Give us the option of removing a post.

[Blaze The Movie Fan]

I'm gonna have to be honest, I am tired of having to double post a few hours later after one post. But I have no choice, if I edit the previous post, no one will notice it since the thread is not near the top anymore.

 

I think we should have the ability to delete our posts. Plenty of message boards have that feature. Some of you might make the argument that some might abuse it, but that's also the case with editing a post, and this message board also has that feature.

 

I really think this would solve more problems that it'd make. If we had that ability I wouldn't have to double post and can just copy my previous post and paste it to the new one.

[Ned]

So isn't your issue more with thread bumping than post deletion?

[Blaze The Movie Fan]

So isn't your issue more with thread bumping than post deletion?

 

Not exactly, I don't bump a thread because I didn't get the reply I wanted, I do it when I have something to add like further questions in Help & Advice, or something more to talk about in the Questionaire forum.

[D. V. Devnull]

Hi, Blaze.  It's very likely an Admin will be posting here as well, but I've heard in the past that post deletions are strictly against the core policies of these forums.  Even the Admins themselves are NOT allowed to use their delete buttons (even though I think I heard those buttons are more-than-likely always available to them, due to something like being unable to disable them), because of the record-keeping work they do for many different reasons behind the scenes here.  That even includes all the work that goes into handling post reports and rule-breakers. :geek:

 

Further, those delete buttons are not available to the rest of us anyway because of various additional reasons including what might happen if someone broke into a user's account for malicious reasons.  Like, imagine if some idiot came along who didn't like you, a post you typed, or even a video you posted up for some stupid reason.  Now, imagine that they broke in and started deleting your posts left and right, wiping out your user avatar, altering your profile details to make you look like something you're not... the list of possibilities goes on.  You really wouldn't like that, would you?  Plus, it would be a real headache for your fellow forum members who were discussing something with you, should your posts just suddenly disappear like that, even though it was known that there was no rule violations in your posts. :(

 

And that's why that delete button isn't available.  It would just be a source of far too much trouble.  I think we would all prefer that trouble never happens, right? :huh:

 

~Mr. D. V. "Sorry, but there's reasons it isn't available." Devnull

[Sy_Accursed]

I kinda don't see how deletion aids your aims here.

 

Your issue is if you edit something new into a post it doesn't bump it and therefore it does not get as noticeable.

 

Deleting the entire thread/post won't get it noticed more as its just gone.

Bumping however would get it noticed after edits.

 

Personally I think deletion isn't the answer, but some work to do with bumping/alerts may be beneficial.

 

For example:

Bump a thread if they original post is altered.

Make threads appear unread if the last (or maybe last 5ish) posts get editted.

Maybe see if its feasible to have a sort of unread flag appear on editted posts within a thread the first time you go past them again.

Perhaps see if notifications can be sent (optional, default on?) if a post you quoted or liked is editted.

 

Would help with the noticing of altered content without just erasing threads from existence.

Fairly sure at least 4 of the above should be doable with the IP Board software from what I recall last time I really did anything back end to a forum without too much work. 1 would probably need a plug-in of some kind if it'd work at all.

[Blaze The Movie Fan]

Hi, Blaze.  It's very likely an Admin will be posting here as well, but I've heard in the past that post deletions are strictly against the core policies of these forums.  Even the Admins themselves are NOT allowed to use their delete buttons (even though I think I heard those buttons are more-than-likely always available to them, due to something like being unable to disable them), because of the record-keeping work they do for many different reasons behind the scenes here.  That even includes all the work that goes into handling post reports and rule-breakers. :geek:

 

Further, those delete buttons are not available to the rest of us anyway because of various additional reasons including what might happen if someone broke into a user's account for malicious reasons.  Like, imagine if some idiot came along who didn't like you, a post you typed, or even a video you posted up for some stupid reason.  Now, imagine that they broke in and started deleting your posts left and right, wiping out your user avatar, altering your profile details to make you look like something you're not... the list of possibilities goes on.  You really wouldn't like that, would you?  Plus, it would be a real headache for your fellow forum members who were discussing something with you, should your posts just suddenly disappear like that, even though it was known that there was no rule violations in your posts. :(

 

And that's why that delete button isn't available.  It would just be a source of far too much trouble.  I think we would all prefer that trouble never happens, right? :huh:

 

~Mr. D. V. "Sorry, but there's reasons it isn't available." Devnull

 

There are many message boards who have the option of deletion and they're all doing fine, so your argument doesn't work.

[D. V. Devnull]

<<<snip>>>

 

There are many message boards who have the option of deletion and they're all doing fine, so your argument doesn't work.

Then you don't know the history on these forums... I'll leave it to an Admin to arrive and have a long chat with you here. -.-

 

~D. V. "... *sigh* ..." Devnull

[Randox]

Post Deletion

 

I'm sure there are many forums that allow their users to delete their posts and get along just fine, but I don't see this forum being one of them. Devnull is quite right on the record keeping point. Tip.it has a long standing policy that nothing gets thrown away. Rather than guess at what material we might want to reference in the future, we have opted to simply keep everything, and the delete function interferes with our ability to keep the most complete and useable records possible.

 

Bumping

 

Sy has some neat ideas here. In particular, I like the idea of allowing a post edit to bump a thread and mark the post back to unread so that it doesn't get jumped over (which I assume is why you thought of using the delete function, since it would also accomplish this). Unfortunately, I don't think any of that stuff exists out of the box, so I couldn't immediately say what can and cannot be done. There is of course a basic bump system, though this will fail to highlight the edited post.

 

I'm certainly open to a discussion about enabling the bump system, and I'll see about allowing edits themselves to provide a bumping option. User content deletion isn't on the table however I'm afraid.

[Blaze The Movie Fan]

To be honest, I do like the bumping idea better. That way I wouldn't have to cut from the previous post and paste it to the new one, which I unfortunately have to do if I have something to add elsewhere.

 

I support that 100%, go for it.

 

EDIT: But wait a minute, I don't get it. I have asked for some of the awful threads I made to be removed, and someone did remove them. Doesn't that contradict your so-called policy?

Edited May 13, 2015 by Blaze The Movie Fan

[Mr Selfridge]

 

 

EDIT: But wait a minute, I don't get it. I have asked for some of the awful threads I made to be removed, and someone did remove them. Doesn't that contradict your so-called policy?

 

They most likely just "hid" your post or moved it into a forum only administrators or moderators can see that they just dump awful threads into.

[Arceus]

But wait a minute, I don't get it. I have asked for some of the awful threads I made to be removed, and someone did remove them. Doesn't that contradict your so-called policy?

 

They're not permanently deleted - just hidden. And keep in mind there's a big difference between a moderator or admin doing that once in a while for good reason/upon request than allowing everyone to do it automatically themselves.

[essiw]

To be honest, I do like the bumping idea better. That way I wouldn't have to cut from the previous post and paste it to the new one, which I unfortunately have to do if I have something to add elsewhere.

 

I support that 100%, go for it.

 

EDIT: But wait a minute, I don't get it. I have asked for some of the awful threads I made to be removed, and someone did remove them. Doesn't that contradict your so-called policy?

A moderator wouldn't delete all the posts of one person, even when asked by the person (I guess). I know a forums though where a lot of persons did delete all their posts after leaving. Removing a few posts is not a problem, removing all of them is :P Users are more likely to delete a lot of posts if they have the delete button themselves.

[Arceus]

I think the only scenario where that might be considered would be if Google search results were turning up undesirable things from their real life name or something of that nature. Even in that case though, I would imagine that they could just change their forum name and wait for Google's cache to update, and it would resolve itself.