Discrimination of brevity on posts here is clearly about something. But what?

[FreakinEurekan]

There's brief, and there's "Vaguebooking." Without seeing the original post I won't opine as to which yours was... I suppose a post could be that brief AND be topical & of general interest. But offhand I can't think of a way

 

[bousozoku]

The OP has a point which hasn’t been answered. I too have been a victim of this inexplicable rule.

You've read the rules when you signed up, didn't you? You can't be a victim because you knew to expect it to happen, since you were informed from the start.

 

[Weaselboy]

Moderator Note:

Please see the below excerpt from the moderation FAQ.

Some posts in this thread were removed or edited for discussing specific cases of moderation, as opposed to general moderation policies, which is allowed.

https://macrumors.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201294976-Is-moderation-handled-privately

Almost all moderation is handled privately to avoid embarrassing forum members. Reminders and warnings are sent by Private Messages so only you and the moderators see them. When reminders and warnings are listed on your User Profile, only you see them there; other users do not see them. The moderators keep records of their actions so administrators can review the messages, but these records are not shared with other users.

In keeping with this privacy policy, if you post in the forums asking why your post was moderated, your post will be removed (it's almost always off-topic to the thread it's in). The answer to "Why was my post deleted?" is always the same: it violated a forum rule or was a quote of a post that violated a forum rule. If you want a further explanation use the Contact form so we can be perfectly frank and discuss your posts and forum record. You can post in the Site and Forum Feedback forum if you want to discuss forum rules and moderation policies in general, but keep it general, not about a specific case of moderation.

As to one word posts or image only posts, most of the rules have been developed over time based on member feedback. In general, the feedback has been members find one word or image only posts annoying, hence the rule.

I can give a more recent example. Not long after Phil Schiller's 2013 remark "Can't innovate, my ass", the phrase started appearing stand alone in news thread over and over. We got member feedback this was annoying, so the mods and admins discussed as a group and decided the phrase had become an overused meme for purposes of the frivolous post rule and would be removed when that was all the post consisted of. This same process has happened with other phrases such as the "Safari snappy" posts members found annoying.