why there arent any delete button ?

Roguefoxx

I believe they can if you set them the appropriate permissions to do so.

Dinoboff

I don't think. I think you have to allow them to hide all the discussions or none.

Roguefoxx

Ah, yes you are right.

STE7130

my personal workaround: edit the comment whisper it to yourself :) but it´s no solution!

Minisweeper

Vanilla doesnt like users deleting their own comments because some users might write provocative/controversial/whatever comments then hide them when things start to kick off and look like an innocent bystander. I'm sure you can imagine the scenario.

What ste7130 said does work though.

garymardell

yeah but again quite easily people can just edit their post and make everyone else look wrong and stupid or isult themselves and such.

giginger

Would be a great (if database heavy) extension to have a "post history". Then a mod can see what the edits on a post were. A bit like the history on a page in Wikipedia.

I'd happily code that upmyself but I'm clueless.

tmq

Odd discussion here. In Invision, as well as other boards, deletion of individual posts as well as discussions is useful, allowed and has never 'broken' anything. Deletion, too, of users does not harm the system. Sometimes mistakes are made, and deletion desirable. The morality of the issue seems far less interesting than the functionality...

JoshuaJenkins

While I'm fairly impartial on all of this, I do have a comment in regards to Minisweeper

Vanilla doesnt like users deleting their own comments because some users might write provocative/controversial/whatever comments then hide them when things start to kick off and look like an innocent bystander. I'm sure you can imagine the scenario.

That should be the decision of the administrator, not the decision of the software. I think a soft delete option would be the best, which would function just like hide but mods/admins would be able to see those posts in some capacity, and from that point decide if they want to permanently delete it.(i.e. remove record from database)

2cents

Minisweeper

I dont entirely disagree with what you're saying, I'm just saying that that's how vanilla functions at present and (what i believe to be) the vague theory behind it.

I'm also curious, tmq, if other boards *actually* delete something or just say they do then hide it from you. When users are deleted does it remove everything they've ever said aswell? I'm really not sure i like that idea.

garymardell

mm i personally think it would be good if you could delete the posts and discussions. Yet you would have to advoid the deleting of the first post in a thread. However i do not think it would work with deleting users. If you remove them and all their posts that would cause problems. Maybe if it jsut banned the user and removed them from the user lists in say search. And in topics they had posted in it says (removed) Next t their name in a red or something.

tmq

As far as I remember there are different behaviors for different actions. My recollection with Invision is that deleting a user does not delete its posts, just the member's 'membership'. I can't remember if there is any notification in individual posts about this condition. Editing and deleting posts is like this: a member can edit his/her own posts (more precisely: this ability can be controlled by an Admin in user rights), but a notification is added to the post ("edited such-and-such-a-date-time") and number of edits. A member can remove one of his posts completely if it's the last one, i.e.: not responded to. An admin can remove any post or any discussion. As to whether this various actions are 'real' or are simply another way of hiding info, I don't have an Invision install to check at the moment...

This is all perhaps too much bloat for Vanilla, but it's seems like an admin option to delete a discussion without relying on an extension could be something that wouldn't undermine Vanilla's (laudable) basic theory.

Jazzman

I'm working on an extension called "format c:"... That should cover it all

AndrewVos

As someone who has installed many different forums, I personally entered vanilla, made a Test post, and then couldn't delete it. Was looking around for ages trying to find the delete link. I am all for renaming hide to delete, and then you could have a trash folder, in settings. You can then later remove them (individually) from trash. Of course, only admins would be allowed to do this, and only full discussions would be allowed to be removed. If a user has this discussion in bookmarks or whatever, a simple screen "Error, discussion deleted" would be displayed? This would help with the "Wheres my post" confusion. User would then use their own common sense and delete it from bookmarks, or Vanilla could do it. Hmm, I think if I had that extension I might just change my mind though, hiding is pretty cool. *OFF TOPIC* I have tried working on php a bit, and quite frankly, I'm afraid. (All I wanted to do was modify the panel lists mod a bit :)) Seems like quite an intense language, I mean functions inside If End If? Thats scary! Really would like to work on an extension, so if anyones got any good php reads? Whisper please.

Minisweeper

Functions inside if end if? Eh? In php if functions work as so: if (statement) { if (another statement if you want) { some stuff } } else { everyone loves else statements... } And back on topic, http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/2685/deleting-posts-in-v1/#Item_6 covers some of this discussion pretty nicely.

NickE

Try this: http://lussumo.com/addons/index.php?PostBackAction=AddOn&AddOnID=95 Although I'm labelling it as 'beta' until I'm sure it's totally bug-free.

Jazzman

Haha, loved this sentence in your description: "Note that I'm not 100% that this is wholly bug free, so be warned that if it messes up your db or in any other way ruins your life, I'm not responsible." It should be a default label on all software ^^

NickE

lol, thanks; I'm always slightly apprehensive when releasing something that permenantly deletes data.

jesusphreak

> Odd discussion here. In Invision, as well as other boards, deletion of individual posts as well as discussions is useful, allowed and has never 'broken' anything. Deletion, too, of users does not harm the system. Sometimes mistakes are made, and deletion desirable. The morality of the issue seems far less interesting than the functionality... Yeah, I'm not sure where the idea came up that deleting things would break other things. That seems rather uninformed. I've used many forum systems and its never been a problem for me. It all comes down to how coupled your system is. If its not proprely designed, yes, then deleting stuff may break stuff, but if it is properly designed, its really not an issue. Personally I don't like "hide", because I like the feeling that when I delete something, its just gone. I don't want it sitting around hidden somewhere.

Roguefoxx

So, will deleting topics, comments and/or users break anything in Vanilla? I would like to be able to delete, but I'd also like the security of knowing that it won't break anything in the process. So is Vanilla designed in such a manner that it could break if data is removed?