Dear Moderators,
What kind of content causes you to delete (not lock) a thread from your forum? I know you all try to be tolerant and open-minded, but obviously some threads deserve the ultimate punishment. How do you decide?
I assume you feel no compunction to keep threads that contain no worthwhile information and were started by obvious trolls. How about misplaced threads from (stupid) newbies? What about the borderline threads? Threads where legitimate users responded to the trolling OP with:
- useful info
- lively or semi-lively debate
- “DNFTT”, “you jerk”, and “[insult of your choice here]”
How does the post count/reg. date of the OPer affect your decision? More latitude for longtime members? Or more latitude for newbies? How often, if ever, have you deleted threads started by longtime, well-known members? How does the number (and quality) of responses to the OP affect your decision?
Obviously the answers to these questions will differ from forum to forum. The answers supplied by any forum’s moderator(s) will be appreciated, and specific examples (perhaps of threads you were sorely tempted to delete but didn’t) would be great.
Sincerely Yours,
greatsatan666
It’s decided on a case by case basis. Like pornography, we know bad behavior when we see it. How we might handle it depends on the forum, the severity of the offense, and the traffic around it, among other things. Maybe the phase of the moon as well. 
Do we give regulars more slack? If anything, newbies get more tolerance. We tend to give newbies a little more slack because we figure they’re still working everything out here. If you’ve been here a while and making regular posts, we assume you know what’s what and shouldn’t have to be walked through anything or told what the rules are.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Threads are deleted only extremely rarely-- I believe it was TubaDiva that once said that it was so rare, that when it happens, Ed raffles off the rights to do it to one of the admins. The only time I know of it happening was very recently, the thread starter was a very obnoxious person whom I won’t name, come back from the banned under a different (but obvious) name, who started a Pit thread complaining about behavior for which that person was actually to blame. Every case of accidentally-duplicated threads I’ve seen was just locked, not deleted, presumably as a courtesy to the OP who didn’t know better (also to preserve any replies that ended up there), and most troll threads which get bad enough to warrant killing, the mods want to leave evidence of the behavior.
Now we just need to wait for a moderator to show up and verify this…
Forgive me, TubaDiva, but I believe that’s obscenity.
She knows pornography when she sees it, too…
It’s obscene that I misquoted that! <blushing>
And besides . . . I don’t even own a pornograph!
your humble TubaDiva