Tell HN: Comments and submissions with replies can no longer be deleted

[minimaxir]

Even within the 2 hour window.

EDIT: Applies to submissions too.

This appears to be a new undocumented behavior, likely intended to reduce the occurrences of the [deleted] that has broken discussion threads of old.

The problem is that there is nothing preventing users from just editing the comment to nothing, which achieves the same effect, so the addition of the lack-of-functionality makes no sense.

[dang]

Yes, we did this because too many people were abusing deletion and it was gutting the threads.

It's true that you can still edit the comment text to nonsense or nothing (as long as you're within the edit window of 2 hours, which hasn't changed). I don't see any way short of strong AI to prevent that, nor should we want to. But this isn't the "same effect". It leaves the shell of the comment intact, including username and time posted, which is a lot more context than there was in the past—metadata, anyone?—and so the threads are less gutted. And, some, hopefully many, users will simply edit their comment to remove what was bad about it.

Edit: I forgot to mention that people are always welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and ask us to delete specific comments if they're worried about them. We do that all the time, e.g. for people who regret including personal info in an HN comment.

[minimaxir → dang]

Hi Dan, thanks for the followup. I'm more concerned about wrong comments than bad comments though, since usually the delete-blocking-reply points out the wrongness and warrants the full delete to avoid massive downvotes.

I'll see how it plays out, though.

[dang → minimaxir]

It's true that the comment that can no longer be deleted is still subject to downvoting. If that turns out to be a problem, there are things we can do to fix it, so do let us know if you see signs of that.

[miguelrochefort]

I don't think most people delete posts because they are low-value. I believe most people delete posts when they realize they don't want their name to be associated with them.

Short of comments with sensitive and/or personal information in their content, I do see value in preventing comment deletion. That is, assuming that you can disassociate your name from it.

I embrace edits, but I do think it's important to allow full access to edit history.

[meric → miguelrochefort]

Good idea, deleting the username part of comments.

[krapp]

>Comments with replies can no longer be deleted.

Good.

>The problem is that there is nothing preventing users from just editing the comment to nothing, which achieves the same effect

HN doesn't revalidate comments after they've been edited? If so, that would have been a problem either way. Limiting the number of edits (to maybe 2) and keeping a public log of each edit would prevent this - as would, obviously, not allowing empty comments.

[minimaxir → krapp]

Not "empty" in the literal sense, but no information (e.g "EDIT: nm")

[krapp → minimaxir]

Fair enough - I guess that is technically valid.

I don't know whether disallowing edits after a post has replies as well would be the easiest way to fix that - you would have to handle the edge case where a comment gets its first reply before an edit is made. Maybe have comments start out as drafts, and only allow edits before they're published?

An edit log might work too but what do you do when an edit changes the entire context of the thread that follows it? If you allow edits in a comment with replies, you could treat each edit and its current comments as a separate unit, so that each edit results in a new thread (a bit like separate branches in a git repo) but that would probably be a serious pain to navigate.

[dang → krapp]

It's important to let people save face when they say something they regret. We're moving the window a little toward accountability here (the fact that an account said something that got a reply is now immutable), but only a little. Public edit logs would be going much too far, I think.

[0942v8653]

Does it work if you reply to yourself?

Edit: it will not allow you to delete a comment with any replies, even your own, but if you delete your reply, you can delete its parent.

[spdustin]

I always thought that people deleted their own comments to staunch the downward flow of their fake internet points. Was that an incorrect assumption?