I noticed today that a comment I made on another user’s observation, disappeared.
Does that mean my comment was flagged?
Included is a screen shot of the flagged comment. Is it not allowed to add a reason for one’s identification in a comment?
Magda[date=2019-03-05 timezone=“Africa/Johannesburg”] → 2019-03-05T22:00:00Z
Adding an explanation for one’s ID is encouraged, as long as its civil and cites evidence, and oyur comments looks great. I still see it here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20967017
Flagging a comment wont cause it to be removed.
Adding a reason behind your ID or even text suggesting what you feel something is is a perfectly acceptable use of comments.
That being said, other users can delete comments they did not enter (sorry, I dont know if only curators can do this or all users), and you will receive no notification that your comment was deleted. I don’t believe there is any way to trace who may have deleted it.
This ability to delete content has been raised as an issue. On the one hand if people put truly offensive stuff in, there should be a facility to remove it. On the other hand, it can be abused as was potentially done here.
i’m pretty sure only curators can delete comments. It’s true that we should have some clear guidance as curators as to what comments should be deleted. My understanding is it should only happen if clear spam or offensive and in the latter i’m not even sure if we should if it isn’t something horrible because then it doesn’t get documented. More guidance from admins there would be helpful.
Tony, do you still see the comment starting Hymenopus coronatus lives…
I don’t see that one, and it may be what the reference is to.
Yes, I refer to my second comment.
Oy, sorry about that. Shouldn’t do this so early in the morning.
I’ll see if we can find out what happened to it.
I think this is disturbing. It’s the first I have heard of it. Would it be that hard to have a system where the person who made the comment is notified before it is deleted?
@magdastlucia after doing some investigating, we don’t have a record of that comment being saved, but we do have a record of the “Could be purple orchid mantis…” comment. Also, note that the down arrow on the “Hymenopus coronatus lives…” comment is gray and not black, denoting that it did not save. If you can replicate this comment-not-saving issue we’ll take a look.
Regarding curators’ ability to delete comments, I think that could be handled by a comment hiding rather than comment deletion functionality. Happy to write up a feature request for that, but I have a meeting to prep for so I can’t get to it for a bit. If someone else wants to add one in the meantime, go for it.
I agree that hiding comments would be a better functionality for curators to have, and that it should probably come with a reason and notification to the author of the comment.
Comment authors should probably still have the ability to completely delete their own comments, per EU requirements, though editing with history would be preferable in my view.
Do non-curators currently have the ability to delete others’ comments from their own observations? (Might have to set up a second non-curator account so I can answer questions like that!) If so, that is a scenario that I think merits discussion and debate.
I do not. The dropdown next to another’s comment has only 3 choices: flag, share coordinates with trusted person, and manage relationships.
No, they don’t.
Here it is:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/remove-ability-for-curators-to-delete-other-users-comments/548
@bouteloua thanks!
Thank you @tiwane I posted another comment today, but no problems.
I will let you know if and when I notice similar again,
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