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"you could make a private contract with someone to be your slave, but if you tried to enforce that contract in the courts of almost any jurisdiction, the contract together with all its obligations and penalties for breach, would be declared a nullity. " The only way to try to enforce that contract would be by threat of violence or some such. That threat would be unlawful anyway. The contract would not be void because it contravenes the HR act, but because it would be impossible to enforce. Any attempt at legal redress (like suing them for breach of contract) would fall flat because it is a breach of the contracts act (which requires contracts to be "reasonable"). The contract here on this forum is different. It's perfectly simple for the owner of the website to block someone and delete their postings if he wishes to do so. Most jurisdictions would permit me to eject someone from my house for saying something I didn't like. In the same way, they would let me throw you off my website if I didn't like what you said.

There's more than two choices here: a user's ability to delete their posts could time out, for example. So: what, exactly, do you want to be able to delete your own posts for? If it's just the occasional double-post, then don't worry about it. If it's something else, tell us and maybe we'll be able to figure out a compromize.

The allure to rewrite history by deletion or editing is too great. You can edit for a short time after posting, and can delete the content if it's an accidental clone. Report the duplicate post, and the staff can delete it.

because every site that allows you to delete your posts ends up a quagmire. while the intentions are good, people will abuse it. the flows of conversation will be lost as people go back and retroactively delete or otherwise modify their posts. trust us, it is best if only mods and admins have this power and that it is used as infrequently as possible.

Why can't SFN members delete their posts? I think that this would be a good feature to implement as it would lessen accidental double-posting and general bothersomeness towards SFN forum administrators.

You can't kill cool smiley...He's too cool...In all seriousness does anyone ever even use it? If not I guess it should be removed... <-Your should probably delete that one too...

If a moderater could delete this thread that would be great. No need for it anymore. Thanks Cap'n Refsmmat for your help.

How do you delete your account on here?

I do think these things count. I just disagree that this is the proper resolution to the issue. Editing a member's post for inaccuracy is, IMO, a huge deal. Moderators are simply not empowered to do this — we have a moderation policy, and it is centered on rules violations — those are the only threads we edit, and then it is to delete passages that violate rules (e.g. advertising links, smut, flaming) As the message forufes received has conveyed, simply being wrong is not something that is against the rules. Going in and changing what someone said has its own ethical considerations, because it's not what the person said. I'm not going to fix what forufes said a few posts back, "95% of earth and life scientists in the USA accept evolution," which is wrong. That was never posted, nor is it what was said in the links. But it's not my place (or that of anyone on staff) to edit it. It's what forufes said. I can call it out as an error, if I choose to. Since the thread was locked, another solution has to be available. And it is. As long as you are not restarting a thread to circumvent the closure (i.e. as long as the locking was not due to thread degeneration), start up a discussion thread on the topic. In this case, a thread on the accuracy of the number, posted in the appropriate forum. That's has sort of happened here, amongst other topics in question, except that it happened in suggestions, and was part of a reported post.

That's the email generated by the "send email" form on a user's profile; it means they opted to email you through that form rather than sending a private message. I'm not sure what could cause a conversation to be deleted. I am not aware of anyone deleting private messages recently; the last messages deleted were a mass spammer when we were still using vBulletin. Now, I'm not yet familiar enough with IPB's system to know how conversations could be deleted; I don't know if the other party could possibly delete the conversation. Regarding email addresses: Email addresses are visible to all moderation staff. The software makes profile information visible to moderators so they can remove objectionable content. However, as per our privacy policy, we do not reveal email addresses or share them with anyone. The only staff who can read PMs are those with direct access to the server to make software changes -- that would be the administrators only. The forum software itself gives no provisions for reading PMs unless they are reported by a member. Now, I did recently receive an e-mail from a member who had been experiencing troubles with the PM system after spending an hour composing a message -- the system logged him out before he could send the message. Perhaps something similar happened with the person you're conversing with and they used the email form instead. Again, I'm sorry your messages seem to have vanished. I don't believe any of our staff deleted the messages. Perhaps you could check to see if the other participant can still view them; if so, there may be some software glitch that I need to take care of.

As per our privacy policy (under section 6), we do not read PMs unless we have reason to believe someone has violated the rules. We also do not delete messages unless they are known to be advertising. When you say "forwarded as email," do you mean that the system sent you the message as an email, or that the member you were communicating with was forced to send the message as an email? If there's a problem where messages are unexpectedly deleted, give me as many details as you can and I will investigate to determine if there's a problem.

swansont; I don't think you realize how many people have an interest/passion in science, especially now that baby boomers are retiring. During the 40's thru the 60's and to some degree on to this day, many folks read science articles, without much time or the means to follow up for additional information. We and I do mean myself as one, after retirement and the advent of the Internet, renewed our interest, at the level of these accumulated references from the past. Popular Science, other publications and Science sections in newspapers/magazines were and probably still were/are, well read by us, engaged in other fields. In turn these people as I did years ago, will google one of these allusive science issue, Astronomy, Biology, Physics or others and find information available with specification unknown to their generations, read or now can listen to specific viewpoints, with the ability to ask questions or reply with their own viewpoint. Television Documentaries are also popular, run and rerun many times, but for the most part are a one way media and as you know, are not always accurate. To my point; Many of us, older people or today's students, not familiar with today's science method or this unquestionable acceptance of current understandings (really new to us, we distinguished between science law and theory), will read through a forum, many times getting shut down on our first time posting in science or never bother posting, but have a history in other sub-forums, most Science Forums now offer. To carry over that 'Science Method' for acceptance to some social issue, Historic Event or Philosophic/Religious other two-sided issues, is being disingenuous to the poster or potential poster, in my opinion. I don't mean to pop your bubble, but most people knee deep in science, science issues or a science career are NOT going to come here, to learn something. There are just too many other places they can go, if they have that much time, in the first place. If you can ban, censor, delete posters in Science, which does happen from their first post (Megabrain, a reputable English moderator and former NASA advisor, from another Science Forum, thread was dropped to speculation and quit), then you can certainly punish or ban a member on their first or second post on any sub-forum. To the thread; The simple fact Administration, would ask questions of their active membership is a plus, or the continuous replies to members questions. More often than not, most forums Science/Political or what have you, will simply maintain their original model, hoping for the best...Oh, and I don't have any complaints on the quality of moderation either. If you continue to have 'percieved problems' in Politics or some sub-forum, I don't think you do, you might consider picking a single moderator for that or any non-science sub forum. Pangloss, seems to get along with everone there, as does ParanoiA and Mr. Skeptic or bascule, seem to be well liked, from both sides.

I don't like uppity moderators that delete postings because of their own personal issues.

For this reason I never use the front page. Even from the college computers that delete my browsing history so I have to type in the url, I go straight to the usercp. I always check my subscribed threads first anyways. Part of the reason is that those are threads that interest me. There's a lot of uninteresting threads; that's unavoidable; but I wish it were easier to find interesting threads.

Alternatively you could go to the admin view for the spamming user and "Delete all messages sent by this user" after you ban them

Nevermind. Please delete the thread.

How about now? I'll need to find a way of fixing the unread PM count in the user table AND removing the invalid inbox entries in the PM table whenever I delete spam PMs from the PM text table.

Our policy used to be to issue infractions and send PMs to members who broke the rules in threads. This was not so successful; anyone else reading the thread could report posts breaking the rules, but they'd never see anything being done about it (since it was via PM) and so they'd assume that the staff doesn't care. This was not good. So we switched to posting in-thread warnings. These are not "in the judgment of any particular moderator"; moderators are encouraged to report troublesome posts so other moderators can discuss a reasonable course of action. Only a minority of moderator actions are taken "alone", so to speak. No in-thread comment is ever intended to "humiliate" a particular member. Our goal is to keep discussions on-topic, not to shame members into compliance. If you believe a moderator has stepped over the line and humiliated or attacked you, you should always report their post or send a PM to an administrator like myself. I can guarantee you that every reported post is checked by at least one moderator -- we have made changes to ensure that. Also, to make this clear: moderators do not ever ban members on their own whim, or delete posts on their own whim. (Unless it is blatant "BUY VIAGRA" spam.) Bans of members only occur with the consensus of several moderators, and any post deletions are discussed by the staff. We are not a bunch of angry people using our power to do whatever we want. If you believe an abuse has occurred, and you have been humiliated or attacked, report the post or contact an administrator. If you have any suggestions on how we could run SFN better, I'd be glad to hear them.

UPDATE: Nevermind. I have found this: "If you do not want to receive visitor messages, you may disable the visitor messaging system." Before update: When I delete a visitor message, I would really its existence and what it was and who made it to disappear. That didn't happen when I recently removed a visitor message. Personally, I don't like the idea of visitor messages. We have a PM system. I would like to either be able to remove all traces of deleted visitor messages and/or the ability to simply turn off the visitor messaging system on my profile. Thanks, Genecks.

Sorry to interrupt this debate but it annoys me that at the top of each forum is the following message: Hello elas, It appears that you have not posted on Science Forums for over a month. Why not take a few moments to ask a question, help another member or just participate in one of our many discussions? I know from past experience that if I give a simple mathematical explanation such as in this case, the cause of negative charge (in reality it does not exist i.e. it is apparent not real); it will quickly be transferred to ‘speculations’ or ‘trash’ accompanied by a ‘warning’. So will someone please delete the message so that I can enjoy reading the forums in silence, without irritation? Thanks in anticipation, elas mod note: moved from antimatter discussion to its own thread

ah, soyou made posts that were completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. this is against the guidlines you agreed to when you registered so they are within their rights to delete or move the offending posts. that was your warning that you had breached forum policy.

If s/he is on the staff, then yes. That is what s/he is here to do. They moderate the boards. Regular members cannot delete posts, but a mod can when they are unrelated to the topic.

because they feel like it for some reason such as: it`s useless, or they decide it is off subject ? I have never been accused of breaking any rule or being offensive. This person just informed me he is going to start deleting my messages if they don`t measure up in his opinion. Is this allowed ? Dr.Syntax

Have I told you all how dazzling you all are? You know how your intelligence seem to have no bounds.... Could such outstanding gentlemens (and ladies) delete or tell me how to get rid of the advert of my blog. I really had no intention of doing it it. I apologize, I am a bad boy, and I have reflected and I carry my shame. I have issues with having things there that don't need to be there...it's beyond bugging me at this point. Any help is appreciated. I'll give fake sincerity to anyone who does. XD

How much data does an account contain? Looking at my profile, including pictures, avatars and all, that's about 2 MB? Assuming that's the average: On a 50 euro, 500 GB harddisk you can store 25.000 accounts. That means that 1 account represents a whopping 1/5 of a cent (0.002 euro). I guess that's how much motivation there is to delete stuff.