[throwaway237468]

> 2) total blocking of genuine and constructive user feedback, which feels like censorship - or simply a closed-source, proprietary software.

For those looking for examples, check out the recent post on /r/elm: https://www.reddit.com/r/elm/comments/9a0hc6/elm_019_broke_u...

It was locked and deleted from the front page within hours. There are many many more such posts that have been deleted. The only posts allowed on /r/elm are those praising Elm.

They always invite the users to discuss this in the Elm Discourse which is not constructive because threads about the "forbidden" topics (Native Code) are either locked or completely deleted within hours.

[rtfeldman]

> The only posts allowed on /r/elm are those praising Elm.

The Reddit thread you linked shows many posts that are critical of Elm, so this can't be the explanation.

As others have noted, you can see what was deleted using this link:

https://snew.github.io/r/elm/comments/9a0hc6/elm_019_broke_u...

Removed posts included both praise and criticism. What they have in common is that they broke other rules, e.g. personal attacks.

[throwaway237468]

Thanks, I'll let everyone decide for themselves whether the deleted posts were personal attacks or not. Personally I don't see anything wrong with at least half of them.

Why do the moderators invite everyone to discuss on Discourse when you know you'll delete or lock a thread as soon as it's posted?

[rtfeldman]

> Thanks, I'll let everyone decide for themselves whether the deleted posts were personal attacks or not. Personally I don't see anything wrong with at least half of them.

Okay, but "personally I would have only deleted half of those posts" is a much different claim than "The only posts allowed on /r/elm are those praising Elm," which is what you said above.

You really shouldn't make such serious claims if you don't mean them.

> Why do the moderators invite everyone to discuss on Discourse when you know you'll delete or lock a thread as soon as it's posted?

I understand that you're trolling me, but just for the record - of course we don't do that.

[throwaway237468]

Ok, it's not literally "only" but most. /r/rust is a great example of healthy community. They only delete obvious troll/personal attack comments. You can go there right now and post a post similar to what you deleted on /r/elm and I bet it won't be deleted or locked.

> I understand that you're trolling me, but just for the record - of course we don't do that.

I'm not trolling. I'll bet $100 that you've at least deleted 3 threads about native code and locked at least 5. Latest example: https://discourse.elm-lang.org/t/elm-0-19-released-what-has-...

Moderator quote:

> Finally, a moderation note: I’m going to lock this thread since discussions on this topic have the unfortunate tendency to spiral out of control and we have already debated this past the point of productive return. If you have things you need to upgrade, we’re of course happy to help… let’s just do them in separate threads. :slight_smile:

Please don't suggest users of locked Reddit threads that they're welcome on Discourse. Just say the truth - you don't want any discussions about this anymore. There's no harm in being honest.

[rtfeldman]

I see where you're coming from!

To me, those two mod notes are consistent and sincere. Both are saying "this particular topic has been debated to the point where discussions no longer make progress, they just take up people's time and energy. That said, by all means please feel free to start a new thread about something more specific if you'd like to discuss that."

I see this as analogous to React and JSX. When React came out, many people said "putting HTML in JavaScript is Wrong, and React shouldn't do this."

At first, whether React should use JSX was a reasonable thing to debate. In 2018, this has long since been settled. A 2018 thread arguing that React should abandon JSX is going to take up people's time but it's not going to change the outcome of a decision that was settled years ago.

This is how it is with things like Native and typeclasses in Elm. Maybe you disagree, but I think there comes a point where it's reasonable to say "it is not a good use of everyone's time to re-litigate an issue that has been settled for years. You may still disagree with the final decision, but that ship has long since sailed."

I can understand the argument that "people must be free to waste everyone's time, because anything else is tyranny" and I can also understand the argument that "the Internet is full of places to post whatever you please, but this forum is focused on collaboration, sharing, and learning, not wasting time." It seems reasonable to me for a given forum to embrace either one of those moderation philosophies.

This is why I see the two mod notes as consistent and sincere. They are both saying "these broader design decisions have long since been settled, and we're locking the topic because they are a magnet for contentious discussions that don't go anywhere. That said, you are genuinely welcome to start a fresh thread about a more specific topic to your particular situation."

Again, maybe you disagree with this moderation philosophy, but it's simply not true that mods are inviting people to post only to lock whatever the follow up would be. That would be ridiculous.

[throwaway237468]

Here's a quote:

> If you'd like to discuss Elm's trade-offs, both pro and con, there are plenty of people who are willing to talk openly about them in a calm way. I'd recommend opening a thread on Elm Discourse if you're interested in that.

Please edit it to say that discussions about cons like native code will not be tolerated and will be locked or deleted without warning.

[throwaway237468]

One more thing, why did you lock and delete the whole thread instead of just deleting the comments you found offensive? Was the dev.to post also something that shouldn't be discussed in Elm communities?

[wolco]

From what I understood:

10 posts have been deleted. 5 of them are obvious racist/spam. 5 of them are anti elm.

All anti Elm threads get deleted regardless of how much spam is also deleted

[rtfeldman]

> All anti Elm threads get deleted regardless of how much spam is also deleted

From the same thread, here are several posts that are strongly critical of Elm:

1. @Sagan_on_Roids explains what he disliked about Elm and why he stopped using it: https://www.reddit.com/r/elm/comments/9a0hc6/elm_019_broke_u...

2. @eriklott agrees with the criticisms of the OP, and explains what he did after leaving Elm: https://www.reddit.com/r/elm/comments/9a0hc6/elm_019_broke_u...

3. @KittensInc curses about the state of websockets on Elm 0.19's release: https://www.reddit.com/r/elm/comments/9a0hc6/elm_019_broke_u...

4. @HelloAnyong questions why anyone would ever use Elm given its breaking changes: https://www.reddit.com/r/elm/comments/9a0hc6/elm_019_broke_u...

It's debatable whether some of the deleted posts were or weren't over the line, but it can't possibly be true that Elm mods are deleting all content that is critical of Elm.

Critical content is all over that thread, plain as daylight.

[detaro]

I don't think that's an entirely fair argument (although I agree that at some of these comments are easily justified for removal). Yes, there's still critical comments... In a thread that was completely hidden from the subreddit.

So the worst comments were deleted, and everything else, including the link to the blog post, hidden, and the existing participants stopped from continuing their discussion. Technically not being deleted is a small step.

[leshow]

The post itself was removed by moderators and locked for nothing more than being critical of Elm.

[rtfeldman]

> locked for nothing more than being critical of Elm.

Why do you say that? (There was a long note explaining why it was locked.)

[Touche]

Total ousider here. The reason given for locking it are just points of disagreement with the article. The reason doesn't point to anything within the article that is against the subreddits rules.

[rtfeldman]

Oh, I saw those as referring to the thread itself (e.g. the deleted posts). Hm.

[dsissitka]

You can use Ceddit to see the comments the moderators removed:

https://snew.github.io/r/elm/comments/9a0hc6/elm_019_broke_u...

[skybrian]

I'm not that concerned that /r/elm is tightly moderated, given that there are other places to discuss it. (Such as here.)

[senorsmile]

Ah yes. That was the thread I started and was locked. I was and still am confused.