TheLazy1
Experienced Member
Can we get this feature enabled?
- VCF South West - June 14 - 16, Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas at Dallas
- VCF West - Aug 2 - 3, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
- VCF Midwest - Sept 7 - 8 2024, Schaumburg, IL
- VCF SoCal - Mid February 2025, Location TBD, Southern CA
- VCF East - April 2025, Infoage Museum, Wall NJ
-
Please review our updated Terms and Rules here
Edit/delete thread?
- Thread starter TheLazy1
- Start date
Ole Juul
Veteran Member
It's not my call, but to my way of thinking having someone who is not a moderator delete all my posts in some thread would be uncool.
Even just having someone go through the board and erase all their own posts, as happens from time to time, is a real nuisance for others. People do that when they get into a snit, but I don't personally think that being rude and "punishing" the other board members is an appropriate solution to a disagreement. YMMV. Perhaps they aren't thinking at all, but either way, I think the less facility for that sort of thing the better for everyone. /2¢
TheLazy1
Experienced Member
Oh, no.
I meant editing and or deleting your own threads, maybe even only for the wanted/for sale section.
I can imagine it's a bit of a tease seeing an item you want but finding out it had long been sold.
If we could edit or delete our OPs they could me marked as sold or found.
Actually, edit would probably be good enough since often more information and other details come up in those threads
which might help someone else out during a search.
I meant editing and or deleting your own threads, maybe even only for the wanted/for sale section.
I can imagine it's a bit of a tease seeing an item you want but finding out it had long been sold.
If we could edit or delete our OPs they could me marked as sold or found.
Actually, edit would probably be good enough since often more information and other details come up in those threads
which might help someone else out during a search.
Right for spring cleaning a no longer useful thread or an uninformational sale thread it'd be handy. If it's of general use then I still like to think I can search back and see some of the prices that we put from ending auctions to track some sale info. But in general to be able to edit any post you make or delete a thread you created wouldn't have much harm.
Ole Juul
Veteran Member
My feeling is that cleaning up should be left to a moderator. However, to me it's not about what good this would do, but the abuse which it would allow.
Yes, most people here are nice, and stay that way, but there is always someone (and we've seen it) who isn't a well-wisher. Even if a thread is started by someone, the following posts (usually) belong to others who may wish to have their comments remain. Should the OP be able to delete them? I would certainly be careful about spending any amount of time writing a post if I knew the OP could delete the thread.
As it is, everyone can delete and edit their own posts. To me that is essential, but even that can be abused - and we've seen it happen.
MikeS
Veteran Member
Add my +1
In my opinion information that is helpful should be included in FAQs and Wikis. All the other stuff to me is like having a conversation that happens to be digital. So that should be left to expire automatically. After all: we are not in court. :D
You believe they should not, I believe they should. You are in charge so I accept your ruling your honor. :D
Tor
Veteran Member
So there is no 'Edit' post feature in this forum? That is.. strange. Almost every forum has that feature. It's almost _always_ used to a) correct one's own mistakes (it's very easy to write something different from what you meant, or simply overlooking spelling / grammar errors), or b) update post with additional information as necessary. What most forums have in addition is an automatic 'post was edited at .. date' note at the bottom. Some forums will only add that note if the post had already been viewed (which makes sense).
It's very rare to see abuse of that system. It's pretty useful.
EDIT: So there _is_ an 'Edit post' feature. What is this thread about then? I've read through it several times and all I can see indicates just this feature I'm now using. What am I misunderstanding?
It's very rare to see abuse of that system. It's pretty useful.
EDIT: So there _is_ an 'Edit post' feature. What is this thread about then? I've read through it several times and all I can see indicates just this feature I'm now using. What am I misunderstanding?
Last edited:
Tor
Veteran Member
Aha. Ok. But at least that handles most of the I-wish-to-edit-a-typo problem (which I just did, after noticing the typo in the quote above). Could've been worse.
Ole Juul
Veteran Member
The issue is not so much one's own posts but the OP suggests the ability to delete whole threads. That means that a thread starter would control what others write. To me that is not good and doing so would be most disrespectful of others. Simply put, I may not think that what you say is important, but it would be arrogant of me to delete it.
Tor
Veteran Member
The issue is not so much one's own posts but the OP suggests the ability to delete whole threads. That means that a thread starter would control what others write. To me that is not good and doing so would be most disrespectful of others. Simply put, I may not think that what you say is important, but it would be arrogant of me to delete it.
I agree fully with that - I don't know any forum which allows thread starters (owners) to delete the thread, not to mention edting other people's entries. Usually you're allowed to edit your own posts, which is fair and sufficient. Here it appears there's a 48-hour window for editing. I think that's fine. It removes the possibility to keep an 'updated' post (say, if starting a thread with "let's list all known versions of this hardware"), but that's about it.
The issue is not so much one's own posts but the OP suggests the ability to delete whole threads. That means that a thread starter would control what others write. To me that is not good and doing so would be most disrespectful of others. Simply put, I may not think that what you say is important, but it would be arrogant of me to delete it.
In some cases I believe that should be possible. Especially in the for sale and wanted sections.
It is confusing to people who reply to a post, only to find that the original post has been deleted.
We allow people to fix typos in their own threads for a short period of time. After that, editing is not allowed. We had cases were somebody had a temper tantrum and mass "deleted" their posts by editing them to be empty, and it took Erik some time to recover the original posts. We have also had people go back and edit their posts after the fact to mislead or "cover their tracks."
Here is the bottom line - don't post something you are not going to be proud of in a year. Don't post something you wouldn't want a future employer to see. If you meet those two guidelines, then editing anything other than typos should not be needed. Remember that Google and the other search engines are crawling this site constantly, and I'm sure there are snapshot archives of it too.
We allow people to fix typos in their own threads for a short period of time. After that, editing is not allowed. We had cases were somebody had a temper tantrum and mass "deleted" their posts by editing them to be empty, and it took Erik some time to recover the original posts. We have also had people go back and edit their posts after the fact to mislead or "cover their tracks."
Here is the bottom line - don't post something you are not going to be proud of in a year. Don't post something you wouldn't want a future employer to see. If you meet those two guidelines, then editing anything other than typos should not be needed. Remember that Google and the other search engines are crawling this site constantly, and I'm sure there are snapshot archives of it too.