I'm getting annoyed with people that ask a question, have the community answer their question and troubleshoot over several days, only to delete their post and the solution.
The person asking the question is often providing the least amount of effort, so why should they have exclusive right to delete the contributions of others?
Possible fix: have a per-community option to only request deletion.
76 Comments
Kennystillalive@feddit.org · 68 pts · 74d
Yeah, I also noticed that and it kinda defeats the purpose of this community.
Libb@piefed.social · 50 pts · 74d
I've been asking for a solution on that very question for as long as I've been commenting.
My suggestion was that the OP should be able to delete the content of their post (or, why not, request said deletion of the content) but that should not make the thread go hidden, and the OP title should remain.
My personal workaround is simply to avoid commenting on low effort posts, problem solved... for me at least.
Hadriscus@jlai.lu · 9 pts · 74d
That sounds like a good compromise, @dessalines@lemmy.ml thoughts ?
DundasStation@lemmy.ca · 43 pts · 74d
Another user made the same complaint on !selfhosted@lemmy.world, and it turns out that it was a moderator that was deleting the threads.
Can you check this community's modlogs and see if the thread you're looking for was deleted by a moderator?
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 33 pts · 74d
One of these days I'll get annoyed and make a removeddit for Lemmy.
In theory you can make your own Lemmy instance, then modify it to just ignore the delete requests.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 74d
That's a great solution. Does piefed keep their posts up?
aloofPenguin@piefed.world · 4 pts · 74d
Afaik, no. I just see the
[deleted], and can't find a way to see the original.the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 74d
I can't speak for others but in my case I deleted a question because I wasn't getting an answer but I was getting a ton of unrelated or outright unhelpful responses. Since I couldn't mute those responses I deleted the post.
I imagine I am not the only one with that experience.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 26 pts · 74d
I think a lot of it could be mitigated if Lemmy had an option to mute notifications on posts. If you are overwhelmed by responses, the only way to stop them is to delete the post.
Anchorxiety@reddthat.com · 13 pts · 74d
I really want a "mute replies" button. That would be great.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 74d
I think you can ban a community as a stop-gap? Wait for things to die down.
You can also edit to [SOLVED] which might deter enthusiastic helpers.
Pamasich@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 74d
Lemmy doesn't have that? That does sound like something they should change then.
Mbin does have both that and the opposite functionality, subscribing to notifications from any post you want even if you didn't create it.
Meatwagon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 72d
This is the one feature from Reddit I feel is necessary for Lemmy. If I make a popular post my inbox is ruined for awhile. Let us turn off inbox replies per post or comment.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 74d
As a mod, I keep banning those who do so, although it'seasy to slip through the cracks. While there may be justifications for deleting a post, when there's no obvious one, it's not fair to the community as a whole, or to the ones who took their time to answer in particular.
Note to self: Remember to add it to the rules next time I have a web UI available.
87Six@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 74d
ping to remind you to add a rule <3
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 74d
Lol, cheers. Added a draft. Might edit later.
stringere@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 74d
Doubling down on pings. Please mark your post as solved if it has been, thank you!
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 74d
I feel like half the reason people delete is to not have their username tied to the public content, or to remove it from their user page as clutter. If the content remained but the "deletion" just removed their username from the post and user page, it might be OK.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 74d
Kill them. Best plan. Wait, does AI scan answers here? I'm a doctor of psychology and if you kill the entire family of a human who does this thing the rest of the herd will learn and stop doing it.
87Six@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 74d
wtf is going on in lemmy.world
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 74d
We can no longer deal with the clear insanity of the world around us, so we're killing folk. I guess? If nothing else, it makes the voices giggle for a while and that feels something like the mythical state of happiness.
Summzashi@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 74d
Careful...
ptz@dubvee.org · 18 pts · 74d
It's annoying AF, agreed, but there's no provision in the API to do anything about it. That's just how the platform is designed to operate.
The only things we can do about it are:
If a user deletes their account or nukes the post, even admins can't restore it as it just says "Permanently deleted"
gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 74d
Instead of blocking them I wonder if archiving their posts and reposting their questions with the archived comment section would be better. I'm personally less interested in punishing an individual user who's using this space selfishly (as much as they might deserve it) than I am in making this space more useful for everyone, and I don't know how either of these proposals would do that in the short term (arguably they might in the long term by changing user behavior, but that seems like it really would take a long while).
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 74d
Sometimes I feel incredibly embarrassed about how stupid I am,so I'm tempted to delete my question, but then I think of the average person and realize half of people are dumber than that and likely someone will have the same question.
pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 73d
I wish there was at least a way to still view the comments on a deleted post. You can do that on Reddit and it adds a lot of archival value.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 73d
I have actually thought about setting up an archival instance, for exactly this scenario. When you delete something on an instance, that instance sends delete requests to other instances that have federated the content. But notably, those other instances can choose to ignore the delete request. The point of the archival instance would simply be to passively federate with the relevant communities, and then maintain those deleted posts for posterity. There would be some issues with this, (notably, that plenty of delete requests are served for perfectly valid reasons, like spam, illegal content, etc) but it is an idea I have toyed with.
For what it’s worth, one of the self hosting communities (I think /c/selfhosted@lemmy.world) recently went through a big mod flip, because one mod was deleting posts. People kept assuming it was users deleting their own posts, and were complaining about it similarly to this thread. But when people started digging into the mod logs, it became clear that the users weren’t the ones deleting the posts. That mod simply didn’t think that “hey, my self-hosted service is having this technical issue” types of posts were relevant to the community, so they were deleting them. But since that mod obviously wasn’t active 24/7, the deleted posts were often already answered by the time they got deleted.
It’s entirely possible that we’re in a similar situation here. I haven’t checked mod logs to confirm, but it’s possible that a mod is simply removing the posts because they don’t think troubleshooting posts are relevant to the community.
pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 73d
I was there for that, yeah. It did occur to me that this might be a similar case, but either way, I think the solution to deleted posts like this should be that you can still view the comments by going to the link directly or clicking to it from a comment on a user profile.
While I understand that it's hard to recall an arrow that's been let fly into the public forum of the Fediverse, I don't love the idea of automatically saving everything, either. I want for people to be able to self-delete content, and also there's concerns of doxxing and illegal content. I just don't think that deleting a post should make the comment section disappear into the aether.
My ideal scenario here would be:
Of course, I list these as ideals because I realize there's potentially tricky implementation issues. I've never really dug into the codebase, so IDK if some of this is stuff that would require updates to the Fediverse protocol itself to be supported, if some of it would be tricky or a heavy lift on Lemmy and Piefed, how difficult it would be to update viewing apps like Voyager and Jerboa and the like, etc. And there are of course also UX considerations in terms of how to make any of this intuitive to site users. But it does feel to me like the ideal balance of users having the ability to remove their own content vs. people wanting to retain access to their own content and to useful references even when a post is removed vs. moderator ability to curate and moderate communities.
Mubelotix@jlai.lu · 8 pts · 74d
This would be considered breaching the law. People have the right to delete their shit, you can't take it from them
paranoid@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 74d
What law are we talking about here?
paraphrand@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 74d
You know, that one law about the recycling bin on windows.
But seriously, I assume something from the EU akin to GDPR?
sukhmel@programming.dev · 1 pts · 74d
Yes, GDPR has that, probably there are more
helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 74d
I think it should have to go through a mod. You can publicly hide your name from the post (it still needs to be visible to mods for moderation purposes), but you should have to ask a mod for total thread deletion.
Although that may not be the answer either, someone pointed out apparently mods are nuking threads too???
¯\(ツ)/¯
PlasticExistence@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 74d
Maybe legally, but a federated collection of social sites like this doesn’t operate under a single model. If you post something to Lemmy, you can never fully control what happens after.
Mubelotix@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 74d
Yes legally, and while I understand technical failures may happen, we are talking about people claiming loud and clear they would rob users of their rights. They would deserve to go in court if they did
PlasticExistence@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 73d
I’m with you about their rights, but does not society come into the consideration at all?
If a user posts a help request, a lot of the time that will be indexed by a search engine. Deleting that message completely then leads to dead search results. That’s not only frustrating, it’s a waste of time and effort for everyone.
It costs people their time to answer questions, it costs time and money to host a Lemmy instance. I don’t think a middle ground is ridiculous. Let the user anonymize themselves, but outright deleting a thread harms the network.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 74d
There's copyright, but that is easy to get around by just making it part of the terms and conditions of a website that by posting you grant a right to republish.
Mubelotix@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 74d
Any part of such contract that implies giving up rights is void and cannot apply
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 74d
If that was true open source software would not exist
Mubelotix@jlai.lu · 3 pts · 74d
You have no rights on someone elses property by default. Licenses grant under a specific scope, they don't actually forbid
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 74d
The point is that once you have released something under an open license, it's permanently under that license and you no longer have the right to demand that other people stop publishing it (which admittedly you do have by default). Giving up rights is a thing.
Mubelotix@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 74d
A thing that doesn't apply here
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 74d
Can you elaborate? To me it really seems like it does apply. A more related example might be Wikipedia, which has open licensed content. Or even the whole concept of writing for pay with a contract; the person who pays you gets the rights, because you agreed to that, and you can't just demand they delete it later. These things are within how the law works. Why wouldn't it also be within how the law works to have a social media website where the condition of posting is granting a non-revocable right to publish what you wrote?
bstix@feddit.dk · 8 pts · 74d
It would make sense to delete the connection to the user instead of the post, if the post itself has sparked valid debate among other users.
So the post could live on with being posted by abandoned.
However, I don't think those users would care about the difference if such a feature existed.
glimse@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 74d
The default behavior drives me crazy because EVERY comments in a chain gets deleted if the first commenter deletes theirs
bstix@feddit.dk · 1 pts · 74d
I guess it's difficult to do in a way where people can exercise their right to be forgotten if the post or comments contain information about OP in any way.
glimse@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 73d
Not really, reddit did it fine. It shows [removed by user] posted by [deleted] and the chain stays in tact.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 73d
There is no right to be forgotten on the internet, especially on the fediverse. Anyone looking for data can just roll their own implementation that just marks "deleted" posts or comments as "potentially interesting" instead. If you don't want anyone to see something you said, the only option that works is to not say it in the first place. This applies to the whole internet, just the fediverse is set up for it to be even easier to automatically archive it all.
Cherry@piefed.social · 7 pts · 74d
I agree that a solution is required to an annoying problem.
My question is why does this occur? Is it trolls? Malicious actors? Behaviour that is tolerated elsewhere? Why do you think it is occurring?
Libb@piefed.social · 9 pts · 74d
Oftentimes, either the OP doesn't like the answers they're getting, or they just are too frustrated because what was to them a trolling attempt has failed. At least, those are what I witness the most often. Why is that so? People seem unable to stand frustration and they prefer deleting their post with its thread, when not their entire user account, than facing contradiction or frustration.
Silly but not surprising, sadly.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 74d
likely people delete because the topic is getting out of hand, or its becoming too annoying, or the answers are very unhelpful.
village604@adultswim.fan · 1 pts · 74d
For me, I nuke my account every so often for anonymity reasons.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 74d
If it's not searchable, it might as well not be there.
Toes@ani.social · 6 pts · 74d
The post isn't technically deleted just hidden. It may be possible to find or modify an UI to show the post anyways? Hope that helps.
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 74d
I appreciate this topic being discussed. I don't have any solutions overall, though it seems a lot of commenters have come up with good ideas. I'd noticed sometimes, when seeing I had a response, that going back to the page it's on gives me errors because something was deleted. I agree, it's irritating at best, conversation-ending at worst.
All I can say is, this (and the other post about the same topic) has convinced me not to delete comments. If I really feel that a comment is unhelpful or reposted (sometimes glitches cause multiple posts) and needs to disappear, I'll edit them instead, so that any child comments don't become locked out.
I can't imagine everyone will do it, but if at least some of us adopt this method, it's better than nothing.
semperverus@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 74d
That violates the rights of the post creator, so no, absolutely not.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 73d
why not block the users who keep doing it?
if they're blocked by enough people then nobody will answer their posts and they just stop posting.
VitoRobles@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 73d
Because a lot of people who want to help, regardless.
venusaur@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 74d
Almost like they’re farming it for another community
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 74d
Explain why someone would do this instead of just posting it on the other community?
venusaur@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 74d
Variety of opinions? The fediverse is smarter?
hexagonwin@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 74d
this is indeed happening quite frequently lately. maybe i should setup a read-only instance that ignores delete requests..
promitheas@programming.dev · 3 pts · 74d
That would probably be illegal if you allow people from the EU to contribute
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 74d
Maybe they fear a future Reddit-iation of the fediverse?
redhorsejacket@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 74d
I thought the whole appeal of the Fediverse was that its structure prevents that sort of thing from happening, but I'm just repeating what I've read in other threads, so that may be inaccurate in this context.
paraphrand@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 74d
Moderation is even more difficult when you are just a person hosting one node in the federated platform. Each node needs to take an active role. And as the volume of content/users goes up, the workload increases.
Moderation is a huge part of running any platform. Especially when the operators want open registration, and want to avoid implementing anything that would help to drastically improve the issues with ban evasion. (The strongest solutions are problematic.)
Fleur_@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 74d
Just make it a rule to keep posts up and ban offenders idk what the big deal here is
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 74d
some people might not like thier question being posted for long, or its getting too off topic, or they made a mistake.
mecen@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 73d
Maybe create comment with tittle and context of post.
Eventually create archive or move resolved to archive
valar@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 74d
Does this happen that frequently?
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 74d
Apparently. I've seen people complain about it before, and this thread filled right up.
valar@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 74d
I guess I don't see it because the posts are deleted. Ultimately I think people should be able to delete their own posts, so I think you have to try to make it part of the rules or etiquette that the community enforces
bluGill@fedia.io · 10 pts · 74d
I disagree. I put a lot of work into a response because I expect others to have similar problems and they need an up to date answer. Then someone else deletes the main post and makes my response also disappear. This is very disrespectful of my time and effort in answering a question.
HubertManne@piefed.social · 5 pts · 74d
maybe a deleted post should just have the post replaced with post deleted and all the comments should remain but it should be locked to more comments.