It seems so obvious that it's a pitty it wasn't studied before.
It doesn't work just online: ask a children to solve some problem in a blackboard and then erase it without telling a thing, while leaving answers from other kids on it. You'll see that nobody likes to be "corrected" without an explanation.
Noone likes to be corrected without an explanation. That part is fine. But explaining takes time for the moderators as well as providing value to the user, and some users try to get past moderation by overwhelming the moderators. Spamming.
The automated removal can also come with broad reasoning in response, and that doesn't overwhelm the system.
"Violating Policy X" (where X can be something like Twitter's Rules, not necessarily something specific) is still a terrible explanation, but isn't nothing either. Vague enough spammers can't use it to game the system, specific enough that user's can guess they did something wrong.
If it isn't "specific enough the user can guess what they did", like in your case, then it's a clear failure. So is a lack of a transparent appeal process.
Automation-assisted, not automation everything.
I wasn't advocating for blanket terms that mean nothing. You need to provide the user with something meaningful.
In the cases of places like Reddit, there are addons like Mod Toolbox that place canned messages messages into the removal workflow, so there’s little reason to ever silently delete things.
> Additionally, explanations provided by human moderators did not have a significant advantage over explanations provided by bots for reducing future post removals. We propose design solutions that can promote the efficient use of explanation mechanisms, reflecting on how automated moderation tools can contribute to this space.
Obviously the rules need some flexibility to solve special cases. I do not think anyone has suggested that you need to provide a unique hand written explanation for the 100th repeat offense. At that point just delete the spam and ban them.
BTDT. But I've also spent time thinking "uh, is this someone who warrants a polite explanation, or will that be a mistake?" It's not easy. Spammers will try to exploit anything you do, anything at all.
It doesn't work just online: ask a children to solve some problem in a blackboard and then erase it without telling a thing, while leaving answers from other kids on it. You'll see that nobody likes to be "corrected" without an explanation.