Why Can't We Just Delete a Thread?

[Mayalily]

Why can't the OP just delete a thread if it's not going well?

One other person said she had OP regrets and wished she'd never started the thread in the first place.

So say we have OP regrets, why can't the OP just delete the thread since according to what I am reading there is very little moderation here?

[Ceka Cianci]

i think you can until someone posts..

i may be wrong also..that was actually the old forums..or was it the ones before those? heck i don't know hehehe

anyways..knowing that we couldn't delete one sure would make people that knew that kind of think before they made one i would guess hehehe

maybe it's not such a bad thing after all if we couldn't  hehehe

[Mayalily]

True, we could think things through first.  But, I'd venture to guess that OP regret is a little like buyer's remorse; we all get that especially in RL. 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Yes, at one time you could delete your thread and you also could delete a post within a thread.......that was in the forum software package immediately before this one.  The feature caused many problems.  It was discussed numerous times and the concenus was that it was a bad feature since it could be used as a griefing tool (at that time LL did no human moderation and the griefing was rampant in those forums.....thread and post deletions being one tool use often). 

 

Here's my thinking.  You post a thread (or comment) that causes you pain later, the best thing you can do is learn from your experience and refrain for posting or saying something you feel will later be something you wish you had not done.  Deleting after you said it is not the way to make ammends..........owning up to your mistake (or even just hiding) is a much better way to deal with it.  By deleting your posts you actually shut up legitamate discussion.

 

I'm glad that feature is gone and I think it should never be included in any forum.  If you feel you really need to delete something, there are moderators (yeah, we finally have some here) that might help you.  Otherwise, think a little before posting.  I know of no forum that allows posters to delete posts or threads once they have been responded to.  I can't speak for the person mentioned who wished she had not started a particular thread but I do know who you are talking about........and I believe she thinks pretty much as I do. 

[Mayalily]

Yes, that makes a lot of sense, Peggy.  

It's a learning experience, and it would be kind of nuts if people posted weird spam topics and then deleted; that would reek a lot of havoc. 

[Randall Ahren]

<Randall takes a knee and thanks the Linden gods for the power of edit, because otherwise he would look like a complete idiot.>

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Editing is a good thing..........but even it has been used to "grief" (though when that is done it's usually very obvious.  Therefore a poor griefing tool).

[Ceka Cianci]

ya i also didn't care for the feature that if we deleted one of our posts in a thread that we could delete any post that responded to it if we wanted..

i think it led to some problems as well..it also didn't help with thinking posts were being AR'd when actually just removed in a chain from a deleted post..

the blogrums were a real work of art for any kind of order i swear lol

[Ishtara Rothschild]

You're basically asking why an OP can't delete the contributions of others. As soon as other people reply to a thread, it no longer belongs to the OP. If OPs are unhappy with their posts, they can always edit them. But only moderators should be able to delete content, imho.

[Venus Petrov]

There is nothing stopping the OP from editing their OP and writing something like 'I have removed my original text. Have a nice day!'

[Mayalily]

Yes, that could end it, that's true. 

My thinking was that some of these threads (like mine) will become useless because they won't show up in the search.  Now a thread topic such as:  Media_Plugin_Webkit Failed:  What does that mean? for an example would show up in search, I'd think?

But, I understand Peggy's point totally.  It would and could create a big mess with spammers or griefers.  Such as starting, then deleting and repeating 50 million times, that would be bad. 

Sometimes it's also good to stop and think of a good title instead of just HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!  lol

[Venus Petrov]

One can help a thread along by using tags, too (see the bottom of each post..the word 'tag').

[Kolby Nissondorf]

You can delete a thread if you created it and NO one posted on it. It would be nice to be able to have the OP lock a thread so people can still read it, but not continue any worthless banter that i've encountered on popular threads ive created.