's borderline and where the moderator is personally involved (e.g., they are the target of the comment), having the moderator act on their own has a higher potential for bad outcomes. That's why it's safer to flag this for another moderator, step aside, and let another moderator handle it. If nothing else, it removes the possibility of accusations that the original moderator is acting out of emotional involvement.

In summary: Yes, the response to the comment probably could have been handled better. Yes, probably it's possible for the moderation team to learn a lesson or two and make a slight adjustment to how they'd handle similar situations in the future. But no, the moderators weren't out of control. They're well-intentioned, hard-working people who won't always react in the exactly-optimal fashion every single time. Cut them some slack, assume good faith, and treat them with respect. It'll end better for everyone that way.

And if you are told that your comment is insulting and you don't feel it was, develop a thick skin. Rather than being offended, take a step back and ask "Can you help me understand what you perceived as insulting? My comment was intended to provide feedback and I didn't intend any of it as an insult. I'd like to learn for the future so I don't inadvertently make anyone else feel insulted" and then listen to the response you get. Because, let's be honest: whether any one comment is deleted or not is minor in the grand scheme of things, but learning about how to communicate frankly without being misunderstood has lasting value beyond any one comment on one answer.

Answer 5

And given the overall circumstances I think your comment was insulting. For that matter, so is the question you posted here.

Just for the record, you posted:

@MichaelHampton according to serverfault answer guidelines you should provide context to your links: "Always quote the most relevant part of an important link, in case the target site is unreachable or goes permanently offline." serverfault.com/help/how-to-answer – naktinis 9 hours ago

There is nothing from that link that would be useful to post but the script itself, and I don't think that copying the whole script is a good idea. Someone would have to update the post again whenever its author made a change, and that's just not realistic. If the project ever went away, it's a simple enough matter to delete the post.

Some other moderators will look at the post in due time. Today is a holiday in the USA.

Answer 6

I totally agree with you. The answer does contain some useful information but I think it could be expended to make it even more useful. But that wasn't the point.

The question is: was your comment insulting? No. It was not, not even remotely.

As said in comments, I think the moderator was wrong here and he owes you an apology.

Answer 7

Now that there was a lot of fiery discussion, I would like to sum up and answer my own question (since I don't think it has been tackled properly yet).

Can I dispute a decision to remove a comment?

There does not appear to be functionality in SE sites for disputing deleted comments in particular. One way to ask for other mods to double-check is to create a meta post such as this one.

It would be more convenient if there was some functionality to see what's happening with your comment. E.g.:

• See comment's state in your activity feed: flagged, deleted etc.
• See how mods are discussing its fate (even read-only would be ok for a start).
• A single chance to ask for extra moderation.

Now, from what I saw, the comment was just gone, even from my activity history.

Can something be done about biased and unfair moderators?

The question is not "should something be done", it is "can something be done" and the answer is Yes. There was a similar question asked about this in another meta post (community wiki).

The accepted answer there suggested that if there was no way to resolve the issue using site functionality (e.g. no way of asking for extra moderation), one could use the contact us form to contact SE directly.

Other ideas

Maybe SE is doing that internally somewhere in their databases, but if not, it could be useful to track complaints about mods and reevaluate them by SE employees once in a while.

In general I think mods in SE sites are doing a great job and having them is a great idea. The question is about the rare cases when they don't (and from other people's support, and other posts on meta sites I see it's not the first, nor the last case). Please don't take things personally.