Are judgments appropriate?

Question

Regarding https://money.stackexchange.com/a/142559/34078

Having reviewed the edit history, answer author DJClayworth start off his answer by making a rather highly charged statement. His very next line is, "I'm sorry I had to write that sentence."

We can be sympathetic to the question asker who apparently acted out of ignorance. I accept DJClayworth's claim that he felt compelled that he "had to" make that uncomfortable statement.

A mod removed the first two lines of the answer. Not only did the mod do so, but the mod also edited some disagreeing text from another answer https://money.stackexchange.com/posts/142579/revisions (The author of that answer, blankip, also didn't like that any, as indicated by Moderators are the number 1 reason I quit using SE - tell me different )

Furthermore, the original author has twice re-asserted the importance of these lines in his answer, and the mod has removed such content a total of three times (as of this writing), and even wrote "please discuss it on meta." As I reviewed this and support DJClayworth's position, but realize the pressure against going too far in taking on a mod for one's own personal cause, I am hereby trying to support DJClayworth's position when I went ahead and started this conversation on Meta (as the mod directly indicated).

It seems this mod just wants to sanitize the question by censoring any mention of a clear concept. By watering down DJClayworth's answer, a vital message is removed. It would be good if the original poster saw the cold, hard truth of this important concept that the mod's actions effectively hide.

Is it a widespread consensus for this site to keep this site so sterile that applicable judgments are unwelcomed, presumably in an effort to not say something that can be taken as offensive to a guilty party when talking about a topic where a clear offense has allegedly taken place? With respect to the advantages of a general "be nice" policy, is the most appropriate action really to want to take the course of trying so hard, to be so so so so so safe, that we risk effectively preventing this forum from being able to tackle such a hard truth as what DJClayworth's answer conveyed?

(I see that in addition to blankip creating a topic while I was writing this, as noted above, DJClayworth did start up a meta topic himself while I was writing this. Edit Conflict on my answer locked with a version I don't want )

Answer 1

I found the moderator edits of the two questions to be surprising and uncomfortable to see. I'm not used to seeing edits that materially change the content of answers on SE. (In particular, in the second case, it even forced an answer with 4 bullet-points to only have 3, and wind up renumbering everything.)

I find it to be a compelling observation that it's common to see "Your online girlfriend is a scammer", et. al., as part of many answers. The fact that the identity of the person being criticized was a certain family member doesn't seem to make it worthy of this outlier treatment.

If the criticism is considered not relevant to the question, then I would prefer to see the community downvote it (or suggest improvement in comments), and not arbitrarily have the substance of the answer changed by moderator fiat.

Answer 2

From English Language and Usage -

Is “I'm screwed” a rude expression? -

The first answer is

It's something you wouldn't say to your grandmother, perhaps, but it is a very common euphemism people use to avoid saying something stronger. It's used in everything from pop songs to commentaries by TV talk show hosts.

Seriously, in most walks of society screwed is considered merely informal these days, not rude.

I personally might have ignored this as informal. As a member. As a mod, had I seen this first, I'd have seen it as potentially offensive and easily edited out. I think the sentiment offered could easily have been communicated with language a bit kinder.

To answer the OP now - I think it best that judgements be avoided. The original question really didn't contain enough detail to pass such a judgement. And as is often the case, that OP didn't return to clarify any of the comments asking for more details. Details that might have made any remarks seem a rush to judgement.

[disclaimer - I probably have a number of answers accusing financial professionals including lawyers, of some type of malpractice. And might be accused of being hypocritical in my approach here. I accept that criticism.]

Answer 3

Can we all be satisfied enough with getting a little bit our way and not being totally satisfied?

I upvoted the answer by "GS - Apologise to Monica", despite that I disagree with the actions taken, and might not even like the answer. But, the answer is useful (which is supposed to be the criteria for upvoting, according to the tooltips), as the mod explained why sections were taken.

It seems there are some strong feelings from multiple sides. Personally, I'm not terribly offended by the phrase "Your mom screwed you over." I suppose that may be partially because I got familiar with the concept of being "screwed over" as a young child (simply to mean being mistreated), even before I knew of any other slang term of the word "screw". But I admit that in today's culture, some people might be more sensitive to that.

Grade 'Eh' Bacon's comment to the original post (of this Meta question) notes people may take this phrasing very differently. I posted this question (on Meta) because I didn't see the language as being out of line, and I thought the problem was more about saying we shouldn't point out the problem of what the mother did. But based on feedback I learned from the response here, I see that the specific language used may have been the largest trigger (which may effectively be the clear answer to my core question).

I think the best suggestion I've seen is from Don Branson's comment:

"Your mom has harmed you financially and you'll want to be careful in the future." That doesn't carry the same punch (and the original is what I'd really want to say), but it at least warns the OP they'll need to be wary from now on.

While Don's proposed phrasing is less succinct and perhaps less powerful, it does also sidestep the offensiveness that apparently triggered a flag and which the mod ("GS - Apologise to Monica") acted on (probably in agreement). Joe's answer here also suggests this.

I disagree with the mod's assertion that this text is not relevant. While the OP may be realizing that mom's behavior is causing some inconvenience, it might be helpful to point out that this behavior was really totally bad to its core. Therefore, the removed text might not be phrased as nice-sounding as some may prefer, but the presence of the text was quite relevant (and, therefore, I disagree with it being removed completely on the basis of irrelevance).

I suspect going with Don Branson's sample text wouldn't fully satisfy DJClayworth's position of wanting original wording. However, I believe Stack Exchange is not fully about free speech when the speech seems to violate the "Be Nice" policy. Some aspects of Stack Exchange's culture is entrenched, which is that there are some expectations of speech, and some controls including Mods having power and expectations that people don't resist or fight too hard against the mods (commenting on Meta is okay, but constantly reverting is getting a bit too aggressive).

I know my score on this Stack Exchange site may be lower, but I do have some Stack Exchange experience (namely over 10,000 on Super User). I've encounted feelings of being dissatisfied with some of Stack Exchange's behaviors/culture before, including concerns about words being inserted by someone else's name. I suspect that DJClayworth is going to end up being dissatisfied about not being fully free to express as desired. Similarly, I suspect blankip may be dissatisfied with how heavy-handed mod behavior can be. However, as much as I agree or disagree with some of these aspects, I've come to expect such behavior can happen on the Stack Exchange sites, and I think eventually the consensus will lie on supporting having text which is not deemed too offensive to multiple people.

So if DJClayworth showed accepting cooperation by updating the text to Don Branson's sample, then the moderator ("GS - Apologise to Monica") would be not completely satisfied because there would still be some text about a topic that the moderator deems to be irrelevant. But it wouldn't be using language that i too objectionable. DJClayworth would be dissatisfied for not being able to have the same punch (to use Don Branson's phrasing), but could still communicate an important concept to whomever read his answer. Neither side getting fully what is hoped for, but a compromise that allows key information to be spread without stomping too hard on the oppositions most important concerns.

Except blankip and DJClayworth might still be unhappy about being moderated this way and not having more freedom, but I think that's rather entrenched in Stack Exchange culture so I predict there isn't going to be much wiggle room given on that front.

I realize I haven't commented as much about main concerns blankip brought up about how downvotes ended up getting applied. I commented less on that so far namely since I feel less significant strong insight or recommendations about that. I suspect some of the downvoting might be sensible for some of the same reason that DJClayworth was being upvoted, since the first sentence of blankip's comment was basically saying the opposite of a key statement from DJClayworth's popular answer. Some people probably ignore the guidelines on how upvoting/downvoting should occur, and may upvote/downvote based on disagreeing with text (not necessarily considering whether it might be useful, like I did with the answer by "GS - Apologise to Monica").

Answer 4

I'm not a mod here, but I have been a mod at one site or another on SE for several years now.

I absolutely would have made the same edit. Answers should not make personal judgements, and in particular not attack anyone's character. "Be nice" applies not only to the original poster, but to everyone - including the poster's mother. Unless it's actually important to the answer [which it really never should be on Money.SE], leave personal attacks out.

There are ways to word what needed to be said without the salty language, and without impugning anyone's character. And to be clear, I fully agree with the poster's original statement! But, if you want to say it, say it nicely. "I'm sorry that your mom has damaged your credit." or "Here's how to get out of this hole your mom dug for you." is sufficient, no? There's no need to be aggressive. The answer stands on its own, perfectly fine, without the judgement. And frankly, the original poster knows they were done wrong by their mother - it's not like you need to point that out to them!

Secondarily, answers really aren't supposed to refer to one another, and so certainly the other answer needed the edit it got.

Finally, never revert a mod edit because you disagree with it. Come to meta and discuss it, or flag the post and explain, or come to chat and talk about it. Don't just revert it, unless it's clear the mod made a factual mistake that wasn't intended, and even then I would almost always try to reach out and explain first.

Answer 5

If this is too offensive, good, that's the point.

This is why I strongly feel that "your girlfriend is a scammer" is a straw man argument.*

It's common to use Google translate to communicate. I frequently get emails intended for a business in Europe, and to be kind, I reply in French or Spanish to let the writer know they have the wrong guy. To use these 2 languages isn't an outlier. This is what the translator gave me -

Any Spanish speaking reader should see the issue here. But here we go -

The same result occurs when using French as the target language. Had DJ dropped an F bomb in his answer, one would likely not have had an issue with a mod editing that out. What I'd propose here is that to many readers, the chosen phase was equivalent to just that. To some, "screwed over" has a different level of offense than for others.

*In Spanish "scammer" does a roundtrip from English back to the same word, to French, "con artist" is returned.

Answer 6

Timeline/context

I got involved in the question because of a flag. To explain the context of the flag, I need to summarise the different posts and comments:

This first answer contained "Your mom has screwed you over".

This second answer contained contained "Your mom didn't screw you over. She just did what she does. She doesn't pay for things unless forced and you enabled it."

The second answer then got two quite highly upvoted comments:

"Your mom didn't screw you over" No... You're right in the fact that "she just did what she does"... which is screwing people over - that's how you get bad credit. This time it was just that the OP ALSO got screwed over.

"She doesn't pay for things unless forced and you enabled it." What the heck is up with this victim blaming? You make it sound like OP willingly put themselves into the situation without knowing the full details

and then the second answer got a "Rude or Abusive" flag, which I was ultimately responding to when I got involved.

Grey areas

In my view, the deleted material falls into multiple grey areas:

Be nice

Firstly, Stack Exchange does have a "be nice" policy. Certainly personal attacks on identifiable SE users are almost always inappropriate. Personal attacks on unidentifiable individuals like in this case are less clear-cut. The first answer's statement was a bit over the line in my opinion. Then the second answer directly criticised the OP which was significantly further over the line.

Irrelevant material

Secondly, the whole debate about being screwed over or not or being enabled or whatever was pretty much irrelevant to the question. Both answers had much more relevant factual statements about the problems of co-signing and how to get out of them. Readers are perfectly capable of drawing their own conclusions about right and wrong anyway. Yes, sometimes it does make sense to give wider advice than the specific original question, but it's another grey area.

Answers that don't actually address the question are always subject to deletion.

I've always understood that to equally applies to specific bits of irrelevant material in an answer where other parts of it do answer the question, though I don't have a specific reference for that right now. But still, to give an extreme example, I wouldn't expect either "Trump is great" or "down with Trump" to survive long if I included it as a single line in an otherwise perfectly good answer.

In this case of course the statements were at least related to the question but certainly wouldn't have survived as standalone answers in their own right.

This isn't a discussion site

The focus of StackExchange is getting answers:

This site is all about getting answers. It's not a discussion forum. There's no chit-chat.

If someone had actually asked "Did my mom screw me over" that would have been subject to closure as opinion-based.

As with comments, discussions are more likely to get moderated the longer they continue. One or two chatty comments often survive, but if more and more keep appearing then often the whole lot will get removed.

Summary

Overall for me, given the combination of irrelevance, not niceness, and the general back and forth of discussion leading to a "rude and abusive" flag, the logical conclusion was just to remove all that content rather than somehow taking sides by leaving some of it.

We actually get a fair number of flags about answers containing "not nice" content and I generally apply the same test - if it's not directly relevant to the question then removing it as such is the easiest way to deal with it.

Conversely, flags about material which is actually directly relevant to the actual question asked get treated much more skeptically - the answer will typically not get deleted if it's just a bad answer but not rude/abusive etc.

Why is this other content still here?

The fact that things aren't consistently removed across the site is not evidence that we think they are ok, just that moderator's time is limited and usually focused on actual controversies - such as the one I was faced with here given the flag and the comments.

I also thought a bit more about the "your girlfriend is a scammer" example and in general I'd expect those kinds of answers are much more likely to be actually relevant to the question.

Edit wars

Firstly, let me be clear that I was acting with my mod hat on all the way through my interaction with this question - I was applying my judgement as a mod when I edited the answer in the first place, and I explicitly stated that the second time I applied the edit by leaving a comment. Ideally a second mod will also weigh into this discussion but this wasn't a case of me forming a "normal user" personal opinion and then using my mod powers to make it stick.

As far as any conflict between "clearly conflicts with author's intent" and "edits that improve a post" go, in the end it's the job of a mod to resolve that. Joe's answer explains the general approach to mod edits and edit wars so I won't spend time repeating it. From my side, I could have made it clearer earlier that it was an edit for moderation reasons.

What next?

I can see a few possible outcomes:

1. The status quo at the time of writing is that the first answer has been re-edited with a much milder statement, and the second answer is as edited by me.

2. Go back to the original content as written by the posters of both the first and second answer.

3. Go back to the original content as written by the poster of the first answer, but not the second answer.

4. Put both answers back to how they were after I edited them.

Overall moderation decisions are a judgement call and I'm sure that another mod, or me on a different day, might have made a different one. I don't actually normally spend hours thinking about each decision :-) But now that I have spent a while thinking about it and writing down my instinctive motivations in more detail, I still feel that what I did was a valid moderation choice amongst a range of reasonable options.

As we stand now, I think outcome 1, i.e. the status quo as I write this, is fine and it might be simplest to just leave it at that.

If anyone still wants to push for 2 or 3, i.e. restoring one or both of the stronger statements in the original content, I think another mod should make the call on it. They might want to consider any opinions from mods on other sites, and/or the sample of community opinion demonstrated by the discussion here.

Answer 7

Whatever the official SE viewpoint here it shows that there is a clear conflict with SE users and the Terms of Service.

If a user hands over their answers to SE and SE is the owner of their answers then there is a subtle contract between the entity (SE) and the user that links the views and the "opinions" of the user to the user and not the entity.

Based on this SE would reserve the right to edit things clearly inappropriate, obscene, or spammish. But clearly this question is not about these basic "moderated" areas and this question is about changing the opinion of someone in their own name.

The fact that SE employees (whether paid or unpaid) are allowed to edit out of context the "opinions" that the user owns now becomes owned by SE.

What this means... if I as a user want my answers squashed (deleted) from all SE sites I should have the right to do so because the oversite can clearly cause my answers to be completely altered by users and/or SE and these new answers could be defamatory towards my person and cause me as a user unjust future harm.

In a nutshell. It is illegal to put someone's words on my name. It doesn't matter if it says it was edited or not. There is no court in the US that would look at this and think a another outside user (employer/school/community) would research answers and edits and figure out who to attribute the words to. They would simply use the person's name on the answer. The moderator here is highlighting an injustice in the SE system where the user who answers a lot of questions could be unjustly harmed by SE and their mods/users. This is a significant issue but even a bigger issue because the user answering questions that has a chance to be harmed is not getting paid while making money for SE.