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Why has my comment that a claim is apparently not serious been deleted?

I pointed out under this Q that prominently-posted rules of that subreddit appear to prohibit the very post made there. YSKs regarding Reddit, Facebook, Twitter or any other social media are NOT ...
Believe it or not...'s user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
95 views

Why are the parts of this answer offering a (IMHO original) legal analysis on-topic, even if that's not even solicited by the Q, and probably wrong?

This (accepted) answer offers its own legal opinion on whether driving out Jews from various Arab countries was genocide, even though: That's not part of the Q, and answers trying to provide similar ...
Believe it or not...'s user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
17 views

Are flags on this meta handled at all?

I know the queues for meta-flags are separate from the ones for the main site. Is any mod here handling the former? There was a (IMHO) rambunctious exchange between two [other] users here under one of ...
Believe it or not...'s user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
132 views

Should my answer, which addresses implications in the framing of a question, have been deleted?

My answer to this question has been deleted, despite providing a skeptical discussion of the meme posted. It was respectfully written. At time of deletion, the answer had 8 upvotes, and no comments ...
Wossname's user avatar
  • 261
4 votes
0 answers
30 views

2023: a year in moderation

It’s that time of the year again! As we wave goodbye to last year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year. As most of you here might be ...
JNat's user avatar
  • 100
-9 votes
2 answers
195 views

What exactly does "Essentially unreferenced" mean when references were provided?

A moderator posted the following regarding this Answer: I have deleted your answer now because it is essentially unreferenced. A YouTube video by Stefan Molyneux is not a reliable reference. This ...
Anon's user avatar
  • 1,063
-9 votes
2 answers
148 views

Skeptics Stack Exchange, and its relationship with "Poisoning the Well"

Question What ought to be the relationship between "Skeptics" and those "Skeptics" who intentionally go out and "poison the well", particularly on behalf of other people'...
Anon's user avatar
  • 1,063
5 votes
0 answers
39 views

2022: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year. As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange ...
JNat's user avatar
  • 100
4 votes
0 answers
60 views

2021: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year. As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange ...
JNat's user avatar
  • 100
-1 votes
1 answer
131 views

Incorrectly and arbitrarily deleted answer for being alleged as "theoretical"

My answer to this question was arbitrarily deleted by a mod. It was sourced, and was not (despite the allegations) theoretical. I carefully read the definitions of "theoretical answers" and ...
DJClayworth's user avatar
  • 57.7k
0 votes
1 answer
95 views

Why would pointing out that there is no evidence offered in a claim considered "opinion"?

The question was "did X do this?" In my answer, I pointed out that the referenced claim offers no evidence of any kind of involvement by X. Answer was deleted by Oddthinking as opinion and ...
PoloHoleSet's user avatar
  • 9,683
2 votes
0 answers
33 views

2020: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the past 12 months. As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network ...
JNat's user avatar
  • 100
2 votes
1 answer
76 views

Sad to see that all comments have been deleted in an old interesting answer, what policies are there?

I happened to revisit an old interesting question in a contentious topic that generated some argumentation in the comments. Most of these comments in the question and the answers are still left which ...
Alex's user avatar
  • 101
2 votes
0 answers
59 views

What does this community consider to be a reasonable amount of time, for a moderator to decide on a simple flag?

Flags can take varying amounts of time to handle, for example a little bit is explained here: How long can a flag wait for review? I wonder about the case where the flag is something simple. Let's ...
user1271772's user avatar
  • 1,186
1 vote
0 answers
49 views

2019: a year in moderation

It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land... A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated: We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, ...
Shog9's user avatar
  • 89
4 votes
2 answers
200 views

Limited in what I can do to investigate a suspicious question

For this question, I was extremely suspicious about the question, but I felt like I couldn't justifiably flag it as "Rude and abusive". Is the claim likely to be complete nonsense? Yes, quite ...
Golden Cuy's user avatar
  • 39.1k
87 votes
2 answers
2k views

I'm resigning as a moderator

As a moderator, I have to help this community thrive and also to represent it towards Stack Exchange. I am convinced that many of SE's recent choices: ads, CoC changes, license changes, are actively ...
Sklivvz's user avatar
  • 78.8k
2 votes
2 answers
184 views

Does trolling count as “rude and abusive”?

If I come across a question that I perceive as trolling, is it ok to flag it as “rude and abusive”? For example, this question (since deleted, but not blanked out) isn’t stating that a particular ...
Golden Cuy's user avatar
  • 39.1k
-1 votes
3 answers
751 views

Require questions about the Holocaust to receive moderator approval before publishing

If a low reputation user posts a question about the Holocaust, rather than being immediately posted, it should receive a notification telling the user that the question will remain visible (and ...
Golden Cuy's user avatar
  • 39.1k
1 vote
2 answers
97 views

Why was my comment deleted? (And questions about policy.)

Was the wheel invented before the wall? is trivially answerable by looking up the history of "Wheel" and "Wall" on Wikipedia. That is why I -- providing those links, plus a link to the "Wall of ...
DevSolar's user avatar
  • 19.1k
28 votes
1 answer
562 views

Diamond moderator closehammers should override the rest of the community only in exceptional circumstances

As much as possible, closing of questions should be done by the community in general contributing one closevote each, rather than diamond moderators using their closehammers. (When I say "closehammers"...
Golden Cuy's user avatar
  • 39.1k
2 votes
1 answer
97 views

My answer deleted for downvotes... better answer deleted on a misunderstanding

I recently wrote an answer to "Did people and dinosaurs see each other?" that got deleted, with the note that if I wanted to write an additional answer instead I ought to undelete my first answer (and ...
elliot svensson's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
95 views

2018: a year in moderation

It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land... A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated: We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in ...
Shog9's user avatar
  • 89
0 votes
3 answers
75 views

How can I change an erroneously cast vote?

I have cast an erroneous vote on a question but cannot rectify my mistake. The tooltip says my vote is "locked in" and I can only change my vote, when the question is edited. Why ? Can I do something ...
summerrain's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
103 views

Speaking at CLSxItaly

I will be speaking as part of a panel on how to moderate online communities at CLSx Italy on November 25th. If anyone is interested in attending, I have a discount code just for Skeptics.SE. Please ...
Sklivvz's user avatar
  • 78.8k
6 votes
0 answers
99 views

Please flag trollish questions

Skeptics.SE, along with some other stack exchanges such as history, receives some trolling questions, generally in the form of holocaust denial. They're by users with only 1 reputation, and they're ...
Golden Cuy's user avatar
  • 39.1k
3 votes
2 answers
166 views

Answer moved to comment by mod

I joined a community today because I had something unique to add to a question. There already was a decent answer, but mine was talking about points not mentioned in it. While my answer was a bit ...
Syzygy's user avatar
  • 101
0 votes
3 answers
104 views

Deletion of an answer without good reason

I provided an answer to this question, in which I pointed out that the "profit per customer" can be defined two different ways, and considering that the question is given the context of how they can ...
Glen O's user avatar
  • 2,140
0 votes
2 answers
79 views

Can moderators unaccept answers that don't actually address the question?

Here is an example of a question with an accepted answer that should not have actually been accepted: How bitter is Robert Lustig's "Bitter Truth" about sugar? Granted, the question ...
Ten Bitcomb's user avatar
  • 2,170
15 votes
2 answers
341 views

Permanently banning user/question?

Recently, we had a user who asked the same anti-semitic, off-topic, and frankly just absurd question multiple times (at least four or five that I have seen, but I would assume that I also missed ...
tim's user avatar
  • 52k
-1 votes
1 answer
62 views

The question is incorrectly flagged as duplicate despite valid clarifications in my comments

I have a question about my Skeptics Stack Exchange post: How does fasting affect your immune system when you are having infection? The question is incorrectly flagged as duplicate despite valid ...
Abhay's user avatar
  • 71
4 votes
1 answer
193 views

Does ten year network wide bans involve consultation with other moderators?

Recently, a certain user posted an answer to a question on here that a moderator commented on: it needed to provide evidence. The answer was updated with links, upon which the moderator gave another ...
Larry Harson's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
79 views

Under what circumstances does a references banner apply?

In the same question, this answer hasn't attracted a banner about references being needed, and yet this version of an answer received a banner about references. (This answer currently also has ...
Golden Cuy's user avatar
  • 39.1k
2 votes
1 answer
51 views

What qualifies as "extended discussion" needing moving to chat?

After flagging this answer (I flagged the answer, not the comments, and wasn't complaining about the comments), the comments were moved into chat with the message "Comments are not for extended ...
Golden Cuy's user avatar
  • 39.1k
10 votes
2 answers
171 views

Should we undelete these answers?

On the "Is the Earth 6000 years old?" question, there are a few deleted answers which, while wrong, are, technically speaking, supported by references. The issue is that they are supported by ...
Sklivvz's user avatar
  • 78.8k
2 votes
4 answers
130 views

Avoiding Edit Wars

I basically have three questions, all about edit disputes: How can I avoid edit wars, who has the final say over the content of an answer, and what do I do if an answer was locked? Who has the final ...
tim's user avatar
  • 52k
1 vote
1 answer
128 views

Let's clean up some meta tags!

It came to my attention that some tags are currently "abused" as meta tags. A meta tag is a tag that tells nothing about the question. In particular easy candidates are the publishing avenues of ...
3 votes
3 answers
161 views

Are moderators too eager to close questions without explaining clearly why they have been closed?

I've had a few questions recently which have been closed very early on grounds that don't seem to make any sense and which have not been clearly explained. Take this one which seems to exemplify my ...
matt_black's user avatar
  • 56.3k
3 votes
0 answers
124 views

85 Upvotes and Deleted [duplicate]

I see that the question on the Charleston shooting has been deleted, with the only notification being the adding of the "completed" tag to the question discussing it. I'm obviously aware of the ...
DJClayworth's user avatar
  • 57.7k
5 votes
4 answers
95 views

Help us with a little clean up!

I went ahead and deleted a bunch of questions which were either closed, downvoted and unsalvageable or were closed, with no answer and abandoned since 2012. Please review my work by going through and ...
Sklivvz's user avatar
  • 78.8k
1 vote
2 answers
39 views

Why was my question closed?

I don't usually have any issue with stack exchange moderators, but in this situation I really don't understand why my question was closed. The reason listed is "unclear what you are asking," but the ...
Chris Loonam's user avatar
7 votes
5 answers
147 views

Effective solutions to persistent bad content in an otherwise good answer?

Situation: You see an answer The answer is generally good. Extensive research, in-detail review of the claim topic, references, etc... However, one small aspect of the answer is awful - doesn't have ...
user5341's user avatar
  • 31.4k
4 votes
1 answer
56 views

Site-specific post notice types

I think it would be useful to have 2 (Skeptics-specific) post notice types: Theoretical Answer The central argument of this answer is theoretical in nature. We do not allow answers based uniquely on ...
Sklivvz's user avatar
  • 78.8k
3 votes
1 answer
62 views

Close reason for medical advice questions

It sometimes happens that people mistake Skeptics for a medical forum, and ask medical advice. While this doesn't happen that often, if we had a custom reason, we could make sure all these questions ...
Sklivvz's user avatar
  • 78.8k
7 votes
0 answers
148 views

Can we help you moderate more?

Community elected moderators on this site are very active. This is mostly due to a fact that our rules do require a lot of moderation. However, this does not mean that everything needs to be done by ...
Sklivvz's user avatar
  • 78.8k
3 votes
0 answers
149 views

Where are the rules?

So apparently this site has some strict rules about answers. As best I can tell they are something like some of these lines: Answers must include references. Answers must include citations. Citations ...
aaaaaaaaaaaa's user avatar
18 votes
10 answers
1k views

Handling news questions about current events

We keep on getting asked questions on ISIS. I have no problem with the subject, but most of these questions are about current news, have little-to-no evidence and are all around receiving weak or ...
Sklivvz's user avatar
  • 78.8k
8 votes
3 answers
289 views

Do moderators delete too many answers?

I noticed that all answers to this question have been deleted. IMO at least one of those answers was better than nothing (i.e. arguably imperfect but shouldn't/needn't have been deleted). Assuming ...
ChrisW's user avatar
  • 26.7k
-17 votes
2 answers
333 views

Moderator refused to add tag "censorship" to the tag list for posts on meta.skeptics

A moderator has refused to add the word "censorship" to the list of available tags for posts. I asked that in my original post at the end Too much power given to the moderators on Skeptics and also ...
Derfder's user avatar
  • 159
-5 votes
5 answers
328 views

Too much power given to the moderators on Skeptics

Why are the moderators doing waht they want? E.g. the delete 4 paragraphs of my question, remove youtube link and after pointing at that wrong behavior they put the url back and write their own ...
Derfder's user avatar
  • 159