Have you noticed that some mylot discussions are removed?

Merlinsorca, that is the problem with the searches - they might not always turn up the correct results, especially when people can change the tags on your discussions. Using both the search and similar discussions column helps, but that is not fool-proof, either. If you do both, though, then you have a pretty good idea of whether or not it would be a similar/duplicate discussion and can proceed accordingly. The fact that only one of your discussions has been deleted, however, would suggest that you are doing a pretty good job already. When people change the tags on discussions, sometimes they change them to meaningless things. That really messes up the system, because the tags are used when searching for discussions, so changing them to meaningless stuff creates a big problem. When we see that tags on our discussions (or even other people's discussions) have been changed to this sort of thing, then we can report the tag as inappropriate for the discussion, and myLot Admins will delete it. That will not only help out when searching for similar/duplicate discussions but also when users are trying to find discussions to respond to related to a particular interest, which might draw more attention and responses to our discussions.

Merlinsorca, if you are unsure of whether or not a discussion might be a repeat topic, then before you start the discussion you could use the search bar at the top of the page to enter key words. That will return results for the key words of your discussion, and you can go through the discussions that have the same key words as yours to see whether or not yours would be a repeat discussion. Also, when you are in one of these discussions, you can look on the right-hand side of the screen, and you will see "similar discussions" where more discussions similar to the one you are searching will appear.

Well, I have used the search bar but I must be using the wrong keywords because I couldn't find any similar discussions to the one that was deleted. I haven't checked the similar discussions, though, so it may have been there. . .

Yes, but my blog fulfilled the needs of the poster. Oh well, I was probably surfing mypot at that moment. :P

It once again shatters my hope of any kind of positive development here in mylot. I just find it more boring by the day, but I can't leave. I think mypot makes us high.

hi purple. I can't believe I have no internet connection for 2 days now. Probably it will take weeks for me to be back here. I am now writing this in on of the internet cafe I will miss you all. Just keep posting.

I don't really know why your discussions were deleted, but if there were not obvious violations of the guidelines, then I think they were probably similar/duplicate discussions, which are also against the guidelines. I can't say for sure, of course, but that seems like it might be the case. Five posters starting discussions about your favorite pizza topping will have their discussions deleted, even if they do not have the exact same wording, because the discussions are all similar/duplicate discussions, unless one of the posters puts a different and unique spin on the topic. If you search for key words for a discussion topic before you start the discussion, then you can see whether or not the same or a similar discussion has already been done. If it has, then you can either decide to take a new and different slant on the existing topic in your own discussion or you can respond to the existing discussion by the original poster. This might help you avoid having more of your discussions deleted.

Here is a link to the discussion guidelines of myLot, so you can read them and become aware of them in order to avoid these types of mistakes. http://www.mylot.com/o/guidelines.aspx Here is a link to the TOS (terms of service) of myLot, which you had to agree to before you joined and were able to post any discussions or comments. http://www.mylot.com/o/terms.aspx

Alright, those did not come through as links, so let me try this again. Here are the guidelines http://www.mylot.com/o/guidelines.aspx for the discussions on myLot. Here are the TOS (terms of service) http://www.mylot.com/o/terms.aspx which you agreed to abide by before you became a member and were able to start discussions or post comments to discussions.

no, moderators here have to go through a very tedious process of looking at each and every discusion that gets reported they also have no way of knowing who rates a discusion or how.

Some discussions are very obviously violations and the user knows that he or she is breaking the rules when that person starts the discussion, such as the users that copy and paste (plagiarize) other people's work off this or other Internet sites. These people are the most serious offenders, in my opinion. Other people make mistakes, especially newer users, such as the one that you describe here, but more experienced users can also make mistakes, because we are all human. The important thing is that you learned from your mistake, so that you will not make that same mistake again.

First, the guidelines state that we should not "Post similar or identical postings. Stealing posts from other users or posting the same thing over and over again will not help your myLot earnings. Multiple identical postings, even if legitimate, may be considered spam." Therefore, if you start that type of discussion, then everybody (including yourself) loses time, posts, and money when the discussion gets deleted. However, if you want to bring an older discussion back to life, then you could go and respond to the existing discussion. If you are the original poster, then it might draw more comments for you to respond to. If you are not, then you can comment to others on that discussion as well as responding to the discussion yourself, which will hopefully get a good dialog going. The original poster will probably be glad that there is interest in an older discussion, and you will be able to talk about a topic that interests you, so everybody benefits.