FIXED! A message to staff

[Dionicio3]

I really appreciate when you clean up threads, however, it's a bit annoying to see a thread filled with "This message has been deleted" all over a thread. So why not creat a random thread in the staff forum, and move messages to that thread when doing huge clean ups. I know this probably not that good of an idea, but hey, it's a Suggestion

Thanks for taking your time to read this

 

[DinohScene]

That's not how it works.

Besides, staff can actually delete the messages as well.

 

[Dionicio3]

That's not how it works.

Besides, staff can actually delete the messages as well.

Oh, well, this thread is useless

 

[Sicklyboy]

We have two options available when deleting posts. Soft delete, and hard delete.

Soft delete results in the "This message has been removed" message you see. Yes, it does clutter up the thread a bit, but it gives us the nice ability to restore the post should it be determined that it was wrongfully deleted.

Hard delete, on the other hand, wipes it with no trace. In our logs we can see that post 123456 by <person> was hard deleted from <thread> but can't see what the post contents were, and it's unrestorable, outside of if there exists any backend magic that the admins can perform on the databases or anything.

The problem with moving them to a "deleted posts" hidden thread, is that if we need to move them back, we then can't tell where it came from :^)

 

[Dionicio3]

We have two options available when deleting posts. Soft delete, and hard delete.

Soft delete results in the "This message has been removed" message you see. Yes, it does clutter up the thread a bit, but it gives us the nice ability to restore the post should it be determined that it was wrongfully deleted.

Hard delete, on the other hand, wipes it with no trace. In our logs we can see that post 123456 by <person> was hard deleted from <thread> but can't see what the post contents were, and it's unrestorable, outside of if there exists any backend magic that the admins can perform on the databases or anything.

The problem with moving them to a "deleted posts" hidden thread, is that if we need to move them back, we then can't tell where it came from :^)

Ah, ok, thanks for the info. I lean new things everyday

 

[dimmidice]

We have two options available when deleting posts. Soft delete, and hard delete.

Soft delete results in the "This message has been removed" message you see. Yes, it does clutter up the thread a bit, but it gives us the nice ability to restore the post should it be determined that it was wrongfully deleted.

Hard delete, on the other hand, wipes it with no trace. In our logs we can see that post 123456 by <person> was hard deleted from <thread> but can't see what the post contents were, and it's unrestorable, outside of if there exists any backend magic that the admins can perform on the databases or anything.

The problem with moving them to a "deleted posts" hidden thread, is that if we need to move them back, we then can't tell where it came from :^)

That's a shame, It would be nice to be able to have soft delete which still hides the message. Same with deleted threads really. But hey not the end of the world really.

 

[Sicklyboy]

That's a shame, It would be nice to be able to have soft delete which still hides the message. Same with deleted threads really. But hey not the end of the world really.

I strongly dislike all of the clutter it adds as well. For aesthetics I'd love to just hard delete everything but that's really not fair to people if it's determined the post shouldn't be deleted, or if we need to go back and see if someone was posting in an abusive manner and needs to be reprimanded.

Personally I think deleted posts AND deleted threads should only be visible to moderators, but I don't even know if that's something xenforo supports.

 

[BORTZ]

We have two options available when deleting posts. Soft delete, and hard delete.

Soft delete results in the "This message has been removed" message you see. Yes, it does clutter up the thread a bit, but it gives us the nice ability to restore the post should it be determined that it was wrongfully deleted.

Hard delete, on the other hand, wipes it with no trace. In our logs we can see that post 123456 by <person> was hard deleted from <thread> but can't see what the post contents were, and it's unrestorable, outside of if there exists any backend magic that the admins can perform on the databases or anything.

The problem with moving them to a "deleted posts" hidden thread, is that if we need to move them back, we then can't tell where it came from :^)

something else to note is that if we hard delete a post there is no visual representation that a post was there. Logically it leaves a hole in the conversation that might not make sense if we make a mistake of if something references a post that we have removed permanently.

 

[WeedZ]

That's a shame, It would be nice to be able to have soft delete which still hides the message. Same with deleted threads really. But hey not the end of the world really.

It can be done. Every bit of XenForo can be modified. But most people that use third party forum software do so because they aren't experienced enough with php themselves or can't be bothered. I'm sure alot of request are denied for either of those two reasons.

 

[Minox]

It can be done. Every bit of XenForo can be modified. But most people that use third party forum software do so because they aren't experienced enough with php themselves or can't be bothered. I'm sure alot of request are denied for either of those two reasons.

I imagine @shaunj66 might be able to add this as an option if enough people wants an option like that since to my knowledge it should just be a matter of changing css to not display display the content.

Meanwhile - if someone uses Stylish they can use this quick little css hack I made to hide soft-deleted posts:
https://userstyles.org/styles/143350/gbatemp-net-hide-deleted-posts

 

[Dionicio3]

I imagine @shaunj66 might be able to add this as an option if enough people wants an option like that since to my knowledge it should just be a matter of changing css to not display display the content.

Meanwhile - if someone uses Stylish they can use this quick little css hack I made to hide soft-deleted posts:
https://userstyles.org/styles/143350/gbatemp-net-hide-deleted-posts

The only problem with the Stylish option is, it's not a viable option on mobile.

 

[Minox]

The only problem with the Stylish option is, it's not a viable option on mobile.

Which is why I mentioned that it should be possible to make it a forum option provided that there's a demand for it.

 

[Seriel]

The only problem with the Stylish option is, it's not a viable option on mobile.

It is if you use Firefox (And Android) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/android/addon/stylish/

 

[sarkwalvein]

But then we will miss the wonderful inner talks of moderators that many times leave very funny notes in the "Reason" field of removed messages.

 

[shaunj66]

This seems like such a non issue that I'm not sure it warrants any change unless enough people demand it. I can appreciate some might find it irritating but I expect they're the minority. I could try making the removal message less visible when I get time.

 

[porkiewpyne]

One other thing we can do is to simply NOT reply to a post which breaks the rules, ESPECIALLY if you know it will lead to another cascade of posts which will subsequently be deleted. Just report and move on.

 

[evandixon]

Both vBulletin and IP.Board control the visibility of soft-deleted posts through permissions. I'm not as familiar with XenForo, but I'd be a little surprised if this wasn't a setting somewhere.

 

[BORTZ]

I guess its different for me and the rest of the mod staff, but I have a need to see what is going on when posts are deleted.

 

[Issac]

"Hide deleted content" could be an option for regular members who just don't want to see any deleted content.

What I would think would look the absolute best is "if more than x amount of deleted content in a row, clump them together". Like a little box saying:

"Messages by <person1>, <person2>, <person3> and 5 more have been deleted. "

That way, it wouldn't look as cluttered, while there's still traces left so there won't be any holes in the discussions.

 

[Ghost]

Can't a feature be implemented that makes hard deleted posts visible?