PMs between JordanMalfreed and Dave Scribner
[This is an example of some of the trouble that this contest started on the Cafe. Don't feel obligated to read the whole thing, I just put it up here for reference. It's a somewhat interesting discussion. The weirdest part is how sad I felt for Dave Scribner after reading it. This guy spends his time deleting posts on a magic message board under someone else's direction. Scribner, let's be honest, isn't there a much better use of your time out there somewhere? -- Andy]
Dave Scribner to JordanMalfreed
Jordan, you may have noticed that many of your posts have been deleted. Whenever we see a sudden increase in posts in one or two days, we automatically go in and start looking at them. Sometimes there is no problem, other times, they post are just from someone trying to reach the 50 post level.
In your case, most of the post you made were responding to questions posed 2 to 3 years ago and to people who no longer visit the Café.
Many of them didn't really add to the conversation but were simply telling people to basically search the internet for an answer.
While we encourage members to post, we also want them to post helpful information in response to fairly recent conversation. For example, in one post, you responded to a member who had provided a link to his web site with something like "the link doesn't work, do you still need help". The original message was posted in 2002. We're sure by now, the member either knows the link is bad or has changed the URL. In either case, your response didn't help.
Jordan to Dave
Dear Dave,
With all due respect to your intent, I think you are very incorrect in your
assumptions.
As evidence I submit that you check out the response that I was sent via PM to one of the very old threads I addressed yesterday. I was told personally from the person that they really appreciate my help. Please note that the query on the Café was a couple years old. Please also note that you deleted my response to this gentleman's query for help, even though he personally felt I helped him enough that he took the effort to write me a note to thank me for my help. It seems your goal and the effect are not matching each other. I humbly suggest you consider modifying your modifications.
The post which I give here is just an example, but it's a pretty clear example of you deleting something which was genuinely appreciated by the person with the questions.
Also, the older questions which have received no answer are generally the ones that still need an answer. People wait for years for answers to questions hoping that someone will come through for them. If you don't want anyone to answer these questions on the Café, then why do the questions remain on the board. If you are going to get rid of any answers that attempt to help, particularly ones that are appreciated by the questioner, then just get rid of the content and clear your server of the space you consider to be wasted.
I'm quite curious what you would say in response to all of this. Thank goodness that this gentleman read my response so quickly. Otherwise, he would have been denied this help due to your removing my post.
I appreciate the mission statement of the Café, but I'm not sure that with the deletion of messages that the Café can live up to its mission statement. I hope you can consider the information I've provided here and do what you believe is best.
Regards,
Jordan
---PM from person appreciating my response---
Thanks for your help. I've been looking for info on this edition for a
while. I didn't have much luck the first time I asked about it:
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=23665&forum=19
thanks again,
verno inferno
Dave to Jordan
There of course are exception to everything, and while you did receive a response from one or two of your posts, for the most part, as I mentioned earlier, in general, you were responding to people who never visit the Café and in a lot of cases, not members any longer. We don't remove posts when they become old as many of them offer valuable information. I didn't arbitrarily remove your posts just because they responded to old topics. I read every topic in it's entirety before making the decision as to whether it was helping. You'll see that some were left.
In some cases, the original question in 2002 was answered by other members shortly after it was posed. Your response in 2005 is most likely not going to be read by that originator and is providing answers to an already answered question.
This isn't a problem to lose sleep over but is just sent as an awareness to you to read the topic and evaluate if your response is necessary before posting.
Jordan to Dave
Dear Dave,
You can do what you want, because clearly you run the Café, not the members. It's not my call to make. I'm able to make a suggestion, but I can't implement any changes.
I did read the threads to which you are referring before I posted anything. I felt, and still do, that my comments were genuinely adding value. Perhaps maybe one or two were a bit more of commentary than anything else, but certainly I was not the only one in the thread to do that. Sometimes my comments were similar regarding different questions. Sometimes the same answer suffices for different questions, as was true in this case. There are some good resources that I pointed these people towards.
If you want to remove comments in the Café that don't add value to a discussion, you'll have a full time job for many people, but I don't want to get into a discussion of that with you really.
My point is that clearly I did provide value even in the case where you removed my comments. The person in this case who provided me with feedback and thanks only got the chance to do so because he somehow saw my comments within an hour or so of my entering them. Even this guy who thanked me would have no chance to get my help if he had not read the board so quickly. That's why I made the suggestion that you might consider changing the way you delete content. Your decision is clearly not the same as the person who was seeking the help. I'm just suggesting you consider your policy and whether or not it's meeting the needs of your customers and client base. I happen to be one of your customers and was voicing my opinion. You get to accept or reject it at your discression.
There are exceptions to lots of things, which is true, but that's precisely what I'm showing you. I'm showing you that by following some strange individual determination of what is valid and invalid, you sometimes are going to delete content that is valuable to people. I spent some time trying to help someone, and without so much as a question or comment, it was silently and suddenly wiped away. I can't help but wonder what value is obtained by erasing my posts. The impact on the storage capacity of your server and bandwidth would have been pretty minimal, especially considering the low amount of traffic that this subsection of the Café sees.
Actually, your decision to delete the content is arbitrary. Arbitrary is, "based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something." That's what I'm pointing out to you.
By the way, I'll not be losing any sleep whatsoever about what goes on at the Café. It's not worth it.
Do you think you might consider changing or even modifying the manner in which you and your staff delete content? Just wondering.
Best to you,
Jordan
Dave to Jordan
Jordan, I don't make the rules for the Café so changing our criteria for editing or deleting would not be my decision. I work directly for the owner of the Café and my decisions are based on his directions to me and my experience since I've been here almost from the beginning. The criteria I used in deleting your posts is the same I use and have used, for everyone and is also the one used by all of the staff members that work for me.
Yes, it's a full time job and we have 16 people reading and working the posts each and every day making the same decisions I made in this case. Yes, it's an individual determination but it's based on the guidelines we have established for the staff. I'm not the Chief of Staff because I make those decisions based on my own personal beliefs but because I follow the wishes of the owner. He often says it's his sandbox and he makes the rules. The Café is different from a lot of other sites and that's the way he wants it.
So, will we ever consider changing our manner of operation, who knows. If my directives are changed or the philosophy of the owner changes, then my decisions and directions to the staff will follow suit. Until that, we'll continue to work as we have in the past.
BTW, I never took your comments as criticism or bashing the rules of the Café. You and all of the members are entitled to their opinions and we do listen to them, believe it or not. Sometimes we, as managers will agree, other times we won't.
Jordan to Dave
Dear Dave,
Thanks very much for your candor. I understand.
I wish you the very best.
Regards,
Jordan
Dave Scribner to JordanMalfreed
Jordan, you may have noticed that many of your posts have been deleted. Whenever we see a sudden increase in posts in one or two days, we automatically go in and start looking at them. Sometimes there is no problem, other times, they post are just from someone trying to reach the 50 post level.
In your case, most of the post you made were responding to questions posed 2 to 3 years ago and to people who no longer visit the Café.
Many of them didn't really add to the conversation but were simply telling people to basically search the internet for an answer.
While we encourage members to post, we also want them to post helpful information in response to fairly recent conversation. For example, in one post, you responded to a member who had provided a link to his web site with something like "the link doesn't work, do you still need help". The original message was posted in 2002. We're sure by now, the member either knows the link is bad or has changed the URL. In either case, your response didn't help.
Jordan to Dave
Dear Dave,
With all due respect to your intent, I think you are very incorrect in your
assumptions.
As evidence I submit that you check out the response that I was sent via PM to one of the very old threads I addressed yesterday. I was told personally from the person that they really appreciate my help. Please note that the query on the Café was a couple years old. Please also note that you deleted my response to this gentleman's query for help, even though he personally felt I helped him enough that he took the effort to write me a note to thank me for my help. It seems your goal and the effect are not matching each other. I humbly suggest you consider modifying your modifications.
The post which I give here is just an example, but it's a pretty clear example of you deleting something which was genuinely appreciated by the person with the questions.
Also, the older questions which have received no answer are generally the ones that still need an answer. People wait for years for answers to questions hoping that someone will come through for them. If you don't want anyone to answer these questions on the Café, then why do the questions remain on the board. If you are going to get rid of any answers that attempt to help, particularly ones that are appreciated by the questioner, then just get rid of the content and clear your server of the space you consider to be wasted.
I'm quite curious what you would say in response to all of this. Thank goodness that this gentleman read my response so quickly. Otherwise, he would have been denied this help due to your removing my post.
I appreciate the mission statement of the Café, but I'm not sure that with the deletion of messages that the Café can live up to its mission statement. I hope you can consider the information I've provided here and do what you believe is best.
Regards,
Jordan
---PM from person appreciating my response---
Thanks for your help. I've been looking for info on this edition for a
while. I didn't have much luck the first time I asked about it:
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=23665&forum=19
thanks again,
verno inferno
Dave to Jordan
There of course are exception to everything, and while you did receive a response from one or two of your posts, for the most part, as I mentioned earlier, in general, you were responding to people who never visit the Café and in a lot of cases, not members any longer. We don't remove posts when they become old as many of them offer valuable information. I didn't arbitrarily remove your posts just because they responded to old topics. I read every topic in it's entirety before making the decision as to whether it was helping. You'll see that some were left.
In some cases, the original question in 2002 was answered by other members shortly after it was posed. Your response in 2005 is most likely not going to be read by that originator and is providing answers to an already answered question.
This isn't a problem to lose sleep over but is just sent as an awareness to you to read the topic and evaluate if your response is necessary before posting.
Jordan to Dave
Dear Dave,
You can do what you want, because clearly you run the Café, not the members. It's not my call to make. I'm able to make a suggestion, but I can't implement any changes.
I did read the threads to which you are referring before I posted anything. I felt, and still do, that my comments were genuinely adding value. Perhaps maybe one or two were a bit more of commentary than anything else, but certainly I was not the only one in the thread to do that. Sometimes my comments were similar regarding different questions. Sometimes the same answer suffices for different questions, as was true in this case. There are some good resources that I pointed these people towards.
If you want to remove comments in the Café that don't add value to a discussion, you'll have a full time job for many people, but I don't want to get into a discussion of that with you really.
My point is that clearly I did provide value even in the case where you removed my comments. The person in this case who provided me with feedback and thanks only got the chance to do so because he somehow saw my comments within an hour or so of my entering them. Even this guy who thanked me would have no chance to get my help if he had not read the board so quickly. That's why I made the suggestion that you might consider changing the way you delete content. Your decision is clearly not the same as the person who was seeking the help. I'm just suggesting you consider your policy and whether or not it's meeting the needs of your customers and client base. I happen to be one of your customers and was voicing my opinion. You get to accept or reject it at your discression.
There are exceptions to lots of things, which is true, but that's precisely what I'm showing you. I'm showing you that by following some strange individual determination of what is valid and invalid, you sometimes are going to delete content that is valuable to people. I spent some time trying to help someone, and without so much as a question or comment, it was silently and suddenly wiped away. I can't help but wonder what value is obtained by erasing my posts. The impact on the storage capacity of your server and bandwidth would have been pretty minimal, especially considering the low amount of traffic that this subsection of the Café sees.
Actually, your decision to delete the content is arbitrary. Arbitrary is, "based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something." That's what I'm pointing out to you.
By the way, I'll not be losing any sleep whatsoever about what goes on at the Café. It's not worth it.
Do you think you might consider changing or even modifying the manner in which you and your staff delete content? Just wondering.
Best to you,
Jordan
Dave to Jordan
Jordan, I don't make the rules for the Café so changing our criteria for editing or deleting would not be my decision. I work directly for the owner of the Café and my decisions are based on his directions to me and my experience since I've been here almost from the beginning. The criteria I used in deleting your posts is the same I use and have used, for everyone and is also the one used by all of the staff members that work for me.
Yes, it's a full time job and we have 16 people reading and working the posts each and every day making the same decisions I made in this case. Yes, it's an individual determination but it's based on the guidelines we have established for the staff. I'm not the Chief of Staff because I make those decisions based on my own personal beliefs but because I follow the wishes of the owner. He often says it's his sandbox and he makes the rules. The Café is different from a lot of other sites and that's the way he wants it.
So, will we ever consider changing our manner of operation, who knows. If my directives are changed or the philosophy of the owner changes, then my decisions and directions to the staff will follow suit. Until that, we'll continue to work as we have in the past.
BTW, I never took your comments as criticism or bashing the rules of the Café. You and all of the members are entitled to their opinions and we do listen to them, believe it or not. Sometimes we, as managers will agree, other times we won't.
Jordan to Dave
Dear Dave,
Thanks very much for your candor. I understand.
I wish you the very best.
Regards,
Jordan
posted by Andy at 10:31 AM
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