Moderating the Tourism Boom

Hey there,

I’m looking for some actual clarification from the higher-ups regarding why my posts keep getting nuked from the Tourism PDF by Mark Harris66. Seriously, what gives?

They just nuked more of my posts from that PDF thread about the tourism - Christmas celebration theme. I’ve tried telling them over and over—after getting shut down multiple times—that using "Merry Christmas" in that specific way is just linguistically weird and outdated. It sounds archaic to say "Blessed Christmas" instead of just saying "Merry" or "Blessed." But no, they just deleted my comments without even giving me a decent explanation. It's ridiculous.
I might have understood why my post was deleted if they’d actually bothered to consider my suggestion for a new thread title, but since they didn't, I don't see any reason for it to be gone.

Oh, and they actually deleted my post about the ridiculous way they handle voting for the Christmas festivities here in the city. Seriously? What a joke.

Which exact rules did I even break?
I’ve got this nagging feeling that my posts are getting wiped just because I don't parrot whatever the moderator thinks. It feels like if you don't agree with them, you're out. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I swear they're scrubbing anything that doesn't fit their specific agenda.

Thanks for the reply.

In this thread—which is strictly for holiday greetings—a bunch of posts were cleared out because they were totally off-topic. Yours were among them (don't worry, it wasn't just yours)... the thing is, you haven't actually sent a single holiday greeting in any of your posts. You just kept pushing linguistic debates instead—basically trolling an otherwise super chill thread.
Then there’s the other thread: a user started it specifically to get ideas for improving the local Christmas festivities based on our experiences with the big city celebrations. Everyone else was being helpful, discussing things like tacky decorations or overly crowded spots, but you didn't add anything constructive at all. In your first post, you just made a vague comment about how everything is too kitschy—most of us agreed—but then in your next post, you just repeated that same "it's too kitschy" line without adding anything new. You're not really contributing to the conversation like that... Plus, posting on that same thread about reporting me and critiquing the moderation? That's usually a one-way ticket to getting a warning.

Posts are still getting wiped from the Advent thread. It’s a shame they’re deleting stuff in the Greeting Cards section too. The moderator rarely touches posts that are actually off-topic or just blatant trolling, but if you happen to hold an opinion different from hers, well, we should all be grateful she's only deleting those. Lizzy just had her post removed, where she was basically asking why anyone would bother deleting things like this in the first place.

Posts discussing moderation are being cleared out. That’s just how it works here—it's against the forum rules...

We’re just sitting here waiting for one of those super-mods to actually say something.
Your constant deleting of posts has officially crossed the line of any reasonable or unbiased moderation.

@black, deleting that post in the Christmas thread was totally justified. That thread exists so we can just wish everyone a Merry Christmas and keep things chill, not to dissect who said what and who's at fault. No matter how it’s phrased, the whole point is to spread some good vibes on the board, and you definitely don't need to overanalyze every single word and kill the mood. You kept pushing it a few times too, and if I remember right, you even started picking at the mods—which is why you got wiped again, though honestly, a warning might have been more fair.

Also, personally, I wouldn't have touched that post of yours that kicked off the whole debate about Advent in Washington, D.C. I think threads can (and should) wander a bit beyond the original post, but it looks like the mod decided to step in just to stop the discussion from spiraling into nothing but arguments about voting rules and who gets a say. She knows this community better than I do, especially the regulars over on the Tourism board and how they act. Since nobody actually got hit with a formal strike, I don't see why she had to get heavy-handed. The rest was cleared out (including here) because people were arguing with the moderation, and that's exactly what needed to be scrubbed.