Post deletion

[Archangel]

Any particular reason why we're not allowed to delete our own posts?

[enkoujin]

Confusion and abuse might be a problem...

I could go into the Naruto Anime subcategory and type out huge spoilers in the title, leave it up for two minutes before anyone can quick post, and delete it without the moderators knowing I did it.

Also, I guess it's for insurance that people who are going to post make good posts that they are confident about and do not retract later in a debate to save face.

[Buffalobiian]

Also, I guess it's for insurance that people who are going to post make good posts that they are confident about and do not retract later in a debate to save face.

Saving face is definitely why I would want this feature.

Occasionally I'll post in a wrong thread or post without realising I missed a whole page of comments. One can feel quite stupid from doing that.

I'm neutral on the issue.

[Archangel]

Confusion and abuse might be a problem...

I could go into the Naruto Anime subcategory and type out huge spoilers in the title, leave it up for two minutes before anyone can quick post, and delete it without the moderators knowing I did it.

Also, I guess it's for insurance that people who are going to post make good posts that they are confident about and do not retract later in a debate to save face.

Moderators are still able to see deleted posts, and bring them back should there be a need

And if it cuts down the flaming in th forums, all the better

[Kraco]

This has no doubt been one of the big questions of net forums as long as net forums has existed. To get it out of the way, the ultimate reason for not allowing it is to keep such a 1337 power for mods/admins only, but officially it's for the reasons already mentioned: To keep things more orderly and sensible by maintaining thread integrity and by promoting good posting habits (make people think a little bit before making a post).

It should be noted that both points can be somewhat effectively nullified by the ability to edit your posts.

It's not like I wouldn't understand the problem the inability sometimes if rarely presents, though. You might make a post containing an embarrassing mistake you notice soon after and without the power to remove the post you will need to edit in something else, often hard to come up with in a hurry (before too many people see your mistake).

As a mod, I won't be supporting unlimited deletion rights, though, because situations where the ability would really be useful are scarce for careful posters. If abused, it could be troublesome, though, and like Bill has shown with his easygoing strikethrough abuse, concessions granted by Complich are abused.

[Archangel]

Bah, we never add anything to the forums because of how people might abuse it...

More faith in the users perhaps?

[XanBcoo]

More faith in the users perhaps?
There's a difference between faith and blind faith. I'm with Kraco on this one.

As far as saving face goes, shove it. I just made a dumb mistake about an hour ago, was corrected, and admitted it. I'm not embarrassed and neither should you be.

[Assassin]

I just like the sense of power it gives me....im corrupt like that. meh.

[TwisT]

hah, Seriously why not stand up to your mistakes if that is the motive for wanting this power. If you said something stupid IRL without having all the facts you can't just "delete" your part in those convo's. Just stand up to your own mistakes instead. And as Kraco pointed out, you can always edit your post if your so ashamed of what you said that your ready to commit suicide because of the embarrassment it causes you. And it doesn't have to even be replaced by something of value. Just type "EDIT: I'm obviously high and was way of with this comment. I fucked up and don't really have anything interesting to say. My bad. THE END!"

Another problem with this is that if you say something and i quote you, then you remove your post, it's just gonna look fucked up for anyone coming in later and reading through the topic. He's gonna wonder if I'm even posting in the right thread. But if it's edited out you can see that the quoted user has an edited post in that thread and can understand what's happened. And that could be used to abuse too. Having a unfriendly/heated quarrel and then delete your posts, making the other one looking like he's talking to himself or try and make him look like a total dickbag. God knows, GW has had it's share of user quarrels, heated arguments and user rivalry through the years.

Anyway i see no reason to give users this power, and i know mods delete stuff every now and again but i can't help to remember KrBadass major fuckup when talking about deleteing ^^. I know it's not the same since he deleted Mut's user account, but all i see when reading this idea is "Disaster waiting to happen". As i said, no real reason for this power since the edit button can remove the unwanted comment/statement just as well. Unless there's some other reason for putting in this change.

Just my two cent.

[Archangel]

Actually my purpose for this was to be able to up threads without double posting...

[Buffalobiian]

Actually my purpose for this was to be able to up threads without double posting...

Haha, I can just see some random abusing the system by bumping the a thread every 2 minutes so he'll get a response (eg the "help me find X" threads).

I've desired that function too sometimes...meh.

[Archangel]

Argh, ok forget any kind of upgrade on the forum because all users are fucking idiots!

/endrant

[Assassin]

im glad you see our point of view

[Kraco]

Yeah. The simple, objective truth is that we wouldn't need moderators in the first place, only an admin for maintenance and development, if all the members were 100% reliable 100% of the time.

[complich8]

so, my ideal forum vision would be mutability thresholds for both deletion and editing. Let me explain:

If you make a post, you've got two things that "lock" the post into existence: a reply to the post or a certain amount of time passing (say, 5-10 minutes). Users would be able to delete their posts before that point, but not after.

After that point, the post is still editable by the user, but only until the edit-immutable threshold (say, one month). So at some point, anything you post becomes unalterable and indelible (except by mods/admins).

That would be my ideal setup.

VBulletin has the option to set an edit timeout, which is half that battle (but I don't have it set, so if you want to you can go change your posts you made in 2003 -- I might reevaluate that after I get around to finding someone to update our look and feel -- or maybe not). But it doesn't have the deletion timeout thing, so you either can delete your own posts, or you can't, with no threshold for archiving.

[Archangel]

I can't believe you passed out on a "I have a dream" joke with that avatar

[Ryllharu]

Actually my purpose for this was to be able to up threads without double posting...
Personally, I think this was proof enough of exactly why this shouldn't happen.

We have forums at work (lots of employees) with its own classified section because ebay is blocked by Websense. Some people will bump their threads after only a day, just to keep it on top of the stack.

I'm not that big of a fan of bumping threads. If no one was interested, no one was interested. Most people know how to use a search if they suddenly decide to comment.

Just my two cents.