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Give Maintainer Permissions to delete their own nodes?

by Kozz (Friar)
on Jun 11, 2000 at 06:19 UTC ( [id://17569]=monkdiscuss: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

I just made a silly comment/mistake on another node, and realized my folly afterwards. At this point, it occurred to me that, "Gee, I'd really like to delete that sucker. Boy do I feel stupid." So... how about if people (with accounts) are given permission to delete their own nodes? This might also provide an opportunity for people to delete empty posts or duplicate posts of their own. Oh, and to allow them to delete posts that make them feel silly. ;)
Any thoughts on this?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: Give Maintainer Permissions to delete their own nodes?
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jun 11, 2000 at 06:55 UTC
    Besides the technical issue (orphaning possible replies), what's to stop someone from making an inflammatory comment, allowing people to reply, and then deleting it? Granted, that's a contrived example, but it could happen.

    I suggest that the need to *delete* a node is rare enough that making an appeal at Editor Requests will take care of it. If not, perhaps an automatic means to take care of the duplicate/blank nodes issue will present itself.

    As for editing nodes after the fact, I see that some monks put an Update: heading followed by the new text. Works for me.

      1.0

      Since there's nothing at the moment to stop someone from making an inflammatory comment then editing it to a blank post or a 'sorry, duplicate, please delete', I don't think that bein able to remove the post would add any power in that way. It is nice when people use Update:, but nothing keeps them from not doing it (if this ever became a problem, perhaps version numbers could be automatically included,as demonstrated in this post).

      If duplicate and blank nodes couldn't be posted, I agree that it would be rare for someone to want to delete a post. I can't think of an example this morning. However, one way to handle it if it were needed, which wouldn't break threads, would be to simply change the text to "This node has been deleted by <author|admin> [because <reason>]", then add a note next to the title that says Deleted. The body text wouldn't need to show unless the node had been specifically selected.

(jcwren) RE: Give Maintainer Permissions to delete their own nodes?
by jcwren (Prior) on Jun 11, 2000 at 06:25 UTC
    I imagine that you'd have to put limitations on it, such as once there was a reply to that node, it couldn't be deleted. Doing so (besides making database maintainence more of a hassel) would distort the flow of the thread.

    'course, if it's not a root node, you can always change the text to 'I humble myself before my fellow monks, and have changed this comment to attempt to reduce my apparent ignorance to my brethren'.

    I've even wondered (to myself) about the validity of editing a node once it's had a reply to it. It could really change the karma.

    --Chris
RE: Give Maintainer Permissions to delete their own nodes?
by Ozymandias (Hermit) on Jun 11, 2000 at 09:12 UTC
    I don't see a problem with some limited ability to delete your own nodes. The "only if there are no replies" sounds like a good plan; there're two other conditions I'd like to see put on it, too. One would be that you can't delete the node if anyone's voted for or against it - or maybe that you have to accept a negative XP hit for doing so. The other would be a time limit; say, half an hour, or even shorter. Given those constraints, it would be useful. I know I could really have used it; my five-year -old goddaughter wanted to "play games" and submitted my Cable Modem Check node three times. Instead of harrassing vroom to delete the extras, it would have been nice to simply delete the extras and spank the child. <G>

    - Ozymandias

      Ozymandias:
      This is exactly what I had in mind. I think that probably the best way to handle allowing deletion of nodes would be check the following conditions:
      • Node is less than X minutes old (5? 10?)
      • There have been no replies to the node
      • Node maintainer supplies reason for deletion of node
      Upon meeting these conditions, a node maintainer could "mark" the node as "Please Delete" which would "hide" it from readers. Then the reason for deletion of the node could go to vroom or another administrative-monk for approval of deletion. Perhaps the admins could have a queue of "please delete" nodes. Hmm?
        Add to the above list "There have been no votes on the node" and I think it's a great idea. This, along with the previous three conditions basically results in a "no harm/no foul" sort of thing. Cheers!
      The problem with not allowing you to delete nodes that have votes on them is that the only reason to delete a node is if you realize it's a bad question, in which case it will probably already have negative votes by the time you try to delete it.

      This would probably happen even if you immediately change the text to say "This is a deleted node. There is nothing here to see."

        ... the only reason to delete a node is if you realize it's a bad question, in which case it will probably already have negative votes by the time you try to delete it.

        I think you're mistaken. "Bad" questions (like the one you posted earlier) are not considered bad by the community. They're fine questions. You were just embarrassed and wanted to salve your shame. Don't worry about such things. (Btw, I'm the one who restored the node's original content, putting it inside a spoiler section. Just so you know -- we do not like people to delete their node contents, and will restore them if we deem it appropriate.)

        Truly bad nodes -- those deemed to be toxic to the site -- are easily taken care of by the normal consideration and reaping process.

        You've already been pointed to How do I change/delete my post?; I hope you'll read it. And definitely check out the thread linked at the bottom, why a nodelet can be kept agains author wish?. It's entertaining as well as informative.

        Thanks.

        I reckon we are the only monastery ever to have a dungeon stuffed with 16,000 zombies.

        "Self-deleting" a node is considered bad form so the downvotes tend to come from that far more than a "bad" question. I upvote most questions I read, to encourage participation, unless they are hostile or rude.

RE: Give Maintainer Permissions to delete their own nodes?
by nuance (Hermit) on Jun 11, 2000 at 08:44 UTC
    I don't think I'd like the ability to delete nodes. I would like to be able to edit root nodes, but that's another discussion :-)

    Nuance

RE: Give Maintainer Permissions to delete their own nodes?
by turnstep (Parson) on Jun 11, 2000 at 16:16 UTC

    Perhaps, in addition to the much and often requested "empty post" logic check when submitting, it (the program) could also check for duplicate posts, by seeing if the content has changed at all from the previous post in the thread:

    $Post = &MonkHasSubmittedPost; length($Post) or &ErrorScreen("Empty posts not allowed!"); $Post eq $PrevPost and &ErrorScreen("Duplicate post rejected");

    You get the idea....

(zdog) RE: Give Maintainer Permissions to delete their own nodes?
by zdog (Priest) on Jun 11, 2000 at 21:16 UTC
    I don't like the idea and here's why. If somebody puts something stupid up, people will start voting -- on it. Once someone realizes that people will vote -- on it, they can just simply remove and prevent XP loss. If someone is concerned about putting up stupid things, they should proof read their node before submitting it and make sure that their comment/question is legitimate.

    -- zdog (Zenon Zabinski)

      Higher up the thread there's a solution to this problem.

      - Ozymandias

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