This is just an honest question to inquire whether there is an overall policy or moderator guideline for the deletion of whole posts and/or threads.

My understanding so far had been that this only happened in cases where the post or thread was so offensive that it could not be left standing.

However, recently, we have seen some threads disappear completely without any explanation whatsoever.

Some examples:

1) doc's thread with suggestions for moderator guidelines (while the other thread mocking it stayed visible!)

2) Some of the threads doc started in the Travel technology forum (for which he was subsequently banned)

3) Patron's thread in this forum in which he tried to raise some questions for discussion.

Some of these threads had evolved into a heated discussion, or might have. Some others have not, yet they were deleted without public explanation. I believe an explanation to the thread starters might have or might not have been given by the moderator.

But as a general question:

What is the policy?

And here my opinion on it (yeah, sorry ) :

It is confusing and makes things very intransparent if a thread just gets completely deleted without any explanation. Locking threads is one thing, but just completely deleting them - if they are not highly offensive - is not a good way of doing things, in my opinion.

It makes it confusing to follow, and it makes the original poster look very bad, because it appears to those who saw the original thread that he must have done something very offensive, even if that is not the case.

Also, what is the policy on moderators deleting threads of other moderators? Is that considered standard policy?

Sorry for starting yet another thread, and thanks for your attention.