quora moderation said my answer may need improvement

I RECEIVED AN EMAIL FROM QUORA that read, “Quora Mod­er­a­tion col­lapsed your an­swer to ‘What ir­refutable facts do Trump sup­porters need to know about Trump to change their mind?’ for vi­o­lating a policy on Quora. Your an­swer may need im­prove­ment.” Re­ceiving what could only be in­ter­preted as a rep­ri­mand was a first for me—at least from Quora.

It im­me­di­ately whetted my ap­petite for a po­ten­tial con­fronta­tion with au­thority with po­ten­tially in­scrutable ethics and rea­soning. In­scrutable be­cause the par­tic­ular policy that I vi­o­lated was not stated and I can see nothing in my an­swer that is “ob­jec­tion­able”: No vul­garity, no big­otry, no hate speech, etc.

My orig­inal an­swer was posted on De­cember 1, 2019, which I thought a rather long time to wait be­fore cen­soring me. Here is the ques­tion again: What ir­refutable facts do Trump sup­porters need to know about Trump to change their minds?

And here is my orig­inal an­swer last year:

A: “Ha ha ha ha ha! Thanks—a good laugh is even better than a good cup of coffee to start the day.”

Now, how do I im­prove that an­swer? I made a few al­ter­ations in punc­tu­a­tion, adding hy­phens in the opening ex­cla­ma­tion. Then my an­swer reads like this:

A: “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Thanks—a good laugh is even better than a good cup of coffee to start the day.”

Then I re­moved the em-dash, which puts a lot of ed­i­tors off. Then my an­swer reads like this:

A: “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Thanks! A good laugh is even better than a good cup of coffee to start the day.”

I changed “coffee” to “Cafe Bustelo,” which gives the an­swer a friend­lier, warmer tone. So, here is how my an­swer now stands:

A: “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Thanks! A good laugh is even better than a good cup of Cafe Bustelo to start the day.”

Will Quora Moderation be satisfied?

Now, this works for me. I mean, I don’t think the in­ten­tion of my an­swer is blurred in any manner by these changes. I then added the fol­lowing com­ment to my an­swer so that Quora Mod­er­a­tion un­der­stands my actions:

As per the instruction/suggestion in the email from the Quora Mod­er­a­tion, I im­proved my answer:

1. I added hy­phens be­tween the “ha’s.”

2. I re­moved the em-dash be­tween “Thanks” and “a” and broke up the one sen­tence into two parts.

3. I changed “cup of coffee” to “cup of Cafe Bustelo,” making it more specific.

Any­thing I missed?

I hope this works and I will keep you abreast if any­thing more happens.

To follow this back-and-forth on Quora, click here.

ILLUSTRATIONS: The il­lus­tra­tions above were cropped from im­ages used by Cafe Bustelo in their first na­tional ad­ver­tising cam­paign in 2019. “The cam­paign is the first cre­ative work for the brand from PSOne, Pub­licis Groupe’s ded­i­cated unit for Smucker. The ‘Café Bustelo Was Here’ cre­ative fea­tures illustration-style vi­suals, with a retro poster feel, and a Latin-inspired music track cre­ated by HiFi Project.” (Me­di­a­Post)