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First, a minor point, request, and bug:

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – Firelord♦ 6 hours ago

But it was I who moved it to chat. It seems it was then moved again, within chat by the mod. I think the latter should be undone if it can be. Yes?


Obviously, I was "in disagreement of a moderator's actions." I questioned their initial actions and explained why they were obviously inappropriate, IMO. I appreciate Fire's acknowledgement that they were, so let's move on. Other than that, the mod is (implicitly) declining to address my concerns or repeated requests for clarification. I hereby ask 'Em again, now. ... The mod is now telling me what I think. That also feels a bit aggressive and inappropriate.

You willingly added [A] to show your discontent with my moderation knowing fully [B].

No. I don't think any of that.

I have locked this post until the dispute is resolved on meta or you decide to disengage on your own.

Seems unhelpful and rude. Especially when I have proposed an alternative and was given no feedback on it. I wonder what is and isn't meant by disengage in that context.

Furthermore, please avoid excessive comments.

What are you talking about? There isn't a single comment by me on the Q OR A. Maybe that comment was meant for the kind participant?

If you intend to talk to me regarding unlocking it, you can use a chat room.

I had already done that.

Do note that your successive revisions made your question clear, so I did reopen it, but had to lock it due to system's misuse. – Firelord♦ 6 hours ago

If that made my question clear, the current question could have been replaced with that clear question. However I would suggest checking in with me as to whether you indeed have my question clear before editing it, based on track record. And I would appreciate an assumption of good faith going forward. Is that too much to ask for?

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  • Do the normal policies on being agreeable or what is and isn't appropriate question editing apply at all to moderators? Common Sense would dictate that most do or should. Ones that are being violated. Jan 6, 2019 at 0:11
  • 4
    "There isn't a single comment by me on the Q OR A." Not a single one that isn't deleted, no. I count 9 (deleted) comments by you. And seeing the edit history (especiall edits 4 and 5), I'd say it's you who needs to learn behavior. What you edited into your question definitely doesn't belong there (but rather could have been asked in chat or on Meta). The edits Firelord has done were absolutely reasonable (I had done the same). To me it looks it's you who'se unreasonable – especially when coming with false arguments ("not a single comment").
    – Izzy Mod
    Jan 6, 2019 at 9:26
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    Your chat invite reached me and I wanted to respond later after studying the question, by which time I saw that appropriate action had been taken by Firelord. I don't think you invited Firelord, which you should have considering that you have issues with his actions (not saying inviting another moderator is wrong, but excluding Firelord?)
    – beeshyams
    Jan 6, 2019 at 15:29
  • And beeshyams, you're mistaken in that I DID invite that person that you accuse me of 'excluding'. That's on the record. Can you please address that? I recall attempting to do so directly, and then seeing that he was gone (or hidden? Would any such activity be permanently logged?), AND I specifically asked him: "Are you really opposed to a general question of this nature to which a useful general answer can be provided?" A question which he's ignored. It feels like he's ignored most if not every one of my questions. Behavior which, I note, is deemed "absolutely reasonable" 'round here. Feb 23, 2019 at 0:06
  • Izzy, did you not read that "it was I who moved [the comments] to chat'? Do you not believe me? If you do, then why do you claim that "There isn't a single comment by me on the Q OR A." is a false argument? By the time you told me that the comments belonged in a chat or on meta, the evidence was already available in multiple places related to the question that showed that knew that. If you didn't realize I knew by then, can you ack that your reading comprehension has some room for improvement? Can you, Andrew? Feb 23, 2019 at 0:26
  • It's consequential - y'all not joining me in chat, not engaging in discussion, making excuses for not discussing that person's actions. Feb 23, 2019 at 0:27

1 Answer 1

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I can't discuss this in isolation as this would further the controversy. I need to consider your first revision and sketch out the issues here with that and further revisions.

Here's revision 1:

Title: How do I disinfect my infected Android device (phone) with adware malware that simple steps failed to remove? And what should I AVOID trying?


WAIT! Before you reflexively down vote this, see my answer!

In the process of trying to resolve the infection, I kept hitting major, dangerous hurdles. I had a pretty good guess as to what had led to the infection, but hit hurdle after hurdle as I tried to act accordingly.

I was surprised that the simple steps I tried didn't work. But then, I'm used to the iOS environment, which is much better defended.

That revision had multiple issues to begin with.

  • Title says you tried some steps but failed to mention the steps you followed.

  • Title also says "what should I avoid trying?". We need to know what you already tried which you didn't mention. Besides, that is something which is actually very broad. Since the body didn't focus on that, I reduced the scope of the question by editing it out (to prevent it from yet another closure (too broad).

  • The two paragraphs "In the process...defended" (almost the whole of the body) were of no use to a user trying to understand your problem because of the missing steps.

    (Tip: always write a question as if somebody else is having that issue and you want to solve it, so you'd always try to mention what's relevant to understand the question at first go. May be some clarification could still be needed, but the question should at least stand on its own without clarification.)

As for considering the answer as asked in the body, it must be noted that a question, no matter whether one intends to answer it or wants it to be answered, must stand on its own ground. (We have some exceptions to this with self-answering, especially when the user intends to provide a conceptual understanding of a subject matter and a rooting guide et al.) Requiring a person to go through a answer just to understand the question disrupts the Q&A format and reduces it to forum style posts. It also wastes a reviewer's/moderator's time and effort that could well have been spent on matters genuinely requiring urgent attention.

Self-answered questions can be presented standalone. I have done so, and you can evaluate them yourselves.

As for the closure, a flag was raised against your question for being unclear. Because it was unclear to me as well, I closed it. Closure doesn't mean the post is done for. The closure note broadly indicates that the post should be fixed, and a fixed post may deserve to be reopened. Normally, a moderator leaves a note when closing a post as "unclear" because the user cannot usually come to know what to fix in it. However, user Irfan Latif had already asked most pertinent information in a comment, so I avoided adding my own comment. I suppose I should have been more careful by being explicit with what's wrong with the post.

I had to resort to locking your post because the meta issues of the question and your objection to a moderator's action should be addressed on the meta site. Knowingly not using the meta site but the post itself for addressing meta grievances can be considered abuse, as I considered in this case.

To be clear that I have nothing personal against the post or you per se, I did reopen the post after your revision 4 added useful information but simultaneously locked it for aforesaid reason.

I appreciate your intent to help us out by sharing your knowledge, but it has to be done in an order and format that the community expect. A deviation requires an appropriate response. It started with closure, which when failed to control things, led the locking of the post.

As for this meta question, some parts do not require answering because I have discussed the original question in detail. As for the comments, Irfan and you engaged in a very long discussion. Comments are for clarifications and suggestions. If there are 20+ comments (including both sides) then either the involved users are too chatty or something in the post requires an immediate fix, barring some exceptions.

Yes, you did offer a chat room in comments which was a good step on your part. When fixing your question, I simply moved all the comments into a chat room (auto-generated) and deleted them to avoid redundancy. If you think there exists a bug, please report it separately from your immediate issue here.

Also, it is neither Firestarter, nor Fire. It is Firelord (no spaces, no surname). I request you to focus on the matter from next time, not on distorting the name of a person (even if it is just an avatar). And please use standard dedicated channel for grievance redressal, which is meta here.

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    OP should note that the question was flawed ab-initio for reasons explained here. Each subsequent revision only made it worse in the process attracting additional down votes (since it gets bumped to home page and more viewers evaluate it). While the answer did not attract any down votes ; this should objectively indicate that the problem is with the question.
    – beeshyams
    Jan 7, 2019 at 7:04
  • I just want to emphasize that whatever the case, meta-commentary (especially related to downvoting/close voting, unless it's about defending against duplicate) is never appropriate on the post, or even on the comment. It's just a noise that casual readers won't care, and SE regulars will instead tend to downvote the post because usually it indicates the post is lacking. Let's focus on the content, not the user's action.
    – Andrew T. Mod
    Jan 7, 2019 at 8:51
  • @AndrewT. Thanks. I have attempted a fix. Please see if there is something that is focusing not on the content but on user, barring last para.
    – Firelord Mod
    Jan 7, 2019 at 10:04
  • Content? Please, Lord, do focus on it. Address my STILL outstanding CONTENT Q! The whole point of my Q is to provide a general A to a general Q, not specifics for my phone and the particular malware that's on it. I.E.: "Q:In general what steps are appropriate to disinfect an infected Android device (phone, tablet, etc) with adware malware that simple steps (Attempt to identify, Force Stop and uninstall any apps that it could have come in.) failed to remove? And what should one AVOID trying?" If you're opposed to that too, WHY? A general Q of this nature with a useful, general A? Really? FS! Feb 23, 2019 at 0:42
  • (And if you aren't opposed, allow me to to edit my Q. (Which is short for Question; A is for Answer. [sigh]) Feb 23, 2019 at 3:09

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