Deleting threads on Loomio

@danielhurley1 yes.

Then what is the point of having different comms channels/platforms?

@danielhurley1 I think there were few reasons behind this experiment.

But the limitation of the platforms, the degree of their adoption, and the transionational nature of this phase should NOT be an excuse to exclude the majority of nestling from important conversations such as this one.

@amirkhadr Such an important conversation, someone deleted a Loomio discussion they started and it took all the replies with it. Anyone is free to start the discussion again (but no one has).

Loomio is well advertised in the community and people aren't going to adopt it if we persist in having the conversations on facebook anyway.

To shift we need to eventually say "No from now on: A is for X, B is for Y, C is for Z"

This post may have been created in response to that specific Loomio discussion, but it's much broader. It is about co-creating our community standards and values.

If we create a culture where it is accepted that people can delete other people's posts that consisted of hours of time and effort, just because they don't like where the conversation went, It will disincentivise people from engaging in the future. That doesn't seem helpful or constructive.

You say that no one has restarted the conversation. It's been what, one day since it was deleted? Give it time. The topic may not be the same, but there are clearly issues within it which are still very much alive for this community.

People are chatting on Facebook too. So what? The quality of conversation here is much more considered, and what is said on this platform is much more likely to shape the future agenda, as opposed to a facebook thread that will be forgotten after a week.

There has been no criticism of others signposting other Loomio posts. In fact it has been encouraged by many (including the core team), to increase engagement with Loomio. Is your criticism of this post being posted on Facebook because of its specific content, or for any Loomio post to be posted on Facebook?

Simon I am against the deletion of the comments of others.

Facebook should be a front of house and event specific platform. As you say loomio is better for considered conversation and the more in depth discussions that aren't event specific (such as the deletion of a conversation on loomio) do not belong on facebook.

The conversations on facebook over the past few months have descended into utter toxicity and in my opinion should not be occurring on the social media platform that serves as an advertisement and engagement tool to attendees new and old who want to hear about theme camps and travel arrangements not what has essentially become the same 20 or so of us bickering about hierarchy or whatever bullshit.

People are not forgetting the conversations that occur on facebook (the ones leading up to the event were prominently discussed during so in my experience) and the manner in which they've been carried out is now actively harming Nest. You can't have missed the now countless comments in these discussions of people saying how sick and tired they are of the tone of those chats and how potential attendees they know have been turned off from going, we have core team members are having enough and are talking about packing it in because what they feel is abuse directed their way (some already have stepped down I believe), I have a member of my camp who says they don't want to come back next year because of how awful everything is online whenever they log on. So lets push the conversation to where it is more polite and constructive and those who don't want to see how Nest gets made can avoid doing so.

Absolutely let people know Loomio is where the nitty gritty gets hashed out and actively encourage people to come over if they want to get stuck in (rather than having mirrored and lower quality debates/discussion on facebook).

I could be in favour of signposting individual loomio conversations on the facebook page under the following conditions:
* It's Nest specific rather than discussion of how X button works on loomio or whatever
* The facebook post linking to here has comments blocked.
* We're not spamming the page (If 80% of the posts on the facebook page are links to loomio then we need to consider a new method, maybe a weekly post to loomio and a list of the most active chats).

the FB group has over 2000 members, loomio so far has less than a hundred people posted on it. the idea was to bring the people who wanted to have debates too loomio, so it didn't happen on FB.... it totally backfired, as they all just replied on FB in a very debating way, whilst telling me they didn't want to have debated on FB, on a post telling them debates where now in a new place.... it all got very meta really. i think the problem is that so many people in nest are addicted to FB, me included it seems. i wish i could rise above that, i am trying

2000 ? WTF ?

So, maybe 200 nestlings. 200 more former and otherwise associated nestlings. And 1600 trolls, bots and bikeshedders.
It's hardly any wonder the discussions are toxic : they're not actually people involved with it.

Just. Burn. It.

I'm sorry you're addicted to it. Stop accepting it 'because everyone's there'. Read up on just how bad it actually is, and why. Since you're a tech type, I'd recommend The Register for a suitably cynical view. And don't touch it with a bargepole, for your own sake.

I knew it was bad, I didn't realise just HOW bad.

i know all about the problems with facebook, and used to read theregister before it got too many paid articles on there too, few places online are safe unless you set them up yourself these days

Absolutely, though since I have no interest in the products they're pushing they don't get much traction with me, and the commenters are of generally good quality (ignoring the US right wingers and the UK.gov astroturfers). In fact, I use google - one of the worst offenders, though a bit less often caught out in outright lies than facebook. One of my measures is that I can track the worst excesses of maybe one or two such vendors but not all of them, so i keep off the vast majority to save time.

Tom is it worth editing your original post and title to reflect the debate in hand, which seems to be about how and why posts are moderated. That way we're discussing solutions rather than making it personal and specific to one action (which turned out not to be to do with censorship by moderators). This bit is I think a pretty good question:

What policy of moderation and deletion do others find acceptable on loomio? Personally I think only illegal content of content which legally jepodises the event or contacts nest is involved in should be deleted and replaced with a statement saying that has happened and why (eg. This post was deleted as it leaked the site address / told people to jump the fence) . Does the person who started a thread own it's comments and have the right to delete it or is it all owned by the community.

i have done, thanks for the suggestion

In answer to the moderation part of things, I think communication channels are a tool and our approach to how we manage them should be pragmatic. You assess what you're trying to achieve, you assess your capabilities e.g. software, existing culture, and THEN you decide your strategy.

In this case I think people should be allowed to delete their own posts because that's the norm people expect - we expect to have control over our own publishing rather than leaving an indelible mark on the Internet forever. If there isn't tech capability to archive responses to these deleted posts, I don't think it's so important that we should be wasting community resources on coming up with a complex system to address that.

More broadly, it is sometimes appropriate in my opinion to moderate off topic posts, and personal insults/unkind words as done by Extinction Rebellion for example. I think there's a case for removal of off topic threads on Loomio, if we the Nestlings judge that this will help Loomio meet its intended purpose.

If anybody can delete the thread they started (for whichever reason) or this becomes something that we just have to deal with, I think i would progressively lose trust in the platform/community and probably stop engaging altogether.

I find extremely wrong the idea that my time, energy, and contribution could be wiped away because someone has decided that they have the right to do so simply because they initiated the thread.

I would say nothing of value should be on facebook. It's a closed channel with inappropriate usage conditions. It should be used as a publicity channel only, and contain nothing that is not published elsewhere.

Of course, this only applies to an 'official' channel. Anybody is free to have their own facebook group and post whatever they like in it. Nest has both this channel for public debate and a website for publicity. It just shouldn't be a requirement to join a commercial organisation with a different agenda and very dubious morals in order to keep up with Nest doings.

As for deletions, I think Tom's list is overcomplicated. No full thread should ever be deleted except by the owner, and with the agreement of anyone who posted in it. Individual postings might certainly be deleted without notice : but should be replaced by a short posting saying why that happened (and it would normally, but not necessarily, be because it violated guidelines such personally-directed remarks, doxing, spam, trolling etc,). Some threads might be locked rather than deleted if the discussion appears to be unproductive, but might later be unlocked following reasoned discussion.

I like this approach: No deletion of the thread without everyone who has posted's agreement, but individuals can delete their own posts if they want.

I agree but would be concerned if mechanically... a person deletes their own post that started a thread, then everything in the thread that followed from others will also get deleted

What is the point of creating a discussion platform to avoid discussion? If you start a topic people are going to answer. It is easy to keep the answers when they agree. What is difficult is to keep them when they disagree. I do not understand why any post should be deleted by anyone just because they decide that topic is not worth talking about. The main problems I see are these:

-people telling others what to talk about, when to talk about it and how to talk about it. If you do not follow these instructions you are accused of hurting the community. We are being told even what to say. Disagreeing is seen as being disrespectful and harmful.

• Education: assuming that if I say something you disagree with is because I do not understand what Nest is about and I need to be enlightened in somebody's understanding and experience of it . And if I have a different vision I am again hurting the community.

What is really hurting the community is this constant discussion policing and accusing people of spoiling the event because they do not agree with an official version of it which seems to be a universal truth. I understand moderation and deleting disrespectful insulting posts, particularly if they are a personal attacks.
However, deleting posts because someone does not agree with its content which respectfully express an opinion is censorship. Which is kind of a paradox in an event that promotes radical self-expression. It is kind of: express yourself , but not too much, but not like this, but not on this platform....

Please stop telling people what to say or do just because it is not what you want them to say or do.

I agree with almost everything said here, although as Amir pointed out I think it's more immaturity and lack of awareness of the wider consequences of one's own actions than censorship.

Whilst I think Tom's initial post could have written in a more diplomatic way, I've found some of the Facebook responses very interesting. Some people have written that challenging conversations are scaring people off. I can understand that. As a culture we are not so great at conflict.

We are a large and diverse community, of course we're going to have different views, that's part of the richness of burns. Burns provide us with an opportunity to learn how to engage with others who disagree with us, from a place of openness and compassion. I think we're still in the process of learning how to do that online.

Burns have been a great space for me to meet and engage with people who see the world in a completely different way to me, challenging my beliefs in the process.

What I see as really toxic is a small group of individuals who are actively bullying and shaming anyone who disagrees with them. It seems they are trying to make Nest (and other burns) into a space that only welcomes people who share their perspective.

I've spoken with countless people who don't want to engage with Facebook and have stopped coming to Nest because of the behaviour of these individuals. And I don't know the best way to challenge this, as many have put a lot of time and effort to do this in the past, and this behaviour still continues.

One thing to add (which might just be me misunderstanding you), there is no "official version" of what the event should be, even if some people post/act as if their way is the official way.

I like @franellis idea of not deleting threads but perhaps putting something like "concluded" in the title to show a thread has run its course. I don't know if there's the ability to freeze a thread in Loomio? That can be helpful for a discussion that's getting too broad/disorganised to be useful - no deleting but stopping new posts from being added so people can start a fresh thread with more focus.

loomio has loads of features and is easy to extend too, I intend to start playing more with this in August. If you want to look at a really different way of debating things in the mean time, look at kialo.com there are so many other options than threaded comments like FB and this loomio

I agree so much with what is being said here. There is a small group of people shutting down discussion because it goes against their personal views and they don't like what is being said.

And it is then followed up with: these people are volunteers. As if being unpaid means there are no consequences to the choices that have been made.

Up until a few months ago I was reading comment to others and I was shocked at the ferocity and how nasty they became almost instantly.

But it wasn't until i said something that was disagreed with that I suddenly felt the full force of it and the closing of ranks.

One minute I was safely on one side of the wall and part of the 'clique' and the next minute I was thrown from the ballistrads.

That is when you feel the full force of suppression and that accusation that you are an enemy destroying nest.

I have tried to say time and again that because there is a disagreement it doesn't mean you dislike a person

But frankly, I'm not sure that some people have that level of maturity .

This shutting down of conversation because you don't like where the discussion is censorship.

Especially if you are trying to shut down the debate on loomio which is specifically where open debate is supposed to be

And even more so if the discussion is polite.

I am also thinking of leaving nest community as I feel bullied by this

Totally agree with everything you said there. Sending consentual hugs!