There has been an interesting discussion on WordPress.com about whether people should be allowed to delete comments they have left.
Allow people to delete their comments?
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that’s a golden oldie
i think for self-hosted users, it makes sense to a) grant yourself a license to reproduce the comment indefinately (i think alex king has a plugin with some decent boilerplate) b) give users 15 minutes or so to fix any typos. if they start abusing the system, you can always reproduce the original comment from the notification email.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this one lately, particularly after I’ve made a few comments on other sites only to learn that a snippet of code was wrong or it double-posted because my browser decided to act up.
Personally, I would love it if some sort of delete option were enabled for X amount of time after the comment was posted (say 3 minutes?) so that people have a chance to go back and get rid of something they may have screwed up without double posting in the comments. It would also guarantee that people don’t go back 4 months later, realize the error of their ways and delete their comment.
It’s a bad idea.
1 – You respond
2 – I edit
3 – if Godwin has not been invoked, goto 1
4 – I call you a comment nazi for editing
5 – we both lose
Of course, you can now edit this to say what you wish
“We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.”
In other words, NO. Allow a short editing window for typos only</em< (and keep a record of changes, so that can be enforced).
mark, people are not automatons. i’m really tired of hearing you regurgitate that bit every time this comes up. There are blogs where that will happen with reasonable frequency. There are blogs where it’s very unlikely.
I’m all for what Jenn and Mark J. are saying. 15 minutes to fix typos/misinformation/the godawful tag stripping that WP enforces in comments.
in that 15 minutes, if no one has made a followup comment, it’s also reasonable to just flatout delete the comment, if you realize it doesn’t apply. with an edit box only, not a delete button, your name will still show up saying that you did comment, but it’s been removed.
all of this requires diligence on the part of the blog administrator. it really only works for relatively low traffic blogs(or at least low level of commenting). and it only works for blogs where the author actively participates in managing comments and/or responding to them
adam – read the original post.
I actually support a time-limited editing window, just like we have on the wp forums.
The original post calls for more and it is that more I oppose.
And for as long as people keep wanting full rights for all time over every word they type I’ll keep saying it.
which, speaks to my point 1: commenters should be warned that they are waiving said rights.
There have been times when I posted a comment and wanted to change what I put because of either a typo or just quickly found out I “misread” the original post. The “15 minutes” to edit would be nice. I think the ability to edit in that regard would be nice. That being said, after that time period, it is the admin that should allow edits.
My 2 cents.
Trent
I completely agree, and it sounds like everyone here does as well. I think almost everyone is also in agreement in the discussion on the forums, but they got excited over each others language:
The current behavior is pretty good, but it could be better, but a radically different approach would not be the answer.
Both LiveJournal and Blogger have the fundamental wrong. Their approach fails to reinforce what you publish on the Internet is permanent and that what you write affects the rest of the conversation.
I use coComment to make sure my comments aren’t lost and wasted in moderation or spam queues, and this also helps me demonstrate any comment tampering.
I don’t understand the militant position some people against removing a comment when the comments author asks for it to be removed.
This topic reminds me of my article Aggravating “Outdated and Disturbingâ€.
It’s not a good idea, any idea that you have expressed is tracked by the blogs, why delete them?
I don’t think so that it a good idea. By allowing users to comment you’re actually increasing your content (from SE point of view) and building a relation, allowing the deletion it deploys both network and the content.
I love that plugin that allows users to change their post for 15 minutes after they have made it. Sometimes I’m flying through things so fast, that after I hit submit I notice I have made a grammar mistake, or my post just didn’t make sense like I had planned. Cool plugin for sure.
A short editing windows for typos would work fine, but any longer and the system could become open to abuse.
I think everyone over, or under thinks comments at times. Having them set in stone the second you click the submit button is a bit harsh IMO. A short time window is always a good idea, however I don’t see a need for it to be even 15 minutes long. Usually if I re-read a comment I have made just once, I will find a typo or an unclear thought. This never takes me 15 minutes and I don’t see why it should.
I would love to go back and change some of my comments. I’m not the best speller.
15 minutes is more than enought time to edit any typos. and the comment system on blogger really sux. people have to click numerous times just to leave a comment.
There’s no delete on sent emails, and there’s no delete on submitted comments (unfortunately.) I think it can be helpful to a community for people to be able to correct themselves if they’ve made a rash, heated comment OR they’ve had typos. If they don’t censor themselves on a rude comment, it could cause problems among your regulars, AND even if they can’t correct their typos, you get commenters attacking them for their bad grammar/spelling. So it’s a feature users would appreciate and it shows appreciation to your regular commenters too.