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Put three dots or something at the beginning of the first sentence to act as a placeholder before you delete the first sentence is one way you could do it.

http://community.invisionpower.com/resources/bugs.html/_/ip-board/delete-first-row-in-quote-r40935 I don't get exactly what he did to fix it (apparently), it looked like in both tries he did the same thing, he deleted the upper text, yet in the second try the box didn't disappear. I didn't drag the selection to past the first letter, yet it still disappeared.

http://community.invisionpower.com/resources/bugs.html/_/ip-board/delete-first-row-in-quote-r40935

Well, of the mods I'm probably the least willing to give creationism any sort of consideration (and I tend to be quite ban-happy and delete-happy on the topic). Personally, what I've been doing is one of the following things: If a thread is just about creationism *anywhere*, I dump it in the 'Speculations' section. The faith involved no more warrants consideration than someone claiming that God gave them the blueprints of a perpetual motion machine. If it's a real question (rather than creationist trolling), I (or someone else) answers it. If it's just a question in a thread, and it might derail the thread, I split it out. However, post or thread, if it's just "Here's why evolution is wrong", I delete it without a second thought. Trolling is trolling. Last but not least, if someone shows up posting creationist drek, and I look though their post history and see no actual science posts, they're gone. Those who actually contribute in worthwhile ways will be told, in no uncertain terms, that this is a board for serious science. Personally, I do my best to keep creationism and such crap from overrunning the forum, and a heavy hand is often necessary for that. However, I doubt they'll be missed. Mokele

@ 60 This _series_ of the O'Neil's five attempts to raise the VM all for a quite specific aim, by the way--soliciting some programmer's help to execute his conception (leaving aside as irrelevant the merits of that conception) -- is neither an ideal example of what strikes me as the worst about the site's moderators' habits nor completely devoid of some of those things. I'm not sure that I'll even have a chance to set out completely what I mean but I can make a start at it here and perhaps continue another time. Though this is a site devoted to science, it's a popular site --or so we're led to believe--where not only scientists but lay people are welcome to read and write opinions and discuss issues of science --and in the extra non-science "areas" discuss things that aren't science at all. I see nothing wrong with any of that so far. Except that there's quite a gap in my opinion and in my experience of this site between the advertized product and what's actually done and allowed here in fact on any typical day. In actual fact, it seems to me, lay opinions aren't really welcome here. Instead there's a subtle but important distinction in operation. This site is really for either working, practicing, scientists or those in training to become that (and those who are doing both at once, of course) and, then, only secondarily, it suffers the participation of those who are not merely interested in science as a cultural asset and a pursuit and intellectual interest but who are also ready to meet the high expectations here for what I'd call obsequious deference to all comment and opinion from the professional scientists here. It would be more honest and it would save a world of trouble if the site were simply much clearer about this rather than constantly doing what looks like a desperate effort to herd cats--the lay members who don't sufficiently get the importance of deference to the ruling science view that prevails here. From scientists to their fellow scientists, there's not the same dismissive style at all. When a credentialed scientist is concerned, I don't see the immediate resort to insult, to sarcasm, to belittling and summary dismissals. I don't think any regular reader here has to strain to grasp the sort of treatment I mean by that. But, of course, those who entirely subscribe to what I see as this site's patently unfriendly attitude toward any but their proven and approved lay membership won't subscibe to this portrayal. They are ready to join in the ridicule and in doing so demonstrate their fidelity to the deferential attitude which wins acceptance here. There is here, in sum, a very entrenched and reinforced attitude and practice of an "in-group" bias which views the non-specialist and the insufficiently deferential lay person as part of a "them" to be treated with suspicion and hostility (unless and until they demonstrate the required deference) and this seeds an atmosphere which is hostile to all or nearly all who the established (by their history of deference to the authorities here) fellow in-group members find lacking in compliance. I posted the Times article so that readers could read from sources they accept and respect the same sort of arguments and reasoning I am making about the implicit bias that is so at home here. Had I simply put those things out on my own account, they'd never have been described as "excellent" by any of the well-received members here. But, from two researchers in psychology at NYU, the same arguments, the same points that apply as criticism, are "receivable" here. Logically, it shouldn't make any difference. But no one wrote in to answer Yudkin and Van Bavel that, if they don't like this site, they needn't bother taking part in it. There's more to say on this topic but I'm not going to have time to develop it all in one session.

We don't really delete anything. It's hidden from normal viewing, in this case because it was another off-topic explanation about why this member's speculation should be allowed in a mainstream thread when he'd already received a couple of modnotes asking him not to. It was done as an alternative to suspending him, to show him that arguing modnotes in thread was going to get him nowhere. He had been told how to deal with his grievance and ignored it so his next attempt was deleted. And now you've come along and made an entire thread about it, when as a long-time member you should know that our process is as fair as we can make it. I understand you have very little trust in our moderation and suspect us of all kinds of foul deceit and censorship because we're all just closet dictators and the owners of the site are completely blind and have no idea what's going on with our evil cabal. We really appreciate you keeping us honest and looking out for the rights of the other members. You are a beacon of decency and we really don't deserve to have you. Thanks for policing us evildoers. Next time we'll just suspend the perpetrator and forget trying a more nuanced approach.

I have 84 pages of notifications, I don't want to eat them all page by page, is there a delete all anywhere that anyone has seen?

Not sure why you want to delete all the notifications -- it marks them as read once you've seen them, so you can ignore them -- but I think the only way to nuke them for sure is just to run an SQL query.

Test of hyperlinking It's different from before but just as useful. You can unlink by using the broken chain-link in the next tot he right icon - did we have that before; I do remember getting horribly messed up with links I was trying to delete.

"You have 95 messages stored, of a total 200 allowed" yay! Now I don't have delete some, because I always reach 100 and then have to delete, now I've almost reached 100 and I don't have to. [edit] oh, that might be because I've recently moved to a different usergroup.

Does this mean i have to delete the 57 sock puppet accounts I am currently running? 57 channels and nothing on

Can you share why you would want to delete the whole account? Perhaps there are some options we can explore.

"A thread on the legacy of Obama might be welcomed - but not if, from the get go, the thread is designed to provoke and insult." I don't think that the fact that some people are a little upset or disappointed by the results of a democratically decided President Elect is a valid reason to shut down a thread. Why would it be different if the same thread was opened a year from now ( and not provocative ), other than the fact that some are a little sensitive and raw about the election outcome, and so, its considered 'provocative' currently ? Shouldn't we be able to discuss 'sensitive' issues on this forum, or do we need to account for when someone is in a 'bad mood' ? And as far as I can tell, the only person to hurl an insult is Phi, although he did provide the 'reasoning' behind his assertion. Just providing my opinion, which isn't necessarily worth anything.

ahah, when register with fb account, the 'username' were taken from my fb account name..

well, I need to re-connect for login into the old account to change the password, and I need password to connect it and this one! new bug: P.S. why does account that I create is so buggy... ;P

! Moderator Note Let's hope that now being able to ignore one's nemesis is a satisfactory solution. And to anyone else reading this, please don't EVER go through and delete whole posts from any thread you've been in. Take the time to post things you're proud of. Since there is no further reason for this to be open, I'll close it now.

That's not quite right. I wasn' concerned about his actions. That was taken care of in the other forum. I asked the following question and after presenting the example I inquired And that is the essenf this thread. And I've been nothing except very polite' date=' reasonalble and logical in all my reponses and inquiries. The example is completely anonymous. Both the name of the person and the name of the forum is kept a secret so as to esure that this doesn't get at all personal. In fact when someone, who also frequents that forum, mentioned his name I promptly asked then to delete the name from their post, and then were kind enough to do so. This is [i']purely[/i] an intellectual exercise. That's correct. But to be precise, he said or in short You're out to get me. To me, when someone says You're out to get me its an attack on my character. His response had nothing to due with my original argument, i.e. him that a particle with rest mass can't move at the speed of light. In the course of this discussion I gained a precise knowledge of what an ad hominem is and as such I now know that it was a personal attack aka ad hominem. I quickly deleted that comment so I will not discuss it. I later said that I his comment expresses frustration since the purpose of the comment Oh, for crying out loud. is to express frustration. I even looked it up just to make sure. And I gave that link - http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/for_crying_out_loud Its not a subjecctive comment but an objective one. Nope. Its not an attack when there's no question that its frustration. swansont will probanbly agree that he was frustrated, hence his remark. That can't be used as a premise to claim that my observation of that was an attack on his person. In essence all I said was Why are you impatient which I changed to Why are you frustrated?. Those aren't attacks on a person by any means. Please don't take this conversation into a negative mode. There's just no call for that kind of thing here. The purpose of this thread was to distinguish whether something was an ad hominem or not. I just happened to use a real life example. The persons name and the forum's name was intentionally left out of this thread so as to keep it a secret. This has nothing to do with that person or that forum but merely the definition and example of ad hominem. Before this thread I wasn't 100% clear on what an ad honinem was. Now I cleary know all about them. The rest of my responses were answers to questions posed of me and commenting on others responses. This is an exercise in an intellectual analysis of a particular part of cogent arguments. In particular its an analysis of the fallacy known as the personal attack aka ad hominem. I've been quite polite and logical throughout this thread, avoing negative deviations from the main topic. I've been reading the book Practical Logic: An Antidote for Uncritical Thinking. Its part of my study of critical thinking and constructing cogent arguements and recogning logical fallacies. The personal attack which I used as an example was just that, an example. I created another thread as a continuation of this study. The name of that thread is Critical Thinking Skills.

Please don't put words into my mouth. The thought of "picking on me" never entered my mind. Btw, I made a mistake. Oh, for crying out loud is not an attack, its meant to show the emotion of either frustration, exasperation, or annoyance. See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/for_crying_out_loud. In any case I deleted that comment because I thought that it was unwarrented. Sometimes we all say things we regret later. I've decided to delete those things when I can so as to be as polite as I can. I imagine that's fine with you? That's correct. They are. And yo used it wronig. The only way I Can see to resolve any misunderstanding with the definition is to realize that a personal attack is not simply not an attack on a person. They are not the same thing. That's clear from the definition. Note: I've already said I'm done with ad hominems so I won't adress them again with you. I believe that you and have already paved that road.

Aethelwulf - Up until this point no names have been used. I didn't want this to be an attack on a person who isn't here to defend themsleves. That would be bringing a fight from that forum to this forum and that's the furthest thing fro my mind. CAn you do me a favor? Please edit your post and delete that name. Thank you.

I know you should "look before you leap" or think first, act later. However if I do something rashly then I'm sure others do too. Sometimes I post a reply and then wish I hadn't. Perhaps I quickly realise that I have misunderstood some-one else's post or that my reply is inappropriate in some way. If the "edit" facility is still available I can change the wording of my post - but I can't delete the whole post. Since I have to post something I end up, perhaps, posting an apology. Would it be a good idea to allow use of the "edit" facility to cancel completely a whole post? Example from one of my posts - "Changed my mind - might come back"

The flip side to this is that there are people who will post something outrageous or full of nonsense, and then go back and change or delete the post and try to play the innocent, which is a nightmare from a moderation standpoint. It used to be that the ability to edit expired after a few hours, so that changing the post could not happen. For my own part, even though as a moderator I can do this, if it's more than a typo and not noticed during a proof-read right after I post, I use the strike-out function. There's also the view that having the reality that you can't put the genie back in the bottle might make people weigh their words a little more carefully.

If you're having a problem sending private messages, why not ask us for help resolving it? Nobody has disabled your private messaging system, so the only possible problem is that you have more than 500 PMs, which exceeds the quota; if so, delete some old ones to free up space. Otherwise, ask us and we can help resolve the problem. If you object to a specific moderator action, use the Report link attached to their post. I can't make a meaningful comment about your accusations without knowing what actions you're talking about. Incidentally, I would greatly appreciate it if you'd stop insulting our staff by private message. It's getting tiresome.

I'm not sure what you mean. In the last 24 hours, we've has about two dozen people register accounts who have not been culled owing to being spammers. That's not to say that some won't — sometimes spammers register and let an account lie fallow for a time. I imagine because of posting restrictions that some fora have related to membership time. But it's not possible to tell who these are until they actually post spam. If it's someone here because they want to post a question, we don't want to have additional barriers to them doing so. We've had some show up and post innocuous things to get around the post count restrictions on putting a link in your signature. Of course, these 'bots have rubber skin — they're easy to spot. Others try some more elaborate ruses. The bottom line is that they are always going to try and game the system.

I could delete it entirely and let you create a new one. Would that work?

We don't generally delete posts unless they're off-topic or particularly egregious rule violations; we prefer to leave a note in-thread.