More than once I have seen requests from people, when things didn’t go their way, that they be stricken from this board and/or their thread be disappeared as if it never happened. Is this something that actually happens on other message boards, or are requests like these usually ignored for the most part elsewhere?
I’ve seen people demand it elsewhere, but can’t recall it actually happening by request. I have seen in done as part of punishment or a banning, however; for an extreme example on one board a member was both banned and everything they posted made inaccessible because they decided it was “funny” to post unmarked links leading to child pornography.
Between the moral issues and legal liability vanishing everything was the sensible choice, there.
Definitely not what I am talking about in this thread, which is “Disappearance by request of the poster”.
I believe it is a thing that happens on some other message boards - often for quite sensible reasons like it turns out that something the OP included in their post was sufficient to dox them, but sometimes just because there was a pile-on. I suppose ideally, moderation would deal with the problem not the trigger, but I suppose it depends on the nature of the community and the disagreement.
The other thing that perhaps drives people’s expectation that they might have a thread removed at their request is that on some social media, the OP can delete their post at any time afterwards, and the whole of the ensuing conversation thread will disappear - comment threads on Youtube and Facebook work like that, for example.
I’ve moderated a number of message boards over the decades. I generally won’t do it unless there’s a very compelling reason like they’ve accidentally doxed themselves or someone else. Even then the usual remedy is to redact part of a post. If it’s that they made a post that didn’t go well for them, the request will be ignored.
I’ve never seen another board that doesn’t let people remove their own posts. This board is unique in this, and it made sense back before it was indexed by Google.
Catering to individual whims can’t be a good idea so, if we do in fact ignore requests like that, I’m all for it. If one doesn’t like a thread, one can simply ignore it. If one is upset at another member or poster, simply ignore him. If requests like that are ignored elsewhere, it’s most likely for the same reasons.
As an aside, why aren’t we on the Wiki list of internet forums? List of Internet forums - Wikipedia
I have only been on a few message boards. One special interest board was not overtly racist. But the assumption was that all members were white, heterosexual, cisgendered, and Christian. This was one of the many reasons I left that board.
I don’t know of any other messaage boards that have the same standards about backing up arguments with logic and backing up claims with cites and evidence tha the SDMB has. Allowing posters to remove posts would be a massive error. Unless you happen to download a thread or have already posted a response quoting the removed post, posters can lie about the words they used, and whether they posted anything at all.
Ars Technica does not allow it.
Delphi Forums does not allow it.
Fark does not allow it.
Nothing about it on Something Awful.
Whirlpool does not allow it.
Giraffeboards does not allow it either.
It’s a good policy. Deleting posts can render threads incomprehensible. Reddit (where you can delete your account and all associated posts) threads deteriorate over time as accounts get deleted, diminishing their value even if they were initially interesting and useful.
I feel that increasing the ease and frequency of deleting either posts or threads increases the moral hazard aspect:
I like that we are – actively and passively – encouraged to be circumspect and thoughtful here.
Zactly. Being able to perform drive-bys then cover your tracks after pissing all over the place can only make it worse.
It reminds me of people with loud pipes on their car, truck, or motorcycle who drive around crowded pedestrian-heavy areas making as much noise as they can.
It’s vandalism, pure and simple. But a form of vandalism, unlike e.g. spray painting parked cars as they drive along, that leaves no evidence to prosecute later.
Vandals who leave evidence can be prosecuted. Those who don’t can’t. Here at SDMB, and indeed everywhere on Earth that has at least a modicum of civilization, we like prosecuting vandals.
I don’t know if it’s still allowed but I’ve seen one specific person remove their posts from the main Internet Movie Car Database site after a certain period of time has passed. Which made things a bit confusing.
Was there a reason for this?
Just an idiosyncrasy with that person; they didn’t like having old posts of theirs around for some reason. They said as much when asked why they were deleting their posts.
I can see why people might want to be able to do it. People change across the course of their lifetimes and Internet message boards have now been around long enough to have captured and recorded things that people might have lived to deeply regret saying or might just feel mortally embarrassed to have ever said. I don’t think there’s necessarily any virtue in preserving those things if the person who said them truly wishes they were erased. I get why it might not be a thing that message boards want to do for a whole range of good reasons of course.
Also nobody is perfect or perfectly right and message boards often have aspects of their own culture that cause pile-ons that are not specifically the fault of the person who started the thread, and if the thread stays open, the OP might be still getting angry responses for years. There are topics that have been like this on the sdmb - circumcision was one such topic I believe.
I see this as a valid argument for locking threads, but not for deleting them.
Deleting your posts is commonly allowed in many places, including other message boards i have moderated. Back when i used to moderate a large and cantankerous message board, it was somewhat common to quote another user’s post so they couldn’t edit or delete it.
And mods sometimes took down whole threads at the request of a poster. But not because of a pile on. One case involved a divorce and fear of discovery. Another was a very long thread about the process of adopting a child, and the poster worried about the child’s privacy as he grew up. Another thread was taken down because a poster threatened to sue the board for posting information about a crime he’d been convicted of, but the conviction was legally expunged from the public record. That kind of thing.