Something that I've discovered makes the world a worse place is when nobody calls out bs and when people justify their little powertrips with "it's just the rules".
Here's why this looked like that to me:
I thought I was talking to the same moderators that just nonsensically and sloppily redacted my post – making it less useful. And when I then make the case for this to be undone, the response I got was "it is against the rules for you to even question this here", with no alternatives paths offered.
I also looked at the Terms Of Use document that was linked and it just says something like "Stay on topic – don't make posts about Apple rumors or the way this site is moderated". I would argue my response was on topic, because it was a specific request about how my answer was edited, not a whole post about the state of moderation on these forums, or something like that. The other moderator then also kept engaging in that conversation, even though it was apparently against the rules. So it just felt like some weird thing to shut the conversation down. But I didn't understand that you guys didn't have the power to redact things, and that those were other people doing that – so that's why it really looked like some weird passive-aggressive powertrip-thing from my perspective.
> It was closed after no one posted in it for a month or more. You may not have noticed, but it's from 2021.
This is another thing that contributed to my impression of passive-aggression. I didn't understand the intention behind this. What did this add to the conversation, except providing trivia about why posts are closed and presenting the assumption that I didn't notice that the post was old. I thought it was perhaps preemptive defensiveness because they thought I was criticizing that the post was closed?
> I'm just not sure that answering questions that no one has shown an interest in for four years is the best use of your time and expertise. There are thousands (tens of thousands?) of new questions every day from people who need help right now. Just a thought.
This perhaps reveals the true motivation of the moderator – trying to nudge people to answer new things instead of old things – possibly because there aren't enough people answering new questions.
That may be an admirable intention but not the best way to go about things – at least for me.
I'm not trying to be part of this community. I was having a problem today and I couldn't find answers on Google – so when I finally figured it out, I thought I would record the answer somewhere so other people in the same situation can find the answer more easily. The older question that was closed was one of the first results on Google, so I tried to answer there, but I couldn't, so instead I made a new post referring to it. My intention was just to make a helpful answer and then move on with my life.
If you then tell me that this contribution wasn't a good use of my time or whatever and you try to nudge me to answer new things instead, I either won't understand that nudge, or pick it up as pushy, or even passive aggressive.
I think I would've felt more motivated if the way I wanted to help was encouraged, instead of immediately being nudged to do other things.
Also I do think this was a "good use of my time", and I don't need you to make weird condescending, nudgy compliments about how my "time and expertise could be better used elsewhere".
It just all feels weird.
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Anyways, I hopw this is useful for dealing with other Forum users in the future, and I wish you a good time with moderating.
One last thing – I think would be best if this conversation is deleted. I'm a bit embarassed by it and it seems largely irrelevant to people actually looking for answers.
