This question keeps on coming again and again (even today).

In most cases when a forum member deletes his own posts from a thread (or threads) in anger or otherwise, it leaves the rest of the thread somewhat incomprehensible or at least with some disconnects. Some of the follow-up posts by others may become irrelevant if these follow-up posts were comments on info in the deleted posts. So it does make not-so-good difference to others on the forum.

Also, in cases where someone had asked a genuine question on the forum and if someone properly answered that question then most probably other members may cease to repeat answering the same question to avoid repetition because it already got properly answered. Then if the one who had first answered the question decides to delete his answer, the thread is left incomplete.

However, if we want "Edit" function then "delete" come as a consequence of the "Edit" availability.

I had asked about it and was told that everyone is free to do with their posts whatever they wish. However, leaving the option of 'deleting or not deleting in anger or otherwise' to the judgment of the poster may not always work to the benefit of the forum and its members such as in cases of extreme anger. Deleting own posts cause issues for other members and damages the information repository and may need some reconsideration.

The one solution, if feasible, is to allow "Edit" within a fixed known period after posting such as one week period and then auto-lock the post. Any edit, if required by the poster, afterward can be done through a new post.

I like Akram's idea of "auto lock".

Before I say anything, I am 99.9% certain that by posting on the forum, you accept the fact that you are relinquishing your rights to control of that material, basically giving rights to the forum owner or host to do whatever they like with it.  This is usually mentioned in the service agreement (most people fail to read) when you join.  I'll explain why I mention this in a second.


This "auto lock" feature is something that I (personally) configure on most forums I moderate, but F4F forum is using a different (proprietary) software, and therefore it may not be a feature here.  Only Jon would know this for certain.


Additionally, with most forum software, when a post OR thread is deleted by a forum member, it is not permanently deleted.  It is placed into a deletion queue, or a "tombstone" is put in its place so that it may be recovered by a moderator or admin.  This prevents users from abusing the deletion feature, which as we can see from recent user deletions, ruins the information store and defeats the purpose of having a discussion forum in the first place.
 

And now, to my point (Sorry for another marathon post!):

I would also vote that removing edit function from posts, say, 30 days after the post is made, I think it would be good.  I say 30 days because I've run into cases where people genuinely need to go back and edit 2-3 weeks later when re-reading.

I also would love to see all of the recently deleted threads and posts recovered.  There were a couple of people who went through and deleted a ton of worthful information.  Some of us managed to print out copies (to PDF) prior to those members/former members killing the data, but there are items which were not recovered.  It is the right of the forum owner to do what they please with the information, so, really, whoever posted the data can't really say much about it beign recovered - if they didn't want to lose control, they shouldn't have put the information there in the first place.