When accessing comments or being returned to comments after making one it would be good to be returned to the last page rather than the first one. Posters are generally aware of earlier comments and have to switch from the beginning to the area they are interested in.

When told one has to wait before commenting again it would be good to be told exactly when one could comment again. It would probably be simple to program. All that is necessary is to post the time of the commentator's penultimate post.

It would be better for the box asking for an email notification to appear above the box for adding a comment. In that way it would be less likely to be missed.

I like the idea of authentic quotes (the only issue might be when the quote is very long and you want to delete some irrelevant words by using the conventional signifier... Would it still work?)

I don't like the idea of a gender signal at all. As one who frequently gets her sex mistaken (my father's to blame for giving me a gender neutral nickname) I wonder if I'm supposed to be gratified for occasionally being mistaken for a man. Personally I'd rather respondents focus on my ideas than the type of body I was born with.

If we agreed to a gender marker would we also be justified in calling for an age marker, a race marker, a country of origin marker and a geographic marker? No, no, no! Let's concentrate on the quality of people's ideas.

I'm adding my vote to those not wanting a forced gender marker. Perhaps the ability to add optional info to user profiles might suit some.

I've seen people post email addresses before (and even seen phone numbers). Some might want to make a bit more info about themselves known, others will keep it at a gender neutral alias only. Those who insist on having details which would allow them to track down others without a valid legal case to do so could move onto another forum which exposes peoples real names and which has the same or better range of views and discussion (good luck finding it).

I've found the lack of verification of a the content of a deleted post to be frustrating but I can understand that setting a precident regarding the content of deleted posts could open up a whole other mess. I think I've seen a comment by Graham in the past that they used to note deleted posts in the thread but that became an unwanted admin overhead.

Some posts clearly are better off the site, I don't want advertising left across threads and occasionally someone will post a threat of or incitment to violence against others.

I think it's valid that if someone posts personal info that they later regret putting in the public domain that it be removed but I don't know how then conflicting claims should be addressed. Most will have seen the dispute between JW, Antiseptic and SallyG.

If the post Antiseptic quoted is accurate then removal of the post should not leave Antiseptic free to be called a liar, firstly for inventing the post then after it was shown the post existed for supposedly altering the wording. If the quote was a fabrication then that should be shown to be the case. Someone is lying to other contributers and the content of the deleted post can easily clear up who that is.

How do you remove posts, avoid being drawn into discussions regarding the content of the deleted post and still keep the site fair?

R0bert

david f

"When accessing comments or being returned to comments after making one it would be good to be returned to the last page rather than the first one."

I agree. I've often thought this frustrating. It probably doesn't bother people with fast download capacity, but I'm afraid I'm not in that category!

Absolutely no gender box. I thought we'd got past the idea of judging a comment by the gender of the commentor.

Personally, I find the idea of deleting a comment creepy. If it is deemed necessary by the moderator, it should be noted that 'abc's comment was removed because of... It is just too confusing to leave 'gaps' without any explanation.

To remove comments at the request of the poster is really unacceptable. Commenting via the internet is very much like speaking. Once said cannot be unsaid.

Anansi wrote:
"To remove comments at the request of the poster is really unacceptable. Commenting via the internet is very much like speaking. Once said cannot be unsaid."

No, commenting via the internet is not like speaking, you cannot preview and edit speech as you can comment on this forum.

While I do not favour users being able to request the deletion of just any comment, I would make an exception in the case of a user wanting to delete his/her own comment. Sometimes one finds an error or ambiguity in a comment after it has been posted that one failed to notice on the preview. In this case the moderator could delete the text and leave a message such as "Comment deleted at author's request."