I’d like to see it so you cannot delete a post, especially a comment in a thread. If you need to remove your comment, just replace your text with "comment removed" or something like that.
This would solve giveaway issues and other confusions that surround deleted posts.
IMHO, deleting a post in a forum is not good.
comment removed
I’m not sure if i would go that far, a giveaway that goes by post number is an anomaly
As long as SB can look up deleted posts in case there was a flame war or some other trouble i personally think that is sufficient
I can’t believe you’d cripple the kriesl like that lol.
Just had a look at the thread in question. I can see the issue there, that’s just unsportsmanlike.
Congrats bort. :bigsmile:
the delete kreisler button is yet to be invented 
I would not like to see the delete post button removed.
what he said.
If anything I would like a second report post button, or change the mark as spam button to a general report post button.
I have had one instance where i have needed to remove my post as it was out of line but no way of cleaning up the follow on posts of people who reacted / over reacted.
Thanks Bort for your feedback. I agree that we can call on sb when sticky situations arise, however they may be less likely to occur if the poster knows there is no delete option.
I choose prevention instead of repair.
I cannot think of a use for being able to completely delete a comment. I may have deleted a comment once (cannot remember why), but I would have been perfectly content with editing the entry blank or with a short explanation.
Suncoaster, Pulsar, is there a reason you prefer to keep the delete button? I just want to understand this in case I’m missing something.
Because it is the way of the forum. Self moderation. The only reason people do not want it there is because the wave of new style giveaways is prone to being manipulated by the option to delete a post. That and what would our resident squirrel do then? Lol
Thanks Pulsar. I was thinking of giveaways as well as prevention of flame wars and trolling. I’ll note that self moderation would still be possible, leaving only a trace of the post with the content removed.
It looks like an uphill battle so far. Maybe I’m applying too much logic to solve something that most members do not have a problem with?
I think the answer is to stop stupid promotions that rely on post number. All it achieved was to bump post counts for a number of users and resulted in a thread of utter rubbish. The radom.org draws are much cleaner and sometimes the additional requirements (cute pic etc) can make them an amusing read.
I also think that as a community we need to think if we really want to be part of playing page rankings like this. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that vendors come here and offer some great prizes and promotions, but they don’t do this just out of the good of their heart, they look for promotion from it.
I agree the delete option should be removed. How about SB deleting that giveaway thread? This way the post count will be where it should be (sort of) We all know Bort won, so why keep it around?
I’ll admit it is confusing reading threads with deleted posts in it. Most forums seem to allow members to edit their post to remove contents, but not delete the entire post without a trace (to non-admins at least).
A few ideas and thoughts:
You could have a no delete function for a certain thread, it could be user selectable when starting a thread. Your relying on the author to realize they need to lock that thread out. Programming this may incur additional expense for SB, which is not what we all want to ask him to do.
Realizing not to have such a contest is fine for us who have seen the results, but for everyone else and future members they won’t know about this discussion so may not know of this potential problem.
Random.org is a clever solution to computer generated random numbers which are based on a complicated algorithm on the current time.
That thread is still needed to have a post number 1000 winner.
For the record i’m undecided if we should have a delete post option or not, i think both options are not ideal.
Why would you limit freedom of choice and functionality to potentially solve a potential problem ?
Why not focus on the problem and solve that ?
Eg: giveaways that use random.org are not a problem because of deleted posts.
Threads that may be confusing because of deleted posts may still be confusing if the posts are edited, perhaps moreso.
Well said, Suncoaster. Thank you. The randomly selected giveaway method is much less susceptible to deleted posts.
I still think there is merit in deterring trolling and flaming by not allowing a complete deletion. This is the bigger reason for requesting a change.
I will admit that the ‘no delete’ solution is not really a solution, rather a patch.
I wanted to start a discussion for ideas on ways to improve BLF. Hopefully the discussion will open up a bit more to other ideas instead of just focusing on mime alone.
One other solution is a time-limited edit period (Digg.com has this, two minutes I think). I would not support this sort of change; far too limiting.
Agreed
Hi everyone,
Hmm, yes, this is sort of a difficult issue that doesn’t really have an ideal solution. If we remove the delete button, then users would resort to editing their posts to blank, so we would then have to remove the comment editing privilege. Not an attractive option. So basically, I would like to request all users to please refrain from frivolous deletion of posts for no reason.
As for the giveaways, without question random.org is the best option, and I will try to suggest that to companies that offer giveaways.
Thanks for weighing in, Mr.Admin.
I'm not so sure that leaving the "edit comment" feature in-place would be such a bad idea, as the blank comment left behind would provide a marker of sorts as to why a thread suddenly doesn't follow a linear path.
Trolling posts by kreisler et al. would have a record of their existence, possibly dissuading the behavior in the first place. Possibly. 
You are correct; there is no simple solution to cover every eventuality.