ALM
I'm against such feature because it looks like spying on members.
If someone wants to delete his post, he should be free to. Being both an admin and one of the active members, I don't want to see such a "trashcan" every time I open the forum either.
In the worst cases, i.e. account stealing, vandalism, forum hacking or something, the data can be restored from the daily backups.

ALM
While I do agree with you here, it is Serge's forum, and as admin he has rights to do what he pleases with other members and with forum features. Although I do believe that on this forum admins have treated certain members with an overly-generous amount of warnings.

I'm even curious though as to why certain posts that, for all intents and purposes, should have been deleted, were left simply locked? Remember the "10 Reasons Why Dantheman40k is a human and not a troll" post? It was left simply locked, edited out by Marco. I can't understand why it wasn't simply deleted.

ALM
I never said that the mentioned cases have to do with hidden boards. I only said that those situations can be handled without making sections that are visible for certain members only. I won't explain why this still sounds wrong to me. Every forum administrator decides by himself. Have such sections on MT2 if you want to, but don't force me or Marco to do the same. We're mature enough to decide.



GeorgeHarrison
Maybe Marco just didn't want to wipe it completely. He removed all bad stuff from the post - that's the main thing. I would also think twice before deleting the post I disliked.

Dagdamor
It just looks better if you delete it. Who wants locked stuff hanging around wasting space? It looks messy if you wipe the original post and then lock the topic. Why not just obliterate it completely?

GeorgeHarrison
Sure, this can be done if Marco's not against.

Anyway, I wanted to suggest everyone a bit different feature: what about the Archive section? I introduced it on my ISFF several years ago, and it worked quite well there. Just a public section for read-only purposes. All locked threads are being moved there instead of being deleted or "recycled". Of course that section won't be collecting the best sort of threads, but the forum will remain transparent, i.e. no hidden stuff. This also leaves the possibility to restore locked topics.

About deleting postings and using a recycle bin: People can delete postings, and they can edit them. The first one could be captured by such a recycle bin, but not the second (unless SMF is capable of managing versions, like a Wiki). If someone wants to cover his traces, he can do it the smart way as well...

Look, ALM; I was grateful for your suggestion this morning because i'm of course not as well trained on this kind of thing as you are, and that was actually a feature i didn't know of, and i thanked you for it. The fact it's being discussed right now is a good sign, see? You made a suggestion and we didn't turn it down immediately.

But with your last post you're really pushing it *again*. Giving suggestions is ok. but what you're doing now is basically ordering us around on how to run LTS, and in a very ugly way too, i don't like it one bit and it's not the first time that you said the same things and you were replied with the same things. You're an admin yourself, you should know how much this behaviour is grating and unfruitful and you should be the first, if you're responsible, to think better and AVOID it.

BTW, why should you ask us to delete your account? If you dont like it just leave, there's a logoff button up there :\
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about the deleting posts that raised all of this mess:
We're making a mountain out of a stone. I don't think the "deleting own posts" problem is or will be so bad to require this much of a ruckus. It never happened until this morning and we all know why without needing to go and see what was deleted. So imho we could close the discussion here.
The archive idea is a-ok to me anyway.

ALM
I really am lost here. I do understand about all the potential problems that could happen here, but I fail to see the fear in not upgrading and changing everything here. I stand behind serge and marco in their choices at this forum mainly because i trust their judgment. I personally know the reasons why he doesn't feel it right to delete or hide posts in a bin away from everybody or do a lot of things in that respect. I remember the problem from another forum. It was imho really F$%&ed up and it was totally wrong and serge doesn't want his forum run that way. As for him being a hard ass, i don't see what it will accomplish. As far as i have ever seen here, Dag is not here to command fear or Demand respect from everybody, so what will being a jerk give him?

When it comes to the upgrade thing, dont flip man. I don't know if you take the time to really deeply think about stuff like this, but not only does almost everyone on this forum have a job that is not entirely based around computers, but if a hacker wanted to, he could wipe everything out if he tried hard. In all honesty, you cant tell me that the new version 1...2 (big leap there man) is probably just as vulnerable as any other version of any other form of programming on any type of system on any forum out there. if you know what you are doing anyone can manipulate ones and zeros and turn the whole world into a steaming pile of dirt. I really find it hard to believe that the new version (no matter the number {ones and zeros, ones and zeros}) will be hacker proof.

my ranting about meaningless garbage aside. I think that this place has run fine for the past year just fine and it didnt take an expert to do it. Besides, take a look at this little fact, this is a fun place to be, it is not the livelyhood of thousands of people. we come here for fun, and if it gets messed up, i know that, tho we would have a down time (nothing to worry about), it would be put back up in another form. Even if it is by me, serge, Marco George Harrison or any of the other members, there is nothing that could truly kill this place. So take it easy, calm down, dont bite off  anyone's head, and drink something to take the edge off. really this place is the most relaxing time of my day (except when I see this stuff )

ALM
i'll make this my last post on this topic.

I want to let you know that I do understand that hackers don't go killing off sites one at a time. Though I dont show it, I do have a general knowledge of computers, even if the simple functions that everyone else uses sometimes elude me. I dont care about doing things like screencaps and junk, cuz it is not something that I use on a daily basis. Please dont take me for a fool, I just don't spend my days on a computer.

I think a forum archive would be a great idea, because SMF doesn't automaticly move locked topics to the bottom of the topic list. (I'm not sure if most forum software does that. React does it and I've been using that one for over 3 years. D'oh! )

So to keep locked topics out of sight and still preserve them it would be great.

React's forum software isn't really popular. Mainly because it's Dutch and you have to pay to use it. But it has some really useful features.

I thing a forum archive is also a good Idea, as some older topics that maybe are not totally relivent now can be looked back on and possibly reviced.

I use forum archives for old posts and also some flame posts on my forum www.fun4forums.co.uk (yes i know it is not too organised noiw as i get less time to manage it)

The archive sections kept the active topics less cluttered and some usefull and also treasured memories were kept intact. A member of the gaming clan died last year but his posts live on on the forums.