Should members be prevented from deleting a diary after a certain number of number of comments have been posted to it?
This has been an issue with several diaries in the recent and not-so-recent past. DaveOinSF raised the question in a comment on Larisa's "Good-bye Cruel World" diary on Friday. I wish I could point you to his comment -- but of course after the diary attracted 150 or so comments, Larisa she decided she didn`t like the tenor of the discussion, and deleted it.
The point Dave made--and that I agree with--is that after a certain number of comments, a diary becomes the "property" of the community. Other members have taken the time to comment, and perhaps initiated conversations among themselves. The diarist shouldn't have the unilateral power to send their work, and comments and discussions that they found valuable, down the memory hole.
I don't raise this to criticize Larisa or any other member, and I hope others won't take that route as well. I see this as a question about how the system is set up that the community ought to discuss.
I'd support a technical fix that didn't allow the diarist to delete his/her diary after 30 comments had accrued. (Knowing nothing about the underlying software, I'll say that I think this would be a relatively easy technical tweak--but someone correct me if I'm wrong.) That would still allow diarists to pull repeat diaries; it would also allow someone who posted a GBCW or "poor misunderstood me" diary to think better of it and delete it before that number of comments accrued. If you support the concept but not the 30 comment threshold, please use the comments to say so.
Two other corollaries to this tweak:
- After the 30 comments, the diarist might also have to be prohibited from editing the content of the diary -- by deleting the original text, for example, and replacing it with "FUCK YOU" written 300 times over. The diarist would, however, be allowed to add updates.
- As currently, administrators would have the power to delete a diary, and someone feeling they have a strong case to delete a diary after 30 comments could contact them.
So--whaddaya think?