Deleting posts

[deth502]

All I've done is give suggestions and advice. Nobody has to read it or respond to it. So please - spare me.

holy fuck dude, this thread is now 14 pages of MOSTLY you and ppl responding to YOUR posts.

does your dr know youre off your meds?

[xrunner]

holy fuck dude, this thread is now 14 pages of MOSTLY you and ppl responding to YOUR posts.

And tell me - who's forcing them to respond? I must have powers far beyond what I know about, to have such an ability.

Who's forcing YOU to respond deth502? You must want to or else I'm controlling your brain from over the internets.

Oh crap, my cat just threw up. I need to clean that, plus do some things for my mother.

I'll catch up on the string of insults when I get home. 

[deth502]

holy fuck dude, this thread is now 14 pages of MOSTLY you and ppl responding to YOUR posts.

And tell me - who's forcing them to respond? I must have powers far beyond what I know about, to have such an ability.

Who's forcing YOU to respond deth502? You must want to or else I'm controlling your brain from over the internets.

Oh crap, my cat just threw up. I need to clean that, plus do some things for my mother.

I'll catch up on the string of insults when I get home. 

you clearly are in a world of your own. you bitch and moan that no one is responding to your posts, i respond to your post, and you bitch some more. are you just trolling, or are you seriously fucking retarded? every word you are saying contradicts the last.

[marmad]

holy fuck dude, this thread is now 14 pages of MOSTLY you and ppl responding to YOUR posts.

And tell me - who's forcing them to respond? I must have powers far beyond what I know about, to have such an ability.

Who's forcing YOU to respond deth502? You must want to or else I'm controlling your brain from over the internets.

Oh crap, my cat just threw up. I need to clean that, plus do some things for my mother.

I'll catch up on the string of insults when I get home. 

you clearly are in a world of your own. you bitch and moan that no one is responding to your posts, i respond to your post, and you bitch some more. are you just trolling, or are you seriously fucking retarded? every word you are saying contradicts the last.

Clearly this thread has jumped the blood/brain barrier space/time continuum and devolved into a future demonstration of the pros and cons of editing... 

[rolycat]

Oh crap, my cat just threw up.

Even the cat is getting sick of this...

Do we need a new poll on whether to cap the number of posts a single forum member can make to the same thread within a given time period?

[liquibyte]

Self censored.  See following post.

[digsys]

ooooooo nice fireworks :-)

[deth502]

This is a loooong assed read, so everyone bear with me please..........

now, i dont have too much electronics knowledge, i seem to be doomed to permanent "beginner" status. in that respect, i dont have too much to add, but i do what i can. i have noticed that sometimes ppl can get quite short here, so seeing as im good at asshole, i try to give it back to them (possibly sometimes erroneously, as was pondered in the beginning of this thread).  idk, i just hope that it might help bring a little more civility.  maybe im just making trouble, idk, but we were all beginners at some point, imo, id rather answer the same stupid question every day than to make ppl feel unwelcome or stupid for asking. so, looking through my profile, i might appear to be a trouble maker who just likes to argue as well, so im inclined to give xrunner the benefit of the doubt

thats said, i laughed my ass of reading this!! lol. good post!

[xrunner]

OK first I want to apologize to any and all for my attitude. I have very strong views about forum management and express it strongly. So I'm sorry for the way I came across. I have done good here also so please take that into account. If you deem a 72 hour ban appropriate, then I would understand.

My suggestion to Dave is to assign a board moderator to each board to take the load off of him and the Global mods. There are enough members with proven track records that I'm sure you could get volunteers to do what I propose.

I propose to limit initial edits to 1 hour, to account for natural human mistakes. Then, if a post needs a technical correction (not a simple change of words for added color) members submit the technical correction to the board moderator. If he/she deems it proper, they edit the post and put in a notice that posts quoted after the notice may contain errors. The notice could be in a different color and be the same boilerplate for all boards.

The board mods would NOT moderate anyone's demeanor, they would just handle this housekeeping task. In this way it would provide a common means of technical corrections, with proper notices, and prevent wholesale binge edits or retribution edits, if that were to occur.

Thank you for the forum and for listening to my suggestion.

[EEVblog]

My suggestion to Dave is to assign a board moderator to each board to take the load off of him and the Global mods. There are enough members with proven track records that I'm sure you could get volunteers to do what I propose.
I propose to limit initial edits to 1 hour, to account for natural human mistakes. Then, if a post needs a technical correction (not a simple change of words for added color) members submit the technical correction to the board moderator. If he/she deems it proper, they edit the post and put in a notice that posts quoted after the notice may contain errors. The notice could be in a different color and be the same boilerplate for all boards.

I assumed your solution would be technical :-(
Sorry, but I can't see how throwing 24/7 manpower at a problem that really isn't that major problem anyway is a good idea.
As has been pointed out in this thread somewhere I'm sure, the number of people who deliberately edit things to cause trouble (which would need a moderator to stop) are very few. So probably 99% of the new moderators time would be wasted.
And it doesn't stop your concern about inaccurate technical information slipping through, as the moderators can't possibly read all the information and confirm it right.
Also, when you put bottle necks in placem that might stop people from bothering to clean up and do small edits to their technical posts, they might think "geeze, I have to bother a moderator for this? and it's gotta be approved?, well I just won't bother."
I think it's much better to simply allow the edits as-is, and rely on the community to report any funny business. That way, moderators valuable time are only spent dealing with at least potentially troublesome issues, and not wasted on stuff that's genuine.

[xrunner]

OK, but can you check the search again? As I said, it's only returning 30 results, and always only giving a single page of results. I really think something is set wrong - try it yourself if you don't believe me. With that I'll get back to electronics. 

[GeoffS]

There is something that I might like to do that I can't seem to find a way to do-- is to move a thread [that I created] to a different category and/or change the "subject" of the thread.  I've tried to do both of these things and it does not "take" when I click "submit".

In that case, use the 'Report to Moderator' button and ask one of the moderators to do it for you. We're here to help, not just to keep you in line 

[EEVblog]

OK, but can you check the search again? As I said, it's only returning 30 results, and always only giving a single page of results. I really think something is set wrong - try it yourself if you don't believe me.

Ok, yes. It's set correct, so must be some sort of bug?

[xrunner]

OK, but can you check the search again? As I said, it's only returning 30 results, and always only giving a single page of results. I really think something is set wrong - try it yourself if you don't believe me.

Ok, yes. It's set correct, so must be some sort of bug?

Dave, I just checked my forum here -

http://www.atheistthinktank.net/thinktank/index.php

I had the same settings and got the same results as here, which surprised me.

But I got it to work, heres how -

I first searched for "jesus" and got 30 results only. 

I set the 1200 default to 0 for unlimited results - it returned 63 pages when I searched for "jesus".

I then set it back to 1200, and got more than the 30 results the first time. Some flag got set that wasn't set to begin with  - try it here. 

[GeoffS]

When I do a search for 'eevblog', it returns a single page but of 100 entries.

Dave, what is the Search Method set to in Admin -> Forum -> Search methods ?

[EEVblog]

I then set it back to 1200, and got more than the 30 results the first time. Some flag got set that wasn't set to begin with  - try it here. 

Tried it, no joy :-(

[EEVblog]

"no index" makes no difference either.

[xrunner]

Tried it, no joy :-(

What happens when you set it to 0 for unlimited results?

[EEVblog]

Oh, hang on, changes don't get applied in my browser, something is funny...

[EEVblog]

What happens when you set it to 0 for unlimited results?

Same thing.

[EEVblog]

 Sorry, I have tried all combination of setting and cycling, and nothing works. I'm out of ideas.

[GeoffS]

There's an SMF bug report for this symptom which seems to indicate that it will be reviewed in a future release.
This seems a bit strange is xrunner is getting proper search pagination.

My test database is too small to perform useful searches on 

[xrunner]

Sorry, I have tried all combination of setting and cycling, and nothing works. I'm out of ideas.

Hmmm. OK I'll ask around over at the SMF support forum.

[EEVblog]

And to bring things back to topic, it also got me thinking about why I didn't like the no deletion policy.  I stay away from Google+ and Facebook  and so on because I have concerns about how they can collect and use (misuse?) my data and meta data in ways I couldn't even conceive. I feel I am expected to relinquish control to a disturbing degree. Has anyone ever read a privacy policy?  Being able to delete posts, and correct errors and bad grammar helps me feel I retain some control of my online presence.

The reason I have always allowed deletion and editing because I believe that if you go to the trouble to contribute information to forum, then it's your information, and you should have the right the delete it if you so chose. I don't own your data, you do. This is not some permanent recording and archive service.
If someone wants to capture your data once you put it and archive, well that's up to them, but that's not what I do.
Some like xrunner believe that once you say something, it should be documented forever, to be held against you forever. You said it, you live with the consequences.
That might have been the case pre-digital information revolution, if you say published a letter to the editor in a newspaper, a million copies are made and you can't take it back. There was no mechanism to take it back. But with digital communications (esp on a single site like this, assuming no one archives it) you do have the ability to go and take back what you said if you so desire. Should that be allowed? I think so, yes.
It's like you holding up a sign on the sidewalk or noticeboard. People can see it until you decide to take it away. And anyone is free to photograph you holding up the sign if they want to archive it.
So I view this forum more like a noticeboard than the national archives.
Now, just like saying something in public (that's not recorded), you can't take back that X number of people heard you say that, but really, it's the same thing, you are just "unrecording" it by deleting it. I think you should have that right if it's available through to mechanism you used.
Of course, other people should always also have the right to archive anything you say publicly, and that is a risk you take with saying anything in public or on this forum.

Hmm, all that probably doesn't make much sense...

[deth502]

Hmm, all that probably doesn't make much sense...

makes sense to me. although im not arguing the point at all, im just saying that i, personally, dont foresee the need to delete a post. probably just because of my bull headed stubbornness, but i stand by what i say. if something i say [post] is blatantly wrong and/or makes me look like an idiot, i have no problem owning it. although, like you said, i wouldnt want to take the ability away from someone else who does choose to use it.

I believe that if you go to the trouble to contribute information to forum, then it's your information, and you should have the right the delete it if you so chose. I don't own your data, you do.

now, i cant recall for sure, as i usually just skim at best, then just click ok, but from what ive seen, most message boards as a part of the user agreement you agree to when signing up specifically states that once something is posted, it becomes property of you give full rights to that information to the board. im just curious if the user agreement here has something like that in it?

frankly, i dont know how you do it. i think if it were me id have been fed up with some ppl in this thread a long time ago and would have started swinging the ban hammer.