In light of the new policies and in the interest of consistency and fair representation, should the moderators review all past threads and remove every off-topic/so-called "unhelpful" post? Or possibly remove the threads altogether?

Hello new account to ask a question. Really, just use your normal account to ask stuff like this. They can match your IP to another account if they care enough to check.

Actually I made this name as a sort of joke, but someone saw it on the “Community Feed” thing and suggested my first question be a memorable one, so here you are.

Fair enough.

But how would you suggest fixing all the classifications? That is 84K questions and most people that asked them have left a long time ago.

But there has been a convo about having people go through and clean up the tags.

It does not make any sense to me to go through and censor past posts that have been out there.

The guidelines were different when those posts were made.

They should remain as is.

OH NO OH NO OH NO!!!!
That is not only part of Fluther’s charm, it is its historical record.
Bemdrewim—revisionist history is a bad thing!
And you should make available 2 versions of the CIA thread—one with all the redacteds because that is a joke in its own right—and one with the hilarious text so all can enjoy!!!

~Oh damn….This is going to take a long time. Someone better provide lots of beer and pizza. ~

Seriously though, as Marinelife mentions, the rules were different then and it makes no sense to use up thousands of hours of volunteer moderation time editing them. Nor would we want to silence the voices of those who were posting (at the time) completely within guidelines.

I see no practival reason to retrofit all of the archives.

The problem here is that the user chooses whether they want the question to be social or general. Not the moderators. So we’d have to individually PM every single user for every single question to figure out where they want it located. Assuming that both
a) They haven’t left Fluther
b) They actually cared about the questions they wrote 5 months ago
We would then go through all 84,000 questions and 1,353,900 responses individually.
With 11 moderators + 4 staff, that’s 5600 questions and 90000 answers each.

I’m not sure what propaganda you’ve been told, but being a mod doesn’t pay that well at all. :(

No way. That would be like taking out all the chunks we don’t like from history books. Communities are always growing and changing, and anybody who comes to Fluther, takes it seriously or comprehends its idea will no doubt be armed with such knowledge.

Besides, online, the whole grain of salt thing.

You think they have time on their hands?

For goodness’ sake, no. The policy is not retroactive. Nobody has to go back and read old questions. They’re not false and they’re not advertising. They’re just what was. We don’t go through old books and change all the pronouns to “his or her.” Or systematically edit out of old photographs the people who are dead now.

There is no use in going through all of said questions and moderating them ex post facto. Seeing as how the rules and setup now are so completely different, it would essentially be impossible to edit the questions and responses based on the new guidelines and organizational changes. In addition, as @Dog and @Sarcasm stated, the time, energy, and workforce needed to complete a task like that are way more than the moderators and staff/mods at Fluther can provide. And those classic questions like “Frizzer” and “Pancakes” are parts of the good ol’ days before Fluther was popular and mods were referred to as Nazis…nobody really wants to see those go.

surely you jest… there are so many!!

There are scores of users who have banked on the one-liners up until now… if Fluther ever decided to go in that direction I think it would start a revolt!

They are as much of Fluther’s history as the users that are no longer on the website… and their contributions have and should remain.

I know such an undertaking would be ridiculous for many, many reasons. I would personally hate for so much good discussion and history to be removed.

My specific point is new users will undoubtedly read old threads and naturally think such behavior is condoned – the off topic comments; the arguments that developed from the original question and took over the thread, spurring exciting discussions that sometimes lasted for 100 posts or more; the occasional banter that didn’t contribute to the specific question but certainly contributed to the enjoyment of the thread as a whole.

Imagine walking into an ice hockey rink with photos all over the walls of past matches – complete with the occasional high sticking, silly mascot antics, etc. When a new user behaves in such a manner, and is inevitably told to stop, they’re going to point to the pictures with a bewildered look and say “uh…come again?”.

That is all I meant. Nothing more.