In !askelectonics@discuss.tchncs.de, I posted the thread “What did I buy? Need help identifying mystery board.” The mod censored it instantly. It was removed so fast I thought it never posted in the first place. I thought a broken network connection caused a dropped message and data loss. Luckily I could use the browsers back button to reach it.

Then it became clear: the Alexandrite client is not working for the user. It’s working for the mods by disappearing the user’s own work when the mods nix it from the timeline. It’s obviously a disservice to the user to be subjected to data loss. The data loss is chaotic and arbitrary. These are the original posts:

Notice the discuss.tchncs.de copy is completely destroyed, not merely removed from the timeline. Incidentally, I got lucky by posting on a host other than that of my account. So there is still a cached copy on dbzer0.com. But despite the persisting copy, Alexandrite neglects to give the link to its own user. Had I closed the browser before noticing the removal, it would effectively be data loss because there would be no way to notice and no way to obtain the link.

There is a recent trend where it has become acceptable for apps to not work in the interest of the user who executes the app. This misplacement of duty by inverting who is being served is mostly an erosion manifesting from web apps, not user-installed apps (though Firefox is an exception whereby Mozilla often takes decisions in the interest of webmasters). Regardless of whether a removal from a timeline is justified, it’s not okay to subject users to data loss and deny them transparency.

The interesting take-away for users is to avoid posting on the same host as your account. If a community is local, use an external account to post there to avoid data loss.