Grumpy mod note

Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, April 9th, 2022 - 28 comments
Categories: admin - Tags:

There is a strong expectation here that commenters don’t just post and run. Next time you come back to the site you should look at who is replying to you. This is common courtesy to the person you spoke to and to the wider community, but it’s also how you can see if you have a moderation note.

If there’s one thing that pisses off moderators, it’s having to waste our time chasing things like this up. I’ve just put someone in the ban list after they didn’t reply to my first two comments asking them to fix their username. I will see their comments in Trash once they realise what is going on, and then we can sort it out, but I’m not going to spend a lot of time chasing up people who are dropping comments and not paying attention. I want to be writing posts instead or out in the garden.

Speaking of usernames, there is a bug that means on some devices the Username or Email fields are easy to make a typo in. When this happens, the system treats you as a new user and holds your comment back for manual release by one of the mods. My estimate is that this alone is taking a sizeable chunk of moderator time to sort out, so please check the fields each time you comment if you are not permanently logged in.

As for checking who has replied to you, on the main site there is a Replies tab on the right hand side. If you click on this you will see all replies to your comments. This is true on the Desktop version on mobile devices too (you can switch to this version at the bottom of every page). It’s not available on the Mobile version, so my suggestion is that you switch to the Desktop version once or twice a day (or more if you are commenting a lot) and check.

28 comments on “Grumpy mod note ”

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  1. Incognito 1
    9 April 2022 at 11:32 am

    The TS moderators are kind people who serve the TS community day-in-day-out, but they do get a little grumpy when they’re treated as servants and taken for granted.

    Thank you for your understanding, courtesy, and cooperation angel

  2. Robert Guyton 2
    9 April 2022 at 11:33 am

    So easy to do.
    (Click the “Replies” button that is. Moderating, not so easy 🙂

  3. weston 3
    9 April 2022 at 12:59 pm

    There might be a bug in the replies function also weka mine often just produces a blank field , more commonly though it seems to me some commenters simply dont deign to reply , a trait especially prevalent with the more high profile commenters imo .

    • Incognito 3.1
      9 April 2022 at 1:23 pm

      Ok, here’s a trick that works well but requires a little more effort.

      Go to the home page (main page) of this site and in/with your browser do a search (Ctrl+F) on “weston”. Look at all the comments in Comments tab on the right-hand side that show up, most of which will be the ones you posted, some might be replies to your comments by others, and occasionally there might be one from a moderator. Although you cannot tell if a moderator left you a Mod note or was just replying as a commenter, but neither can you tell from the Replies tab and you have to click on the actual comment to find out. NB click on the title of the Post, not on your name.

      The Comments tab only holds ca. 200 of the most recent comments, so if there’s a lot of commenting activity it will cover a shorter time period.

    • Shanreagh 3.2
      9 April 2022 at 8:20 pm

      The point that i have found is that for the Replies to be visible, for me anyway, you need to be on the home page. You will get a blank white space if you are in a particular thread and click on the Replies tab.

      So if I click on Replies to the RHS from where I am now on this thread I get a white page.

      I have also used the search facility explained by Incognito, mainly when trying to find wondrous pieces of work I have already posted or to find wondrous posts from others who may have posted in the same thread but whose user name I have forgotten.

      • weka 3.2.1
        9 April 2022 at 8:33 pm

        What device are you using?

        • Grey Area 3.2.1.1
          9 April 2022 at 9:39 pm

          I've never seen this "Replies" button, not on my PC via Opera or Firefox, or on my mobile or on my mobile desktop version.

        • Shanreagh 3.2.1.2
          10 April 2022 at 10:21 am

          Laptop via Chrome and it is now showing I can reply from this thread. But sometimes I do get a white screen when I am in an individual thread and so then I go back to the main page to look at any comments.

          • weka 3.2.1.2.1
            10 April 2022 at 10:45 am

            does a page refresh sort it out? I get the blank one sometimes too but not often.

          • weka 3.2.1.2.2
            10 April 2022 at 10:48 am

            when you come to TS, are your name and email always pre-loaded into the comment fields?

            • Shanreagh 3.2.1.2.2.1
              10 April 2022 at 1:56 pm

              Yes – though a couple of times my cursor has jumped up and written something in my name part and so I am careful now when proofing to make sure this does not remain.

              Yes a page refresh normally sorts it.

  4. Grey Area 4
    9 April 2022 at 10:00 pm

    Aaah. It would be helpful to refer to the Comments tab then. I’ve been looking for something else.

  5. Simbit 5
    10 April 2022 at 8:44 am

    I don't follow, or rather don't follow for long. I wasn't aware this was a problem, or question of netiquette.

    Honestly I have better things to do, and my only expertise over what is displayed here is in an area that's gets little intelligent debate (debate I think is intelligent anyway) and occasionally results in subtle or not so subtle racism. This site was great when I first discovered it but now offers little I need to know. I do still drop in, especially after polls, but why scroll through a dozen comments between individuals who can't or won't agree?

    • weka 5.1
      10 April 2022 at 10:01 am

      If you do comment and you have ignored a moderation, your comment might not appear. Some people figure that out quickly, others don't. It's up to commenters to take some responsibility for that.

      • Incognito 5.1.1
        10 April 2022 at 12:50 pm

        It’s also up to the commenters to lead the convos and discussions here; it’s not up to the Mods.

    • roblogic 5.2
      10 April 2022 at 7:42 pm

      Disagreement is the soul of democracy. Better than unilateral rule by force.

  6. roblogic 6
    12 April 2022 at 5:00 pm

    Commenting from an iPad is extra tricky and it's easy to get it wrong because the Reply function doesn't work properly. The funky javascript reply widget doesn't load properly and I am unable to type in the text box. So I have to periodically turn off js and reload the page, then reply with the basic html version, which doesn't pre-load my username.

    Therefore typos are more likely from iPad users

  7. In Vino 7
    13 April 2022 at 8:58 pm

    OK Weka

    I read your post, clicked on replies, and found that I could immediately see who had replied to whatever I had posted.

    Great – I used to be silly enough to scroll down through 'Comments' looking for just that.

    But 2 days later I find that the 'Replies ' button has totally disappeared from my screen. For 2 days now that 'Reply' button has been gone.

    Why is that? You can hardly urge people to use a button that your website immediately removes. Or does your website discriminate against some users?

    • Grey Area 7.1
      14 April 2022 at 7:51 am

      Same for me. It appeared a couple of days ago and went away again.

    • roblogic 7.2
      15 April 2022 at 12:33 am

      It's probably an expired or deleted cookie — when you make a comment it should save your profile but sometimes the cookie will be deleted by your browser settings. Then the site won’t recognise you and the Reply tab will not show up

    • weka 7.3
      15 April 2022 at 1:36 am

      are you having to retype your name and email address each time, or is it preloaded?