Allow to delete a discussion #2948
Replies: 18 comments 30 replies
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Maybe we should be allowed to completely delete a discussion at least before someone else has posted an answer to it. |
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It would be perfect! |
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100% agree
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yes we should have an option to delete discussions directly. |
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@WrichikBasu re "has posted"; Or has read. I certainly do not want something I have spent reading go missing. |
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Similar to Issues, only repo admins and maintainers can delete an entire conversation on GitHub at this time. We can make this clearer in the docs.github.com/discussions content as we continue expanding on the documentation there. |
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Here's another use-case: User creates a discussion for a topic in the wrong repo. For example a user has a question about the React library. They click on the wrong browser tab or something and are on the Twitter Bootstrap repository page. They create a new discussion asking about their React questions. Immediately after creating the discussion the user realizes they made it on the wrong repository. But they cannot delete it. |
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I too find it a really weird choice, that the author aren't able to delete his own thread. Not even when there aren't any reactions or comments on it. Quite often there are questions, ideas or requests, where the topic author finds the solutions to the question or request themselves. Or even being posted in the wrong repo. I see no reason why the author shouldn't be able to delete his own thread. At least before there are no comments on it. It just hogs up discussions unecessarily. |
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I think because it's a discussion section in general, like the standard in all forum software, the discussions should be the sole property of the author, because of liabilities. With only allowing admins to delete discussions, if even available, they are liable for the discussion. And with the high probability of an abandoned repo, that liability then falls on Github. Managing a discussion, including deleting the entire thread through base discussion post should be left to the author, extended to admins for moderation. Discussions could run fowl and have no administrating presence, and you can't even close, or delete your own topic. |
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@Jakobud re "the point"; point is that someone may need to refer to what they have read. re "more difficult for others"; Nop. that's what archiving is for. which you can do using tags. re "every single type of forum"; Nop. not for HN. not for Gmail (and all emails). not for books/journals/newspapers. etc re "But they cannot delete it"; but they can reply <Problem Solved> / <Accidental Post> and archive it. |
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@tinwe re "there aren't any reactions"; yet if someone has spent as much as 380ms reading your thread, he could have started writing a reply. re "finds the solutions"; then the least you can do is to reply so. With or without the solution. re "even""posted""wrong"; ditto. re "no comments";
re "hogs""unecessarily"; neither unnecessary (re "point") nor hogs (re "archiving"). |
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Can we Delete Discussion! |
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Did my response here #2948 (comment) not answer your question? |
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I think once you mark it as "Answered", no need to delete. If you have a new discussion, you can always create one rather than editing the old one. People can click on the filter "Answered" and "Unanswered" to have a look at their need. Meanwhile this link is sufficient : https://docs.github.com/en/github/managing-your-work-on-github/deleting-an-issue |
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That is a useful suggestion. However I don't think it is sufficient for all cases. Answered questions are typically/hopefully very valuable because they have answers which will be helpful to others. In the case where the answer is probably not going to be a resource for others, allowing the OP to delete or hide the post is a beneficial filter, and it lessens the maintainers burden. (Yes, this assertion is debatable). There is also the issue of privacy/security - if some private/secure information is accidentally published, the ability to immediately hide from anyone but the maintainers is critical. Not sure it is a "human right", but getting close. |
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Clearly OP being able to delete discussions that they have realized are not beneficial to the community is a win. If not least to cut down on having to filter out useless duplicates or questions that they quickly realized were unrelated to the repo. Marking them as answered clearly doesn't solve this problem and leads folks who see them marked as Answered to wonder why and if they're missing something. |
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Nope. I should have the right to remove my content. The end. |
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I too find it a really weird choice, that the author aren't able to delete his own thread. Not even when there aren't any reactions or comments on it. Quite often there are questions, ideas or requests, where the topic author finds the solutions to the question or request themselves. Or even being posted in the wrong repo. I see no reason why the author shouldn't be able to delete his own thread. At least before there are no comments on it. It just hogs up discussions unecessarily. |
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Another usecase is releases apparently being able to create automatically create duplicate discussions for a release: |
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I'll bump it up. I had an incident: I got a message from Github |
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This is clearly a reasonable feature and one that should be included in the discussion feature here. If there are no replies, allow the OP to delete the discussion. Often folks will post questions and then realize one of many reasons the discussion doesn't benefit the community.
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Keyword here being "clearly". The fact you can't delete your own discussions is absurd full stop, esp. those that haven't been answered. |
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You should OBVIOUSLY be able to delete your own unanswered discussions. What is the nonsensical reason for this? I'm finding it difficult to believe people are having to argue for a deletion feature. All this will encourage is misuse. For eg, I can't delete, but I can edit to remove all content. Well done GH. |
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This would be great, I just accidentally created two posts and found this while trying to find how to delete one of them |
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Thanks for your feedback. I've brought this to the team for discussion. |
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(This comment is mostly a summary of this discussion) Adding up some of the existing suggestions, the following seem like reasonable
These should help prevent old discussions with useful information being deleted It seems like it could cover the following in most cases:
Lastly, note that the following actions are already possible:
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Implementation-wise, if the discussion cannot be deleted, I'd suggest greying
Or:
With possibly a
These would make it clear to the user why a discussion cannot be deleted. |
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Great summary. Can we get a reply from a team member perhaps? |
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Unfortunately, this isn't something that is going to be changed at this point. |
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Because of this https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/2948#discussioncomment-205422 |
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Becca just stated that it wasn't their top priority two years ago and asked what other reasons except duplicate, would warrant a need for deletion. And she got plenty of replies, so I frankly don't see a reason for why it wouldn't be developed eventually. |
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I'm from the team. I can't go into more details without exposing some internal things that I cannot do, but it will not be prioritized or worked on. Unfortunately, that's as specific as I can be and I understand that this is frustrating, but my hands are tied. |
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What's weird to me, is how Github doesn't understand this is a legal liability concern. Leaving it to repo admins makes them liable for content of discussions. I don't know a single discussion software (forums) that doesn't ship with a terms of use that doesn't immediately, and explicitly relinquish any ownership or holdings of users posts, and leave it explicitly with the author. There isn't even any legal terms of use regarding the discussion sections of repos, just a "guide" which isn't proper documentation. This isn't good for project owners. |
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I am also pretty sure than the GDPR is not well respected due to the right for individuals to have personal data erased. Not allowing someone to delete it's own content does not seems right. What's your opinion @LindseyB? |
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That is certainly a valid argument as well. If we ignore the whole unecessary spam argument for when one obviously makes a post or double post by misstake, and need to delete it even before anyone has read, never the less replied, to the comment, the whole GDPR even makes it an important legal matter, to be able to delete your own comments from public view. |
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I'm sure it won't be necessary to involve an extra layer of lawyers, GitHub is mature enough to understand that GDPR fines aren't something that can be passed up easily. Isn't that right @LindseyB?👀 |
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@LaboCNIL any possiblity for the CNIL to take a look of this? |
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At this point it will have to take a class-action lawsuit from us users against GitHub to provide transparency in regards to discussions with proper terms of use that exposes why they will not let us have standard control of our content, or force them to relinquish control of our content. And I am straight serious. This isn't something to camp on make vague sweeping verdicts on and is a serious issue. According to CCPA, VCDPA, CRPA, GRPR, the only exception to these rules is if it makes it impossible to do their research on the data. So what research is being carried out on our data. AI troubleshooting bot GitHub hopes to release? What excuse is there. It seems to actually have to be transparent and not "we can't say" like Lindsay suggests. There is one valid exception they can use here from my understanding of these laws, and it is being executed with gross negligence. To me it seems clear this isn't some sort of research firm where these exceptions would even apply. It's not like exposure could reach people to make everyone opt out immediately rendering the Research unable to proceed. |
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We should at least be able to delete discussions that haven't had any replies yet. That would allow users who have posted in the wrong repo etc. to correct their mistake. I can't see any logical reason to prevent that. |
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Hear! Hear! |
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I agree, they could be notified as errors and if any admin agrees, delete them. |
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I've just started a discussion in phpstan/phpstan repository before realizing it was a duplicate… Not being proud of that (I've created the fifth discussion of the repository and its a duplicate 👏), I wanted to delete the discussion, but it doesn't seem possible.
So I've written an apology and marked the discussion as Answered, however now I'm one of the :airquote: most helpful :airquote: people of the repository. 😅
I understand you might not want to indefinitely allow deletion of discussions, but maybe we could be able to delete a discussion within the hour/day following its creation?
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