Ask HN: Why can't I delete my own posts? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why can't I delete my own posts?

42 pointsonreact-com44 comments

Hello HN. Yesterday two posts of mine have been changed by HN moderators in such a way that I can't support neither of them anymore.

With one of them the source has been changed to an URL that only remotely has something to do with what I posted. Also the new URL is a wacky blog post with sparse information and almost no value while my original submission contained a huge report on the same topic. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=827719

The headline of the other submission has been changed in such a way that now it's basically a lie. It does not reflect the post anymore. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=827821

I don't want to be responsible for such low quality and low value or even misleading submissions. I can't delete them though. Why can't I?

View on HN

Ok here goes an answer on this.

The first instance the link died possibly because lots of people flagged it.

With that said I was a bit confused too. Your original link read like a blog - of which the first post was about that one form of traffic calming. I think it was an easy mistake to make thinking it was blog spam because that other link posted is apparently the original source of the photo's/story.

The fact you had additional content was less clear and probably was missed by some (especially after the blogspam comment was added). According to the guidelines: Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter.

If people thought it was not original source they might flag it.

The second one is a bit more complicated. It was a somewhat over the top title (and I know it comes straight from the source link). Personally I would have supported editing it - though I do agree the title chosen was somewhat dull and misleading too!

With all that said there has been a marked increase in active moderation I noticed since being back from holiday this week. Notably the Eddie Izzard topic was killed off despite being top of the front page for a while (probably rightly killed off but I havent seen that happen much before).

New mod? or stricter policies?

At the end of the day I dont think it will reflect on you much :) I've found people dont care too much about a feww seeming "indescretions" (valid or not)

Notably the Eddie Izzard topic was killed off...

I'm glad I got to it before it was killed. It was, frankly, one of the more interesting posts that I happened to see yesterday. It's remarkable that he could do that, and considering how difficult it is he accomplished quite a mind hack.

I'm always amused at how people try to squeeze "hack" into defining a submission. I guess I love jargon hacks.

I missed that, do you still have the link somewhere ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8256589.stm

and discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=827803

Thank you!

That is one amazing story, I'm seriously impressed. Izzard always was one of a kind, with this he literally transcends himself. Whoever bumped that off HN does not have my gratitude, if there is anything at all that separates successful entrepreneurs from the failed ones it is stamina and the will to continue in light of hardship.

Deleting that is pretty much proof positive that HN moderation really is not doing a very good job.

wow!! what a story. I can see why it got flagged for not being tech startup oriented, whatever. But wow, I would have upvoted it anyway.

Heavy-handed moderation is worse than no moderation at all.

When people don't read my submission it's not my problem. When they flag it for the wrong reason it shouldn't be my problem either. It should be checked whether it's OK or not.

In case you change my submission to the worse due to false flagging don't make me responsible for that.

If the submission is not well-written enough for people to read properly, whose problem is that?

It should be checked whether it's OK or not.

You know. Fair enough that is an idea for a feature (personally I think the community style moderation seems to work ok); but demanding it isnt likely to get you anywhere. Just a comment.

The original HP "tablet" headline was also a "lie". It's not a tablet. It is a photo screen, but a significant evolutionary step in that market with some tablet-like features.

http://h71036.www7.hp.com/hho/us/en/pclc/articles/series-dre...

No, it supports photos, video, music, Facebook etc. so It's a multimedia device and certainly no digital photo frame but I'm not here to discuss that. If someone else thinks it's a "digital photo frame" it's hers or his responsibility not mine.

I want to be able to at least delete this submission which is allegedly mine.

Many of the current digital picture frame models are wireless and can play audio and video. There's at least one other one that can connect to Facebook. Note that much of the press is calling it a digital photo frame as well:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=7554

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/hp-dreamscreen/

The products have evolved while the name hasn't. It's the same as referring to an iPod as an MP3 player.

>> It's the same as referring to an iPod as an MP3 player.

Does anyone actually do that? I don't think they do TBH.

Yes. Walk into any store and look for the section where the iPods are. It'll be labeled, "MP3 Players".

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/1264866011/...

A seller categorizing the iPod as an "MP3 player" isn't the same as people referring to it in every day life as an MP3 Player.

Do you refer to the iPhone as a 'mobile' or 'cellphone'? I'd say most don't, because it's not really a mobile or cellphone. People refer to it as an iPhone first and foremost, because then people realize it's actually pretty much a mini macbook.

In the shops here though, iPods are usually in a dedicated Apple display cabinet :/

Personally, I think "photo frame" should be used when all it does is show photos. If it can do things that allow the user to interface with it, tablet is probably more appropriate.

At the end of the day though most things now are just general purpose computers, with firmware that limits what you can use them for.

"people realize it's actually pretty much a mini macbook"

You forgot the "some" at the beginning of the sentence ;-)

I doubt the non hacker crowd recognizes anything of the kind!they probably think of the IPhone as the "cool mobile phone" ( a deserved reputation imo)

I've never referred to it as anything other than an MP3 player. Of course I refer to my iPhone (all 3 of them) as a cell phone.

Wow. That's the first time I've ever even heard of moderators editing a post, other than at the request of the poster or to correct a broken link or something like that.

Are you sure it was a moderator action and that your account was not compromised somehow ?

edit: it looks like you're right and people have been messing with your submissions.

That sucks.

Prediction: this post will be 'dead' soon.

edit2: I looked at the original submission, I think the 'tablet' moniker is a bit heavy, but if it allows you to log in to facebook it certainly is more than just a photo frame.

> Wow. That's the first time I've ever even heard of moderators editing a post, other than at the request of the poster or to correct a broken link or something like that.

Happens quite often actually. Fixing blog spam for example, but also to kill editorializing in the title. One argument is that the title and submission should represent all of us, whereas comments can be used to voice your opinion on the matter if you want to.

> Prediction: this post will be 'dead' soon.

I hope so. I've flagged it.

Why have you flagged it? This seems like worthwhile discussion to have, at least once.

Because for some silly reason meta discussion is taboo on HN. You can talk about any other site here but you can not talk about HN.

Personally I think that meta discussion should simply have a place out-of-band, instead of being suppressed.

Which of course you are supposed to ask for on the 'feature request' page where it will then be ignored...

HN is a great community but it does have its flaws (like any community), the weird thing is that there is this tendency to pretend that it is perfect by discouraging discussion of the flaws. I'm not sure I understand the background of this, but since the benefits seem to outweigh the costs I take it in stride.

Actually, I'm not too opposed to meta-discussion on HN. It does serve a purpose and I have argued in favour of it in the past.

But I do see opponents point that meta-discussion tends to get very repeating after a while and even self-serving. The latter is the reason I flagged this submission. It isn't so much the feature request, or the "when should submissions be changed" discussion, but the simple "boohoo somebody changed MY submission boohoo THEY SHOULDN'T!"

I've seen many post headlines or sources changed afterwards. In most cases the decisions were right. Two false edits on one day are a little too much.

That's why I want to at least have the ability to delete posts that were formerly mine.

There is a time limit on that. Maybe it should be set up in such a way that if someone edits your submission you get to yank it if you disagree with the edit. Right now if the edit happens past the point where you can delete words can be put into your mouth that you never would have spoken and that is just wrong.

it should be set up in such a way that if someone edits your submission you get to yank it if you disagree with the edit.

Outstanding idea.

Hey I think I'm one of the people who flagged the rope story after the reading the post warning it's blog spam. And I still think it was blog spam despite the fact that it's pictures were bigger.

The original source with smaller pics provides more relevant information. I think I flagged correctly.

And I don't recall the HP digital photo thing story, but a quick scan of the comments reveals a lot of complaints that it's not a PC, just fancy digital frame. I'm guessing your title reflected HP's marketing speak and the mods changed it to a more technologically accurate description, which just happens to not be at all what HP's marking language is. I full agree with the mods here as well.

It's too bad your views of what's accurate seem diametrically opposed to what the HN community thinks is an accurate description of reality. I guess different people just have different perceptions, much like taste, you probably can't argue about that.

"two posts of mine" They may be your posts, haven't checked the ToS, but I'm pretty sure HN claim full editorial power and so can edit them how they like. The only problem I'd have is with that not been clear - when they edit they should add a "edited by X from an original by Y" type statement.

First of all, there are no 'terms of service', there are just the guidelines and they do not state anything to that effect.

I agree with your suggestion that editors should leave a unique mark to make sure that people realize that the original content is no longer what it was when the poster put it there. Accountability flows both ways.

As long as editing is limited to clarifying titles and fixing links I'm ok with it, but if there ever would be a single documented case of a comment being edited to make it read something that wasn't there before then I'm quite sure that terms-of-service notwithstanding HN would become a different site overnight.

I'm not in the habit of checking up whether what I wrote before is still there, maybe I should be ?

Usually the policy is to change links to link to the original source. Probably the mod didn't look too closely in this case, but I can't see your original post to see what you added to it.

You can only edit/delete posts for one hour, to prevent various kinds of abuses.

I resubmitted the original source later on after my URL was changed:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=828216

Feature requests go here ⇒ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363

What is the last time that a feature that was requested on the feature request page was actually implemented ?

When was the last time that a feature that was requested elsewhere was actually implemented?

Edit: What I'm trying to say is that I don't know if requesting it on the feature page really helps, but I haven't seen any features requested outside the feature page actually seen implemented. pg is probably very busy and few people send patches.

I get the sense that Paul isn't terribly interested in patches either. (After having sent one and not hearing back.)

When you give someone advice that they are supposed to follow then you should probably not answer a genuine question about your advice with something that I read as 'but it doesn't work elsewhere either'.

If you point people to the feature request page then you should be able to back that up with the knowledge that you are not effectively sending them to a black hole.

I'm pointing him to some other place where his luck is likely to be better. It may or may not be a black hole, but at least he's out of this black hole. And stops bothering us on top of that. Win-win.

> And stops bothering us

I think that should read 'stops bothering me'. Everybody here speaks for themselves, so do you. By using 'we' you assume that he was bothering me, and everybody else here too, and in fact he wasn't, though there may be many more people that sympathize with you.

I don't think there are. Some of us agree that parts of HN don't work as smoothly as they ought.

Easy solution: don't care so much. There's so much velocity now that your posts will soon be buried unlikely ever to be seen again.

hn is a fun and uplifting place to come on break. The moment anything about it turns negative for you, log off, go code something, and come back tomorrow. We start over every day.

I think you're on to something here. The core of this is probably that HN is different things to different people. You see it as a place to come on a break, and then it wouldn't matter much to you whether or not you got 'misrepresented' somehow. In this case it wasn't that important, but in the more general case to have your words changed is not good, especially without a trace that that is what happened.

I see HN as a completely different place than you do. I see it as a place to meet people that are interested in the same sort of thing that I'm interested in (at least I hope so), which means that if I were to be misrepresented somehow by some anonymous editor that it would make a huge difference to me.

When you post online, you're saying something with your name. It's tied to you and who you are as a figure online.

I've had things I posted on HN come back to bite me in the ass, not in large ways but in ways that indicate people are willing to read through a person's posts to find more about them. That's why I no longer list any personal details in my profile. It's a shame, because I don't get the lengthy email discussions that used to follow threads, but I don't want any ties between this and anything else I've done.

I've felt before like deleting this account and its posts along with it; I regret that there's no option for me to do so.

From what I've seen HN is more debate oriented than 'fun and uplifting' and it's probably natural that people care about how they are represented. I think the easy solution is to write a couple of lines of code, instead of having people stop caring. It's no secret that this site is very underdeveloped. Probably deliberate, but not without its consequences.

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