Original Post
)
When posts are deleted, the member who made the post should carefully review the board usage policies to learn what other behaviors they should avoid. They can also review this explanation to help them have a better understanding of the “spirit of the rule” that they must follow in order to maintain their ability to use eBay and its boards.
If you find that you have had a post removed for a violation, and another with the same violation remains, it is likely because the person making the report only saw your post to report. Please use the Report Button so that the other post can be reviewed as well.
The goal in post removals and educational letters is to help people learn how to follow the policies so that they can continue to use eBay and the boards. Most members always follow the rules when posting, and of those who do post violations, very few ever repeat them. It is important for the members of the Community to expect each other to follow all the rules when posting.
Sometimes members misunderstand that the rules remain the same regardless of the context of a post. You can avoid having your posts removed by being familiar with the spirit of each Board Usage Policy, trying to abide by the spirit of the rule, and also by giving thought, when writing your posts, to how a post might be viewed if it were seen out of context.
In most cases, the context of a post is not so important to any reader (even a lurker) as it may seem to a person who is involved in the conversation. You might have noticed this yourself when you are reading threads: if a poster is obviously frustrated, the reader may understand *why* s/he lets loose with some colorful language, but the reader, who isn't emotionally involved, recognizes that there's no real way for this "context" to negate the fact that cursing is a rules violation on eBay.
Create your own context within your post, by posting complete thoughts, and restating (not necessarily quoting - because that can have its own problems) the question or post you are responding to.
Another place this can happen is with the posting of item numbers, user ids or links. First, try just asking about the situation without identifying the member and/or item. You may be surprised to find that others quickly know exactly what you are talking about - or that they are able to give great advice without seeing the specifics. If not, you might let them know the date on which you bid on the item, or what type item it was if you are the seller. This is certainly enough information for others to be able to locate the item from a seller or bidder search with your user id. Thus, you can get the help you need, and still avoid appearing as though you are advertising your items or just trying to call attention (negative or positive) to a specific seller.
So, when you are writing a post, try to think how you might read it if you were a moderator who was reviewing it. Doing so will help you avoid situations where you have a post removed.
Also, you can help each other by checking the first post of another’s thread for violations before you post to it. If the first post has violations, the whole thread will have to be removed. This even makes us sad sometimes, but there’s no way around it. If you can help the member start a new thread with similar, but non-violating, content, so that everyone can post to that new thread, everyone will be much happier. No more losing important information because the first post had to go.
Like everything else on eBay, this is another place where trying to put ourselves in others' shoes, and giving the benefit of the doubt, can make all the difference in how positive our experiences are.
