Moderators will Not honor request to delete posts?

[Andreas]

I was just looking over the forum rules again and noticed something interesting:

Post responsibly - These forums are very popular and very public. Be aware that what you post here will become part of the permanent archives and will therefore be available online for an indefinable period of time. Other web sites, including search engines, may link to what you wrote, making it easy for others to find. Moderators will NOT honor requests to delete, edit, or otherwise alter your posts or username. If it is important to you to keep certain details of your life private, do not share those details here.

I have to wonder why this policy was put into effect. If someone wants to edit or take back something they've said, shouldn't the moderators take it on a case by case basis? I mean, everyone makes mistakes sometimes.

What do you think?

[Dan.Linehan]

This policy is in place to preserve the integrity of the forum archives.

[openeyes]

Originally Posted by Andreas

If someone wants to edit or take back something they've said, shouldn't the moderators take it on a case by case basis? I mean, everyone makes mistakes sometimes.

What do you think?

Perhaps in knowing this someone may be inspired to be more mindful. In the universe nothing can REALLY ever be taken back.

[Erin Pavlina]

Thats' why we post it as part of the registration agreement that people agree to before they sign up for an account.

Dont' write it if you don't want people reading it 5 days or 5 years from when you post it.

[Savage]

Members can edit their posts up to 24 hours after posting, so if you just make a slip and want to edit a few hours later, you can do that without the help of a mod.

This rule is primarily for people who think it's okay to post dozens of messages and then change their mind a few months later and request the mods/admins to help them take back or modify what they wrote, even after others have replied to it. That's really unfair to the mods... akin to a writer asking a newspaper to retract his/her own editorial.

The forum threads here get archived at www.archive.org, so they can be expected to be online indefinitely anyway.

If anyone is concerned about keeping their thoughts private, it's best not to post them online, especially not in a popular public forum.

Additionally, it just isn't practical to honor requests from a member to delete or modify old posts. Forum accounts aren't people, so there's no simple way to verify that the request is even coming from the same person who made the original posts. If a friend or spouse makes the request, and we delete a bunch of posts they didn't even make, it can lead to a big adminstrative mess.

We really can't put ourselves in the position of trying to clean up after people who change their mind about what they posted.