Why don’t we have the power to delete our own posts? I can’t see how this would cause a problem but maybe I’m not thinking this through. Other message boards I have seen give posters that option.
Basically, because a small subset of this Board has shown they cannot be trusted to either behave as functioning adults and/or with honor, and they are ruining it for everyone else.
The continuity of the messages would be lost, for one thing. I rather like the fact they cannot be deleted. Why would you ever have occasion to delete or modify a post?
And, of course, if you ever really need to have something changed or deleted, you can e-mail one or more moderators, and ask that they do it for you. They might not, of course, but if you have a good reason, they’re usually nice about it.
Deleting posts is a real convenience.
I use it all the time, especially on the technical boards, where sometimes people run off on a funny tangent, like Mac vs. PC and it’s better to start over.
If one learns to preview their post, then there would never be any reason to want to delete. However, I’ve found that for some reason my mind wants to slip in a few unpreviewed posts. The result comes out about 50/50; mostly grammatical errors.
When I was a newbie or possibly I should say an ultra-newbie I asked a moderator to delete a post and it was done. Problem was that some people saw it before it was deleted and then came in with “he said this and that and then it was deleted”. It was that experience that convinced me that being able to delete yourself isn’t a good idea. Making sure the post is good before clicking the Submit button is the best policy.
Here’s behavior I’ve seen on other boards:
Monday
Poster 1 (op): “a=1 and I like it that way”.
Poster 2: “everybody knows that a=2 and you’re an
idiot for thinking different”
Poster 3: “me too. what an imbecile Poster 1 is”
Monday night: poster 1 uses the permitted editing function.
Tuesday
Poster 1 (op): “a=2 and I like it”. (edited by Poster 1)
Poster 2: “everybody knows that a=2 and you’re an
idiot for thinking different”
Poster 3: “me too. what an imbecile Poster 1 is”
Poster 4: “I see Poster 1 has had a change of heart
and now agrees that a=2”
Poster 1: “DID NOT! ALL I EDITED WAS TO DELETE THE
WORDS [that way]”
Poster 2: “Poster 1 is lying scum and should be
banned”
Poster 3: “First ban him, and then get rough”
Disallowing editing and deletion of posts prevents this sort of thing. It’s a good rule, and preview and proofread before you hit submit.
That scenario you’ve described is exactly our ratinonale for disabling the edit/delete feature. I would add a third item to your “rules,” though.
Preview, proofread and ponder. Make sure you really wanna say what you are about to submit.