Lichess Mods are altering emojis on forums?

Dear Lichess mods and community,

I have noticed that on the controversial "Break the Silence" forum posts, (found at lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/blog-ZNTniBEAACEAJZTn?page=1) some posts which criticize Lichess's position seem to have their positive emojis (such as the thumbs up hand) regularly removed, as if by magic. Meanwhile, the negative emojis are left untouched.

This seems to be some person with admin powers attempting to influence and restrain public reaction on the issue, only leaving much positive feedback on various posts that seem to vindicate Lichess's position.

Could I have feedback on this issue?

Correction - an entire page of comments has just been deleted on the above forum.

This is not only tampering, it is impeding user discussion through outright deletion on the Lichess forums platform.

@DragonFly31 said in #2:
> Correction - an entire page of comments has just been deleted on the above forum.
>
> This is not only tampering, it is impeding user discussion through outright deletion on the Lichess forums platform.

Hmm, that's strange indeed. Usually when comments are deleted, there seems to be a message saying <this comment has been deleted by user>.

I don't support deleting comments in general unless there is something harmful in there. But at the very least, if Lichess is deleting comments, then a message like <this comment has been deleted by Lichess for ... reasons> should be shown for consistency and transparency.

> This seems to be some person with admin powers attempting to influence and restrain public reaction on the issue, only leaving much positive feedback on various posts that seem to vindicate Lichess's position.

As far as I know nobody has this power, that is, it is not a feature that mods or admins have.

> Correction - an entire page of comments has just been deleted on the above forum.

An entire page eh? Well at least the tampered emojis are gone with them!

When you don't understand something, it's wise to not immediately assume the worst possible thing. "Meanwhile, the negative emojis are left untouched." is a well known behavior for anyone who has used the forum the last few years. People are probably editing their own posts.

github.com/lichess-org/lila/commit/9b685db62a69343a9bcc32c1f20aa09900d051fc

@TBest said in #6:
> it's wise to not immediately assume the worst possible thing; People are probably editing their own posts.

It's unlikely to be the best explanation. 5 hands up emojis were simultaneously removed from one post altogether - it is extremely unlikely that 5 people chose to cancel positive emojis simulaneously. The better hypothesis is that someone else with that power has been deleting them. It's only logical.

A Lichess Moderator said in #4:
> As far as I know nobody has this power, that is, it is not a feature that mods or admins have.

I appreciate the reply. If this is true, then I am mistaken, but the things I saw make little to no sense then; it is strange to say the least. Perhaps there is another explanation that fits the observed behavior outside of those mentioned so far.

the update cycle of a tab in forum while inputting something? If 5 people change their mind over such period, one might only know about it at next update. (it might not be a cycle while in input mode? but its duration). just guessing, i like making hypotheses.

@DragonFly31 said in #8:
> A Lichess Moderator said in #4:
>
>
> I appreciate the reply. If this is true, then I am mistaken, but the things I saw make little to no sense then; it is strange to say the least. Perhaps there is another explanation that fits the observed behavior outside of those mentioned so far.

Well it is true you dont have to take the mods word you can just check the source code to see if such a feature exists

"As far as I know nobody has this power, that is, it is not a feature that mods or admins have."
there might not be a built in feature but all you do is go to where the fourm is stored on the server and change the values