Arantor

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Replacing the recycle bin
« on October 7th, 2011, 01:52 PM »
Something Nao and I are keen on doing is getting away from the current recycle bin. While it works, there are quite a few caveats to it, not least the fact that it wasn't even enabled by default. Though we did that, it's not elegant or nice, and it's something that would be better served by replacing it.

Now, the general approach that we're looking to adopt is actually to have the recycle bin folded into the normal view rather than this separate entity.

I'm posting this up here before any real implementation starts simply because it's quite high profile, as it were. This is more my take on how it should be done from a user perspective, the technical perspective is going to be pretty much the same whatever happens.


The first thing that occurs is how it should be shown on the page; I'm thinking that deleted replies would be shown one of two ways depending on the user and their preferences.

Normal users would just see a very short post, 'This post was deleted by its author / deleted by a moderator' (I think it should be quite clear which it was done by), and moderators/suitably privileged users would get that, plus a 'click here to see the full message' much as you do with users you're ignoring.

That way, even if a post is deleted, you're aware of it in the context of the thread, and it solves other problems such as if we ever implement threaded replies, it simplifies the logic about re-routing parents, not to mention leaving the conversation quite clearly structured and without so much disjoint attached to it.

The other matter is displayed deleted threads. I'm sensing we'd track whether a board had deleted threads or not, and have that as an option at the top of a board listing, whether to show deleted topics (assuming you're a moderator or similarly empowered user). The idea is that topics should be accessible but not immediately up in your face, at least not as visible as normal posts might be.


Does that make sense? Would it be worth providing mockups of how it might look?
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spoogs

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Re: Replacing the recycle bin
« Reply #1, on October 7th, 2011, 02:06 PM »
Yes it does make sense. I've always disliked the inline view of deleted threads in vb, if a thread is deleted it really doesnt matter where the thread was in the flow of things. Inline delete of posts makes absolute sense[1].
 1. though I'd be quite fine not seeing them at all
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Arantor

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Re: Replacing the recycle bin
« Reply #2, on October 7th, 2011, 02:07 PM »
Hmm, maybe 'never show inline deletions' could be a user preference, maybe.

spoogs

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Dragooon

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Re: Replacing the recycle bin
« Reply #4, on October 7th, 2011, 03:41 PM »
Inline deletion is always better IMO, it's generally simpler to handle than moving a post to recycle bin. TBH normal users should not be shown anything, and moderators should be shown that "this post" was deleted in a faded box with the option to view it and restore it. Deleted threads should be similar but in MessageIndex.
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Nao

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Re: Replacing the recycle bin
« Reply #5, on October 7th, 2011, 04:21 PM »
Also, we need to ensure admins can actually delete the posts forever -- for instance spam posts, etc. There's no point in bothering users with a topic bump if they can only see "This post was deleted by a moderator - reason: spam"...

Nightwish

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Re: Replacing the recycle bin
« Reply #6, on October 7th, 2011, 07:29 PM »
Quote from Dragooon on October 7th, 2011, 03:41 PM
Inline deletion is always better IMO, it's generally simpler to handle than moving a post to recycle bin. TBH normal users should not be shown anything, and moderators should be shown that "this post" was deleted in a faded box with the option to view it and restore it. Deleted threads should be similar but in MessageIndex.
Not always better. The soft-deletion is basically a nice feature, but if you have a forum where lots of posts and/or threads are deleted, seeing all these deleted items can quickly turn into a annoying feature (at least, if you are admin or moderator and have no choice other than seeing them).

These deleted posts in a topic view can become as annoying (and disrupting) as topic-embedded ads.

I was tempted to kill the recycle board feature and replace it with soft deletion in my fork, but after talking with a friend (who runs a fairly large forum on vB 3), I'm no longer so sure about it.
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spoogs

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Re: Replacing the recycle bin
« Reply #7, on October 7th, 2011, 07:35 PM »
Quote from Nightwish on October 7th, 2011, 07:29 PM
.....The soft-deletion is basically a nice feature, but if you have a forum where lots of posts and/or threads are deleted, seeing all these deleted items can quickly turn into a annoying feature (at least, if you are admin or moderator and have no choice other than seeing them).

These deleted posts in a topic view can become as annoying (and disrupting) as topic-embedded ads.
That's exactly how I feel about it.

Nao

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Re: Replacing the recycle bin
« Reply #8, on October 7th, 2011, 08:34 PM »
Well what stops us from adding a per user option for hiding deleted posts ;) things like that...

Arantor

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Re: Replacing the recycle bin
« Reply #9, on October 7th, 2011, 08:44 PM »
This is way I brought it out here, because I wanted to see how people would react and what experiences other people have on the subject.

I'm good with users prefs - provided that it's easy and intuitive to change.