Recently there was a post where the OP pitched an idea for a service related to this community. I don’t want to go into details but the post’s text has shown that maybe there’s some misunderstanding around the technology, and a considerable amount of us also thought that it’s not a good idea.
The post was removed (noticed because I couldn’t reply to someone) probably because the OP felt shame for their “failed” idea, but I think we shouldn’t delete posts for reasons like this.
The post created an interesting discussion around the idea with useful info. It’s useful to have things like these for future reference, for similar discussions in the future.
This is an anonymous forum, so there’s no shame in recommending things, when you do that politely like it was done in that case.
It’s really unfortunate that Lemmy handles deleted posts in this way. It’s one of very few genuine advantages of the Reddit platform. Over there, if the OP deleted the post, the text they wrote would no longer be visible, but all the comments under it still would be. And people could continue to have that discussion, so long as they had the link.
Good discussions can arise from bad takes, and the idea of “failure” can often be an impediment — especially in a forum where users’ yay or nay to a post literally decide its currency and ranking.
Assuming that the poster in this case deleted their post out of “shame” for a “failed idea”, however, is a bit of an overreach without access to their thoughts and motivations. And trying to pass principles about what “we” should or shouldn’t do on that basis is equally flimsy.
I do agree that deleting a post with several replies can be damaging to a discussion — emphasis on the potential, not the actual value of any given Lemmy conversation — but becoming the target for criticism or even ridicule for an ill-considered post isn’t exactly pleasant either. And after a few decades online, I’m not faulting anybody for deleting one post or another, even though I probably don’t understand the reasoning for doing so.
In the end, everybody is on here for different reasons, and all of them are valid. It would be nice to make a noble agreement about what “should” and “shouldn’t” be done when you get massively downvoted, but if people want to curate their pseudonymous online presence to appear less daft than their worst — let 'em.
Counterpoint: If you think you said something stupid, you’re entitled to delete it. Don’t feel obligated to hang your ass out there and take a beating for a cold take.
Its not anonymous. Its pseudonymous.
Even if your pseudonym isn’t directly linked to you, even if you are not doxxed, your pseudonym carries its own reputation.
Its up to the pseudonym operator to determine how to manage that.
for some of us it’s not even that pseudonymous.
We live in a world where everything you do or say on the internet is potentially part of someone else’s training data. Lemmy is already a shitshow for that but you can bet that “ooh, piracy board” is fair game for everyone because nobody would be dumb enough to sue about that.
If someone wants to delete a comment for ANY reason, they are more than welcome to.
I like to upvote posts with lots of debate around them even if so don’t agree with the OP because I want the OP to be encouraged. People should be rewarded for bringing thought-provoking content here, even if it’s imaginary points.
This is one thing I don’t like about Lemmy. If a thread gets deleted, it’s gone. On reddit, it just gets hidden.
That’s mainly just the way the backend and UI handles the post, the thread and replies are still there, admins and mods can still see it, it just errors for users. We could potentially modify the Lemmy software (or it could be changed in an update) to allow viewing the deleted thread with the post saying
*Deleted by User*just like it does with comments.
