Question Should I or Shouldn't I

[olorin]

Hi People,
I started doing some housekeeping on my UserCp by way of deleting threads that were started by me, and that were solved.
I deleted three of them and gave the reason for deleting as "Solved".
I then wondered if I should carry on and delete the rest, or is it better to leave them on here for other people to maybe gain some in-sight into problems solved.

How can I mark a thread as Solved?

I don't see an option in the "Thread Tools" drop down list.

 

[Banana]

I would say don't. Once it's deleted, nobody can see it, and for all we know, it may have had helped other who searched for similar problems.

As for "Sovled", I understand it's only available in General Forum and not the rest of forums. :/

 

[pbaldy]

I agree; much of the value of the site is the searchable archive of questions and answers. I wouldn't delete the resolved threads.

 

[Mike375]

Leave them. Only a day ago I went to a thread that I had stored as a favourite and it was gone. One of the posters had a simple way to hide the DOS CMD screen when a batch file was run. I tried it and I can't find on my computer where I tried it.

Quite often (very often) a thread will have a little piece of information that is gold and it might not even relate to the thread starter's question.

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

Frankly, I'm surprised the ability to delete threads isn't restricted to board admins/mods. Why would anyone need to do it?

 

[Mike375]

Frankly, I'm surprised the ability to delete threads isn't restricted to board admins/mods. Why would anyone need to do it?

I was suprised like you when the thread I went back to was gone and only a recent one so not a forum archiving system.

I am going to start saving them to disk although they would get big. Just saved this one and it was 420K. That saving it as *.mht

 

[Banana]

My understanding was that it was to provide a easy way for noobs who made mistakes or duplicates to delete without having to have mods/admins babysit everyone.

I'd venture to guess that vBulletin doesn't provide a easy way of preventing deletion if there's already replies to the thread and thus the problem here.

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

I'm also a little bit surprised that people want to delete resolved threads - not picking on the OP here, because this isn't the first time I've run across people doing it (or wanting to, on boards where it isn't possible).

 

[olorin]

Thanx so much for the logical reasons in all of your replies.
I agree totally with all of them.
It was only after I had deleted a couple, that I realised the value of solved threads.

It would be good to have a section where solved threads can be moved to, so as to make it easier for novices and experts alike to trawl through for resolved issues.

Thanx again for the replies

 

[wiklendt]

i would suggest leaving the solves and unsolved threads where they are. even the unsolved threads can be very helpful, like Mike375 said: it may contain gold without it ever having to do with the user's question (thus the thread is useful, but still unsolved).

 

[Rabbie]

IMHO threads should only be deleted if they have been double posted by mistake or posted in the wrong place. A solved thread can be very useful when you are looking for a solution - it gets boring seeming the same problem/solution posted several times.