Delete All Entries/Comments Upon Journal Deletion

[stormy]

Title:
Delete All Entries/Comments Upon Journal Deletion

Area:
Accounts, Entries

Summary:
Livejournal now features a ( delete all comments and posts ) option when a user chooses to delete their journal from Account Settings. It would be nice to see this option implemented on Dreamwidth.

Description:
On Dreamwidth, when users select to delete a non-community account, they should be given the option to delete all comments and community posts site-wide. Upon selection, the entries and comments are immediately removed from view, but I assume they're not fully removed from the database until the account is purged to prevent abuse in hacking/account theft incidences.

This feature has recently been implemented on Livejournal, and it's beneficial for several reasons.

1) It clears the servers of unneeded data once the journal is purged.

2) For privacy reasons, it gives users another option to effortlessly delete their content without affecting the content of another user, and without having to track down every entry and comment across the entirety of the site.

Poll #4241 Delete All Entries/Comments Upon Journal Deletion

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 71

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
20 (28.2%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
6 (8.5%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
34 (47.9%)

(I have no opinion)
10 (14.1%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (1.4%)

---

Updates

Expressed concerns:

• It presents the option to someone who otherwise might not be looking for it.
  
• It interferes with conversation across the site, leaving conversations disjointed.
  

Not implemented :

• [Suggestion] The ability to search for every post you have made to a community without entering the community directly - something similar to the Recent Comments/Latest Posted Comments page.
  
• [Suggestion][Suggested by Others] The ability to mass Orphan Comments/Entries posted outside of your own journals/communities, which detaches your identity to the content. I'm not sure how this would work, but someone else would have to suggest this.
  
• [Suggestion][Suggested by Others] If a mass delete button were to be put in place, then textbox or checkbox capability for excluding certain journals and communities from the deletion of comments/entries.
  

On http://www.dreamwidth.org/editjournal :

• [Suggestion] A delete button with confirmation for [Delete this Entry].
  
• [Suggestion] Perhaps the option to mass delete would be located on this page, separate from the Delete Journal confirmation page to avoid clicking the option without fully reading over it and considering its consequences.
  

On http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/recent_comments :

• [Bug] A clearer visual of comments that are already deleted with grayed out text, or the [delete] changed to [deleted]. (Found on Bugzilla)
  
• [Suggestion] The ability to go back through all comments ever posted (at present, the max is your 150 most recent comments). Or an ability to hide or separate deleted comments so that the list will keep expanding. (Found on Bugzilla)

Am I missing anything?

Comments

[musyc]

Eugh. I hated the introduction of this feature on LJ and I really dislike the idea of it coming here.

Bandwidth and data storage is a minuscule consideration because text really doesn't take up that much space.

effortlessly delete their content without affecting the content of another user

Except by deleting comments, you are affecting the content. You're affecting the conversation, the context, the evidence. Without the comments from the other party involved in a thread, the thread itself is useless, leaving behind random things without the sense of why. It's like watching a conversation through a plate glass window - you know they're talking, but what the hell about? Something crucial to understanding of why this situation occurred needs to remain.

I have no problem with deleted accounts 'orphaning' their comments without connection to a user, but I am seriously against removing them from the entire service because it does affect more than one person.

[melannen]

This.

The comments on my journal entries are part of what makes up the entries; often, responses to the comments are a significant part of the content *I* write. I don't want it to be easy for someone in a snit (or just someone who's gotten tired of journaling) to remove content, which might be very important for context, from my journal.

The same thing can apply, to a lesser extent, to posts in communities, because people post in communities under the assumption that it's a shared space, and all the posts in a community make up a conversation that doesn't belong to any single poster.

I would be okay with an "orphaning" option.

I might even support the idea of making a complete delete of all comments a posts a possibility, but make it something difficult to find - make sure someone would have to really, really want it in order to figure out how to do it, in order to keep people from lightly picking the delete-all option without thinking about how it might affect conversations.

[foxfirefey]

I don't like this, but for selfish reasons. Morally, though, I feel like I must support it.

[stormy]

I'm open to hearing your suggestions/concerns. I added a bit more to a comment below yours about the original idea and possible other options.

[stormy]

Essentially, to further explain since it's been awhile since I submitted this:

Currently, you can delete your own comments and entries. I'm not asking for a quick fix to mass delete while keeping my account and its information. I'm saying that I support the option to when I delete my account and its content - to delete my content across the site.

Likewise, if I had some sort of individual comment/entry tracker - I would do it individually.

In the same note, I would also support a transparency option. A screen all posts/comments to where only the original poster can view.

But say, for instance, I am a part of a community. I post a story to it, and later I am locked out of the community. I am unable to delete my content from it, because I no longer have access to see the entry.

I want to be able to have control over that entry should I choose to delete my account.

Same for harassment. I've had to move accounts before, and have had people track down every entry and comment I've made in the past. There was no way for me to easily find all these entries and comments that I posted.

A single button to delete my content, to keep it private and safe in those situations? I would definitely take it.

In addition, I'm not sure how Livejournal handles this since it is a relatively new feature, but I'm assuming that the content isn't actually deleted off the servers for the 30 days before purge (administration screening?). So if someone manages to gain access to your account, and support helps you regain control of your account. It isn't a one step delete of your content that you lose forever.

[jeeps]

I'm not asking for a quick fix to mass delete while keeping my account and its information. I'm saying that I support the option to when I delete my account and its content - to delete my content across the site.

instead of responding to your reply to me above, I will just say here: personally, I did get your meaning. I object to the idea of any user being able to affect such a massive change across any number of journals and communities, including my own, just because they're choosing to delete their own account.

But say, for instance, I am a part of a community. I post a story to it, and later I am locked out of the community. I am unable to delete my content from it, because I no longer have access to see the entry.

I'm not sure mass deletion across the site as a whole is a suitable response to this sort of thing. such a situation would seem to call for a more specific feature, such as the ability to always see/control one's own posts even in a community where one has since has access restricted.

[par_avion]

I am wildly, WILDLY opposed to this option.

Conversation is part of community. If you can't bear the idea that you might lose the ability to control your comments or entries then it is up to you to only post in spaces that you thoroughly control.

If you leave a comment in my journal, to me it is like you sent me a letter. I get to keep it. It should not be easy for people to delete thousands of comments at once AND all entries to communities, in addition to deleting their entire journal. Deleted journals are annoying enough! I even hate it that LJ deletes / makes invisible all comments from suspended users!

Do Not Want.

[stormy]

But Dreamwidth is an internet medium. It's not a letter. It has a delete button. I can see where the thought that it's like letters sent back and forth instantly could come into play.

But it's a user's discretion to delete their entries and comments. Right now, they can do it on any post that they post.

So to pose the same question - would you feel that you'd rather take away someone's ability to delete their content and entries outside of their own journal? They can do it now and my suggestion is just a quick version of doing that when they decide they no longer want their content on the site.

I understand how it affects conversations. We all know that deleted comment blank in between someone else's responses is annoying, and perhaps I'm thinking of this in specific cases. And in those instances where someone has maybe put valid opinions out on some subject matter - an orphan comment ability might be better than a deletion, but you can't deny that the content could be deleted at any time.

But yes, definitely noting the opposition by those who oppose the interruption of conversation. I wish this topic was better suited to that, but it's more control over comments in a mass control form without having a sitewide search for those comments/entries.

[healingmirth]

I hate that LJ added that option, because it makes me think, and I hate having to think.

I am so, so torn between believing that users should have control of everything they've posted, and the points already made regarding conversation and community. I also don't want to be the grump and say "once it's on the internet, it's always on the internet," but that really is a risk that we all take.

I would totally support introducing an option to orphan comments and entries elsewhere when deleting a journal.

[stormy]

I am so, so torn between believing that users should have control of everything they've posted, and the points already made regarding conversation and community.

That seems to be the biggest conundrum here. The only thing is, users already have this form of control, except they have to do it slowly, individually deleting the information, and they have to keep track of everywhere they've posted to do it. It's not really about trying to ruin a conversation, but more, yeah, of control over what you post - which users already have.

I personally wouldn't orphan my comments and entries. I wouldn't abandon control over my own information, thoughts, feelings or ideas. And a mass orphan of the content might make other users feel better that I choose to take my name off of it, but it's not really the aim of the suggestion (although it's always another suggestion option).


Perhaps upon deletion of your journal, the options would be as follows in that case, but with more eloquent wording (of course):

[ ] Delete all comments sitewide.
[ ] Delete all entries sitewide.

(As in make them an [orphan] or [anonymous] status.)
[ ] Orphan all entries sitewide.
[ ] Orphan all comments sitewide.

[zaluzianskya]

I selected "With changes", because while I like the option on LJ and plan to use it eventually, there's something I think would make it better: The option to only delete entries and comments older than a specified date, or to enter journals and communities to be exempt.

If I want to delete my old journal and get rid of the entries and comments it has posted, everything has to go. However, while I want to delete comments I left in public communities, I'd rather not have to also delete comments I left in my friends' journals; while I want to delete most of the community posts I've made, I want to leave the ones I made in suggestions because they're valuable to LJ's development process, whether or not they have been implemented.

The same goes for if the feature were to be implemented here.

[stormy]

The ability to specify exempt communities or journals could be a nice touch.

I'd definitely go for those sort of options.

[zing_och]

While I can see your point, I actually like the current option that calls for manual deletion. It makes the person deleting their content look at everything and decide what they want to go away and what might stay.

I agree that it's not a good solution for being stalked, though. :(

[stormy]

I would have deleted manually at the time, if I could find all my posts and entries. My posts to my own journal were easy, but I've actually had extremist people hunt down every comment and every entry I'd posted across every journal I'd had for 7+ years.

Needless to say, I spent that night deleting hundreds of emails from my inbox and trying to lock up entries and delete comments as they found them + ban them at the same time.

In another situation, as I mentioned above, my writing was on a community journal that had multiple owners and I was kicked out of. Especially since they were my own stories, I would have been happy to be able to remove them (and now with Livejournal's feature) I could.

Granted, I'm much more cautious about who has access to my information on Dreamwidth and where I post, it's for those reasons I suggested the feature here.

Someone did suggest the option to exempt communities and journals from the mass delete, or in other suggestions, the process of orphaning a comment/entry.

Thanks for your comment. ♥

[cesy]

I'd love to add the ability to edit or delete your own community posts even if you have since been locked out of the community. It sounds like that would solve half the reasons for this, with much less controversy.

[stormy]

That does sound like a nice alternative to some of the reasons why this feature would be so helpful.

[ninetydegrees]

I would have loved to be able to do that when I deleted my LJ account and I'd love to have it here or at least a way to track your posts and comments so you could do it manually (could be a paying feature).

[stormy]

Yeah, finding those entries/comments is the biggest issue. Even with the paid search feature from Livejournal, I have no idea how people find each and every little thing.

[ciaan]

I definitely think a way to find ALL your content would be really nice: every post and comment you've ever made. And then still have control over them to be able to delete/screen/edit/orphan even if you've since lost access to the comm or journal where they were posted.

(My first response was "oh good, that means if I decide to wipe myself off LJ entirely I can!" and my next response was to realize I can't use it because that would erase issues of sv_ledger and so on. So more granularity would be GREAT. Though DW giving granularity still wouldn't solve my LJ problem...)

[stormy]

I definitely think a way to find ALL your content would be really nice: every post and comment you've ever made. And then still have control over them to be able to delete/screen/edit/orphan even if you've since lost access to the comm or journal where they were posted.

Yeah, easy to find/access control. I compiled some of the other suggestions in a comment below.

Though DW giving granularity still wouldn't solve my LJ problem...)

lol ~

Compilations/Notes

[stormy]

Expressed concerns:

• It presents the option to someone who otherwise might not be looking for it.
  
• It interferes with conversation across the site, leaving conversations disjointed.
  

Not implemented :

• [Suggestion] The ability to search for every post you have made to a community without entering the community directly - something similar to the Recent Comments/Latest Posted Comments page.
  
• [Suggestion][Suggested by Others] The ability to mass Orphan Comments/Entries posted outside of your own journals/communities, which detaches your identity to the content. I'm not sure how this would work, but someone else would have to suggest this.
  
• [Suggestion][Suggested by Others] If a mass delete button were to be put in place, then textbox or checkbox capability for excluding certain journals and communities from the deletion of comments/entries.
  

On http://www.dreamwidth.org/editjournal :

• [Suggestion] A delete button with confirmation for [Delete this Entry].
  
• [Suggestion] Perhaps the option to mass delete would be located on this page, separate from the Delete Journal confirmation page to avoid clicking the option without fully reading over it and considering its consequences.
  

On http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/recent_comments :

• [Bug] A clearer visual of comments that are already deleted with grayed out text, or the [delete] changed to [deleted].
  
• [Suggestion] The ability to go back through all comments ever posted (at present, the max is your 150 most recent comments).

Am I missing anything?

Re: Compilations/Notes

[melannen]

I would love the ability to easily find every comment and post I've made on the site, completely separate from the deletion issue.

The orphaning option still sounds good to me, especially in cases of stalking or bullying.

Being able to opt-out certain journals and communities seems like it would be really, really difficult to implement in an effective way, because there would be so many places you'd have to keep track of; I could maybe see a tickybox for "leave comments and posts only on journals I trust and communities I'm a member of" but there would still be a risk of content being lost that you didn't want lost, if there was a journal or community you didn't realize you'd never joined.

...I wouldn't object too strongly to a journal-by-journal or community-by-community option to "delete all my content in this community," though. That way, if there was a person you no longer trusted or community you were locked out of, you could remove yourself just from there, but you'd have to think it through in a case-by-case basis.

I like the idea of having plenty of control over your comments, I just think about the people I had great conversations in my journal with three or four years ago, that I still value, but who have moved on, who probably wouldn't even think about my journal if they were considering a delete. (Some of them have deleted their journal, in fact, just because they aren't interested in LJ any more, and never thought about it as something archival, but their comments are still important to my journal, which I do consider an archive.)


What would you think of having the full-mass-delete option being something only the Abuse team can do, by request, so in the event of serious stalking or bullying issues it can be done, but it won't get done casually?

[dancing_serpent]

Took a long time to finally make up my mind, but I think it should be implemented with the restriction that the comments will only be deleted when the account gets actually purged.

[stormy]

I was thinking that they get a sort of administration level screening for the 30 days until purge, then are deleted in the same fashion a journal is deleted after 30 days.

For the 30 days, all the content is still there.

Is that similar to what you were thinking, or having them still visible for 30 days?

[syntheid]

I think I'm late to the party, but things I like from reading through the comments:

- The ability to find all content you post, comments or entries, including those made in communities you may have left.
- The ability to orphan comments (or posts?) so that they still exist, but aren't attached to your name.
- Journal-by-journal delete-all.
- "Delete before" date

I don't really like the idea of mass-delete when you don't even know what you're deleting, personally, I know there are obviously cases where you reach a point where it matters more to have everything gone than to preserve one random comment or post you forgot making that made some important points somewhere on the internet, but I tend to be more of an archival mindset, so the idea of it bothers me a lot. I'd really want to at least have the ability to go through and check for all my random comments, to see if there's something worth saving (better would be to have a way to actually archive them, but I think that would probably end up too resource-intensive to search and then save every little thing). And honestly I'm not sure if I'd use an actual site-wide mass-delete feature ever, if I didn't have more control over it (like saying "all in this journal" would work for me, though "all on this site" does not).

ETA: I should maybe add that I would be really frustrated if someone deleted all their posts/comments and that included comments in my journal or posts I had commented on, but I tend to subscribe more to the opinion that they should be able to delete it if they want. I don't like the idea of forcing people to archive if it makes them uncomfortable. But I think maybe deleting a post I had commented on would bother me more, because if it was without warning, I wouldn't be able to archive my own comment if I wanted. I don't know if there would be a way to allow for a notification or auto-archive of comments posted to an entry that was deleted.

[charmian]

Like Fey, this feature could definitely inconvenience me, but on an... ethical? moral? consistency level, I feel I should support it, especially in the case of stalkers/legal trouble. The changes are that I think there should also be an orphaning option.

[rainbow]

Yes, this.

Conversations may be interrupted/broken up, but people's safety and well-being are a much higher priority for me -- and there are times where erasing one's online presence it necessary to one or both. I can live with lost conversations and inconvenience, especially if the alternative is increasing someone's risk.

Re making it hard to do to prevent it being abused. Making it easy for someone to do so when it's necessary seems like a much kinder option to me than making it hard/difficult to find; I know when I'm stressed figuring out things is much harder.

(Disclosure: I've had several friends who's safety [and life, in one case] were at risk when violent and/or abusive exes/family members tracked them down online. It's not a rare issue IME.)

[sorchasilver]

I appreciate that this could be inconvenient for some users where it leaves conversations in comments one-sided etc., but that can already happen if the users is determined enough. As far as I'm concerned, anything that gives users more control over their content is most welcome.

[daweaver]

In retrospect, Dreamwidth should have developed this functionality alongside the importer, so that people who for whatever reason didn't want their comments to be held on Dreamwidth servers could reasonably ensure that their wishes were met. Dreamwidth remains vulnerable to copyright claims arising from imported comments, as the commentator licensed their words for publication by another service, and certainly not to Dreamwidth. Providing this easy method of deletion may be an acceptable remedy.

To raise a related point, there are extreme cases where a journal-owner imports content that is legal in one jurisdiction but not elsewhere, and this could create legal jeopardy for the commentator but not the journal-owner. For instance, in most countries it's not specifically illegal to threaten the life of Mr. Obama, but it is in Dreamwidth's chosen jurisdiction. This is another reason why it should be possible to remove all comments.

The arguments against this proposal appear to be "it's an anti-social thing to do", and I don't particularly disagree. I think that it's far more anti-social to coerce someone into presenting their work on Dreamwidth when we know the tools are available to remove it. Delete * from Comments where userid = delete_me_now. The technology is not difficult.

Ultimately, this is a social question over who "owns" comments: the commentator, or the original poster. Livejournal has determined that the commentator has final control over their comment, as can be seen from the ability to republish comments out of context. The contributors to this thread appear to place ownership with the original poster. I'm not sure if that makes the OP responsible for what appears in their thread.

[chris]

Ultimately, this is a social question over who "owns" comments: the commentator, or the original poster. Livejournal has determined that the commentator has final control over their comment, as can be seen from the ability to republish comments out of context. The contributors to this thread appear to place ownership with the original poster. I'm not sure if that makes the OP responsible for what appears in their thread.

Spot on; this is the crux of the matter, and probably needs an executive decision knowing that both sides of the argument have very considerable drawbacks. I think there are situations where the pros and cons swing one way and other situations where they swing they other way, but this is scope for some other suggesgtion.

It's also true that even though some facility (deletion of comments) may be desirable doesn't mean that mass deletion should be easy.

[much_ado]

There is a new reason to reconsider adding this feature: the import feature from LJ initially brought all content except comments to the suer's posts. Many users, like myself, then went back after the bug was fixed and reimported everything (because the option to import comments-only wasn't clearly available in the importer)... which now means we have duplicate posts of everything the importer brought in. In my case, that means duplicates of a decade's worth of heavy blogging that I can *only* reduce manually, one post at a time. Some kind of automated facility to reduce the uncommented/earliest-imported posts would be *hugely* helpful, or even a way to delete all of the non-DW-originating posts within a set timeframe, so that a new import can run on all content without creating another duplication (an overwrite would be fine, but that won't remove the existing duplicate posts either).

[denise]

1) You don't get duplicates automatically if you reimport. If you got duplicates, it's because of a bug with LJ.

2) The importer has always brought along posts and comments, again with the exception of a bug from LJ that meant comments weren't being sent.

3) There's a tool to fix that.

(This suggestion has nothing to do with deleting content in your own journal -- it's for deleting comments you've made in other people's journals when you delete your journal.)

Please implement this.

[machanon]

A user has the right to delete any content that could be associated with them in the future. Wikipedia has articulated this concept as the Right to Vanish.

Digital communities are dangerous. The tiny minor pieces of information we leave lying around the internet might have seemed insignificant to a reasonable person even 10 years ago, whereas now we are beginning to understand how they can add up to major liability. There are so many risks that we haven't even figured them all out yet. Surveillance, stalking and data-mining are now billion-dollar industries. We should take ANY opportunity to enable people to stop the information leakage about themselves when they choose to.

At the moment, even when somebody desperately wants to track down all their comments, they cannot. Dreamwidth allows you to see your 20 most recent comments. If you pay, you can see 150. To find further comments, you have to resort to search engines. But this only shows you public comments! Comments on protected journals could become unprotected if the journal owner decides to. A user or community could have since denied you access to the post, so you can never reach that "delete" button, and it could become public again at any time in the future. A database wipe is the only fair solution and the only way to avoid these edge cases.

Please implement this feature. In my opinion it is urgent and vital. While it's nice to have a history of conversations preserved unbroken, I feel this is a luxury compared to protecting users' privacy.

Bringing the subject back.

[(Anonymous)]

This post is very old but I feel that the discussion should be brought back. Six years ago I don't think people were aware of how communities were going to work now, and the abuse problems that were going to arise - for example doxxing is now sadly commonplace. Keeping conversations and specifically fandom discussions is important, but a person's safety and well-being should always come first. In 2010 very few people would have been in danger of anything for comments posted in 2005 about their private lives, or for opinions they do not have anymore. Livejournal's option to mass delete comments is bothersome for fandom history/archiving but vital for many others, and it's problematic that comments imported from lj to dreamwidth do not disappear when the livejournal account is purged.

I doubt anyone is following this discussion now, but if this somehow ends up in someone's notifications/etc I would love to hear your thoughts about it, even if it's to confirm the idea is forever rejected.