Multi-entry deletion/edit feature

[starboard]

Title:
Multi-entry deletion/edit feature

Area:
entries

Summary:
I think we need a tool for editing, deleting, or changing the status of entries in batches instead of individually.

Description:
I would like a way to mass-delete my previous journal entries. By month, by year, or by total.

And better than that, I'd like to see some way to select more than one entry (such as a check box or highlighting system) and perform some function on those entries, such as delete, privatize, friend-lock, etc. Much the same way you can select multiple comments on an entry page and hide or delete them.

Right now I have to manually view each entry, select "edit entry" button, and then select the change or private feature, and then click yes, then click to the next entry. I'd much rather manage my older entries in batches. When your clients like myself have 4 or 5 years worth of entries, it's a huge pain in the ass to do each page individually.

Poll #1015 Multi-entry deletion/edit feature

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 56

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
30 (53.6%)

Should be implemented with changes.
4 (7.1%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
16 (28.6%)

(I have no opinion)
4 (7.1%)

(Other: please comment)
2 (3.6%)

Comments

[denise]

* This would have to (if implemented) be a paid feature, because doing anything on a bunch of entries at once is very, very expensive.

* I am opposed to this, because of how often accounts get broken into because someone's careless with their password or their previous email addresses. Now, someone who breaks into an account has to delete each entry by hand, which gives the owner a greater chance of noticing, logging in, and changing his/her password before the whole account is empty.

[zarhooie]

This.

[lone_lilly]

Not the OP, but your comment makes complete sense. Never thought of it that way before.

What about the option to edit mass entries to a certain filter? Right now it can only be done to public, access-only, or private. It would be kind of cool to be able to set a certain time span of posts to a certain access group, especially with the ability to import other journals.

Forgive me if this has an obvious security flaw I've somehow missed. ;)

[cesy]

Adjusting the mass privacy tool to allow custom groups as well as public, access-only or private would be useful. Do you want to make a new suggestion with that? I imagine it would be more straightforward than some of the other ideas mentioned here.

[tejas]

This is what I get for voting without reading the comments first. I was going to say we should add selecting entries by tag for mass edit/delete, but you're quite right. This is far too risky.

[triadruid]

You can always re-edit your poll entry. :) Just click on the poll number...

[tejas]

I did. :-) At least I think I did. I'll check.

[cesy]

Can deleted entries be restored by the Abuse team or anything like that?

[denise]

Nope. Deleted means deleted.

Hackers deleting all your entries

[cesy]

Is it worth me making a separate suggestion to change that? If deleted entries got cached for a while (in a "Recycle Bin" visible only to the Abuse team, no-one else), then the hacking thing wouldn't be as much of an issue - if a hacker did delete all your entries, Abuse could then restore them. I would think that would be a useful feature anyway, and it would also mean that suggestions like this would be slightly safer.

Re: Hackers deleting all your entries

[denise]

That's been proposed from time to time, and it's something I wouldn't mind doing; why not suggest it so we could get some pros and cons?

(I, and many others around here, dislike the use of the word 'hacker' for this -- it's a noble word that's been co-opted to mean bad things. *G*)

[zvi]

Would allowing deletion without viewing the entry be possible, perhaps as an option from the view by subjects page? That would still make it a manual-ish operation for a hacker, but introduce more convenience for the person deleting entries for whatever reason.

[denise]

Just about anything is possible. :) And I can see real advantages to that kind of thing (the really tedious part of mass deletion is loading each page, yeah).

Wanna go suggest it?

OP

[starboard]

I had assumed this would be without viewing, or at least with only viewing the subject line in a list format.

Re: OP

[zvi]

What I'm proposing is still single entry at a time deletion, not mass deletion.

[azurelunatic]

This.

[zarhooie]

I would like to point out that there is already a tool available to paid users to edit the privacy settings on all previous journal entries en masse. As Denise mentioned above, it's expensive to edit all entries at once which is why it's a paid only feature. You can find more information on this at FAQ 112.

[starboard]

I'm aware of that, but thank you for the link. =)

[instantramen]

I was going to vote in favor of this, but reading the comments reminded me of copperbadge and one of the shoebox_project maintainers and other people getting hacked and losing their entire journals. While I don't anticipate that happening over here, I still think it's better if multi-entry deletion is scrapped.

[cesy]

Why don't you anticipate that happening over here? I would have thought the risk is just the same as it is on LJ.

[instantramen]

I guess I should say instead that I don't anticipate it happening for a while--the risk is probably about the same regarding email security, but we're a far smaller target than LJ and therefore less interesting. If I remember correctly (which I probably don't because I didn't follow the entire situation) all or most of the journals that were hacked ran communities with large numbers of watchers and/or had thousands of watchers themselves. Barring individuals with vendettas or skyrocketing popularity, I expect it to take a while for Dreamwidth to become much of a target for anything but spambots.

[ninetydegrees]

As a similar tool already exists, but as a third party software, the security issue is kind of a moot point to me.
+1 if it also allows me to find and delete my comments en masse.

[7rin]

Just because it can be done with 3rd party software, doesn't mean that DW should have it on here too. JMO, of course. :)

[ninetydegrees]

No it doesn't but the argument loses some of its value to me. Now if you explain why having it here on DW would make it even easier to be used by 'pirates' or why it's a bad idea for other reasons, that's another story.
And I think DW could do it better and in a more secure way.

[cesy]

It takes a certain amount of familiarity with LJ/DW to know that the quickest way to delete all your entries is to download LJ-sec and use that to do it. Adding an easy "delete all" link to the website would be much more easy to find for someone who had accessed a compromised account (either by an email address or by finding out the password) but who was unfamiliar with the site. So at the moment, it gives a small amount of security by obscurity, depending on what type of malicious attack you're imagining. However, that's not a good long-term solution.

I've just submitted a suggestion to add the ability to restore deleted entries, which would mean that compromised accounts having their entries deleted wouldn't be such a worry, and then a suggestion like this would be much safer. That way we're plugging the actual security issue (that a compromised account with all the entries deleted can't be restored) rather than covering it up by making it slightly harder for users to delete entries, which is something you could have legitimate reasons to do as well.

[ninetydegrees]

^_^ I'm looking forward to reading your suggestion.

[triadruid]

I can't imagine that somebody savvy enough to hack a user account, even via social engineering methods, is going to be stopped by the 'obscurity' of LJ-Sec.

I much prefer your suggestion of making deleted entries recoverable for a time, at least before we do anything on this front.