Deleting forum content

[Shawn Gossman]

When it comes to deleting forum content, do you soft delete posts?

Or hard delete posts?

I don't like the way soft deleting leaves posts for me to see. I usually hard delete them. If I need to keep them, I move them to a staff board made just for those types of posts.

How about you all?

 

[Heatman]

As long as there's a need for me to delete a content, it's hard deleted without any traces left. Soft deleting leaves an ugly mess behind which is why I don't like using it.

 

[Cedric]

I'm probably a bit old fashioned, but I tend to move posts to a trash bin.

 

[Heatman]

I'm probably a bit old fashioned, but I tend to move posts to a trash bin.

This works for me very well too. Although, it's basically too much work moving them to trash bin but if you have the time to do it, it's very good.

 

[Cpvr]

I'm probably a bit old fashioned, but I tend to move posts to a trash bin.

I do the same thing lol

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I do the same thing lol

So do I.

I have called mine "Post Storage" since the days I used phpBB

However, for junk posts that don't need to be kept for a record, I usually permanently delete them nowadays.

 

[Heatman]

How do you handle junk posts that came into show from probably moving or merging two forums where the OP title went missing but the comments of others and title still exists?

 

[Shawn Gossman]

How do you handle junk posts that came into show from probably moving or merging two forums where the OP title went missing but the comments of others and title still exists?

I might just modify the main topic if I need to preserve it or split if that is what you mean?

 

[Heatman]

I might just modify the main topic if I need to preserve it or split if that is what you mean?

I think having it modified is the best thing to do because in some of them I've seen, it's either the whole title and follow up body of the post that goes missing or only the body. The forum owners just left it be without trying to either get what the the follow up replies is all about and modify the start of the thread.

 

[JoelR]

I really like how Invision Community handles it, which is where it goes to a 'trash bin' before being auto deleted after 30 days.

The soft delete in Xenforo drives me nuts, since as an admin, I can still see the deleted threads.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I really like how Invision Community handles it, which is where it goes to a 'trash bin' before being auto deleted after 30 days.

The soft delete in Xenforo drives me nuts, since as an admin, I can still see the deleted threads.

Yes!!!

The soft delete also drives me nuts. I always hard delete those posts just to clean it up.

If your forum gets hit hard with spam before you can get to it, you could have a full page of soft deleted posts.