Taking your ball and going home...

[gasket]

AKA deleting comments and/or entire threads when things aren't going your way.

Why is this allowed / why is this a good thing? We already have to re-re-retell old history whenever 'this is why X is a horrible person and should be avoided' comes up, rather than point to WORA and let them figure it out on their own. It's much easier to avoid he-said she-said when, you know, one doesn't get to stir shit and then delete it all.

[mietze]

I guess I haven't noticed this happening a lot. Other than someone deleting a double post or when they've asked something obvious that they then read further and saw the answer to.

I'm not sure this can be solved (only allowing deletions or editing for "good enough" reasons) unless you were to eliminate editing/deleting entirely (which I don't think is a good idea).

Other boards I've been part of have made it so mods have to approve any edits, but speaking as someone who's been a mod in that circumstance it's a real pain in the ass and burden on staff to deal with.

[TiredEwok]

I've deleted a few when I realized I asked a question that was already answered or whatever.

[Coin]

The metaphor in your title doesn't fit the gripe...

In any case, probably because policing this stuff is way more effort than it's worth.

[Catsmeow]

I don't think I've deleted a comment. However, sometimes you type something or say something; then you realize was an ass you are being. Now when you say something, you can't take it back. Whereas you type something, you can delete it.

I don't think it's akin to the 'I'm not winning so delete', I think it's more that 'I didn't think out my comment and I regret making it so delete'. I can respect a person that realizes they were offensive/wrong/way off topic/not educated on the topic and deleted far more than people who let the anger/hatred/abuse/insult stand 'because they can'.

[Arkandel]

@gasket said in Taking your ball and going home...:

AKA deleting comments and/or entire threads when things aren't going your way.

Why is this allowed / why is this a good thing? We already have to re-re-retell old history whenever 'this is why X is a horrible person and should be avoided' comes up, rather than point to WORA and let them figure it out on their own. It's much easier to avoid he-said she-said when, you know, one doesn't get to stir shit and then delete it all.

Generic gripe is generic.

Can we hear some specifics? For what it's worth I haven't noticed many deleted posts, and no one but admins can delete threads - only our own individual posts.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

There was that @Anonymous troll who went on a bender followed by massive comment deletion.

Which was kind of annoying but also kind of hilarious.

[Deleted]

I delete close to 90 percent of what I put on here. Granted, I do it before I hit 'submit'.

[Kanye Qwest]

One time someone posted something shitty, and when I called them out on it they double (triple?) edited their original post until it contained no trace of the shittiness I referred to. They then got all hysterical about me attacking them for no reason. That kind of pissed me off, but meh. I still think people should be able to edit. You don't punish an entire class for the one idjit that burned the microwave popcorn and made the whole room smell like failure.

[Lithium]

There's been some fun threads that were deleted a while back, a couple trolls who got burnt/banned and had stuff deleted or deleted all their stuff just prior to being banned but really...

It's not really a problem that should be addressed to me, seeing the leftovers is sort of like seeing the wrecked car on the side of the freeway that the tow trucks haven't removed yet, it's intriguing to go 'Wow I wonder what happened there' but in the grand scheme of things, not really important unless you were directly involved.

[ThatGuyThere]

In general I am against the wholesale deleting of stuff and against editing that changes the substance of a post.
However I see editing tools as a necessity and if some one can edit a post down to a single letter then letting them delete is not really an issue.
Mostly I consider it poor form but not the sort of thing that can be prevented without loss of necessary functionality.
That said when someone is noticed to be doing this I am all for the public shamming of them.

[Arkandel]

I edit my posts sometimes but mostly for missing words, misspellings, etc.

I doubt this is a real issue though. It sounds more like a peeve-of-the-day to me.

[Misadventure]

Bring the shame.

[Hella]

I'm just waiting for someone to make and delete a post in this thread.

[Arkandel]

This post is deleted!

[Thenomain]

I often re-read my posts for tone and intent. One time, I was revising a post of mine because I decided that I had missed the mark I was aiming toward, and someone got in a lather that I edited a post like I was now making them look like a jerk, though they never edited their post or explained their original meaning. I didn't think it was a big deal, but I was pretty relentlessly attacked on it to the point where I felt it was time to shut them down. It irked me seriously at the time, but eh, bad communications happen, we live and learn and do better next time.

On previous versions of Wora, someone almost always had the deleted post in their buffer so they could (and many times did) offer up the original. With the async nature of Soapbox's forum software, the best we can hope is that someone is responding as an edit (or, as Raptor used to do, copied over to a text file) so they can be called out on it.

Of course, all things being John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, it's too easy to call someone out on something that, in the rest of society, is not that big a deal. The screen makes far too convenient a shield.

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@VulgarKitten said in Taking your ball and going home...:

I'm just waiting for someone to make and delete a post in this thread.

Sadly, after a while the deleted post is actually deleted, and the joke of someone, probably @Arkandel, writing a post and deleting it will be lost unless someone makes a screenshot.

(Hint hint.)

[Hella]

@Thenomain said in Taking your ball and going home...:

I often re-read my posts for tone and intent. One time, I was revising a post of mine because I decided that I had missed the mark I was aiming toward, and someone got in a lather that I edited a post like I was now making them look like a jerk, though they never edited their post or explained their original meaning. I didn't think it was a big deal, but I was pretty relentlessly attacked on it to the point where I felt it was time to shut them down. It irked me seriously at the time, but eh, bad communications happen, we live and learn and do better next time.

On previous versions of Wora, someone almost always had the deleted post in their buffer so they could (and many times did) offer up the original. With the async nature of Soapbox's forum software, the best we can hope is that someone is responding as an edit (or, as Raptor used to do, copied over to a text file) so they can be called out on it.

Of course, all things being John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, it's too easy to call someone out on something that, in the rest of society, is not that big a deal. The screen makes far too convenient a shield.

---

@VulgarKitten said in Taking your ball and going home...:

I'm just waiting for someone to make and delete a post in this thread.

Sadly, after a while the deleted post is actually deleted, and the joke of someone, probably @Arkandel, writing a post and deleting it will be lost unless someone makes a screenshot.

(Hint hint.)

You should do that!!!! Yeesh Also, I can't even upvote @Arkandel for being funny because the post is deleted.

[ThugHeaven]

@gasket I'm all for saving things for posterity. I've always found the worst offenders are chameleons and will have someone that says "nuh uh!" regardless or they'll just assume a new personality.

On the other hand, sometimes you just want to go back and take out what you said. That's because you realize it was something you shouldn't have. There's nothing wrong with that; I think that's a good thing.

[Goyim]

Because it's the internet and it's impossible to remove anonymity or hold someone accountable for something they won't admit to.

[Catsmeow]

@Goyim said in Taking your ball and going home...:

Because it's the internet life and it's impossible to remove anonymity or hold someone accountable for something they won't admit to.

Fixed for you.
I find that people can do this in life. How many times has someone been like: What student/person/employee/family member/kitten has done X? Then no one steps forward.