option to delete all comments and entries in other communities and journals when journal is deleted.

[azurelunatic]

(At the request of the original submitter, this request has been re-posted, with the existing discussion preserved.)

Title
option to delete all comments and entries in other communities and journals when journal is deleted.

Short, concise description of the idea
new feature to delete all my comments

Full description of the ideaI need to delete

Comments

[trbleclef]

The irony of this being reposted, of course, is that now no one can erase their comments from the original

:)

[azurelunatic]

Naturally. Though if someone does have a problem with their name being up in lights there, I'd be happy to replace their identity with exampleusername or some such thing for the purposes of this discussion.

[trbleclef]

hehe

[aveleh]

But six months from now, when I decide I want to delete my account and "have all my comments deleted as well", the comment I made above will continue to display as is. It wouldn't get deleted with the rest of them.

Not only that, but it breaks the current system. My primary reason for getting a paid account has always been so that I could get my own comments emailed to myself so I could archive them. I have no plans to use them this way, but if I did ever decide that I wanted to delete most of my comments, I have most of the URLS. Which means that now, unless I read each and every comment before I deleted it, I'd never know that I was supposed to come here and make a request.

Now, I'm not actually complaining, but I think it's easy to show not only why I think the user's suggestion isn't necessarily helpful, but also why his realizing after the conversation had already gone on for some time and locking the post ends up forcing the rest of us to be unable to do exactly what he "needs" for himself.

[atlantel]

No, I don't think it's a good idea, because the comments you made were shared, they sort of belong to the owner of the other journal or the entry that wasn't yours.

[cesy]

But you can still delete your own comments there already, so this doesn't change that behaviour.

[justhuman]

While I am not necessarily in favor of this proposal as is, I think that the original discussion did not hit completely on the original poster's concern.

They are saying that someone has already matched a user name to a RL person. This lets the "agitator" for lack of a better word take advantage of a search engine or several other sites that specifically search for an lj username. Of course, even deleting all comments is not a solution to this. Using the offsite tools that search blog entries, I've found my name mentioned in the posts of other users, and while it is in a sense hearsay, those posts can link the agitator with the type of discussion the user has been participating in

[kateshort]

Instead of labeling the posts of the deleted journal as username, they could all be generically presented as "Deleted User" in the comments.

This does sound like a decent possibility. Or, when a deleted journal is deleted, the comments get the strikethrough. When it's purged, they get the deleted user username.

[coitustrek]

This is a good compromise, for the most part.

The problem is when there's identifying content in the comment/post itself. Like photos, names, etc.

[kateshort]

They provide a tool to delete comments already and have therefore fulfilled their end of the bargain by allowing a user to delete any content they post.

Well, sort of. They have a tool that easily allows users to see the most recent N comments that they've posted, but not anything beyond that. And while search engines can find some things, they can't find material that has always been private-- such as comments posted in response to an entry in a locked community journal.

[bride]

Still no. People can learn to manage their relationships and be responsible about what they say in public.

[ursamajor]

+1. Absolutely. You're never too young to learn that lesson.

[turlough]

+1

[coitustrek]

This is an important feature that really needs to be implemented at least on some level.

With Flickr, when one quits a group, they're asked if they also want to delete all their posts from the group as well. It's a nice way to cut oneself off from a group of people efficiently and painlessly.

An important Catch-22 about deleting community posts on LJ:
Currently, if a person quits a moderated community that isn't being maintained, it is impossible to re-join the community and delete one's posts.

Usually, when someone quits LJ, it's due to embarrassing or dangerous crossover between their journal and reality in the form of stalking, harassment, getting fired, blackmail, legal troubles and so forth. Deleting all traces of one's journal on a moment's notice is vital.

[azurelunatic]

There are always search engines to consider, too, if your journal is indexed, or if you've commented in a journal that's indexed.

[cesy]

Of course, this wouldn't delete all traces, because there will still be caches on search engines and places like the Wayback Machine.