
Tell HN: To improve quality of conversation, HN should not limit deletion time - hoodoof
Say I reconsider the tone of a comment I have made on HN.  Chances are I cannot delete it because too much time has passed.<p>I think that there should not be a limit on deletion time, so that people may at any time delete their posts having reconsidered the tone of conversation.
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minimaxir
Keep in mind that there is a 2 hour window on deletion, which is more than
enough time for you to catch your mistakes/address widely downvoted comments.

 _However_ , a recent change made it so that a reply to your post will disable
deletion. The intent is that it discourages conversations from being broken
up, but after a couple months with it, I don't think the advantages outweigh
the disadvantages.

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DrScump
You can always follow-up with a new comment containing a retraction or apology
or whatever.

A problem with extending that window is that there can be subsequent comments
in reaction to yours (and, in turn, other comments reacting to _those_ ), and
removing an original well after the fact can ruin context.

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gamechangr
It would be pretty difficult to read a number of older posts if let's say 4 or
5 "flaming comments" were deleted. Then you would have 10 responses that would
left on the record (without clarity as to what they were intending to
address).

It would basically ruin the majority of older posts where good conversations
(read with opposing positions) existed.

I like the content left in its genuine (or original) form.

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alistproducer2
personally, I find the deletion time limit a bit arbitrary. I suppose the
finality is there to make one consider the tone before posting. there's
nothing worse than posting a karma-burning comment and coming back to find
there's nothing you can do about it.

