Editing posts vs. deleting them

[Nick600]

Hello people.

This would be my first post here. Having been a member of a tech forum for a long time, I got into the habit or searching before posting. Now that I'm in the process of building my own online community, this website has provided me with some valuable insights and tips on how to get this done.

Anyways, to get to the point. My questions points to all posts made on an online forum. What do you, as an Admin or Moderator, believe is the appropriate thing to do when it comes to unwanted posts? As far as obvious spam attempts are concerned, I feel replacing the spam text with something like "no spam" and closing the thread is a good way of dealing with them, but on larger forums, this can, over time make the forums quite messy. Some admins I know are against completely deleting threads and posts as they believe it is a disservice to other members that might have already responded to the thread.

What do you guys think?

[adb22791]

I move the threads into an area called Trash, or Archive, or Thrown, depending on my mood when I create the forum :evilb:.

With the posts, I like to soft delete them via vBulletin's soft delete feature. I prefer to never physically delete things, as I think that it is important to keep all the posts should anything bad ever happen in the future.


Alex

[Christian]

I do exactly what adb does, move threads in to a trash forum and softdelete posts.

[Nick600]

Thanks for the tips guys :spin:

Good idea this "trash forum". Is it a public forum or do you guys keep it hidden from regular members?

[Jan]

A few places keep it open for viewing, but I don't see the sense in that. If they are spamming, remove it completely from public view, else why bother even removing it :S. The majority of forums keep this trash/spam/thrown forum hidden from the regular members :)

Welcome to FU! by the way :wavey:

[Nick600]

Thanks. :spin:

Its a nice place you guys got here!

[Jan]

Yeah it's a nice cosy little place :love: we even have a :couch: if you feel like relaxing more :)

[bear]

we even have a :couch: if you feel like relaxing more :)
Relaxing more squirrels?
Jan, that's crazy talk. ;)