allow undeletion of posts for a short time after deletion
Title
allow undeletion of posts for a short time after deletion
Short, concise description of the idea
after a post is deleted, there should be a period of time (say, 30 days) during which the post can be undeleted. after that time, the post should be purged, so that it can never be undeleted.
Full description of the idea
sometimes, it would be nice to be able to undelete entries; perhaps you deleted the post accidentally, or had a fit of ZOMG DRAMA and got over it, and now you want the post back. or maybe your account was compromised, and someone deleted all your posts, and you want to get them back.
on the other hand, sometimes people want to delete a post permanently, and don't like the idea of the post being stored on LJ forever, always at risk of being undeleted.
i propose a compromise.
when a post is deleted, it can't be viewed, it doesn't appear in journals, and so on, just as it is now. however, the journal owner or community maintainer would be able to access a 'trash can' where deleted posts would be stored. it would be possible to select posts and click 'undelete', at which point the post would magically spring back into existence, as if it had never been deleted.
to be effective against posts in compromised accounts being deleted, this would need to be non-optional. if it was optional, it would still be useful, but not quite as much. or, it could be optional, but it would take 30 days (or whatever) to take effect after being turned on, unless it was selected at account creation time.
An ordered list of benefits
- being able to recover accidentally or maliciously deleted entries
- creating lots of drama when a community maintainer deletes a post and someone else undeletes it
- need to find a compromise between security (not allowing permanent deletion easily) and flexibly (allowing permanent deletion when required)
- when deleting a post, it should be made clear to the user that the post can be undeleted