8 ms·

Why is there a time limit on deletion on this site?

millerm 3mo ago
Because someone commenting leads to others spending time and effort responding. Deleting the comment breaks the chain. Don't comment if you feel that it's something you might want to delete. Think of commenting as like sending an email, but you get a short window to delete in this place.
- amazingamazing 3mo ago
  Do you believe the same about search results not being able to be deleted? I also assume this means you disagree with gdpr?
  - EA-3167 3mo ago
    Do you not see the difference between a person volunteering to broadcast a post, vs a bird party scraping the web to index it for searching?
    - amazingamazing 3mo ago
      You believe volunteered information must stay on internet forever?
      - EA-3167 3mo ago
        If you knew those were the conditions when you joined? Yes.
        amazingamazing 3mo ago
        Ok. Luckily people who make the rules don’t have such ideas.
        tomhow 3mo ago
        GDPR doesn't require that a participant on a discussion forum be able to erase their entire history. Article 17(3) covers this. It is reasonable for a user to ask that their posts be anonymized.
        EA-3167 3mo ago
        You might want to check again, the people who run this forum certainly do, and no aspect of any existing US or EU law does either. Remember your personal interpretations and feelings are just that, they aren't the law or the rules of the places you choose to participate in.
aw1621107 3mo ago
This comment [0] from dang might be relevant: > In case it's of interest, here's the standard language from emails I send people: > We try not to delete posts that got replies, because doing so would be unfair to the other commenters in the thread. What I've done so far is reassign it to a random user ID, so it's as if you'd used a throwaway account to post it and there's no link to your main account. Does that work? [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40734348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40734348
- testing22321 3mo ago
  And it’s utterly useless, because your username and all comments get THE SAME random user ID. So once someone identifies that ID as you, it does nothing. When I asked dang to do better after me and my family got death threats online, dang told me “tough luck” To this day thousands of my comments from my old username are on this site and trivially east to link to my real name. (Links to my website, etc)
  - altairprime 3mo ago
    My first BBS handle was my full real name, and I barely managed to purge myself from DejaNews before Google bought it, so I empathize. The modern internet has been a severe learning experience and, given how many replicas of HN exist, the cat is well out of the bag. Teach others to be more careful, as I do.
    - testing22321 3mo ago
      100% In 2012 when I started commenting here I had no idea it would lead to death threats and I’d have a two year old daughter.
      - vlovich123 3mo ago
        What kind of topics/comments did you make that got you death threats? Really want to make sure I stay away from such topics.

Because someone commenting leads to others spending time and effort responding. Deleting the comment breaks the chain. Don't comment if you feel that it's something you might want to delete. Think of commenting as like sending an email, but you get a short window to delete in this place.

amazingamazing 3mo ago
Do you believe the same about search results not being able to be deleted? I also assume this means you disagree with gdpr?
- EA-3167 3mo ago
  Do you not see the difference between a person volunteering to broadcast a post, vs a bird party scraping the web to index it for searching?
  - amazingamazing 3mo ago
    You believe volunteered information must stay on internet forever?
    - EA-3167 3mo ago
      If you knew those were the conditions when you joined? Yes.
      - amazingamazing 3mo ago
        Ok. Luckily people who make the rules don’t have such ideas.
        tomhow 3mo ago
        GDPR doesn't require that a participant on a discussion forum be able to erase their entire history. Article 17(3) covers this. It is reasonable for a user to ask that their posts be anonymized.
        EA-3167 3mo ago
        You might want to check again, the people who run this forum certainly do, and no aspect of any existing US or EU law does either. Remember your personal interpretations and feelings are just that, they aren't the law or the rules of the places you choose to participate in.

aw1621107 3mo ago

This comment [0] from dang might be relevant: > In case it's of interest, here's the standard language from emails I send people: > We try not to delete posts that got replies, because doing so would be unfair to the other commenters in the thread. What I've done so far is reassign it to a random user ID, so it's as if you'd used a throwaway account to post it and there's no link to your main account. Does that work? [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40734348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40734348

testing22321 3mo ago
And it’s utterly useless, because your username and all comments get THE SAME random user ID. So once someone identifies that ID as you, it does nothing. When I asked dang to do better after me and my family got death threats online, dang told me “tough luck” To this day thousands of my comments from my old username are on this site and trivially east to link to my real name. (Links to my website, etc)
- altairprime 3mo ago
  My first BBS handle was my full real name, and I barely managed to purge myself from DejaNews before Google bought it, so I empathize. The modern internet has been a severe learning experience and, given how many replicas of HN exist, the cat is well out of the bag. Teach others to be more careful, as I do.
  - testing22321 3mo ago
    100% In 2012 when I started commenting here I had no idea it would lead to death threats and I’d have a two year old daughter.
    - vlovich123 3mo ago
      What kind of topics/comments did you make that got you death threats? Really want to make sure I stay away from such topics.