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MANAGING ONLINE FORUMS
to remain. These include better record keeping (you can simply link to
removed posts rather than quoting what you removed), easier mistake correc-
tion (especially if your community software has a merge function), and com-
ment minimization in response to the removals. Plus, if people know that
you’ll correct their mistakes, they’ll be more likely to lean on you and less
likely to actually care about what they post. Even if you edit out a violation,
you should still contact your users directly to make them aware of it, rather
than leaving a note in the member’s post, which the member may never read
again or may get hostile about. Without notification and consequence, no one
is really going to learn anything. That said, it