This will be my last comment on lesswrong until it is not possible for post authors to undelete comments. [edit: since it’s planned to be fixed, nevermind!]
originally posted by a post author:
This comment had been apparently deleted by the commenter (the comment display box having a “deleted because it was a little rude, sorry” deletion note in lieu of the comment itself), but the ⋮-menu in the upper-right gave me the option to undelete it, which I did because I don’t think my critics are obligated to be polite to me. (I’m surprised that post authors have that power!) I’m sorry you didn’t like the post.
I think that’s a horrible and very non-obvious feature.
I respect your right to avoid commenting, but I will continue. I’ve always assumed that comments (including non-submitted “saved text”) could be retrieved and seen by admins, so I pretty much never write anything that would do serious permanent harm.
Oh, can they revert edits as well? If not, an edit to remove everything but “please don’t undelete this”, followed by deletion, might be a workaround. I hope they’ll fix this fairly quickly, though.
Admins should be able to see deleted comments and old versions as part of an investigation into harassment or banning. And I’d argue that edits on old comments and posts (say, after a month) are useless and harmful—it reduces the value of the site, and it’s archived in enough places as to not really be retrievable. Otherwise, people should be able to remove dumb or useless things they’ve said.
certainly. however, I expect my comments to be, for most practical purposes, gone from public observation. I trust the moderators, but do not trust all post authors, especially when a post is inflammatory, I post something inflammatory before thinking it through, and then rapidly delete it—it’s important to me that I be able to back out of a conversation like that before it’s had significant impact. I can be a bit pointlessly fiery, especially in the comments of the author who I quoted originally, and I rely on delete as a second pass in those situations.
This will be my last comment on lesswrong until it is not possible for post authors to undelete comments. [edit: since it’s planned to be fixed, nevermind!]originally posted by a post author:
This is indeed not intentional. Shouldn’t be too hard to fix, I think.
glad to hear it!
Pro tem you can edit your post to delete its text, then delete the post. I am assuming that old versions of posts no longer exist.
I think that’s a horrible and very non-obvious feature.
I respect your right to avoid commenting, but I will continue. I’ve always assumed that comments (including non-submitted “saved text”) could be retrieved and seen by admins, so I pretty much never write anything that would do serious permanent harm.
Oh, can they revert edits as well? If not, an edit to remove everything but “please don’t undelete this”, followed by deletion, might be a workaround. I hope they’ll fix this fairly quickly, though.
Admins should be able to see deleted comments and old versions as part of an investigation into harassment or banning. And I’d argue that edits on old comments and posts (say, after a month) are useless and harmful—it reduces the value of the site, and it’s archived in enough places as to not really be retrievable. Otherwise, people should be able to remove dumb or useless things they’ve said.
certainly. however, I expect my comments to be, for most practical purposes, gone from public observation. I trust the moderators, but do not trust all post authors, especially when a post is inflammatory, I post something inflammatory before thinking it through, and then rapidly delete it—it’s important to me that I be able to back out of a conversation like that before it’s had significant impact. I can be a bit pointlessly fiery, especially in the comments of the author who I quoted originally, and I rely on delete as a second pass in those situations.
I think you can also delete without a trace, do post authors able to restore that too? (I’d guess no)
test result: both comments were undeletable.
make a couple of comments on one of my posts, then delete them both ways, and we can find out!
Already did before reading your comment :D