Effective "posting stopper"

and NOT a good thing....

[vkaryl]

I've noted (here as well as many other forum "places" where I'm a regular "lurking visitor" or active poster) that whenever a mod does some heavy duty "post tweaking" or just plain deleting in a thread, that posting in that thread tends if not to stop completely at least slow down to a snail-crawl even in a previously quite active topic.

To what is this attributable, do you think? Is there a way to mitigate this effect?

[rogerd]

Interesting point, vkaryl. Sometimes that may be the mod's intention, i.e., after wrestling an errant thread back on topic, a "stopper" post may let everyone move on.

If the mod wants to keep the discussion going, the best way may be to lead it back on track by making a suggestive comment or posing a follow-on question.

It may be a natural thing. In real life, if someone barged in on a conversation and told you to stop talking about specific things, it might have a rather chilling effect on continuing the conversation.

[grelmar]

Getting edited is an ego basher. Before I understood the rules around WebmasterWorld, I got edited once (maybe twice), and it darn near drove me away. simply because I'm not used to it.

The rest of the forums I participate in are much more free flowing, loosey-goosey. I'm used to typing out whatever thought happens to be crossing my mind at that moment. I might get barked at by other members, but never edited.

WebmasterWorld was the first place I have EVER been edited at, and I fumed about it for a good solid day. Had a right 3 year old hissy fit. Then went back, re-read the TOS, my post, and why it had been edited. And came to the conlusion that the info here was more valuable than my oversized ego.

In a smaller forum, this might not be the case. Heavy and frequent editing would tick people off, and if there isn't a mass of inherant value to the forum, then I can definitely see people just leaving.

[vkaryl]

rogerd: I've actually looked over a number of posts of both sorts (as much as I'm able to tell - depends on how they "sound" as much as anything I guess) in a half-dozen fora. It doesn't seem to matter if the mod appears to be trying to "steer" the posting back to topic instead of "plugging the leak" - in practically every case, the topic (even when a really good previously active one with oodles of great info) languishes, maybe gets a couple more half-hearted posts, then "goes away".

grel: Sure being edited/deleted can be a problem ego-wise for some folks. But I actually know some of the posters on a couple of other fora that I checked, and believe me when I say they aren't like that. And I would think that's not much the case around here either, though I DON'T know folks here.

Was just an observation. It's always a potential necessity, but a couple of fora in particular are pretty heavy on it, and I think while the membership hasn't left wholesale that a few really good people are gone - which is sad.