Topic: Is it possible to prune threads instead of locking them?

[ShyGuy]

I'm tired of my threads getting locked because radical extremists from both sides defecate all over them.

Can we prune out the "Bush and Obama are Pirate Slut Trolls" content so a thread doesn't go to waste?

[Fatty The Hutt]

Bush and Obama are Pirate Slut Trolls

B@NN3DD!!!

[pokepal148]

it is possible, the link in my sig shows this, but locking only takes one click...

[MegaByte]

A lot of stuff does get pruned.

[pokepal148]

but i'm assuming your current staff is to lazy to do so when there is a nice lock button to use...

[MegaByte]

As usual, you'd assume wrong.

[pokepal148]

hey i dont see your way, i can only guess what you see in your admin ball of doom

[NWR_insanolord]

You're in no position to complain. If you want fewer locked threads, quit giving us reasons to lock threads.

[pokepal148]

I'm not complaining so much as I'm learning

[Shaymin]

Question: Is it one click to delete a user from the database, making it so all of their posts disappear?

Asking for a friend.

[pokepal148]

are you trying to say something shaymin?
but I should follow the old saying 'curiosity killed the cat on this matter

[UncleBob]

Part of me wants to go into that thread, "prune" the political comments into a new thread, but leave the old one locked.

The other part of me knows how politics ends up around here.

[NWR_insanolord]

Question: Is it one click to delete a user from the database, making it so all of their posts disappear?

Asking for a friend.

That's actually damn near impossible to pull off. Only Aaron could do that, and even then he'd have to really, really want to. We can ban people pretty easily, but even that's several clicks.

[ShyGuy]

Let's start a kickstarter for a Nuke 'Em button!

[pokepal148]

they could likely find the code for that and  put it in... but if you can't do that what do you do with spambots?

[NWR_insanolord]

Spambots generally only get one post before we ban them, so we just delete that one post. I'm pretty sure to do what you're asking would require going in and deleting every database entry for every post, which would be a massive undertaking for someone who's posted a lot over a length of time. Not worth it, as if the post was worth deleting it was probably deleted at the time.

[UncleBob]

Actually, one other forum I moderate uses SMF and it has the option to delete all posts by an individual poster.  I don't think there's any custom stuff running on the forums - but they are running a really old version (1.1.12 vs 2.0.4).  I don't know if that option has just been removed or if there's somewhere in the master set-up for the forum where that option has to be enabled.

[UncleBob]

Under the "Delete this account" option, there's a drop-down menu to select from removing all the posts they've started or just removing everything they've posted period.

[NWR_insanolord]

I'm just going by what Aaron has said in the past, and he seemed to indicate it was an involved process.

[Ceric]

Actually, one other forum I moderate
...

I don't know about you but I didn't think that UncleBob was the Cheating type

[Khushrenada]

Having recently read the forum rules quite extensively, one piece of information I noticed that stood out for me was this tidbit:

"In addition, posts that are deemed inappropriate or detrimental to discussion may be removed at staff discretion. This may occur even if such posts do not warrant disciplinary action, especially to keep the conversation smooth in Talkback threads."

That would indicate mods can prune threads and would be active in doing so to keep threads from getting derailed in the wrong direction.

[pokepal148]

Having recently read the forum rules quite extensively, one piece of information I noticed that stood out for me was this tidbit:

"In addition, posts that are deemed inappropriate or detrimental to discussion may be removed at staff discretion. This may occur even if such posts do not warrant disciplinary action, especially to keep the conversation smooth in Talkback threads."

That would indicate mods can prune threads and would be active in doing so to keep threads from getting derailed in the wrong direction.

i derailed yo mom last night

[Khushrenada]

My mother is dead.

[pokepal148]

im trying to get an answer to the question

[UncleBob]

Pokepal: Neither the time or the place for that.

Khush - it is possible and it is something that is still done occasionally (usually just moving a post from Talkback and merging it into some various Funhouse thread).  However, I'd like to point out that the last time I talked about enforcing rules by trying to keep topics actually on-topic, not a single person on this forum spoke up in support of that plan.  In fact, the mere mention of it eventually lead to at least two members becoming so disgruntled with the forum that they left and took refuge on their own forum where the forum maturely spend so much energy talking trash about all the other video game sites out there.

So... what to do?