About editing posts

[ShadowDude112]

So, sometimes I like to look back at old threads, like the US Dragon Box threads. Sometimes, that's fun. Most of the time, the thread is kind of ruined. Either, I see Kunzait posted and he edited basically all of his posts to "b" or, it's AnimeMaakuo, who edited their posts to just "." and it annoys the living hell out of me. I get they want to leave the forums, but it just ruins threads when you're reading them. I was wondering if we could have a rule specifically against doing that. It's really annoying.

[Zephyr]

For Kunzait in particular, I think it really sucks that a lot of his posts are now essentially deleted, as he came from a now woefully underrepresented time and context of the fandom that was really interesting to read about.

I'm also confused somewhat. Why would someone edit their post to be a single character, rather than deleting it?

[Kakacarrottop]

I'm also confused somewhat. Why would someone edit their post to be a single character, rather than deleting it?

I'm not sure (perhaps it has something to do with retaining a high post count), although in the music forum you can't delete your posts for some reason.

[Ajay]

You can't delete your posts after a certain amount of time/if you're not the last post in the thread (I forgot which).

It's annoying, sure, but I don't think there's any need for a rule against it. If someone's ashamed of what they once wrote, or would rather not have their messages floating around, then they have every right to remove them.

Being punished for altering or removing something of my own creation doesn't sound very fun.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

Not being able to alter or remove things you no longer like may not seem "fun", but sometimes doing it ruins sections of the forum. Not everyone that deletes their post contents is doing it just because they are embarrassed or whatever. Some of them are outright doing it out of spite, like Fox666. He basically deleted all his contributions to the forum, which included a lot of interesting things like documented galleries of all the types of Freeza soldiers, auras, etc. All of which is now lost and the archived topics/threads they were a part of are basically useless. Did he have the right? I suppose, he did create them after all. You surrender a couple of rights by signing up with the forums in the first place though, and I wouldn't complain if "content loss prevention" was part of that. I'd be in favor of something being implemented (if possible) where you could only edit posts within a specific time frame (30-60 days maybe?). After that, you're just shit out of luck unless you can appeal to a staff member or moderator.

[ShadowDude112]

How about like, if it's a minor edit, that's fine. But, if it's a substantial edit, a mod has to look it over and approve it. So the things that Kunzait did, or, that DevilCorpse listed won't happen.

[Kamiccolo9]

How about like, if it's a minor edit, that's fine. But, if it's a substantial edit, a mod has to look it over and approve it. So the things that Kunzait did, or, that DevilCorpse listed won't happen.

Why should we have to get permission to edit our posts?

[ShadowDude112]

How about like, if it's a minor edit, that's fine. But, if it's a substantial edit, a mod has to look it over and approve it. So the things that Kunzait did, or, that DevilCorpse listed won't happen.

Why should we have to get permission to edit our posts?

But that's not what I said in my post. If it's minor, like spelling, or an extra line, fine. But if it's deleting the whole thing and leaving "b" there, that's different.

[Tzigi]

like Fox666. He basically deleted all his contributions to the forum, which included a lot of interesting things like documented galleries of all the types of Freeza soldiers, auras, etc. All of which is now lost and the archived topics/threads they were a part of are basically useless.

Could you link to such a topic? Maybe there's a copy of it on archive.org?

[TheDevilsCorpse]

I'm not going to go through every post he ever made, but here's all the topics he started. The guide to Freeza's soldiers still has its title, but the content has been wiped and there is nothing on the wayback machine. Don't really feel like looking up the others.

[Kamiccolo9]

How about like, if it's a minor edit, that's fine. But, if it's a substantial edit, a mod has to look it over and approve it. So the things that Kunzait did, or, that DevilCorpse listed won't happen.

Why should we have to get permission to edit our posts?

But that's not what I said in my post. If it's minor, like spelling, or an extra line, fine. But if it's deleting the whole thing and leaving "b" there, that's different.

Why should we have to get permission to delete our posts?

[ParkerAL]

Why should we have to get permission to delete our posts?

I'm only an observer on this topic, but people like ShadowDude112 and TheDevilsCorpse have already made it clear why they'd like limitations on a user's ability to delete posts. Disagreeing with them is fine, but why act like they haven't posted their reasons?

[Kamiccolo9]

Why should we have to get permission to delete our posts?

I'm only an observer on this topic, but people like ShadowDude112 and TheDevilsCorpse have already made it clear why they'd like limitations on a user's ability to delete posts. Disagreeing with them is fine, but why act like they haven't posted their reasons?

I get why they want it. I'm wanting to know why they feel that is worth imposing limits on users' ability to manage their own content.

[jjgp1112]

I know some forums, such as IGN, have a time limit for editing posts. Over on IGN you have a 20 minute limit.

[Shiyonasan]

Over on the forum I help moderate, we have a 36 hour time limit for editing posts. I don't remember a specific incident where someone wanted us to delete their posts, but that would probably be different on Kanzenshuu since this forum is about three to four times bigger. However, for reasons stated by ShadowDude and TheDevilsCorpse, I think an editing time limit could work on here.

Entire posts of discussions in threads being removed or altered out of spite, especially opening posts, shouldn't happen. TheDevilsCorpse's suggestion sounds reasonable to me.

[Zephyr]

Perhaps all of those concerned about losing great content like this in the future would be able to assist the site staff in investing in some sort of means of archiving the forums, or something to that effect? Keep in mind I have no knowledge on the logistics of how such a thing would work, so I could just be spewing nonsense with that suggestion.

[Kamiccolo9]

Over on the forum I help moderate, we have a 36 hour time limit for editing posts. I don't remember a specific incident where someone wanted us to delete their posts, but that would probably be different on Kanzenshuu since this forum is about three to four times bigger. However, for reasons stated by ShadowDude and TheDevilsCorpse, I think an editing time limit could work on here.

Entire posts of discussions in threads being removed out of spite, especially opening posts, shouldn't happen. TheDevilsCorpse's suggestion sounds reasonable to me.

Except how would this work with people who have long-running threads that are updated frequently?

Let's use my fanfiction thread as an example. I generally update the OP to add my new work, as that keeps everything conveniently located and easily accessible.

Or Herms' guide compilation thread. Let's assume for a moment that he wasn't staff. Every time some update would be made, he'd have to get administrator approval for it.

Or the video games threads. If the OP wanted to keep all the news for a new game in the first post, he'd have to get approval just to update the release date in the OP.

Shadowdude mentioned something about this only being necessary for "significant changes," but who determines what a "significant change" is? The moderators? Then you're essentially still requiring staff approval to edit posts. The site itself? How would the site differentiate between a minor or significant edit?

All that requiring staff approval for edits would accomplish is placing an undue burden on a staff that, honestly, don't have any place in this situation anyway.

If people want to remove their own content, for whatever reason, that's their prerogative. It may be spiteful or childish or whatever, but it is their content. Some people being irritated by that should not overrule a person's right to do what they want with their own work, as long as that work doesn't violate any of the forum rules. I enjoyed Fox666's work as much as anyone, and was disappointed to see it go, and now think less of him because of his reasons for doing so, but that doesn't change the fact that it's his own work, to do with what he will.

[ShadowDude112]

They may have a right to remove their content, but when it ruins discussions when you look back, and just i rude in general, I feel that's different. Like, if you post in the wrong thread, or you don't realize something, deleting it is fine, but not just removing perfectly good conversation material cause you feel like it. That just sucks and completely ruins everything.

[Kamiccolo9]

They may have a right to remove their content, but when it ruins discussions when you look back, and just i rude in general, I feel that's different. Like, if you post in the wrong thread, or you don't realize something, deleting it is fine, but not just removing perfectly good conversation material cause you feel like it. That just sucks and completely ruins everything.

And how do you distinguish between "okay" edits and edits that are "fine" without having to have all of them approved? Nobody has time for that. And I don't see why your, or anybody else's, wants should overrule what a person desires to do with their own content.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

The general idea of removing your content in such a manner does seem to be frowned upon here. Staff comments on the Fox666 matter back when it happened weren't "it's his content, let him do as he pleases", it was "we wish we had caught on earlier so we could have suspended his account to prevent the loss of all his contributions". Like I mentioned earlier, we give up true freedom of speech in exchange for better of the community when agreeing to join the forum; something I don't have a problem with. I enjoy the community here way more than many other places. With that already in place, I honestly don't see how this case would be all that different.

I'm not saying the staff will do anything about it, because it's not a rampant problem. But if they decided it was something worth looking into and opted to implement some sort of system to prevent the problem for the community, well...it's their site and their rules. If someone doesn't like it, it wouldn't be the first time I saw Mike post something telling people there are other places to go that may better suit said poster.