I really would like to have the capability of deleting threads I have started and posts I have written back again.

I am the originator of a thread that has seen some unpleasant flaming. I would therefore like to delete it as I used to be able to, since the original question I had when I posted the thread has been answered and yet the unpleasantness goes on and on and on.

For my taste, losing the ability to delete something I have originated on FlyerTalk is too draconian of a change. I realize that having capability of deleting opens us to the possibility of inadvertently deleting something we may have wanted to keep around, but I personally think it's a capability we ought to have.

Thanks for listening. You guys do a great job and FT is a great discussion forum.

I absolutely disagree. Dgolds, as soon as anyone else posted to that thread, it ceased to be yours, hence you should have no right to delete it. What you may consider unpleasentness may not be considered so by others. If you could delete the thread, the useful information you admit is in it would be lost to everyone else. If the webmaster considers the thread inappropriate, it can be locked. I very much welcome the recent change stopping threads being deleted - it is a shame a user can no longer delete their own posts but that is an acceptable price.

Regardless of whether one can delete an entire thread or not, I should be able to delete my contributions to the thread. I am not able to delete this for example - it says only forum leaders can delete this. This is a bug, not a feature.

[This message has been edited by pgupta011 (edited 09-27-1999).]

Agreed pgupta, it isn't great. Hovever, you can delete all your text (and hence effectively your post) leaving only a full stop as a 'minimum data set'.

In a similar thread under technical problems, Bryan at Webflyer wrote
[This message has been edited by james (edited 09-27-1999).]

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[This message has been edited by james (edited 09-27-1999).]

james: I certainly respect your opinion, and agree with your point about useful information being lost if the whole thread were to be deleted. Maybe there's some middle ground to be found between deleting the whole thread and leaving it as is.

In this particular case, the thread has devolved into name calling. I can't see why anyone would consider that part of the discussion worth having around. One of my favorite things about FT is the minimal amount of this kind of stuff. I know of plenty of places I could go on the Usenet if I wanted to read or participate in flaming.

Personally, I would rather delete the entire thread even at the risk of losing useful content in it if it would douse a mini-flame war. Part of the reason for my opinion is that I have seen this sort of situation in the past on other bulletin boards; participants (not the flamers) get tired of wading through the garbage and tune out, which is detrimental to the bulletin board as a whole.

Any ideas for a constructive, in-between solution?

There's that james "." again! Recall I used a "?" New signature's!

Vakid points from all posters. Simplistic as it may seem, how about stopping the unpleasantness instead, so that we have no problem to try to solve. Let's not abuse our hosts!

Otherwise our hosts can delete an especially egregious post or even retract posting priviledges by withdrawing the password match.

dgolds - your comments above are very interesting and thought provoking. I do agree that the high signal-noise is a great asset to FlyerTalk. I am inclined to say that users who post insults and flames should be strongly encouraged not to do so and to edit out the contents of their existing posts. This could include warnings fom the moderators and private email from those who are offended by the post. I am very sympathetic to your point that flames and junk posts discourage new users but hopefully there is so little of it here at the moment that noone will actually be discouraged. It may become a bigger problem in the future as the board continues to grow.

I suppose the best solution I can think of is careful pruning of offensive posts by an administrator. I have less of an objection to individual posts being censored than to the deletion of entire threads where some of the content is valuable. Much as I don't like it, I belive it will become an uncomfortable practical necessity if the board is to function as well as it does now, in future.

All this would have to be done in a framework of clearly defined, public guidelines. The board already automatically censors foul language, for instance. As a possible scenario, offensive comments, with no frequent-flyer content could be deleted in respose to a complaint. In a case where a post contains both useful information and flame, the moderator could give the poster a choice of whether to edit the offending sections or have the post deleted.

All this makes me uncomfortable to varying degress but I do see it as a balancing act between practical necessity and freedom to say what one likes. As I have stated previously, I wish the administration would use their power to lock threads more often, when they start to get out of hand. If that is done, someone has to deliberately begin a new thread if they want to restart an arguement. It then becomes obvious to all users who the antagonists are.

I assume in extreme cases, the board is subject to the libel and defamation laws of the United States (and Colorado?).

An alternative solution is a technical one that has been mentioned before - a squelch function that enables your preferences to 'ignore' the posts of a specific user. Thus you have a filter against individuals who continually spam or flame.

It's certainly a challenging question dgolds - and thank you for encouraging me to consider it. I will post again if I have any flashes of inspiration.


[This message has been edited by james (edited 09-28-1999).]

My vote would be for more aggressive locking of threads. (I don't care @ all for people being able to reduce entire threads to the dustbin.) But that might require more active vigilance by someone in an official capacity from Webflyer; does such oversite actually exist?

james: Your post strongly echoes suggestions I made a couple of months ago, but they didn't generate any interest at the time. See http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/Foru...ML/000083.html

At this point, we are not a moderated board. There is informal policing (Commander Catcop) but no official guidelines for posting, at least that I am aware of.

As it is possible to join FlyerTalk without an e-mail address, or with a bogus e-mail address, notifying individual members can be problematic. I personally think it should be a requirement that you have to submit a valid e-mail address to participate in FT, but many others disagree with me on that. I participate on listservs which obviously require an e-mail address to join; I also read Usenet news, which requires no address verification. There's no "one right way" to do it. However, the listservs are far less susceptible to flame wars than the newsgroups.

BTW, for your reference, the thread I am referring to is http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/Foru...ML/000146.html

I wonder if someone from InsideFlyer would like to join the discussion. Randy, Brian, anyone out there?

[This message has been edited by dgolds (edited 09-28-1999).]

Thanks dgolds, yes we do seem to agree quite a lot about how to proceed.

In the first thread there, I seem to have got a little excited That was me misinterpreting and overreacting to the preceeding post. That matter has all been resolved now!

I see what you mean about the second thread, although the first 75% of it seems to be good stuff. I can also think of another thread involving some of the same (main) players where exactly the same thing happened. Those with long memories will be with me and that too got acrimonious. I think there is one (possibly two) post that is an obvious candidate for ammendment or deletion!

In my post above, when I refer to moderators or administrators, I mean Michael/Bryan/WebFlyer Personnel at the moment, although I note that the board has the capacity for a moderator for each thread. Also, is it not the case that a valid email address must be submitted to FlyerTalk to register, but it can be cocealed from other users? If that is not the case, it should be, enabling moderators to contact or warn users. Presumably, a first-issue password could be mailed to the address, just as it is when a password is changed.

I had forgotten that the squelch feature was your idea, dgolds - good one. I have also posted previously, pleading for a good FAQ but of course these things take time and effort to prepare.


[This message has been edited by james (edited 09-28-1999).]

[This message has been edited by james (edited 09-28-1999).]

I'm so confused. I've been skipping around from forum to forum a lot these past few months and I've never seen any flaming. In fact, FlyerTalk members are one of the most civilized bunch of humans (and cats) that I've ever found on talk boards. Not trying to be a rah! rah! cheerleader--just haven't seen any flaming whatsoever.

I'd love to join in, but can't at the moment due to excessive workload. I'll say this: I am in close agreement with james' position, with some variation. I'll post more tonight.

Please, at least allow the "studders" to delete the double and triple posts of identical text in the same category!!!

I'd like to delete some threads. Have you seen some of those loud Hawaiian shirts Catman wears?