Censorship of legitimate opinion is not acceptable

I am incensed by the decision by one of the Moderators to remove Replies from this Thread about a poor quality questionnaire which has now been locked, to add insult to injury.

None of the Replies that has been removed was in any way abusive and, IMHO, abuse or repetition is the only justification for deleting Replies.

I have in the past recorded my heartfelt appreciation of the work of the Moderators. Unless these unwarranted deletions are reversed I will find less easy to admire the Moderators in the future.

The irony is that the Moderator would have created less work for himself if he had just left everything alone.

The internet should remain a vehicle for the widest possible range of opinions.

...R

Have already PM'd you on the matter.

Also read your report to the moderators.
I stand by my decision as I took some considerable time to think about it.
This is the SECOND time you seem to have delighted in tearing up a users questionnaire.
Not sure why you seem to delight in such matters ?

Locked it to allow a cool down period.

ballscrewbob:
Have already PM'd you on the matter.

Please say what you have to say in public. I have nothing to hide.

This is the SECOND time you seem to have delighted in tearing up a users questionnaire.
Not sure why you seem to delight in such matters ?

I object strongly to your use of the word "delight" to disparage my legitimate opinions. In the case of the recent questionnaire I went to considerable trouble to justify my opinions with several examples from the survey - all of which was deleted.

By carefully listing the questions and my comments there was ample opportunity for you (or anyone else) to post an alternative view.

Please post a link to the Thread about the earlier questionnaire you are referring to - I have forgotten.

Just because questionnaire A is not good it does not follow that questionnaire B is good.

...R

Robin2:
I am incensed by the decision by one of the Moderators to remove Replies ...

Me too. It is not up to @ballscrewbob to decide whether my posts are "CRUD" and then arbitrarily delete them just because he thinks he knows more about the subject than I do.
If @ballscrewbob has qualifications and experience in questionnaire construction and knows what I said was wrong, then say so and prove it. Otherwise, butt out and restore my posts in that thread.
When people post code that is wrong, I will point out some or all of the errors and I will (probably) continue to do so.
When someone posts a survey here that I think is wrong, I say so. What is wrong with that?

ballscrewbob:
I stand by my decision as I took some considerable time to think about it.

It doesn't matter how long you thought about it, you're wrong. AFAIK, you are the only moderator who has taken it upon themselves to delete posts just because they didn't like them.

I still don't get what is so special about this particular survey anyway. Just because it purports to be from a University doesn't make it any more special or valid than any other survey that has been posted here in the past.

Pete

My tuppence (as I remember it):

The post in question was originally posted in the wrong section, so I moved it.

There was some discussion on the thread, and then the promoter of the survey took it upon themselves to post more copies of the invitation to the survey in different sections of the forum, which I deleted as cross-posting, and slapped the account with a timeout.

The account was then duplicated multiple times as a means of circumventing the timeout.
The duplicate accounts were deleted.

At this point, there was some behind the scenes discussion about whether or not I had been too harsh. The account was reinstated, and I backed away, because I had had enough of dealing with this particular account.

IMO, the survey is poorly constructed and has little or no merit.

@ballscrewbob is a new moderator - please cut him some slack.

None of us gets any kind of recompense for this work, neither are we given training nor guidance from Above.

Please, we all have lives to be getting on with.

AWOL:
The account was then duplicated multiple times as a means of circumventing the timeout.
The duplicate accounts were deleted.

If I had known that I would have objected even more strongly to any support for the questionnaire.

In recognition of your request I will say no more.

...R

“None of us gets any kind of recompense for this work,”

That’s not totally true, I have 3 beers for each moderator sitting in my fridge ready for the drinking.

3 beers and I would be asleep in a corner especially if its Guinness

Unless its night time in which case my limit seems to increase like a vampires thirst.

First, I want to make it crystal clear that my problem is only with @ballscrewbob. The other moderators had nothing to do with the deletion of the messages in this thread. The issues being raised here are above their pay grade and they should kick this whole thing upstairs.

I think that I may have reported one of the early crossposts by @Valerie_Research but I was, of course, unaware of all the behind-the-scenes machinations that later occurred, as described by @AWOL. But none of that explains or excuses @ballscrewbob's deletion of a significant fraction of the thread.

AWOL:
IMO, the survey is poorly constructed and has little or no merit.

OK. What are you gonna do if @ballscrewbob deletes your comment because he disagrees with it?
Oh wait. You're a mod. That isn't likely to happen is it?
Oh wait. He deleted two of your three posts in the original thread as well!
Nobody is safe.

AWOL:
@ballscrewbob is a new moderator - please cut him some slack.

I am willing to do that and indeed I have done so by remaining on this forum for the past week in the hope that this situation can be resolved satisfactorily. He PMd me 3 times and I tried to reason with him. He has not only flatly refused to reverse his decision but he will not justify what he has done nor has he explained what was wrong with what I said. He has unilaterally decided that, for whatever reason, the subject of questionnaires and their construction is a Holy Topic and anyone who disagrees with his views will have their messages deleted.
In message #53 of the original thread, where he says "Remember R2?", he seems to be proud of the fact that he also deleted messages from another thread about a survey. If you read that thread now, no evidence remains that there were any opinions that contradicted @ballscrewbob's warped view of the world. How many other threads has he mangled that we don't know about and how many more will he mangle in the future? How many more Holy Topics are there which will bring down the wrath of @ballscrewbob if I or anyone else dare transgress the orthodox (i.e. his) view?

I have B.Sc.(Honours) and an M.Sc. in computer science (which involved, amongst other things, courses in statistics) and I have spent almost my entire working life at a university. I have seen (almost) first-hand, what can happen when a questionnaire isn't properly constructed. Because of that, I feel that I have some qualifications and experience to at least make legitimate comments on the subject of questionnaire construction without them being subject to arbitrary deletion.
I am not willing to have @ballscrewbob sit in judgement over my posts when:
(a) he won't explain or justify what he has done
(b) he has not answered my challenge in message #3 in this thread (i.e. PROVE I'm wrong).
(c) so far, all he has done in his PMs to me and in the mutilated thread is demonstrate that he doesn't understand the issues of questionnaire construction.

To rectify this situation @ballscrewbob needs to do just two things:
(a) he restores the thread (#579172) to its original condition (with no deleted messages) AND it is unlocked and it stays that way.
(b) Further discussion on any topic, but especially about questionnaire construction, in this or any other thread is NOT arbitrarily judged and censored by him (i.e. there are no Holy Topics).

But he created this mess.

HE needs to fix it.

Until he does fix it to my satisfaction, I am outta here.

Pete

@el_supremo

Answered and dealt with your points by PM.
Also told you to appeal but NO you waited until this post got a bite.

END OF !

None of us gets any kind of recompense for this work, neither are we given training nor guidance from Above.

Please, we all have lives to be getting on with.

With all due respect AWOL, but nobody is forcing you to do this. If you don't like doing it then don't. But don't expect some sort of sympathy from me because you're a volunteer. That's your decision man.

Nothing against you, hope you understand. I just think it is a bit disingenuous when you guys act like we are putting you out because you have to monitor this board for free. That's all done willingly by you and if you don't want to then you don't have to. All I'm saying is don't act like I owe you anything for it.

Answered and dealt with your points by PM

I haven't read them (the PM hasn't arrived in my inbox yet) but you've only (apparently) answered those points because I asked them here.

Also told you to appeal

Yes, you said appeal to a moderator. I am not willing to pass this on to force another moderator to have to pass judgement on you. If you'd bothered to read my message carefully you'd notice that in the very first paragraph I said:

The other moderators had nothing to do with the deletion of the messages in this thread. The issues being raised here are above their pay grade and they should kick this whole thing upstairs.

I am also not willing to discuss this via PM with you any more. If you want to argue your case, you do so openly.

END OF.

Pete
P.S. while I was typing this @Delta_G responded to @AWOL. I don't agree with his sentiment (but I'm not going to demand that it be deleted!).

PS, I don't want #10 to come off as a lack of appreciation. What you do IS appreciated. Celebrated even. My only point is don't act as if it were forced on you. You do it by choice. If that choice makes you unhappy then choose differently.

larryd:
That’s not totally true, I have 3 beers for each moderator sitting in my fridge ready for the drinking.

Bummer. And here I am with just two hands. I wonder if Simone has something to help with my dilemma.

A few minutes later... Ah, yes. Just the thing.

ballscrewbob:
@el_supremo

Answered and dealt with your points by PM.
Also told you to appeal but NO you waited until this post got a bite.

END OF !

This has got to the stage where Bob should NOT be acting as the judge in regard to the acceptability of his own decisions.

If Bob is unwilling to reinstate the deleted posts then, even though it is extra unwanted work the decision about this should be made by one (preferably more than one) of the other Moderators or by whoever is the "boss" of the Moderators.

...R

Delta_G:
PS, I don't want #10 to come off as a lack of appreciation. What you do IS appreciated. Celebrated even. My only point is don't act as if it were forced on you. You do it by choice. If that choice makes you unhappy then choose differently.

About the only thing that makes me unhappy is the thought that if I do foxtrot oscar away from the forum, I push more work onto the other mods.

I hope it was clear from my Original Post in this Thread that I, also, have a high regard for the Moderators - with the exception of this particular issue.

...R

ballscrewbob:
Answered and dealt with your points by PM.

I thought you meant you had sent another PM answering my #8, but there still wasn't a new PM here this morning. Then I realized that you are referring to the three PMs you've already sent me.
If I thought that you had "dealt with" it in those PMs there would have been no need for me to post my message #8 here.

Tell you what. Post those three PMs here and show the world that it has been "dealt with". You needn't be concerned that your PMs contain quotes from my previous PMs. I explicitly give you permission to post your PMs in their unedited entirety.

Pete

Transparency? El Supremo you have to understand how authority abhors transparency. I doubt any of our moderators have the guts to try to do anything in full view of the public. That might involve actually being able to logically defend their actions. Why should they do that? They are authority. So what they say is right even if it isn't. They get to define right and wrong as long as they keep it hidden. That's why they do things that way.

That foxtrot oscar decision just got a little easier.