I have had several of my posts in different threads hidden now, having only posted on this forum for a week now. I have read the guidelines and I have not insulted anyone, I have not used any hate speech, I have not spammed, I have remained on topic. But it is clear I am missing something because my posts are being hidden and I am being warned anyways.
Are there more rules and guidelines beyond what is written, or is it just a general, “Agree with the crowd and don’t dissent” sort of a thing going on?
Generally, don’t be offensive towards specific forum members or even towards forum members as a whole. Be respectful. This is a friendly forum where people try to help, so if your posts are trying to aggravate, this may cause them to be flagged. It is only Niantic that can hide your posts, not forum members.
The notification I got said that messages are automatically hidden when reported, you can edit them for ten minutes (I haven’t bothered doing so as I am not deliberately posting things to upset people and I don’t believe I have been offensive so I’m not going to edit something when I don’t see what’s wrong with it) and then it will be unhidden until it is reviewed by a Team Member.
I have also had some of my comments hidden. If someone is offended by what I said, or finds what I said unhelpful, then I do reword it, trying to guess what was offensive. Or I just leave it if I am done trying to help.
Sometimes what we have to say here is, “I can’t help you with that, and here is why.”
What is the best way to disagree or dissent respectfully? Because it seems like every time that I do, people have told me I am being “hostile” or that my tone is “bad” and beyond just agreeing with the majority I don’t know how to avoid that.
And to me, getting my posts hidden and edited when I am not breaking the rules feels hostile. Especially when I don’t even know what rule I am supposed to be breaking.
This is a screenshot of the notification I have been getting. As I said before, I haven’t bothered editing any of them to unhide them because I don’t know what is offensive about them aside from not having the same opinion as everyone else.
I am really glad to see you engaging. From the last comment I saw from you before this post, I would say stick to addressing the original topic of the post, and don’t cast aspersions on other members trying to help.
The only time I would agree that my posts could be considered as casting aspersions would be in the first thread I made a week ago in response to one person by saying that I think they just enjoy getting Wayspots removed. In the latest thread I was not attempting to insult anyone and I did not single out anyone, I was trying to make it clear why the person’s submissions were not going to be reinstated because I felt people were talking around the subject.
The person who made that thread kept asking people to reinstate the POIs without seemingly realizing who he was talking to, and I had begun typing up my message before there was a response from a Wayfarer Team Member, and they only posted their response right before I hit reply on mine.
If you stated it clearly and directly like that, without saying anything that reads like “people here only want to keep you from having wayspots” - I can’t read the hidden comment, so I am not saying that is what you said, to be clear - then that could be a helpful comment to make. I often will say things like “I am not staff” or “staff will have names beginning with Niantic” if it seems that the person posting is confused about who is able to take action on the forum.
I wonder if @elijustrying could DM you to discuss some of the hidden posts if you would like? I don’t know if ambassadors can still see the hidden messages or not.
So other people can’t even unhide the posts to see what I wrote in them? I didn’t even realize that, I thought people could unhide the contents to at least still get the context of what I actually said, that makes this worse then because that means a bunch of people won’t even know what I actually said and assume it is worse than what I actually wrote even though the whole process is automated and people can basically get any message hidden if they have the numbers on their side. To me that feels like abuse.
When someone posts trying to help by stating why the wayspot was removed and giving links to the “official” criteria do not reply stating that the reply is wrong and the that people here just enjoy removing other peoples wayspots.
Stating “I understand that this is criteria but I don’t agree with it because” is fine, this can start a conversation where others can then state why they disagree / agree with you.
The link to the official criteria of why Golf Disc Holes were not eligible led me to a thread of people posting laughing emojis and celebrating getting lots of POIs removed.
You continue to tell me how to act and how to respond without giving any grace or understanding to why I reacted in the way that I did.
I thought people could have at least seen what I was responding to and the screenshots I posted, but now that I know my posts being hidden nearly as soon as I posted them means you guys didn’t even see their contents, I can at least understand why some of you didn’t get it. But that doesn’t justify whoever was flagging my posts to begin with.
I cannot see the comment that as flagged and hidden, but you were accusing forum members of coming up with reasons to remove wayspots, then trying other reasons to remove them when the first reasons failed.
Apologies that this isn’t phrased as you did! It is my best attempt at remembering. I wish I had quoted that bit when I replied to it.
I wasn’t accusing anyone of anything, and that’s not what I said. I said that people were coming up with the reasons for why his POIs were removed, and if he wasn’t satisfied with one reason, they would come up with another reason. That’s true and that really is all that non-Wayfarer Team Members can do, and I can just take a screenshot of what I posted and post it here:
Hey @IndistinctGuy. The community members responding to you aren’t acting out of malice. They are speaking from years of collective experience handling similar queries and scenarios.
When you enter a discussion assuming others are acting in bad faith, or accusing them of “enjoying” removing Wayspots, you set a hostile tone. Healthy disagreement is always welcome here, but assuming the worst intentions of your fellow members breaks down the constructive dialogue we try to maintain.
Edit: I have enabled slow mode for this discussion to allow everyone time to read and reflect before replying.
So far disc golf holes is one of the thing thats considered ineligible due to safety factor. Attempting to change it will only frustrate you. I can only suggest you to let it go and look the other way.
