Deleting topics

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When I first joined this community I was a little less mature. As everyone has I've made mistakes in my life. Some poorly worded topics- but mostly topics that are no longer relevant, are some of them. Should I ever apply to work for an organization like the FBI, this could be a problem because some of the posts' radical political leanings. There must be some way to remove them. I've heard the forum software is too "Old" to delete posts, but I doubt that. Not even forum administrators can delete posts? I find that very odd.

Anyway, I'd like to delete all of my posts.

Though it is possible, from what I understand it screws up the formatting and flow of the threads, and if people have quoted you it would require deleting their posts as well. Hope your screen name doesn't easily connect to your real ID...

In some posts my signature used to have my name in it. So, that's the entire reason this is a problem. Ignoring it and hoping it goes away, unfortunately for me, is not an option, especially with a future political career, and hopefully, wanting to start that career in the employ of the federal government.

I would hate for this to become a legal issue. Perhaps I can talk with Mr. Plank about this delicate matter.

If your name was in the signature you set in your profile, just remove it and wait for Google to reindex the threads.

It has been removed. It still exists in earlier pre-edit posts.

Are you saying you've hard coded - i.e. typed in a signature when you wrote earlier posts instead of using the proper signature facility? If so you are stuck with them as the are part of the posts.

If you did use the signature facility, rather than typing it as part of the post...

Did you actually edit the signature text? If you change your settings so that the signature doesn't attach, that only affects new posts. But if you actually edit the text of the signature, that affects ALL posts, no matter how old.

I did use the signature field, why wouldn't I?

Anyway that's not the issue. Some of my posts, have my name in the body of the message regardless, and I want them gone.

If you made those posts more than 9999 minutes ago it is too late the change the body of the posts now.

I don't know why. But it made sense to acknowledge the content of the reply before mine, rather than jumping in with an assumption. The point of that first line was, "if the post above doesn't apply, then maybe what I have to say that follows does apply".

At one messageboard I used to visit, while that board doesn't allow post editing at all, for the same reasons as here plus the idea that one should stand by their words, moderators will edit posts to remove personal information. I appreciate that respect for privacy. Too bad that's not the policy here. Better, of course, not to post the personal information in the first place, but this is the imperfect real world, and some of us post such stuff before we realize we shouldn't.

Unfortunately the real world doesn't value "Standing by your words" like some Ninety-Eight-Four-ish Big Brother policy. Neither do I. I'm sure some sort of legal loophole could be found if the information could not be removed some other way.

You seem to have misunderstood my point. That other board I mentioned will edit posts to remove personal information. It is that willingness to edit posts to remove personal information that I was referring to when I said "Too bad that's not the policy here". That is, too bad this board won't edit posts to remove personal information, like that other board does. The point is, that even with the no post editing policy there, if someone says, "Oops, I posted my real name and shouldn't have", the moderators will edit that post and remove the name.

That's good for them, if only this were there.

The mods should remove personal information if you ask them nicely, even though they don't remove whole posts. PM TallyMan and see what he says, you have nothing to lose by trying.

There's no reason why they shouldn't delete your posts. I know that they are able to delete posts...as posts have gone missing in the past.

I'll contact a mod and see what can be done then. Thanks all. And happy holidays.