Quoting hal9g:

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We could use the same technique as with spoilers.

Hide the comment from general view, but allow people to see what was said if they wish to know.

However, any response to a "hidden" post would be forbidden on threat of moderator action.

Great Idea! 

Quoting Vittra:

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Amazon actually does that or something similar. After a certain number of people have rated a post down, it goes to "hidden" status in which a viewer can choose to view the post that was found offensive.  At least I think that's how it works.

I know the same style from YouTube (really needed there ) as well as the comments section on joystiq.com.

I might pull a negative reaction here, but I'm hoping you'll read and understand a dissenting point of view. I disagree on two points that have been made and agreed with...

Public shaming, making easily public any bannings seems unpleasant. I've been on forums where bannings were quite obvious and written about by moderators and/or forum owners. It did nothing to lessen bad behavior (I think because people who behave badly will often do so regardless of the consequences, and some might even be encouraged by the public announcement). Having bad behavior just disappear quietly was a real boon on some forums I've frequented. In each case, the offender was contacted privately by moderators/the owner, given a warning and perhaps a limited ban. Future offences were again given private notifications. Even a second offence was occasionally enough to cause a complete "forever" ban. Minor offences, no matter how frequent, might never cause an otherwise useful contributor to get numerous temporary bans, without ever getting a permanent heave-ho. But as few as two extremely offensive posts (blatant racism, overt trolling, political or religious bigotry, etc.) could cause permanent bannination. Yeah, it's difficult to quantify, but easy to implement. This is not a democracy. It's a privately owned public forum. Some rules can (and ought) to be vague.

Secondly, the idea of keeping but "spoilerizing" offensive (perhaps bannable) comments is offensive on so many levels. If I refer to a member, or anyone for that matter, using a racially, religiously, nationality, or otherwise offensive term, why would anyone wish to revisit it? Let it disappear. Let it be gone, so no one be aware that it still inhabits the forum. I think the current stripes with moderator comments tell well enough, thank you. While I recently was posting about a tragedy in my immediate family, I called a post "idiotically insensitive." Maybe I called the poster himself/herself that. Doesn't matter. Those two words disappeared and were replaced by a moderator's comment about avoiding insulting language. The rest of my rant was left intact. I learned a good lesson. I agree with what the moderator did. It was fair and reasonable. Suppose I referred to the comments as "retarded" or some other offensive, perhaps a sexist or racist term. Would the person I called that term like that it remained visible if highlighted? I doubt it. Would anyone who shared that trait? I doubt that, too.

I believe we have more than one offensive person participating in this forum. I would prefer that they all be allowed to contribute, if they behave as well as I know they can. I'm willing to admit that there might be people who are both offensive and contribute little to nothing other than grief who might deserve a forever ban, but I cannot think of any on the forum regularly now.

Sorry to disagree, but I needed to express this, my perspective.

Quoting VibroCount:

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Secondly, the idea of keeping but "spoilerizing" offensive (perhaps bannable) comments is offensive on so many levels. If I refer to a member, or anyone for that matter, using a racially, religiously, nationality, or otherwise offensive term, why would anyone wish to revisit it?

Cliff,

I did not intend to imply that these type of seriously offensive posts should be allowed to remain, even in a "hidden" mode.  They definitely should be completely removed.

Quoting hal9g:

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Quoting VibroCount:

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Secondly, the idea of keeping but "spoilerizing" offensive (perhaps bannable) comments is offensive on so many levels. If I refer to a member, or anyone for that matter, using a racially, religiously, nationality, or otherwise offensive term, why would anyone wish to revisit it?

Cliff,

I did not intend to imply that these type of seriously offensive posts should be allowed to remain, even in a "hidden" mode.  They definitely should be completely removed.

The point I tried to make was that any post (or portion of an otherwise inoffensive post) that is offensive ought not to be left for "enlightenment" as to what not to write... it remains offensive. Let the severity of the offense determine the punishment (basic unwarned censoring of the statement, or level of warning or banning of the poster), not whether the post ought to remain at all.

Spoilerizing posts won't work.  If people see it, they WILL view it.

I think the idea about spoilerized posts, at least as mentioned by Ace and me, is more for immediate remedy, amybe until the moderator shows up.

What we described is, that if a posts gets maybe 6 red arrow it gets automatically hidden. That way anyone coming after the sixth offended user will only see a "folded" post and would have to enable it manually. So, that user will be aware that something bad is going to be revealed.

Of course, eventually the moderator may still come and do his work. (Obviously thatÄ's not what happens at YouTube, but there is just way to many comments there to police them all.

[sarcasm] Perhaps it's a percentage of posts. Seven seems like a lot since even the most active people here only post an average of 3-5 times a day but if you post close to 4 times that every day seven's not that much. [/sarcasm]