Yup we can move it but not delete post other then the whole topic.

Allowing people to do this has always gone poorly in the past, it always ends up with people deleting things over personal stuff. This is a public forum, people shouldn't have to abide by a poster's personal rules in every topic, it's hard enough keeping people from complaining about one global set of rules.

That's understandable. Maybe making it so authors can hide posts would be a better option? The post would still be there, the reader would just need to click a link or button to show it. Something like this was suggested elsewhere for some thing or another, and I think it's a good idea.

It works well with the youtube voting system, and in this case only the author could influence it.

A user could delete constructive posts by someone they don't like simply out of spite.

There are also cases like what sometimes happens on FB, where one person says something, and then another replies with a come back, joke, or something; the author deletes the post that reply was too and the person who replied is left feeling stupid and/or annoyed.

Well, on the main forums at least, the distinction is about "ownership" of topics. You can't "own" a topic of discussion particularly. You can however, own the space is occurs in.

A forum is: A meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.

The rules and conventions of a forum are governed by those that own the forum, either literally or conceptually by agreement. In the main forum case here at BYOND, the forum is owned by BYOND, and topics are moderated by BYOND's appointed moderators, to attempt to allow discourse while also maintaining a nature to the forum that is beneficial to BYOND (and so by inference, people who are developing with the BYOND platform).

What you are proposing on top of that, it seems, is that the person who starts a topic on these forums also "owns" that topic of discussion, and may alter it as they see fit.

Which, isn't something I particularly prescribe to, myself. This after all, is not facebook, a topic is not made on "your wall" or in your own space. It's made on BYOND's space, it's forums, and so the discussion that ensues is BYOND's to cast judgement on the appropriateness of.

If BYOND's forums were predominantly a social community where the primary aim was ... just being social, talking, saying whatever, then the situation might be different. But it's not, it's a forum about BYOND platform use and game development, and it's primary aim is to facilitate the development of BYOND games. That's why the moderators moderate the way they do, and we have certain precedents in place.

Our past experience with this feature is that it did not work in BYOND's favour, and it was not conducive to a community where ideas were freely exchanged for the benefit of BYOND developers and posts contributed to community knowledge. It was largely a personal tool, badly situated on a developmental communal space.

Can we please have the ability to remove posts on our own topics, some posts just derail like crazy!

I suggest this, the original poster may remove posts from their topic but the remove post will just collapse to a small line saying Post Deleted or Post Hidden which ever you choose, other users viewing the forum and un-collapse the said post and read it if need be.

The post will be semi transparent as below, clicking the post will un-collapse it.

ImmeasurableHate wrote:

That idea is better! And I support it. (Glad this still getting looked at.)

I thought it was a better idea instead of removing the post completely as LordAndrew wrote:

A user could delete constructive posts by someone they don't like simply out of spite.

It kind of bypasses this and lets the other poster know that their post was off topic or just a plain stupid, without making them as angry since the post is still there and visible, hopefully they won't feel the need to go crazy...

Ter13 wrote:

Certain posts should be deletable. I only agree with the above in the game updates forum. Otherwise, it's better without the ability. A forum is a public place. No need to hand out the ability to be a bigger jerk here than necessary, except on game updates.

Well some in the forum moderation team really aren't very nice, I have to be careful with my words here.

Some do the job great, others may delete posts that don't need to be removed or remove posts that should stay and sometimes leave just random crap lying around.

It's really difficult when you see a post in your thread that is fine and dandy it may not be on topic but you agree, like it or whatever, but it gets removed without warning sometimes with a poor excuse.

What happens if you wanted to refer to it in the future .. you can't (unless it's your post) as BYOND seems to keep old deleted posts in a database, you would know this if your post has been removed that you can view it in the pager once you get notified of it being deleted.

I think this would be suited across all forums, I don't think it will be abused when certain posts especially in Developer Help are normally on topic and informational, unlike off topic where people go well ... off topic from the original post which is annoying when you try and make a healthy debate or provide something cool, Like I did when I offered free web hosting I got bombarded by one individual that was a total prick about me offering a free service...

I had to remove the whole post ban the idiot and repost it because I couldn't hide his off topic trolling comments. And on top of that, over a few hours, a moderator had no input, nothing was removed, I had to do it myself, so why should I have to rely solely on the moderators.

Anyway I don't want it to seem like it's just for me which it isn't, it would be a nice feature I don't see it doing anyharm and if it does then a moderator should be looking after that issue.