If an "time of edit " would have been in place much of the Black powder subforums would have been spared the rant of a disgruntled user.

Weve had some other posters delete allot of their posts too. It makes a mess

-Jake

I could see giving a person an hour or 2. Maybe even overnight if they decide to self-moderate a problem post. At some point though, it would seem to detract from the forum and lead to a member deciding years later to self-delete all of their posts which could cause havoc for anybody reading a topic and could injure the usefulness of HNI's SEO if word gets around that our topics are often missing important posts. In the above cited incident, the member started a lot of topics in the BP forum and also posted a lot of useful and technical info as well as field experiences that would be a draw to our site. Losing that info leaves gaps in topics and can be frustrating for a reader who is researching something and sees other members refer to a certain member's posts that have been self-deleted. I know this is a bit of a down-the-road view but, it's also something that could affect HNI's bottom line.

And it certainly did. The email I got from this user said he was also deleting his photos.
So it really is a mute point saving any of the topics if the photos are gone.
The forum with the number of Deleted topics that this user edited long after the fact made this forum pure garbage.

So I SOFT DELETED, as that is as all we can do to the many fine topics this guy created. And he was permanently banned for life.
I took the posts down from the beginning as he was the topic starter.
If any MOD or Admin would care to go back to the Traditional sub forum, open a few topics you would will understand.
NOTE:
General users can not see what was taken down.

Certainly was a very low blow.

There is one small consolation to the whole mess. IF he did deleted his photo album he ruined threads he posted on numerous other forums too. Not just his own forum but probably over half a dozen or more forums. That seems pretty extreme even for him. I can tell you for certain right now his photobucket album is still active. Pics from 2012 are still there. Its one of the ways he advertises links to his forum. Which was one of the reasons he posts on other forums. Many of his pics list his forum link. Many of those forums are slow also but i didnt see him do there what he did here. Its pretty obvious there was some other motivation other than HNI is just slow.

Who thinks the edit window should be smaller -- 24 hours?

I would think somewhere between 24-48 or even 72 hours would give anybody more than enough time to self-edit a problem post yet still preserve the integrity of the forums. From what I've observed, the was no apparent time limit and a member could delete their posts going back for several years or even a decade. I don't think anybody would miss all of the "me too" posts but like JW said, this particular member started and then posted a lot of technical info that was pretty much functioning as a resource for a lot of the BP guys. Losing stuff like that does create a gap and a problem. At least IMHO it does.

This is a legal question.
I feel once you have posted information on a public domain such as HNI, then HNI now owns said information.
Being told that other articles written by this user are still there on other web sites, I'd like nothing more than go back to a Backup and restore all this user deleted.
He can't come back to wreak havoc again, he is banned. Then if he wants to take all his pictures down so be it, let him screw up everything everywhere. But force this person to do so.
I'm sure he is disgruntled as I gave him 6 months off. That won't be missed.
and I assure you he is reading this.

So I request using a back up to restore.

as far as edit 72 hrs.

JW

3 days is fair. I would even be open to a bit longer.