Telling users why their content was removed reduces future issues [pdf]

Isn't the problem the binary consequence, complete removal or completely left alone?

Instead, a continuous incentive gradient can push people away from the line. For example, comments on HN and Ars Technica that are downvoted are displayed grayed-out so they're harder to read and more likely to be skipped over when skimming; on Ars Technica, if a comment is sufficiently downvoted, its contents are collapsed into a stub, and you have to click the expand button to read it.

Besides pushing people away from the line, another advantage of a continuous incentive gradient instead of a discrete punishment is that because the stakes are lower, subjective disagreements are less divisive. If a comment straddles the line of violating the rules, and what's at stake is whether the comment is removed or shown, then community members will argue much more vehemently with each other and with mods than if what's at stake is whether the comment should be more or less gray, or whether the comment should be completely removed or merely collapsed.

(Zuck has discussed similar ideas about "borderline content": https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-blueprint-f... )

You screen 100 resumes - you talk to 20 people. If you give quick feedback in the response for those 20, and do 5 positions in a year that's 100 quick pieces of feedback - I agree - would be totally useful.

Didn't have required license, communication skills weaker, not familiar with industry, not local to area etc etc. I could do these very quickly.

BUT it only takes ONE person tweeting and being offended by the response to cause huge problems even BEFORE you get to litigation risk and folks going back and forth on topics.

Imagine this - even job references in the US have gone to almost no content. "Giving a negative reference may expose the company to legal liability if the former employee does not get a desired job and decides to sue for defamation or slander. But providing a positive reference or failing to disclose potentially damaging information can leave the company open to legal liability (negligent referral) as well." - Result - again, just very little info is disclosed.

> WHY IS THE LANGUAGE SO NEGATIVE/PUNITIVE? THIS'LL TAKE THE FUN/CASUAL ATMOSPHERE OUT OF MY EVENT. THE PEOPLE ATTENDING ARE MY FRIENDS, I'LL VOUCH FOR THEM. ISN'T IT OBVIOUS/COMMON SENSE WHAT'S ACCEPTABLE? WE'RE ALL ADULTS HERE, WHY CAN'T WE SAY "BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER"?

Not everyone understands what is unacceptable behavior, especially when we are talking about a group of people that is mostly homogenous and has very little interaction with people different than they are.

We focus specifically on what isn't allowed and what violating those rules would mean so there is no gray area, no guessing, no pushing boundaries to see what will happen. "Be nice" or "Be an adult" doesn't inform well enough about what is expected if one attendee's idea of niceness or professionalism are vastly different than another's. On top of that, "be excellent to each other" has a poor track record [link, now broken, previously described a real-world situation where people holding grudges tried to weaponize a community's sole "be excellent" rule against each other].

You may have been running an event for a long time and many of the attendees feel they are "like family", but it actually makes the idea of an incident happening at the event even scarier. If someone is new and not part of "the family" will they be believed? Will they be treated like an invading outsider?

Remember that everyone who has harassed or assaulted someone is a parent, sibling, child, or friend to someone else. We don't always know people as well as we think we do.