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You should be allowed to delete your own comments for alot of reasons. In particular, if you decide that a comment you made was overly negative, or offensive o
by andrewstuart 6y ago
You should be allowed to delete your own comments for alot of reasons.
In particular, if you decide that a comment you made was overly negative, or offensive or has some other issue, then it is good for the quality of discussion that you be able to take the action and remove it. You are allowed to do this for a short time period after creating it, I think you should permanently be allowed to delete it.
I know HN does not like comments to be deleted because it breaks the historical value, but I think people, privacy, quality of discussion and individual personal right to curate your own online presence are more important than HN's right to maintain historical integrity. HN doesn't see it that way as far as I understand but hey, it's their site. Don't like it, don't comment.
- austinheap 6y agoYou can delete comments within a time limit.
- jki275 6y ago2 hours, I think -- which is essentially nothing.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- DavidPeiffer 6y agoThis is helpful, but sometimes inadequate. E.g. Making a comment before going to bed, you won't be able to edit in the morning.
- dang 6y agoIf you're willing to email us, we can help. There's one user who has emailed us dozens of times requesting the most meticulous tiny edits that you wouldn't believe. But we're meticulous editors ourselves, so we humor him. If I woke up to a hundred such requests every day, we'd have to change something, but a handful is no problem.
- andrewstuart 6y agoThat's a pretty good alternative to providing delete. I still think you should provide delete though - Reddit and Twitter - the biggest discussion sites of all time - live with the nature of people deleting elements from conversations and they don't suffer too much for it. I do encounter threads sometimes with deleted elements but it's doesn't hurt the user experience. I'd prefer the choice be in the hands of the user as to whether they wish to delete something - or everything. Quality of discussion would go up and negative, low value comments might be reduced if people can delete things without needing to email hn to ask for the deletion I do wonder why HN holds on so tightly to preventing people from deleting their comments and accounts. Anyhow your comment points to reasonable and good natured moderation, which is next best.
- Zarel 6y ago> I do encounter threads sometimes with deleted elements but it's doesn't hurt the user experience. There are comments elsewhere in this thread that complain that they do harm the user experience. For example: "I [...] generally very much appreciate the lack of [deleted] a la reddit." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623158 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623158 I also agree; I read old Reddit threads reasonably often, and it's intensely frustrating to read exactly half of a conversation. HN's randomized usernames compromise is really nice and I'm very happy with it.
- caf 6y agoMaybe I'm weird, but "curating your own online presence" gives me the creeps, like I'm in a room full of people all wearing rubber Richard Nixon facemasks or something.
- andrewstuart 6y ago>>> like I'm in a room full of people all wearing rubber Richard Nixon facemasks or something errr, this is an incredibly good description of the actual Internet and how people present themselves. Do you see otherwise?
- ta17711771 6y agoI was thinking Jesus in a tuxedo T-shirt, but, sure, Nixon - why not?