[SUGGESTION] New rule about question-askers wiping their own posts after getting help?

Hi,

I want to propose this after looking at an user like konstantiniyyr.

Which is a very good example of an egoistic user; when he’s done asking a question, and has received the help he needed, he wipes all of his posts, disrupting the discussion so others that have the same problem in future, cannot be helped. This user has only content with a dot “.” because he replaces all his posts with that to empty it.

A lot of other forums on the internet have the rule that you aren’t permitted to do that, because as I hinted, any finished discussion can help others that are searching it later, the content serves as “an issue (or case) being documented”. Forums like these do not just provide service to individual users by answerring their questions, but are used in many times that amount by those that want to learn from it (a lot of guests too).

Therefore, I believe you should make it harder for egoistic users to disrupt existing knownledgebases (their topics and posts on which others have responded, helping them). I was actually searching for something today, and found a topic made by that use I linked, but it was like the people that helped him solve his problem were talking to a wall. I really cannot stand that behavior, and it does the opposite of helping people that end up there.

Actually, if you disable edits (or deleting) 10 minutes after posting, the problem would be solved.

@DvL :
I totally understand your frustration about Forum members, who delete their started threads rep. their posts, but I don’t see any option to prevent it.
According to the Forum Software the author of a contribution can customize or even delete the complete text of his/her post at any time.
The only option for the Admins of this Forum is to delete Forum members, who obviously are trying to prevent, that other users will get the same information they have already gotten, but this is not easy to decide.

This wouldn’t really solve the problem, but handicaps users, who want to correct an error or typo of their just written post.



A lot of other forum softwares can detect how big an edit is (say, “user has edited 98% of his post” its clear that he removed the content, but something like “has edited 5% of his post” is clearly a typo correction). Maybe there’s a plugin to do that, a forum software update, or a way for you to suggest they add it/manually add it. Otherwise you’re really being limited by the choice of forum software (a result that i’ve seen in a few other suggestion topics).

Anyways if it’s not possible then so be it… then;



This means you can go ahead and delete this user “konstantiniyyr” that I linked in this topic?
In his case, it’s easy to decide because literally all his posts (except for the last one) are deleted into a dot content. Obviously, he would do the same with his last post as soon he gets a satisfactory answer.

If this is the policy then I recommend everyone to start reporting cases like this, even particular ones (so they can recognize trends with specific users “to decide”).
Btw, is it possible to enable reporting of particular posts (right now you can just report a full topic)? Or is that also being limited by the primitive forum software?

Yes, and you are absolutely right - such Forum members (I name them “pure leechers”), who are not cooperative at all, are not welcome within this Forum. After having verified your statements regarding the Forum member with the nickname “konstantiniyyr” I have just deleted him/her. So he/she will not be able to edit the last not yet erased post

If i may chip in, i believe that the time to allow edits would be great at 30 min.
People either edit most instantly or they make an added post if it takes longer.
The prevention of the loss of knowledge is more important than an edit-time-window being too short.

Greetings.

edit: i just realized this could make updating Opening posts rather difficult offcourse.

I support that proposal… Deleting (legit) posts prevents inexperienced people like myself from learning… If it is indeed fake or spam, then yes, management should poof it with consequences. /me tosses in his 2 cents.

@GnarZ77 @azdave85650
Yesterday I was in a hurry. That is why I simply deleted the related user after having verified, that he really had completely deleted the text of nearly all his previous posts. This way I prevented, that he was able to wipe even his latest post.
Nevertheless it is generally possible for us Mods and Admins to recover the text, which had been changed or even deleted by any Forum member. So if you give me or any other Mod/Admin the link to a certain post, whose text had been erased by its author, but may be important for you or other users, please let us know it. Then we will look into the source text and decide. whether it will be completely or partially recovered or not.
I hope, that this procedure matches your desire.

@Fernando Is it possible to reuse a username after it’s been deleted? => konstantiniyyr (now u17699 instead of u14810)

Looks like it is possible, maybe he will see this thread and not erase his posts this time around

@lfb6 :
A new Forum member can choose every nickname, which is available (= not currently used by anyone else), but why do you want to use the nickname of a deleted user? Or are you the deleted user?

Pretty sure he meant that said user circumvented getting deleted by re-registering… anyways, it doesn’t really matter for the reason that Lost 'N Bios mentioned.
Anyways, pretty sure it’s solved now, this approach in future will help to prevent it! As long everyone just reports users that do the same thing, when they see it. (since you cannot report an user, I would advise “report topic” with a hotlink to the post ID that they blanked out)

Yes, this is a good idea, but isn’t it the option “Report input”?

By the way - if the (new) user named konstantiniyyr would start again deleting the text of his/her posts after having gotten the requested answers/information, I will blacklist his/her IP address to make it impossable to join the Forum from the same location.

Apparently such an option exists. Found it today. Having been a regular member at other forums, I can’t say that I enjoy quick (minutes) edit rights removal. It can hinder more frequent members or those who are perfectionists, like me. But I completely agree with the OP. “Deleting” your own posts after you’ve received help is very ugly and not acceptable here.

I’ve set a 24 hour edit window for now which can be adjusted later based on feedback. If someone edits out their posts in such a manner sooner, remember that the forum team can recover the contents of previous edits so use the “report” function or send a pm in order to deal with it.

Already one complaint in about this, and I didn’t think about it either when I read your post above earlier. @hancor PM’d me about this due to he ran into issue today, and I’m sure I’d hit it really soon too trying to edit too.

I don’t think we can do this type of edit blocking, for any amount of time (even weeks), because then none of us with guides or BIOS mods threads ect can update our first posts as needed (easily, without mod/admin intervention).
Due to that, I think we should not have an edit time period or it’s going to cause continued grief for many, worse than the original issue being discussed here

Thank you for switching back the ability to edit our start posts; particularly useful for [Offer] type Bios/UEFI pages and as admins who change their advice/guide pages!

As for the small minority who delete their original question; these are not the particularly bright and helpful folk; so in the long run they likely won’t be missed. As if their deletion is preserving some great mystery/secret that no one should be privy to…hardly an enlightened attitude.

I mean really, who wakes up in the morning, takes their bitter pill, and proceeds in full flight to make others lives more difficult?

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers