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Do you allow members to delete forum posts?



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Do you allow members to delete forum posts?

I have been running forums now for around 10 years and one thing I learned back in my early days was to not allow members to hard delete posts on your forum. I learned this the hard way after I had a member come onto my forum whilst I was away from the forum and post up vulgar messages and images but delete them before I could see them meaning I had no grounds to ban them without proof of what they had done. I have also come across members bullying other members on forums I have run and then again hard deleting the evidence so there was no proof. This pushed me to stop allowing members to hard delete their posts and instead only be able to soft delete them so that they are still visible to staff.

Do you allow your members to delete their own posts? If so do you allow them to hard delete the post meaning it is gone forever or do you only allow the post to be soft deleted?

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idealmike
Well that's a bit of a tricky one. This sort of thing really comes down to trust and how much you trust your members. If your forum settings allow it then this could be restricted to some group types only. So giving this option to hard delete only to those in that group that you know wouldn't take advantage of it like that. However, if you cannot do that then just setting them to soft delete so that it's removed from their view but still viewable by you would be about the best way to go about it.

I know what you mean though and it's a fair question. I've come across this sort of thing on forums I've ran in the past where members had the ability to delete their own posts. I never had that option back then though and a delete was a delete with no option to restore it and see what was deleted. These days some forum softwares don't truly delete it or keep a log of just what exactly was deleted and you can then go through them to make sure they they've been deleted for a genuine reason and not just because they can for the sake of it.

I used to have members write super long posts and then a few days later decide they didn't want it any more. But at times, those posts would often get ranked and picked up by Google and go on to send me more visitors to my forum of which some would convert into users/members. So I stopped that ability and set it to a certain user group only so they couldn't do that and they had to state a genuine reason why they'd want it deleted too.

I think it's best to just allow soft delete all round really and then moderate those deleted posts to see if you truly want them deleted or not. Do you allow members to delete forum posts?



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sumoncps
Its really good to see this explanation. I was thinking the same someday ago and now got my answer.



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idealmike
Awesome that's that's what it's all about and how the SEOClerks FAQ can help! Do you allow members to delete forum posts?



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sumoncps
Yes it is. Thank you Do you allow members to delete forum posts?



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MariaC
If I would be a forum owner, I wouldn't set the option for a member to delete a post, even the one who create it shouldn't be allowed to delete it, only the option to edit and modify contents. Otherwise you will be having a reverse forum whereby members can post anyhow and delete the way they like. Deletion should only be reserved for admins.



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Corzhens
I agree with @MariaC that posts should not be deleted for purposes of recording and history. For me, once posted, a comment stays and the thread remains. I don't even agree with the editing of the post although I understand that the usual editing are for correcting spellings or grammar and not really the substance of the post. Deleting a post is the job of the admin and not even the mods should have the authority to delete.



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