Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » a way to delete

Hey what might be useful is a way to delete forum posts? if there's already a way (on mobile) then please let me know

Hey there! Deleting topics and posts is generally not done on RPR unless special circumstances permit it. This is to preserve the flow of discussions, as well as avoid people's hard work (both in roleplaying and in contributing to topics) being lost when they don't expect it.

You can always just edit your posts, or if you made a mistake double posting or would like a mod to look over your post to see if it can get deleted you can use the 'Report' button. Make sure to enter details on what you'd like the mods to do/look into and they'll get to it ASAP.

I would also love the ability to delete my own posts when I wish to do so. I can understand that other users works are there too, but when you want your own to be taken down it should be allowed. All other forums I've been on has the ability to delete their own posts.

If I'm 500 posts into a long term RP on a thread started by someone else, the last thing I'd want is for them to delete the thread at random because they're having a bad day. It contains as much my content as it does theirs, why should they get to decide that my 500 posts aren't worth keeping around?

Other sites typically also experience a much higher rate of drama and problems related to features such as deleting their own posts. It's one of the things I really appreciate and stick around on the RPR for. The policies set in place here exist to protect everyone and their content as much as possible, and that includes leaving the deletion of posts and topics up to moderators who can assess the situation with a clear head.

You can always remove your own content at any given time by editing your posts, you don't lose that control just because you can't delete the entire thread.

There are more reasons than a "bad day" as to why someone should have the right to delete their own content. I've been on forums where one party could actually delete all of their own posts without harming the other users work.

This site still has plenty of drama, just the same as any other site I've had experience with too. However, it isn't all in the open like others have shown.

I appreciate and understand your input, but I stand by my own ideal that I would love to see the ability to at least delete my own topics and posts in specific forums. Being able to do so in Small Talk or LFRP forums would be delightfully useful.

I don't use the public roleplay forums for my own reasons, but for those areas that are not so important to development or efforts would benefit from users being able to take down their personal content rather than have to add weight to a moderators work load to have to ask for it to be taken down due to a number of reasons aside from drama.

Stepping in because I'm curious:

What would be your reasons, PrettySir, beyond drama or a bad day?

It's my intellectual property that belongs to me. Being able to delete my own posts without having to edit each individual one would be incredibly useful. Like how Sanne explained with the 500 posts.
Perhaps not delete the entire thread, but having the way to delete my own property with the push of a single button rather than go through editing all of them would be phenomenally useful.

When it comes to LFRP or Small Talk. This is also my own personal posts. Being able to delete my work, including the thread as a whole, would be comforting. I could clean out my own clutter, take out my own words when I wish to do so over any number of posts. Small Talk posts are like conversations, we can walk away from group discussions, delete texts from our phones, and also delete group chats of our own accord on other mediums. This is a useful piece of control for the sake of cleaning up our own work and activity. If we start a topic, we should have the right to have it removed. That's just a personal view I have.

Specifically the LFRP - I could get my post off the top list that's in the way of the other writers. It no longer serves a purpose when it's closed. Being able to delete these topics would make way for other writers to be seen more easily.

I'd like to be able to delete my own closed topics, ended conversations, and even when I feel like I'm having a "bad day" over the concern of my own health. I'm 27, I feel I should be able to have control of my own intellectual property instead of just "editing" or "unsubscribing" From it. Just doing those still shows all of it still being there. It's like a constant reminder when it does stay of something bad that happened. Who wants that in their face all the time? Even when you end the conversation or have it locked, it's still there. It's still in the topic list. It's still available to read.


Drama exists here just like it does anywhere else on the internet.

PrettySir, I understand your point and your concern. I think one of the main roadblocks to actually enabling this feature is that, in times of conflict where one user comes to a mod about another user either breaking the rules or saying something awful, the offending user would be able to just delete their post to make it seem like the victim user is just crying wolf or trying to cause trouble.
I certainly understand that you are a responsible adult capable of making clearheaded decisions on your own work. However, not everyone on this site is a level-headed 27 year old. Many users are under 18, in fact.

And as for it being intellectual property that belongs to you, we have to face the fact that once it's on the internet, it's on the internet. Delete or not, there's always the possibility of a screencap, someone remembering, etc.

In my opinion, and in my experience for all of my years on RPR, these are some of the main 'roadblocks' that probably will not allow this feature to become available on this website. But I also know that Kim always appreciates everyone's suggestion and opinion, so I'm sure she has noted your thoughts on this matter!

Edit: Celestina ninja'd me!

Okay, let's remove ourselves from the drama just momentarily--because that's a reason the mods often step in anyway--and focus on just general control of your intellectual property.

My biggest question to you is this: what happens when that property affects other posts? The second or third biggest reason I and the other mods have to delete a post is because it was in reply to something else we removed--thus the reply no longer makes sense. The structural integrity and sense of the conversation promptly falls apart.

In giving users that freedom, are we opening up the door for more work on our end, tying up odd loose ends, or do we risk leaving threads a weird hodge podge of half-conversations?

And leading back into drama, are we risking the door being opened up for inevitable "I never said that!" excuses that make us dig through the backups for the offending post? As a moderator, that's not something I'm keen to allow, doubly so when only the site admin can access backups, thus building upon her workload.

The gist of what I'm getting at is that it sets up more issues than it immediately solves.

So while it's okay that we're having this conversation, it also introduces logicstics to the moderator side either way that would require careful consideration.

Edit: Celest and Copper both ninja'd me too!

Just to reiterate, you already have the ability to remove your content. Editing every post might be tedious, but you have the option to remove your content at any time you like. You just aren't able to remove the fact you posted anything at all in a bulk option, which by itself doesn't inhibit your ability to control your content. And for those times where the removal of an entire thread might be appropriate, you have the option of getting in touch with a moderator who is capable to remove the thread if it doesn't interfere with the content of others. You've already used this option in the past successfully.

What I'm seeing is a request to make it easier to remove content without regard for the rest of the community and the emotional labor that was put into it, and that is something I unfortunately and personally don't agree with. Removing all your posts without any indication that you had posted at all severely disrupts the flow of discussions. If I can tell you posted but edited your content out, at the very least I understand that the topic is incomplete and that I'm missing crucial info. Imagine this thread with all my posts removed - it would suddenly be significantly less useful to the community, including yourself, because not only is all my content missing, there was no indication I had even posted at all, even though I'm clearly being referenced to! For people who hadn't been previously involved but reference to this topic later, it just makes the topic and the discussion useless. This is also one of the reasons your posts don't get deleted when you remove your account. Everything remains intact, there's just formatting and a lack of link to your profile because your account is gone.

There is no benefit to removing topics either - active topics are shown at the top of the page by default, and we have tools that allow people to refine their search for LFRP topics as well. Right now, as I write this, there are exactly two LFRP topics that a remarked closed on the first page, and they'll be at the bottom in just a few hours (or even completely off the first page) due to the activity on that forum. You might not even see it by the time you get to this post. Every other topic is still active. For most of the time, we already have only active topics dominating the first page. Removing closed topics doesn't really contribute to the visibility of other topics, it just makes it harder to figure out what happened. Topics that suddenly disappear can create confusion and rumors, which negatively impacts the atmosphere of the community.

Cleaning up your activity has no benefit to the community, that would qualify as something you need to do for yourself. And while I'm not against the concept of maintaining a clean presence online, I AM against it when it doesn't create positive effects for the rest of the community (or, in this case, create negative effects).

Again, editing allows you to remove your intellectual property, not being able to delete the container that held your message in no way infringes on your rights and freedom to manage your content.

I never said it doesn't exist here, but it is significantly less. There are a lot of reasons as to why RPR is often called one of the friendliest places on the internet. We're not flawless, but we have a much more tolerant and open community than most other places I've been online. As a former moderator of the RPR, and as a former moderator of many other places in the past, I can assure you that the inability to remove content and leaving no trace is a huge contributor to why RPR is as nice as it is. I've experienced in the past that people deleted forum topics and accused moderators of censoring them due to a personal grudge, and things escalated dramatically because it was so hard to get all the facts sorted out. I've experienced people harassing others and then deleting posts without a trace to then claim they never posted at all. It complicates the moderators' jobs and it makes the community more suspicious of each other than they have to be.

While Kim has the ability to code preventive measures to ensure that deleted posts are not actually deleted in case of abuse, the system we have in place right now gives you all the freedom to manage your content and have it removed when needed - the only thing you seem to have against it is that it's not instant and not in the specific way that you want it to be. I have not yet heard an argument that makes deletion of one's own topics and posts a valuable necessity. Quite frankly, I'd rather see Kim put efforts into features we are currently lacking and have no viable and useful alternatives to.

I'm just going to drop this in a bullet point list to get to everyone at once.

1. Snapshots can be implemented for any user when they're making a report. Even if someone deletes their post after a snapshot has been taken, there is still proof that it was there. Google cache also saves a snapshot on its own.

2. LFRP topics sitting on the front page, specifically the LFRP - For Adults, does not move as fast as it may seem sometimes. There are still pages of closed topics that could be removed for the sake of the website itself. Even when someones deleted their character profile, the topics are still there to be seen and have happened to be on the front page for more than a day. It would benefit the community by removing closed topics that have no further purpose when the criteria for those topics have been met.

3. I do not agree with the "once it's on the internet, it's on the internet." That kind of idea goes with the idea that because someone posted an image of you without your consent then you now no longer have the right of it being demanded to be taken down. If it belongs to you, then you should have the right to remove it regardless of what it does to other users if it belongs to you. THIS same idea goes along with how the website views CANON content or characters. If the website receives a "take down" notice for content that doesn't belong to anyone here, the content must be taken down. Our writing is our own property so much as our own art is our property. Our roleplays, topics for discussion, should all be viewed in the same way.

4. I'm not subscribed to this topic, however, I still see this post because of the fact that users that I am friends with are still posting in it. Unsubscribing to a topic no longer does any good when you want the topic to specifically go away. It's there, in your face, the entire time. I used my ability to ask the moderators to remove a topic, because while I was asking multiple times for users to stop trying to push the discussion on methey did it anyway.
This here brings a problem of the safety of a users own mental health when they're being talked at constantly by users who are refusing to listen to the words Please stop. It's not respected when there are users who still have the ability to continue posting before the moderator has a chance to take something down. Instead of deleting, users should then be able to at least LOCK their own thread for a moderator to be able to reach it. This way, users who may have a bad day cannot delete the integrity of other users and instead protect themselves from anyone who cannot understand when they are being asked to stop.

• An aside to this is that if there is a discussion topic or an LFRP topic that a user no longer wishes to have used, then it could be easier for a user to lock their thread without having to delete it or possibly hide it away from a moderator needing to review it before it's deleted.

5. Someone being able to edit their own content just as easily as deleting it can still disrupt the truth or flow of what's being said. If Kim already has a system in place that allows for threads to not truly be "deleted" but instead hidden away from the communities access, what difference is there to deleting it ourselves over anyone hiding it, as you explained in your post, Sanne.

6. I really appreciate seeing the amount of work it does require for a moderator to handle the threads as they are anyway, and I CAN understand where there is additional work load with either option. It makes a lot of sense that in cases a of drama there is a problem for users being able to delete their own topics and point the finger at someone else, or really just away from themselves. I can understand it from that point.

7. I still believe that it's beneficial to the community, to the space of the servers, and to the work load of the moderators for a user to be capable of deleting their closed LFRP threads. These threads are NOT crucial work of anyone else but the user looking for a roleplay. Deleting these topics because you were looking for something and it's had someone meet your criteria would leave clean up of those closed topics from being the responsibility of the moderators. I don't see the LFRP threads as being so much so a source of drama or abuse for other users. Perhaps it wouldn't be so beneficial for a moderator to be able to catch someone posting an inappropriate topic that breaks the rules and give them a penalty for doing so, but there is still the option of google cache, screenshots from other users reporting it, and of course for final resort in worst case scenario with the back ups that Kim provides.

I do want to emphasis the fact that I completely understand that this website is one hell of a workload for Kim to program alone, and the woman is commended for doing such an incredible job. The same commendation for the current moderators keeping up with it as well. I will admit that I have absolutely never heard of RPR until about 1 month ago when the last forum I was on was being shut down. I do agree that it is, in fact, one of the nicest places I have been to on the internet, and I can proudly say that it sits on the top of the charts for nice websites. However, it still has its own problems.

I have to ask out of curiosity, is there a way to see what features Kim is working on? I'd love to know what sort of features the site has in mind for the future.


I really appreciate all the points, understandings, and discussions that have taken place over this suggestion. So, let me offer a small addendum; Instead of being able to delete our own topics, how about the ability to lock them while we wait for a moderator to review them for deletion?

I was thinking about this while reading your post, and I think that the ability to lock a thread could be very beneficial especially in LFRP threads, specifically in a way to avoid thread necromancy (as has been happening a lot lately). Once an LFRP thread is closed, it can be then locked.
However, if this was applied sitewide I think there's still a lot of potential for that option to be abused by those who get upset and 'just don't want to hear it' (this is meant in a stubborn way, not in the way of preserving one's mental health like you aforementioned). But again, then it piles up on threads that moderators have to look into, giving our poor volunteer mods so much more work. They already do a fantastic job, and I don't want to give them more to take care of when we can just 'deal/live with it'.

I'll use the numbers used in your post to respond to each part, myself.

1. I'm not sure what you're meaning with this. Are you talking about screenshots? I often include these in reports myself, but many people don't know how to take them, or host them reliably for mods to take a look at. Google cache also won't save a page every time an edit has been made to it in some fashion, it takes time for pages to get cached, and they end up re-cached every so often.

2. I'm still not sure how having closed LFRP topics that aren't being responded to are an issue. I understand you have a strong desire for cleanliness, but besides the forum page itself, active LFRP topics are still shown in the Find RP search tool. This tool exists for the explicit purpose that there are far too many active topics at once to reliably display them in a manner that makes them all stand out equally. That's why search results are both limited to active topics/users only, and randomized. Having closed topics strewn throughout the forum has zero impact, they are clearly marked as closed and not included in the search results. They don't interfere with your ability to locate active LFRP topics, so your desire to remove them confuses me.

To add to this, many LFRP topics include more than just a single line of text to ask for a specific RP. Some include a number of plot possibilities, world information, specific rules etc. that aren't mentioned elsewhere. I've backtracked to LFRP topics frequently to pull up this sort of information and it's been very useful to have these old, closed topics still around.

I've also had to pull up old topics from back in 2012 to revisit some information I needed at the time. Having records has been much more beneficial than having records deleted. I think the fact people don't have access to a delete button means they are less inclined to remove useful info in general, and it keeps the community richer and more thriving in the long run in my opinion.

3. On this part, I feel I must point towards the rules. Every time you use this website and publish content on it, the RPR has the right to use this content in one way or another. It's still your content, but by using the site you agreed to the extension that RPR may use your info indefinitely. It's found here: https://www.rprepository.com/help//site-rules#37

That's one of the conditions of using the site. You have the option to edit posts at any time to remove said content, including deleting characters and the like, but as guests on the RPR we accept the possibility that what we put on this site may be used in one way or another. Now, RPR will never abuse this, and you will not have your copyrights infringed on. Kim and the mods put our well being and peace of mind at the forefront of the site, so if you really want something excluded, they will happily oblige. They're not corporate monsters, for sure. But as long as you choose to use RPR, your content is subject to this rule you agreed to when creating your account, so that's important to keep in mind.

4. As someone with mental health issues, I understand where you're coming from. However, when you open up a topic, you are opening it up for discussion. We are a community, and whenever you speak your mind, there is the chance someone will speak up and may disagree with you, or challenge your ideas. This is not inherently disrespectful, nor bad. Having a mental illness, or struggling in one way or another, does not mean we get a free pass from being challenged to consider other view points. That is what a community is, a place where many people with many viewpoints gather, engage each other and live with things they don't necessarily agree with.

I will keep my thoughts on that topic you mentioned to myself, but I do want to remind you that you cannot open a discussion and then get upset when people share their ideas. That's not how we have discussions here, as long as it's on-topic and it doesn't break our "Be Nice" rules, everyone has the right to share their thoughts when you open the floor.

My bad days are not someone else's responsibility. If I'm having a bad day, then it's my responsibility to not use the site until I feel up to deal with the situation again. Locking or deleting topics to shut everyone else down is not what I consider an appropriate response to you having a bad day.

5. It's definitely true that someone can edit their message and remove the offensive content. However, the moderators also have tools in place that alert them when specific rules are broken. If you use the f-bomb, the site has an auto-report feature that alerts the moderators of that fact. Even if you remove it from your message later, the alert was made. (This doesn't mean you automatically get in trouble, you corrected your mistake, and if you didn't harass anyone then it should be okay as long as you don't do it all the time. Again, the mods here are incredibly friendly and understanding of mistakes that happen!) So if someone uses that kind of language towards you, then edits their post, the mods will still know it happened. If the message is deleted however, the system has no message to refer back to, which makes a huge difference in how quickly an issue can be resolved.

7. Like I addressed in #2, I have used other people's closed LFRP threads to refer back to info useful for the RP we engaged in, so I don't agree with the statement that these topics only pertain to the OP. As for server space, text hardly takes up any space at all. A vast majority of RPR's space is being used up by images. Kim also focuses hardcore on optimization, so she's taken the presence of old and inactive topics into consideration many times before, and so far has never deemed it necessary to tidy up topics to make space. It's so far always been about space for images (and images are the primary reason we need people to support the site through Epicness!).

Kim used to have a development log, but she couldn't keep up with it and has taken it down. The best way to find out what she's working on is to attend Office Hours and ask her what's on her plate at the time, and what she plans to work on next! (Office Hours are usually announced a week in advance in the News)

I personally also appreciate your time to sit down and discuss this with us! It's always good to exchange thoughts on these matters.

While I initially want to say that would be a good way to go about it, I also distinctly remember many situations 'back in the day' before RPR where people would abuse locking topics to 'get the last word' and to even accuse other members of some really nasty things, and then shutting them down without giving them the ability to defend themselves. I witnessed so much heartbreak and pain because of this that I'm very afraid of seeing this implemented. It sucks that bad apples ruin it for everyone else. While RPR's memberbase is pretty mature in this department, like you said we're not flawless, our community has its own issues. I personally only foresee massive problems with giving people the ability to lock their own topics down like that.

If it's really, really, really important, you can always use the contact info Kim provided to get in touch. I've had to get in touch with Kim through the phone number provided before when the site had been down and she was out of town and didn't know. She takes this seriously and will respond to urgent matters as soon as possible, so if you feel your health or someone else's health is on the line, please do get in touch with her!

Hi all,

This is one of those topics that's been discussed for about seven years. I'm still pretty solidly in favor of our current deletion restrictions. Here's my reasons:

It's my experience that often, people seek to remove discussion threads when the reception to the thread is not what they expected, for example, discovering that the opinion they hold turns out to be unpopular or difficult to defend. If they can delete their posts, it invalidates all the other responses, which may have been entirely respectful and well thought out: just in disagreement with the OP. Now, all those posts, while still existing, would not really make any sense. It destroys the usefulness of the topic. Respectful debate needs to be okay, even when disagreements happen. Disagreements are not inherently bad.

Another situation is people wanting to remove all their content when they decide they'd like to leave the site. This is problematic for a few reasons - first, it may take big bites out of many discussion threads, leaving behind a tremendous amount of collateral damage. Who wants to read a thread in which much of the content that was being responded to was deleted? It's conversational swiss cheese. I'm also wary of people making a quick decision to leave when upset then coming back the next day and wanting their content back from backups - I already get an appalling number of these requests regarding characters people want back after a night-before account deletion.

Another reason people often want to delete their posts is to "clean up." This is painful in help and suggestion topics, where someone asks a question, gets it answered, and then requests their topic be deleted because they got what they needed. It means that every time someone else has that question, they can't search, they have to ask again.

Re: it being good for the health of the site to deleted closed LFRP topics: You'd have to delete a truly inhuman number of posts for deletion to have any effect on the health or storage of the server... Images are really where we run into trouble, when we do. I'm fine with leaving closed LFRP topics there essentially forever, as it's easy to go back and re-open them should you decide you are looking for more players for an in-progress RP or start up another, similar RP. The find RP search tool does a ton of filtering to only show relevant LFRP posts, which means closed topics are eliminated in the first go-round, as are topics that weren't properly closed but were originally made by deleted characters. That search tool also favors people who are active and topics that have recent replies, regardless of which page of the forum they've been pushed to.

Yes, I can still see every post ever made, even if someone deletes it. For the last year or so, I've been able to see previous versions of posts after they were edited, too. We're pretty solidly protected against people trying to "cover their tracks" when it comes to forum misbehavior of that kind.

If you're having mental health issues and don't want to get notifications regarding responses your friends are making to forum topics, that's valid, but I would suggest the remedy of turning off notifications about forum posts you aren't directly subscribed to for that day - it's just a checkbox you can check and uncheck at will.

Oh man I didn't know that, I'm glad this is a thing!

I too am super glad to hear that that is a thing.

This was something I had considered when I was mentioning users wanting to delete their characters and take everything that went with them too.

I think one thing that does concern me is that, while my writing/art/roleplays are my intellectual property it suddenly becomes the property of the website. I trust, and understand, that this isn't going to be abused. However, I am curious, does this apply the same as other users using this property as well? If it belongs to the site, do you mean that it belongs to everyone on the site or specifically to the site creator themself? I just want a clear understanding to that. Wouldn't it be considered plagiarism to claim it as the sites property if the site didn't create it? If we copyright our own property, how is that copyright protected by the site having permission to use it as they please?

[Just as an aside, I am not in any way upset by anything discussed in this topic. I fear that in lieu of recent events that I may be looked at as though I might be getting upset or possibly feel as though the disagreements are negative. I can assure you, I don't see it this way at all. This feels like a healthy debate and discussion. Everyone is learning something, which is awesome. ]

I won't be answering this 'officially' because I don't know the finer details on this (and I don't have any official position to speak from anyway), but I think you misunderstood me. I never said your content becomes property of the RPR, RPR just has the right to use it in various forms like the rule states. I imagine (but this is not official info, I honestly don't know for sure) this is an extension to keeping logs of things you posted for moderation purposes as well, without causing legal issues for keeping this data stored.

That helps me understand! I may have looked too far into the rule itself and from what you said. It's easily a misunderstanding on my part. My main issue with it, I believe, stems from the previous forum that I was on that claimed the same sort of issue. However, they claimed that no matter what you posted it was ultimately their property from there on out. When it came to World Building, there was suddenly a worry that anyone who owned the site could suddenly claim your work as their own and you were no longer in control of it should you leave the site or not want it up anymore. However, it was a little less uncomfortable because we had the freedom of deleting all of it when we wanted to do so. It wasn't a forum, so no public roleplays would be lost, but it still felt unsettling to essentially feel as though your hard work that you created suddenly "belonged" to the website and not to you anymore. That's where my fear comes from, and it's quite easy to say I'm probably reading too far into RPR's rule.

I'm pretty tired, so this may be just a partial response, but basically while you still own the copyright on anything you make, you grant us limited "partial use rights" to anything you post on the site.

As the names imply, this means that you still own your creations, but we get to use them in certain ways with no backsies.

So we can't:

• Start selling merchandise like stuffed plushies of your characters.
• Sell the movie rights to your RP to Marvel comics.
• Write and publish a novel that features one of your characters without your permission.
• Claim to be the writer of that cool poem you posted on Art & Creativity.

But we can:

• Store and display copies of the stuff you've posted. (I mean, duh, otherwise it wouldn't be a website, right? )
• Take screenshots of fun stuff going on on our public forums and use them to promote the site.
• Do screen recordings of the actual site with your username/character profile/posts visible during it in order to produce tutorials on how to use the site.
• Keep records of your creations for moderation purposes or to maintain the integrity of existing conversations.

Going back to the original question, I thought of an analogy for why I feel so strongly about this:

Imagine you make a brick. You can smash that brick and no one will mind.

But if you instead take a bunch of bricks and use them to construct a tower, the more individual bricks you destroy the more you compromise the integrity of the structure, until it comes tumbling down and isn't a tower anymore.

There generally aren't restrictions on anything you make on your own: Character profiles, for example, make and delete them all day. The place where we start to try and put on the brakes is when the words go from being monologues to conversations or, dare I say it, RP: these things are collaborative and rely on all participants, well, participating to retain their shape.

That said, we do evaluate every request to delete a (non-rule breaking) post or topic, and try to honor them whenever we can without too strongly impacting other people who have contributed to a worthwhile discussion or collaboration. The reason for why a deletion is wanted also plays a role, too, in deciding how much to favor information preservation.