Deleted posts

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

[]

[John Upham]

Was it John Stonehouse?

[Graham Borrowdale]

Earlier today I was looking at some old threads on this forum and noticed that one user has recently (within the last month or so) edited the vast majority of his historical posts, removing the content entirely. As far as I can tell (some of the deleted posts had subsequently been quoted by other members) the posts were completely non-controversial and some of them were more than four years old, in threads which have long been dormant. It seemed like a really odd thing to do and I wondered if anyone can offer a possible explanation? I feel like someone has come into my home and torn random pages out of some of my favourite books!

The other side of the coin is that they no longer want to see comments that they made years ago visible for all to see. I prefer to see posts to online forums more as conversations, which you might have down the pub or in the chess club, rather than as contributions to literature or publicly accessible research (recognising libel laws), but I guess it depends which subject areas you are most interested in. As you say, there was nothing apparently controversial, but maybe they don’t want their musings to be seen by, for example, a potential employer - finding that a potential recruit frequents a chess forum when they want a dynamic go-getter could cost someone a job. Maybe they want to disassociate themself from the chess world. I agree though, it would mess with the flow of the original conversation.

[Joey Stewart]

The other side of the coin is that they no longer want to see comments that they made years ago visible for all to see. I prefer to see posts to online forums more as conversations, which you might have down the pub or in the chess club, rather than as contributions to literature or publicly accessible research (recognising libel laws), but I guess it depends which subject areas you are most interested in. As you say, there was nothing apparently controversial, but maybe they don’t want their musings to be seen by, for example, a potential employer - finding that a potential recruit frequents a chess forum when they want a dynamic go-getter could cost someone a job. Maybe they want to disassociate themself from the chess world. I agree though, it would mess with the flow of the original conversation.

I've never really understood that mentality of being worried employers will spy on your internet posting history - any manager who does that kind of thing will undoubtedly be stupid, a complete control freak and an absolute nightmare to work for so in a way you are doing yourself a favour by weeding yourself out of their selection process because no amount of money will be worth that job

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I've never really understood that mentality of being worried employers will spy on your internet posting history - any manager who does that kind of thing will undoubtedly be stupid, a complete control freak and an absolute nightmare to work for so in a way you are doing yourself a favour by weeding yourself out of their selection process because no amount of money will be worth that job"

Meanwhile the manager gets promoted.

[John Townsend]

I was naturally curious to know what the posts are that Jon reported as having been deleted. If he doesn't want to name the user concerned - which may be understandable - can anyone suggest a method by which the deletion of posts in the Chess History section can be found by a search? If so, we could perhaps discover for ourselves what has been removed.

[Roger Lancaster]

I've never really understood that mentality of being worried employers will spy on your internet posting history - any manager who does that kind of thing will undoubtedly be stupid, a complete control freak and an absolute nightmare to work for so in a way you are doing yourself a favour by weeding yourself out of their selection process because no amount of money will be worth that job

It evidently will come as a total surprise to Joey to learn that some employers are interested to unearth any racist, sexist or otherwise objectionable traits in prospective employees before offering them a job.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Jon has now deleted his own opening post (which is quoted later by others anyway). Is everything OK?

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Jon has now deleted his own opening post. Is everything OK?

Yes, sorry about that - it was meant as a joke.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Oh. There are users who have exercised a Right to Vanish (Right to be Forgotten) and closed their account and asked the site owner (Carl Hibbard) to blank their posts. That does happen.

[John Townsend]

I may have misinterpreted Jon's words "historical posts", which I hastily took to mean posts about chess history, but perhaps it meant simply posts in the past.

[NickFaulks]

because no amount of money will be worth that job

The attitude of someone who is either of independent means or content to live on benefits.

[NickFaulks]

I feel like someone has come into my home and torn random pages out of some of my favourite books!

You do occasionally see highly offensive posts from a very small group of "usual suspects" which are likely to be deleted when the culprit thinks better of it, or sobers up, or Carl notices. I keep a selection in a scrapbook.

[John Townsend]

"Jon has now deleted his own opening post (which is quoted later by others anyway). Is everything OK?"

Any resemblance of this thread to the circular movements of the Oozlum bird is more than just illusory.

[NickFaulks]

Jon has now deleted his own opening post. Is everything OK?

Yes, sorry about that - it was meant as a joke.

I thought it was funny.