Jatopian
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Why not require 12 rank points in order to delete posts? There's a strong correlation between having no rank points and causing drama, and also a correlation between causing drama and deleting posts, thus possibly removing entire threads and/or causing confusion.

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skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Like it.

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west.logan
Level: Smitemaster

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Should anyone but a moderator be able to delete a topic once others have posted in it anyway?

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Panther
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 402
Registered: 03-19-2006
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What Jatopian said. It affected one person. And it broke the thread, and Schik had to take time out of his busy schedule supporting the releases to Save the Everything. So...I'm all for this idea, too.

west.logan
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The problem I ran into was with erm... a recent violently tempered young man who repeatedly made threatening posts about leaving, then deleting them. I even posted in some of these giving advice and attempting to calm him down and then promptly saw my messages disappear. or "Error, topic not found" when going from my email. It annoyed me greatly.

Deleting a post is one thing and annoying in itself, deleting an entire topic (including mine and other's posts) is far worse.

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Panther
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[Post Deleted] Trickster wrote:
Unless I misunderstand the intent (which is entirely possible), the only reason it's being advocated is people are upset that a thread highlighting someone's stupidity disappeared before they were done making fun of him, and this happened years ago. Who cares.

The incident that prompted this happened in the last 12 hours or so. Hence my assertion that it took some of Schik's time away from supporting the releases - I meant the current pending releases. And it very much was not "some kid" who "Made a Stupid".

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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The thing I had to do in the last 12 hours was fix some code I recently added, that parses the new link when you quote somebody. Sure, this bug surface when somebody deleted a post, but that doesn't make it their fault - the bug was mine.

I understand the frustration when someone deletes an entire topic. If we disallow that, one could still edit the first post and change the subject and all the content of the post, changing the context for the entire topic. Sure, then we don't lose all the replies, I get that - but it's still weird. I'm not opposed, just curious how well it would work out.

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Jatopian
Level: Smitemaster
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One can change the context of great swaths of a thread even if one is not the OP. Ultimately we have to remember, as a community, that quotes are our friends. This is the case now and will continue to be the case later.

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Trickster
Level: Smitemaster

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Schik wrote:
I understand the frustration when someone deletes an entire topic. If we disallow that, one could still edit the first post and change the subject and all the content of the post, changing the context for the entire topic. Sure, then we don't lose all the replies, I get that - but it's still weird. I'm not opposed, just curious how well it would work out.

Why not just have the default behavior when removing an initial post be, rather than delete the entire thread, to replace the first post with a message like:

The initial post has been deleted by its owner.

...and remove all mod points listed for that post (not changing them for the fellow who got them but no longer tying them to the post), and then transfer ownership of that post to Schik.

Perhaps include an option that, upon deleting the initial post, will request a mod to delete the entire thread, maybe with a line justifying the request. In that case the post might instead read:

The initial post has been deleted because its owner has requested thread deletion (currently under mod review).

...which could be switched back to the first case of just saying "baleeted", if a mod reviews it and disagrees that the thread should go.

If someone wants to delete an entire thread, they should need a good reason. I think going through a mod is fine as long as people who see the thread are informed that it is pending deletion. Not counting beta boards, it's pretty rare that thread deletion is necessary. Usually it involves accidental errors involving important posts that can't be edited to fix, like when I needed to delete and recreate the Deadlies poll recently.

As for beta boards, I still would prefer beta owners have the control to delete any posts and threads in the beta board as they see fit. Not being able to organize my beta board has been annoying, but I'm pretty anal so I don't claim to represent the majority here. It'd be nice, though, and I don't see a reason why that power hasn't been extended to board owners.

(Of course, these are all pie-in-the-sky-wuffies-don't-know-how-hard-it-would-be-to-implement-all-this-crap-why-can't-i-hold-all-these-ponies. I don't have any basis for guessing how flexible the board system here is to modding. My fiancee recently taught himself php and Drupal and I find the amount of cruft in some of those systems to be mind-blowing.)

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The spitemaster
Level: Smiter
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Registered: 06-09-2005
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Might as well have a bureaucracy that debates the pros and cons of leaving absolute control with the post writer or not. By which time the post is long gone.

Of course anyone who receives it by email can reproduce it for the Hall of Fame. (Or to be honest any Joe with Alzheimer's can do it too)

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coppro
Level: Smitemaster
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Registered: 11-24-2005
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I feel like we've had this conversation before.

Panther
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 402
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It does seem to have evolved (devolved?) to that, but check Jatopian's original again. The proposal was to require at least 12 rank points, the same as needed to post links, for post deletion. And I do rather think he has a point with his observation that A often implies B and B often implies C*. (I leave the application of transitivity as an exercise for the reader.)

(*Where A = has [nearly] no rank points, B = causes drama, and C = deletes [dramatic] posts.)

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[Last edited by Panther at 03-23-2012 04:23 AM]

Pearls
Level: Smitemaster

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Wait... you think making rank points actually do useful things will decrease drama? The people who start the drama are the ones who care about having rank points in the first place. I'm not really eager to stick perks into them...I think this would make the problem worse than it is already.

Er, rank points already do a useful thing (at 12) This was just a suggestion to add one more, that given a recent incident, makes contextual sense, considering all the problems it caused. And people who care about rank points probably have more than 12 to play with. 12... 12 is like "Congratulations you managed to make a post without irritating everyone, you can now delete your own posts (proposed) and link stuff (implemented)."

Unless I'm wildly misunderstanding your concern, Trickster, then I apologize.



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Pearls
Level: Smitemaster

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[Post Deleted] Someone Else wrote:

[Post Deleted] Maurog wrote:
Let's just stalk all the under-12-point guys and QFT all their posts, problem solved.

QFT

QFT

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Hey, w-wait, that's the guy who shamelessly promotes his own...

Someone Else
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1304
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Actually, my guess for the average number of rank points (if you care about them) is ~8. So I'm going to stay neutral on this issue.

Pearls
Level: Smitemaster

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Someone Else wrote:
Actually, my guess for the average number of rank points (if you care about them) is ~8. So I'm going to stay neutral on this issue.

Well that complicates things. I should lurk better, I think.

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Hey, w-wait, that's the guy who shamelessly promotes his own...

Someone Else
Level: Smitemaster

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Pearls wrote:

Someone Else wrote:
Actually, my guess for the average number of rank points (if you care about them) is ~8. So I'm going to stay neutral on this issue.

Well that complicates things. I should lurk better, I think.

Just a guess, really. I wouldn't put that much weight on it.

Pearls
Level: Smitemaster

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Someone Else wrote:

Pearls wrote:

Someone Else wrote:
Actually, my guess for the average number of rank points (if you care about them) is ~8. So I'm going to stay neutral on this issue.

Well that complicates things. I should lurk better, I think.

Just a guess, really. I wouldn't put that much weight on it.

What? I trusted you. My heart. It breaks.


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west.logan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 608
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Okay, case in point. Someone *cough* just posted a followup last night in "The Final Departure" topic, which I remember posting several long posts in myself. I go to check it out this morning and see what the last few posts said. "ERROR!", topic is gone.

I have personally asked this person at least twice in the past to stop deleting topics. For historical reasons, this was the last post in that topic:

When you say about making art, I made Beethro's Mustache and I got downmodded, actually. I described my hand-eye coordinating problems, but that actually gave me another -2. This is why I start up the point threads anyway. People have given me mostly reasonable downmods, but the discriminatory prejudice I cannot stand.

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west.logan
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After a PM regarding the deletion of topics (not the first I've sent to him either) I get this:

I really am sorry... but I WILL TAKE THE LEARNING EXPERIENCES IN MIND... and people kept on downmodding me on purpose so that whenever I get to be a Delver, the next morning they hunt for a post to bring back to Goblin. So, if you help the cause (which is bad in this case) then I will haunt you like a ghost. You should care, as carelessness does not earn respect, in fact it drains respect.

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Keiya
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 73
Registered: 03-25-2012
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Oh boo hoo, who cares about rank points anyway?

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west.logan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 608
Registered: 03-09-2011
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After trying to reason regarding "handicaps":

Remember that post on the Beethro's Mustache thread? I just explained... and you people gave it out of discrimination! I can't stand the slightest act against my hand-eye physical handicap! And I did not say anything about disabilities... just handicaps that explained why my drawing wasn't so well.
You shouldn't help the burning of the bridge... because I will no longer belong to the DROD forum in a few hours.

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Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
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That "P" in PM means private. It's ok to send the contents of a PM to a mod if needed for whatever reason, but let's not post them just so we can publicly ridicule the sender.

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west.logan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 608
Registered: 03-09-2011
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Schik wrote:
That "P" in PM means private. It's ok to send the contents of a PM to a mod if needed for whatever reason, but let's not post them just so we can publicly ridicule the sender.

You're right and I apologize. I say nothing in PMs I wouldn't want others to see but I shouldn't assume that is the case for others.

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Trickster
Level: Smitemaster

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I have a related request.

Can dead threads redirect someone to an explanatory page that says something like "this thread, titled (title), has been deleted" rather than this weird, freaky-deeky thing that appears to be a 10-year old version of the site back before the word Caravel had been invented?

(Seriously. I get an update on 32791, and it disappears. What was that thread anyway?)

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[Last edited by Trickster at 03-25-2012 06:06 PM]

west.logan
Level: Smitemaster

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If I remember correctly, it was a thread whose author threatened to leave because people kept fanning the flames. There were numerous posts giving him reasons why he was being silly, including at least one from you I believe.

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Jatopian
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1842
Registered: 07-31-2005
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That got deleted? Man, that's a loss. Ah well.

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Make your pressure plates 3.0 style!
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Someone Else
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1304
Registered: 06-14-2005
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heh. I remember that layout and colouring. I think I arrived just before the switch... Makes me a little nostalgic.