Why does this topic say it will be automatically deleted in x days?

@maa
It seems that, here on the topic, yours and others efforts to take us all closer to understanding an important part of our systems were for nothing and seem to have little or no value…
As it says at the end of the topic: This topic will be automatically deleted in 23 days.

Please Admins, is this really necessary?
Or at least, could you please be so kind to offer all of us contributors an explanation of why are you doing this?
Because if you leave aside the topics from “Show us your system”, is one of the most viewed topic on this site.
Thanks!

1 Like

@alexpescaru right, I didn’t pay attention!
I looked at other posts and they don’t have this limitation, why this one then?

I believe the topic must be marked with “Solution”.

Hi @alexpescaru and @maa,

First; The content of a topic (if deleted) will still be available to moderators to undelete if necessary.

So why do some posts have it?

Some posts on this community sit quite close to the line for if they belong here or not. If myself or the moderation team cannot decide right in the moment, scheduling for deletion is an option for us to defer the decision so that the conversation can play out for now without getting more involved.

There will usually be ~30 days for this. It is not a permanent situation, if the conversation proves itself to be valuable and on point, then the automatic deletion timer can be turned off.

It is something of a warning, we don’t want to hijack the conversation about why it is getting moderated before it’s had a chance to prove itself, but also we don’t just want to let it run without any intervention.

The most likely outcome for these kinds of topics is that there will be some kind of moderation at some point. Either to add disclaimers, remove unnecessary back and forth between the useful information, or some other official clarification.

If this hasn’t happened and the topic just gets deleted without comment or other intervention, and you feel strongly that was a mistake, then you’re welcome to post about it here and I can investigate further and recover it if necessary.

Specific to that pylontech firmware update post, It will almost certainly be destined for the modifications space.

Updating battery BMS firmware and decoding product strings is not normal, and I would really strongly recommend that no one is doing it except under direct instructions from pylontech or their dealers, and then this post is not necessary.

There is a lot of potential for harm there, people thinking they need to do it for some reason or another, it failing and then they are really in a bad situation, and the Victron community is then somehow involved.

There is quite a bit of confusion in the world that the information here is verified by Victron. It’s not, so when we do see something that is pretty high risk, we need to weigh it up.

To remove all doubts there, the modifications space makes it just enough hoops to jump through that people know they are on their own, and have some ability to solve problems of their own creation.

Thanks for the explanation.

As a side note, like I’ve said, if you sort on Views the forum content and then eliminate the “Show us your system” topics, you’ll be surprised how high that topic was in the reading scale… That says something about what users deem interesting, probably because the battery is a big part of their system.
As per update the batteries to the last firmware, no offense, in a way here Victron is bearing part of the “guilt”, because had teach their users that when a thing is not functioning, first thing to do is an update to the last firmware.

Well, the knowledge is out there and by out there I mean on the internet, so if someone really wants to do it, will do it anyhow.
I understand the desire of Victron to not get involved in some of the legal stuff that, in extremis, could arrive from an implication (or not) of an affiliate community. Probably the experience of the past fights with the Chinese.

1 Like

I think if you are going to mark a topic as a candidate for deletion then you need to be making that explicitly clear by posting in the topic itself.

Contributors can then decide to engage or not.

It’s a waste of time for everyone to contribute to a topic to find it consigned to the trash.

It’s also worth noting that some of these “questionable” topics are the things that interest long time users. Everyone gets bored with the millionth “Why doesn’t my system work because I didn’t read the manual?” posts.

1 Like

The point is to defer the debate, and not derail the conversation re:moderation before it has even happened.

99% of topics get no moderation
0.9% get immediately moderated
0.1% will get some treatment like this

This is the signal itself to reconsider putting much time into it. They have a month.

Yes, these are going to be the more interesting topics for long term technical people, which is why they should probably be in the modifications space in the first place where there is less moderation.

I know on some forum platforms if the author of the post, then is removed or deletes their account from said forum the post(s) they created auto delete in x days.

The status notice isn’t exactly hidden and doesn’t require heightened senses of detection to find.
Ultimately this, as already stated, allows wiggle room for conversations to happen where previously they were abruptly shut off.
Some information has value in being temporary, but that the community does not want to exist in perpetuity, nor to clutter search results.
Moderation is a fact of life on all fora, this site is no exception. It isn’t always going to be popular but that is what you accept when you join any community.
The best way to avoid it is to understand the guidelines, as broad as they are.
Team mod do have better things to do than to remind members and shuffle contributions around, and there has been a concerted effort to allow more, broader discussions on discourse, something you can see in DIY, and which also creates new challenges, and thus new methods of moderation.

2 Likes

Thank you all @guystewart @nickdb for your feedback and explanations. My ambition in creating this post was not to make Victron feel uncomfortable in relation to anyone and if you think it should be deleted then delete it I will not hold it against anyone.
Nevertheless I note about forty responses on the subject in a week so we could deduce that it represents a certain interest.
Yes @guystewart is right this type of update is very risky but as @alexpescaru justified if we can help those in need then let’s do it
Now it’s up to you to see, you have all my confidence :grinning:

2 Likes

I haven’t seen it happen yet, but my understanding of how it works here is the posts just become anonymous, but the content remains

1 Like

Hi Guy @guystewart and Nick @nickdb

From the start I want to say that I don’t want to inflame people and apologies from the start if I will offend. This is not my intention.

Just wondering…
What do you think will be the consequences of such an action - e.g. deleting threads?
For this topic in discussion and for future ones like this?

I am asking you because you are among the official Victron people that involve themself more on the community.
As opposing with many other Victron people from which I didn’t see a single post.

The community is made up of newbies, of passionate people with more or less knowledge and of moderators. Which, by the way, all are Victron experts as the title says.

I know, nobody asked my opinion, but still, such actions will only drive away some category of people and slowly the forum will become quite dull.
This is the community you want to have?

In the end who wants to come to a place where tricky questions and tricky topics are not encouraged and almost all issues are about things you already find an answer in the manual.
Were all questions are newbie questions and where the answer is, in short, “RTFM” and bam!, Solution mark.
I still want to see a wracking brain topic / question with a Soution mark.
But, generally speaking, such topics are hard to earn Solution mark, because of the debates involved and the difficulty in finding just a single right answer.

In the end, a consequence of your behavior is the way the forum will look.
Like Frederick Douglas said: “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.

Again, no offense, just my 2 cents rant…

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.