Once you post in Community, is there a way to delete an old post?
When posting here in the Community, my post can be searched on the internet by anyone forever. I would like a post removed. Is there any way to do this?
Best Answer
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As I have no connection to FamilySearch I cannot be 100% sure on whether a moderator would remove a post on request. If so, the inclusion of any sensitive information might be a factor. However, I would take great care in future - assuming, once published, your remarks do remain public "forever".
Imagine you had written a letter / article that was published in a newspaper. You would not expect the issue to be revised / reprinted to omit your piece, if you later felt unhappy with its contents. I think you need to treat internet based material in the same manner.
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Answers
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There are different levels of moderator rights. I have the power to edit posts - usually employed to delete personal information or offensive content. But I cannot delete a post. I believe that higher level moderators can do this. However, we exercise these rights with extreme caution and therefore a very good reason would be needed to do so.
Regards
Graham Buckell
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@886EZL2, as I wrote on your post about this in Ideas, you should always treat anything that you post anywhere online as potentially permanent. Paul's newspaper analogy is apt: behave as if everything you put online were a letter to the editor. (The analogy actually covers both extremes: on the one hand, content never dies, but on the other hand, link rot happens and the content may get lost -- just like all those letters to the editor that never got published and are now languishing at the bottom of a storage box somewhere.)
Thank you, @Graham Buckell, for confirming that moderators can edit posts. I assume this applies past the four-hour time limit that regular users have? Is flagging the best way to alert a moderator to a request for such editing?
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One more thing to be aware of, that I think some people overlook, is that as soon as you hit "Post Comment," an e-mail goes out to everyone who has posted on the topic and who has their notifications set to receive such which contains about the first 20 to 30 words of the post.
Even if you immediately go in and edit the first portion of the post, or if a moderator deletes things that should not have been written from those first couple of lines, it is too late to change or retrieve that e-mail.
Think before you write. Proof-read at least three times. Think again. Remember your audience (that is, the world). Think again before you post.
But do keep in mind, that none of us are really all that important and very little of what we write will be of the least bit of interest to anyone within a few months. Unless you are running for president or getting appointed to the Supreme Court, of course. But that is certainly not me and I doubt that will be you.
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They call this "the community" for a reason . . . .
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I have seen a discussion in the not too distant past where a moderator deleted their whole post, well over the four hour limit. I can understand why this was done, as they were suggesting something which I think was breaking FamilySearch computer security (at least this was the way I read it), but it seemed to me they were writing more in a personal capacity, rather than giving an official FS viewpoint. I did think think "one rule for the moderators, one rule for the rest of Community".
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Hello @Julia Szent-Györgyi,
Moderators can edit past the four-hour limit. Flagging is the best way to alert a moderator.
Best,
Mark
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Thank you all, for your answers. If we have a guest who desperately wants her post removed, should we then have her flag it and then ask a moderator to remove it in another post?
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@886EZL2 Please flag the post and ask for it to be deleted.
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