Purple Moosage indicated editing required, but...

Hi everybody.

I received a normal purple moosage requesting an edit of a post for what could be considered excessive snark, which I suppose is fine. But when I got there, the post wasn't blocked from public view.

I added a bracketed edit for clarification of my intent at the end of the first paragraph, incidentally, as the post had already been replied to in detail, and I wanted everything to continue to make sense. I hope that's in line with the publishing standards.

I wasn't aware that we had to edit for snark, but I will keep that in mind, seeing as the point of posting is communication. But I think that's as tall an order, in some cases, as editing for hubris.

Is there a way to add a reply button to posts generated for editing purposes such that we can ask for clarification? Not to identify the staff that flagged it, but just to direct honest queries in a respectful fashion to the person taking issue with it for purposes of ensuring the situation is ameliorated. I don't usually have issues editing anything to meet the publication standards, but in the rare instances where I do, it's usually due to ambiguity.

-CK

We've got the ability to put a post under probation (where it's blocked from everyone's view except the posters) or to just put it on "Training Wheels" (it might be called "almost-a-post" now, or something else). Basically, the Training Wheels keeps the post visible to everyone, opens the edit button for the writer of the post and allows them to edit away minor issues. Minor issues could be a non-working link, or a change of format in a book review, to change a font color to something visible, or to remove/change some words that some people might find offensive and start a flame war about. We find it's easier to nip a flame war in the bud, so to speak, and sometimes "snark" can start a flame war. Flame wars are a MESS to moderate. If we can keep them from happening, we're really happy!

Starting a thread--like you did--in tinkering, is really the best way to communicate with whoever put your post on training wheels/probation. You could, I guess, "report" your own post and ask a question there. We'll all see that "report" and you might get a PM back from "Staff" and that "Staff" will likely be the person who put your post on edit....but it's a messy way of going about it. Tinkering is Paul's preferred way of dealing with moderation questions.

Groovy, got it. I wasn't aware of the training wheels feature.  Thanks.

-CK

Yeah, the Training Wheels/Almost-a-Post PM looks a lot like the probabtion post, which I think makes this confusing.

It currently says

Today, I have been activated because bio-staff have classified a post you wrote as "does not meet our publishing standards".   That bio-staff person provided this clue:


"Words from staff/moderator/gardener/steward person about what needs to be changed goes here "


It used to be that the bio-staff would just quietly delete a post like this, and then command me to perform an evil cackle.   But now, sometimes, the thought is "this post is really good!  With a little bit of editing we will be able to publish it!"   We call this new feature in my programming "Almost-a-Post."  

We're currently working on changing the wording so it says something a little different than "does not meet our publishing standards" so that when someone just has to change a link, they don't feel like they're being sent to the principal's office. But, this requires  changes to our programming, and that takes time!  

Almost-a-post is going to go through several upgrades over the next few weeks/months.   One of the things on the list is the ability to modify the message to be more about "broken link" or "wonky use of the quote tags" than "publishing standards"