I've noticed this a lot lately - several deleted posts - in a thread. It's somewhat bizarre, because often later posters have referenced the post that has been deleted. It sort of makes the thread hard to follow. Just wondering if there are any LT guidelines about this?

Nope.

Some people will delete a post once their question has been answered, which is baffling. Some people will delete a post if it draws disagreement or criticism, which seems underhanded. If I think there's any chance of this, I'll directly quote the post in question, so that the OP can't easily hide from what they said.

I have actually wondered about the proper thing to do when a post is getting flagged--if other people think that it's in violation of the ToS, should it be edited to seem less offensive, or would that still be considered underhanded?

3>

I think in that case the ideal situation would be to edit it but clearly indicate why -- adding something like "edited to remove offensive remark about X". Don't make it look like the flaggers or responders are getting worked up over an innocent remark, don't try to pretend you didn't screw up, but there's no need to make it worse by leaving the offense out there. I can certainly see the "no editing" side of it as well, though.

>4 I seem to recall (although I can't find the thread now) that, for that very reason, the originals of all edited posts are now kept so that LT staff can verify who said what and when.

Hahaha, post #6 made me laugh.

I personally don't see anything wrong with the delete button. Helps with double posts and whatnot. I do have a problem with giving people the power to edit other people's posts. Completely disagree with that. A lot of times on forums moderators/owners have the abilities to delete offensive posts, which is fine, but I don't think they should be able to manipulate what people say and have it remain visible in public.

I don't think anyone can do that on LT other than the powers that be, and I think they've only done so in one case. And that case was a potential legal problem, IIRC...like actionable libel or copyright infringement or something.

Ok, I didn't get 6, but 9 made me LOL.

I always find it annoying when someone deletes a comment - especially if it drew negative replies. As fig2 said, it makes it hard to follow the conversation - and if anything, it makes me less likely to like or trust the deleter, since I don't know what they said (and imagination can always come up with something worse than actuality!).

I often edit my posts but I never provide any explanation. Is this wrong? I mostly edit posts because I tend to misspell words while typing in a hurry and not because I've said something bad or controversial.

11

Yeah but most of the time I do not make any significant changes to my posts. So I guess I do not need to explain my edits. Thanks for clearing that up!

I am one who has deleted some posts. Quite some time ago, I took offense at something another member had said to me, and went back and deleted every comment I had ever made on LT. With that experience, I decided I didn't want anything to do with the Talk system at all. But, who can keep their mouth shut on LT? I eventually started participating in Talk again.

I imagine there are all kinds of reasons that people delete posts.

I think that the only real guideline is that you're not supposed to quote or repost items hidden for TOS violations.

Officially.

Unofficially, it's sorta icky to start a thread with, "you all reek of cheese!" and then to have someone go, "no, I can assure you that I reek of pepperoni!" - and then to go back and delete your original post because you were to embarrassed to admit that you might have been wrong about your original theory of cheese-reekery.

But, then again, it was probably icky to start accusing everyone of cheese-reekery to start with...

Of course, in the world of making up statistics, I imagine that's about 3% of deleted posts. The other 97% are things that are far less interesting.

I've deleted posts because I've realized that I posted in the wrong thread entirely (sometimes I'll post "nothing to see here"), or I'll delete when I post something that someone else posted at the same time that they explained much better and more succinctly.

11> The standard way is to put ETA and an explanation at the bottom of the post. (ETA - Edited to Add, though that doesn't always match the facts)

ETA - fix typos

Message edited by its author, Oct 24, 2009, 9:52pm.

<rant>
Nothing personal, but I hate this use of "ETA" - to me it will always stand for "estimated time of arrival". Maybe it's a cultural thing - but I've never seen it used on any other discussion forum apart from LT. It's a plague, and should be stomped out. ;)
</rant>

Message edited by its author, Oct 24, 2009, 9:58pm.

I totally agree!

eta: Kidding!

Message edited by its author, Oct 24, 2009, 9:59pm.

OK, what do you suggest as an alternative? Given that it's good to have some standard and easily typed marker for 'this is where I say what I changed, since LT is going to say I edited the message'.

There are so many acronyms that mean multiple things to me, that I've become capable of holding both meanings in mind at the same time - ETA means both estimated time of arrival and edited to add to me. The usages are not likely to conflict - the really bad ones are when two or more meanings can show up in the same context and you have to figure out from the surrounding data which was meant.

And of course I can't come up with a single other multiple-meaning acronym at the moment. I know there are some, including some I've run into recently where I had to ask because I couldn't distinguish possible meanings.

11>

I explain even when I'm just correcting spelling or fixing broken HTML, because I never assume readers know that's what I'm doing. (That said, Porua, if nobody's responded to the post yet when you edit it, I don't think there's anything wrong with not adding an explanation of the edit.)

>17 Really? I've always seen ETA on forums where there's an indication that you've edited a post...and pretty diverse ones at that - gaming, political, baking, movies.

I always thought that was an old one. Maybe I'm being stalked by some strange cult of ETA-acronym-changers.

Hah, go nuts with your "ETA-ing" - as I indicated, it was just a wee half-serious rant. :)

I've only come across ETA and had no clue what it meant till someone was asked to clarify. If I edit a post I usually just type EDIT:, but maybe I'm weird :P

>6

This message has been deleted by its author.

Having worked years in international express logistics, ETA only stands for "estimated time of arrival" for me and I couldn't imagine using it myself for any other reason.
But you others, please feel free to go wild with ETA when editing your posts :D

I have been very lazy in explaining my edits, as I only use it to correct typos or impossible leaps of logic (wrong words etc.). However, whenever I do remember to explain, I always use simply "edit: typos" or whatever is the reason at the time.

Personally I hatehatehate it when people delete their messages for any other reason than that it's in a completely wrong thread or that it popped up twice for some reason. Deleting messages simply because "I don't feel like wanting to leave it there anymore" is -- to me -- the absolutely worst thing to do on a discussion site. It makes threads sooooooo annoying and difficult to follow.

>25

Ah, good point - I worked for several years in security alarm monitoring, so that's probably where my understanding of "ETA" crept in. :)

22 AndrewB

Your saying 'Go nuts with your ETA-ing' naturally brought to mind (only mine?) ETA peanut butter. Whenever I see ETA I need to swiftly sort:

Estimated Time of Arrival
ETA peanut butter
ETA (The Basque separatist movement)
and, lastly, Edited to Add

There must be more.

Well, there's this Eta.