Should Members Be Able To Edit/Delete Their Posts?

[SeanFace101]

Hey..
I have a xbox forum & im not sure weither i should allow my members to be able to edit and/or delete their posts.
What have you got set on your forum?
Whats your thought on allowing editing & deleting posts by members?

[VoxPopuli]

Editing is fine. Set it up so they can edit their posts within xxx minutes or hours. NEVER allow them to delete their posts. It will mess up your SEO and search engines. Only YOU or a Moderator you assign whom is trusted should be able to delete posts. Even then, you need to be careful.

This is MHO.

[SeanFace101]

Currently i have it so my members cant edit or delete their posts.
I have 2 groups on my forum "XLF Reviewers" & "Forum Welcomers". These members help out on the forum & they can edit & delete their posts. But im thinking about making it so no one can delete posts, but everything can edit them upto to 30 minutes after posting then no more.

As well as members being able to post allowed content, then go back a while later and change it to spam content.. I dont like the idea of a member posting a thread, then after getting replies to it, change it to say differant text to make it look as if the members replied on that instead of the thread which was there before the edit.

[VoxPopuli]

You asked. I replied. It's what I do on my board an have no issues. I can point to 3 boards right now that allow it.

[SeanFace101]

You asked. I replied. It's what I do on my board an have no issues. I can point to 3 boards right now that allow it.

What are you meaning?
:S

[cisco007]

my board being one of them, i also only allow them to edit, but not delete their post, i also have a anti-double post mod, so if no one as posted after them, instead of allowing them to post another post, it just adds it to the previous post. as owner you shouldn't allow people to delete posts, just in case they post something awful, or picks on someone and if they are allowed to delete it, you, the forum admin, or a moderator, will have no clue, that it happened so you will not be able to do anything about it, or take the proper action!

[VoxPopuli]

You asked. I replied. It's what I do on my board an have no issues. I can point to 3 boards right now that allow it.

What are you meaning?
:S

No reason to get cranky. You asked for opinions and that's what you got.

Cisco is right. I moderate on one of his boards. My comment was not meant to be condescending, just factual.

Sorry if it hurt your feelings.

[SeanFace101]

Cool
I reckon ill have..
- Never let members delete
- Limited editing time period for members

[VoxPopuli]

Just thought of something. I DO allow my users to delete their posts but they only have 15 minutes to do so. Once the post is up for 15 minutes, it remains. They can edit their post over a 4 hour period (I think that is what I have set up).

I run a MOD that will not allow a user to PERMANENTLY delete their posts, ever. Their deleted posts go into a hidden trash bin that only I or my Moderators can see. If we feel the delete was uncalled for, we can, with the click of a check box, restore their post to the proper forum or we can permanently delete it. The users have no control over what happens when they delete.

[LDM]

I think the best way is to have a time limit on edit 15min - 1 hour. If you have a much longer time, it could cause trouble. I co-run a forum where we had no edit time limit. This caused a member to come back in to his original posts a month or so later and changed all his posts to a link to his website. We only realised when reading an older post once(obviously like a lot of members will do).

As for allowing deletion of posts, that is something I am well against. If someone wants to be silly on your forum after getting upset about something, they could just go round deleting their posts, and ultimately, making your forum look terrible and not making sense where posts or topic starter posts are missing.