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Ask HN: Edit vs Delete
You've just written a dumb comment. Someone has taken the time to point it out (downmods included), and you realise the comment is stupid.
What do you do now? Edit the post and put in an apology? Delete the post and through silence deny it every existed?
Perhaps I'm cynical, but isn't deleting incentivised? Fewer people will read the comment, you will obtain fewer downmods, and it's likely only your responder will remember what you wrote.
But isn't it more honorific (grabbing for a word there) to man up and apologise, even within the allowed delete time frame?
- yan 18y agoI'd just leave it. I left quite a bit of silly comments, but as the volume of stupidity scattered across the internet increases, the awareness of my thoughts does too. It helps me learn to develop my own viewpoint and respect those of others. If anything, leaving it up will show other people alternate opinions and will potentially allow others to learn from your mistakes. edit: I edit mostly to add information that I forgot to add when posting rather than modify the existing post. And I love how wonderfully reflexive this comment is!
- sutro 18y agoWhat a ridiculous question. You, sir, are a moron. Edit: I suppose I got a bit carried away there. Please accept my sincerest apologies. What I meant to say was that this is exactly the kind of insightful question I love to see on this forum. Huzzah! Edit: Where's the delete button? Edit: Shit! Fuck! Ass! Edit: Again, my deepest apologies.
- rms 18y agoWell done, sir.
- tjpick 18y agoHonourable. Honorific doesn't mean what you think it does.
- mdasen 18y agoYou've hit upon a good point. Personally, I think it needs to be left up to individual conscience. Why? In times past, you'd say something to someone and that would be the end of it. Sure, maybe it'd be repeated as hearsay, but people don't put such stock in that and you can deny it. Now, we're all going around with histories following us. If that's the case, we'll all become lame. None of us want certain crap out there. Maybe we shouldn't have said it, but if you take a hard stance on that, it just means people will be lame. They'll be hesitant to post, they won't be at all controversial, etc. HN people generally have a good attitude and post cool stuff. It's a great community. I'd rather people retain the right to deny a bit of what they've posted than loose some of the awesome posts. Plus, maybe the delete function stops stuff from becoming flame wars with people deleting rather than continually fighting. I don't know.
- mixmax 18y agoI usually leave my stupid comments for all to see. If I intend to take credit for my good posts I should be man enough to do the same to the stupid ones. Probably makes me look like a fool every now and then, but oh well that's not so different from life in general :-) I don't mind admitting I'm wrong either.
- jgrahamc 18y agoIf I ran HN I would remove the delete button and keep the edit, but I would keep a record of changes so that users could look back through the edits made to a comment (a simple diff would do).