Originally posted by Mr Webname
On reflection I guess it's pretty irrelevant anyway as anyone can go back and edit out what they said before.
Originally posted by GiantDomains
exactly
Well... I disagree. Having someone's post with its content modified out, saying "modified on yada yadaa date" makes a LOT more sense than seeing "NOTHING" where their post was.
When I see an
editted post, I can see that someone changed their mind on something... a position, an offering... but there is a least a record that they responded or said something. If you DELETE a post, there is NO record that you ever said anything at all. If this doesn't seem important to the admins or mods, I'll understand, but in my opinion it underminds the integrity of the forum. I've actually come back to posts before where people are talking to "ghosts", and the whole conversation is talking around a post that no-longer exists, and feels like some bizarre enigma as to who or what is being referred to.
Deleting posts outright (unless it is a moderated decision) causes confusion. Conversely, I do not necessarily agree with the decision of some message boards to remove one's ability to edit a post after a certain period of time either. While understandable (for similar reasons I've stated), it definitely removes a degree of individual control, while sending a harder message of "watch what you type, you may not be able to take it back".
The only benefit I see to "deleting" posts over simply "closing" them, is the ability to remove accidental "duplicates". I think people should be able to delete posts they make within 5 minutes of creating them, but no more.
Lastly... deleting a "SINGLE" post seems to DEFEAT the purpose of what RMF was asking for. If I post a domain for sale, and the sale is now closed... if anyone replied to me, I still couldn't delete my post. Worst, if I asked for an "appraisal", and I wanted the appraisals to stop... I still couldn't change anything with a deletion, even if I deleted the LEAD message, and not the replies. People would think the first reply was the person that posted the message. The thread title would still be intact, and "quotes" may even be in there to perpetuate the thread further.
~ Nexus