DELETED Thread Plase tell me Why

From the above sticky...

5. If your thread is deleted, do not re-post it. Do not post a thread asking why it was deleted. Read the rules, watch how things are done here, and figure it out. This is not complicated stuff.

Don't take it personally. If it is the video I think it is, the reason is simply because it tends to get posted somewhere on the forums once every few days.

Gaz,

We delete most threads that start with videos. We treat them as though they're articles, with the added point that we're not going to spend the time watching every one of them to make sure it's not just an ad.


Paul

I did the same thing you did, got my thread i spent a long time deleted, then i posted why, then someone posted that #5 to me then that thread got deleted. I guess it happens to everyone.

was a very cool video tho

that particular video has been making the rounds all over the net.. a forum like this most prolly have seen a couple of posting of that

Violating netiquette to follow up on my own post... Some of these things could also be posted to the document sharing sites and get a bit of targeted traffic for the authors.

Small extra effort for the return.


Paul

Thanks for the tip Paul, never thought of that! I had a really long post deleted a while back but simply posted it on one of my websites instead. That is a great way to still be able to share it here!

Alan,

It's not so much the length as whether it reads like an article. People do tend to drift into article style if they go on too long, though.


Paul

Michael,

That's most of it. The other main consideration is that if we allowed articles to be posted in the main section, we'd quickly get to the point where at least 1 third, and probably around half, of the posts would be articles.

It would take all that long before the articles were the majority of the content being posted, as the idiots with "automation software" (read: spamware) were copying stuff from EZA and other sites to the forum en masse, just for the sig exposure. It happens now, but not in huge quantity.

If people get away with something here, some moron will create a course teaching them to do it, useful or not.


Paul

I guess this thread (despite breaking the rules about questioning why a previous thread was deleted) is being left so that the explanations are available for others to read to remind people about this stuff?

All I can say is - people should be thankful that the Mods are so tolerant.

There are plenty of threads that I would probably nuke that get left.

I think a large part of the problem comes from people seeing the forum as somewhere to build their brand and sell stuff rather than it being a community where they can get value and help others (aswell as building their brand and selling stuff).

When people start a thread giving an answer to a question that wasn't asked, whether it's in the form of an article, a video, or whatever it always rings alarm bells for me.

If I walked into a room and started telling people the answer to a question no-one had asked me they would think I was crazy, and if it was about a subject which was my business they'd think even worse things.

So from that perspective when someone posts an article, a 'helpful' video etc.. that no-one has asked for I think it's something that should go on their personal (or forum) blog and linked to in their sig.

If there's an ongoing thread and they've created the video to answer that specific question then that's completely different.

I guess it comes down to the perception of intention. If they're starting a thread to show something they've written, created etc... then it'll usually look like their motives are at least in part because they want people to look at their stuff or to try and be perceived as an expert. If they're responding to someone else's thread with information that specifically helps - it'll appear as helpful.

Whether that's accurate or not is largely irrelevant because if people perceive it as self promoting then they'll click report post and it'll disappear whether a moderator specifically nuked it or not.

Andy, Yep. I do this occasionally so the reasons are easily available, and so newer folks who haven't read the stickies can see why and how things are done here. Yep. We'll often leave those. Some of them have been very detailed, and still only took a few minutes to create. Things that walk one through a process in software, for example, that might take much more time to explain via plain text.


Paul

I never really thought about it, but I can see the reasoning - it wouldn't take long for some people to treat this like an article directory for pimping their sig file.

Jason, A lot of the rules don't seem to make sense until you hear why they're in place. None of them are arbitrary, but they can seem so if you don't know what they're intended to prevent.


Paul