Hello everyone. This is the third community update.
###HTTPS is coming
You’ve asked for it. But it was already on the roadmap, and high on our priority list. Along with other Big Cabal Media properties, Radar will get HTTPS support in coming weeks. Thanks for your patience and support.
###Ads are coming
Just a reminder that display (banner) and sponsor post type ads will begin to rollout in the weeks to come. We guarantee that these will be relevant and useful.
###Radar account and post deletion
This is a serious issue that has needed addressing for a while. Most people who create accounts on Radar do so because they want to contribute to the community. But every so often, we’ve seen a few people delete their posts and even try to delete their accounts altogether. Now, this behaviour is extremely rare. I’ve only gotten about three account deletion requests so far. Two out of those were weird people who had tried to game the forum and found the community not easily conned. One person just wanted out. Up till now, it’s not been a big deal. But over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a number of gratuitous post deletions that have made us really sit down and think about what it means to create a Radar account and be a part of the community.
So here is the thing. Unlike Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, Radar is not a broadcast platform for one to many monologues. Radar is a conversation, and most posts happen within the context of a thread. That means if someone wakes up one morning and decides to erase their contributions, whether it’s individual posts within a thread, or their entire account, they aren’t just deleting their contributions. They are rendering the rest of the conversation in those threads useless. Literally ripping a hole in our discussion space time. We’ve seen it happen a few times. A particularly egregious instance made it necessary for us to mass-reverse the deletions. That can’t be right.
We’ve given it a lot of thought, and have distilled our thinking into the following principles.
Technically, a Radar account can be deleted. But for that to happen, they would need to delete all of their previous posts. And that would leave a trail of destruction throughout any threads they’ve participated in. Just like you wouldn’t expect to take back all the emails you’ve sent, or all the conversations you’ve had with people, it doesn’t make sense to for users to arbitrarily render whole threads unreadable.
Thus, our official position on the issue is that Radar accounts cannot be deleted.
As is stated in our day one TOS, if a user would like to discontinue active participation, all they need do is stop posting. We will update our terms and onboarding messages to inform intending users of this before they make the decision to contribute
Here are the circumstances under which a user can delete their account, with moderator permission:
- They have created no more than one thread on Radar
- They have made no more than five posts on Radar threads in aggregate.
Users who have never posted do not need moderator permission to delete their accounts, there will be a delete button in their settings.
We would like to serious discourage Radar members from deleting the posts they make. Granted, there might be instances in which it might be necessary to delete or take back something that was said. But gratuitous post deletion or attempts to literally rewrite history by making extensive edits will be met with serious sanctions by the moderators who can elect to reverse the deletion/edits, and/or suspend the offender.
###Community manager
We’re still looking for a community manager. See this thread for the job description and how to apply.
###Radar Offline
The next Radar Offline is coming very soon! If you/your company would like to sponsor, please get in touch.
###Feedback
Let us know what you think, and how we can improve the Radar experience.
Bless.
