Moderators, we all need clarification from you.

I could not agree more with this post. The deletions by the mods on the thread in question yesterday bordered on pathological.

It was pretty clear from get-go that the OP of that thread was a troubled person and it only became more and more apparent as the thread went on. She attacked others via DM, and in turn was attacked and goaded into sharing a lot of truly bizarre personal information. Allowing it to go on for so long was just shocking- and risky.

And yet using published and on-the-record info that presents Broadway celebrities unfavorably will get a post deleted in minutes.

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As a lurker/poster who purposely stayed out of this particular "conversation", but read every word, I think it's a safe, fair assessment to say that the moderators were way out of their depth here. I'm not excusing or defending anyone's action or lack thereof. They simply didn't have the experience in psychiatric assessment and intervention to properly monitor and manage a troubled angry individual and those who engaged with her in a sometimes hostile, provocative manner. It's not at all what they envisioned when signing on as a moderator. Changes need to be made, I think everyone would agree. Just cut them some slack for the moment. JMHO.

Moderator said: "Good morning all. Our desire is always to delete as little as possible. But when posts violate our guidelines, they are taken down. While we understand that everyone's definition of what is a personal attack, off-topic, etc. varies, we always attempt to give posters the benefit of the doubt until we are shown a reason that we shouldn't.

While our original intention was only to send PMs when messages were deleted for a reason that might notbe obvious or the "violation" appeared to bemade in good faith, our technical team is working on an update to our system where every message that gets deleted will generate a PM explaining the reason for the removal.

Also, please keep in mind that none of us (moderators and posters alike) are qualified to evaluate another person's mental health based on their message board postings, so trying to diagnose someone via their online persona can't factor into our decision-making process, and I am sure you can imagine would lead to even more confusion and anger. That is why we rely specifically on our stated rules against personal attacks, profanity, etc. to determine what is removed and what is not.

However, we always welcome feedback via the reporting options at the bottom of each post, viaPMs sent to this account, or emails to moderators@broadwayworld.com. Allof those communication options are immediately sent to our entire moderating team, and if something falls into a gray area, we discuss it internally, because we all (moderators and posters) have different levels of what we believe to beacceptable and appropriate.

So, if you have a genuine concern about something said in a thread, those are the best options to flag it for us or to provide feedback, because they all go straight to the moderator team's inboxes, as opposed to leaving a message in-thread for us to find the next time that we come through to check in on recent posts.

I hope this helps clarify things and encourages you to communicate with us directly when you have concerns. No matter what side of this discussion we are on, we're all here because we love theatreand love discussing theatre. While obviously no one isperfect, we genuinely try to keep the board a place to have those discussions.

We hope that everyone has a great rest of your Fridays and a wonderful weekend.

Moderator Team
moderators@broadwayworld.com"

Thank you very much for your well worded and thoughtful response. I thought bringing this to the forums attention was necessary after yesterday, so I hope you understand my intent with this thread.

I also fully understand none of you are trained to deal with mental health issues on this board, I fully understand at points you were put into difficult positions. I think my main gripe is if the OP was sending personal attacks via PM's, that clearly breaks the forums policy, as you just stated. Enganing in arguments the entire thread, flat out lying about their identity to strengthen their arguments, and again, attacking other posters I'm PMs all to me sound like violations. Other posters engaged in similar discourse, so again, I understand it became difficult at that point.

Also, when your deleting posts like mine and others, asking why you are not doing anything and acting on nothing, I think an explanation is needed for why those specifically were removed prior to you closing the thread, in my opinion, too late. I am glad you are working on a feature to explain why every post is deleted, because seeing the OP attack others and have my post deleted asking why nothing is being done is just, nonsensical? I think shutting down the thread earlier would've been a smarter play here. Especially since the OP gave you many reasons to no longer give them the benefit of the doubt.

I am also not attacking that OP specfically, but that thread is a good example of the inconsistencies in policies here and how they are practiced.

Obviously this is all after the fact so this is more meant for reflection and learning on all accounts, Moderators and Posters and myself. Thank you for hearing me out and I am happy to continue to discussion here or via PM if you feel necessary.