There a good reason to have a "Trash" forum?

[cmpe]

So coming from the vB background, I always setup a hidden mod-only trash forum to move rule breaking posts/threads to. However, while dealing with an unruly user today, I realized this probably isn't even needed since posts/threads can be undeleted.

So I was searching the community and found couple of addons for this like:
http://xenforo.com/community/resources/trash-can-forum.507/

So from the admin/mod perspective, is there a better reason to still have a trash forum instead of deleting/undeleting the posts?

Thanks!

 

[Jeremy]

I never have a trash forum. I see no need for them. I, however, only let myself as administrator hard delete anything.

 

[cmpe]

I never have a trash forum. I see no need for them. I, however, only let myself as administrator hard delete anything.

Good idea. Forgot to disable that permission from all the super mods.

Anyone that use a trash forum want to give their opinions?

 

[tajhay]

We have a trash forum. We call it 'the bog'(previously called retardoland, until a user complained about the use of the word retard) where all the offtopic, derailing, wtf type of comments go. Users are not able to post in that forum, and can only view the type of posts that the moderators move there. Its good as it gives the users an idea on what is tolerated and what isnt.

 

[ENF]

I'm very much a anti-delete kind of person, probably because I'm OCD about the order of record ID's in the database.

Anyway, anything that needs to be removed from public view is hidden away in a mod/admin accessible forum called "Moderated". Nobody but the full admins (2 people) can physically remove a post, thread, user etc. Even then, it's a discussed action before it's done. (Yes, I know, it's ridiculous. lol) My bin log directory? It's 69GB.

 

[DFI]

Some reason not to delete threads/posts and keep it in Thrash forum is

• Search the thrashed content easily.
• It preserves the thread/post count.
• Can be supervised by Super Moderator/admin what is being deleted.

 

[TLMD]

Rather than a trash forum I believe that sometimes a staff forum makes sense where you can discuss rule breaking etc. on a larger scale but still visible to mods only. But since XF supports both soft and hard deletion, and to answer your question, no, I don't think you need a trash forum.

 

[DFI]

That we can make by ourself. It's the core functionality. I have such forums for moderators, special members and administrators.

 

[Biker]

I've always had one. While Dantes Inferno isn't used that often, it does contain some rather interesting posts that have been moved there. Spam is deleted outright. Posts that break the rules end up in Dantes and can be moved back to the original thread if the user agrees to edits. If the user doesn't agree, the post languishes in purgatory forever.

 

[Martok]

I've got an archive forum for certain threads to be moved into. This is visible to full members of the community but is read-only. It's not used a lot but we thought it best to have it rather than delete the threads. I asked the community about this and it was their decision, which I thought was good. We don't have any staff forums because we're a small community and there's no real need for them, also because some of us came from another community where the staff forums were used for saying unpleasant things about members of the community behind their backs, so we didn't want to go there with our community.

 

[cmpe]

Just to clarify, my question was about having a trash forum rather than using the built in functionality of doing a "soft-delete" of a post so that it shows up as deleted for the mods and we can undelete it.

I also don't like the idea of permanently deleting anything because there's no "audit" trail but I was trying to find out if there were specific benefits of having a trash forum instead of just soft-deleting items.

Search the thrashed content easily.

I think this one point wins me over. Having a dedicated trash forum puts everything in one place. If you were to only soft-delete, I'm not sure if xenforo's search mechanism would still be able to find keywords in those deleted posts.

I do disable post count in the trash forum though just to re-emphasize that a post against the rule is indeed "gone".

Thanks for everyone's input!

 

[petertdavis]

I delete regular spam. If a regular member does a post that violates our rules, and the post needs to be removed, IMO it's best to remove it to a non-public forum. That way you have the post removed but you can refer to it in the future if you need. For example, you can do a search in the "trash forum" if you're having a problem with a member and it will show you if you have a pattern of abuse from that member and you will have on hand exactly what they've posted in the past that crossed the line and it will help you decide how to handle that member going forward. If you simply delete it without keeping a record then it's harder especially for new moderators to know how to handle people who have had problems before. Not all things are worthy of instantly banning a member, but in aggregate you might have to do a ban.

 

[Naz]

As a regular vBulletin user, when setting up a forum we'd create three forums: Reports, Infractions and Trash. All three were viewable by staff.

When things were reported or users were infracted, threads would be created in the respective forums. When dealt with, they'd be moved to the Trash. In addition, Trash also contained deleted threads to clear the clutter from the regular forums. It worked for us because the forums would be clearer to view for staff and everything not needed was in one forum kept from everywhere else. That way we had a log. It worked for us on some relatively medium sized boards.

On a large board I admin, we don't have a trash forum for whatever reason. Everything that needs to be deleted gets soft-deleted and left in the listings.

 

[Mayers]

I'm old school when I started running forums there wasn't an undelete option. I do use a "trash forum" still.

 

[Sheratan]

I'm old school when I started running forums there wasn't an undelete option. I do use a "trash forum" still.

Me too.

phpBB doesnt have any soft deleted. So I moved all trolling/rule breaking threads and posts to trash.

 

[Alien]

Yeah I have a "Wastelands" forum (with about 30,000 posts) hidden in my staff category. We need to refer to things from time to time (moreso for rule violation than spam).

Keeps things looking clean to admins/mods viewing the other forums (without deleted content cluttering their views).

 

[Naz]

Keeps things looking clean to admins/mods viewing the other forums (without deleted content cluttering their views).

Yeah I find it really does help for something like this.

 

[rellek]

Before the invention of soft delete, the Trash forum war very useful. I never actually deleted anything as this kills the ability to prove anything, so everything was moved to Trash. But that got obsolete with soft deletions.

 

[Arkshine]

In XF, and if I'm right, soft deleted posts/threads are not visible by normal users. For transparency reasons, I have a trash forum so it will avoid "where is my post/thread" question and it's kind of useful to have a "container" where you can search easily inside. This logic could be somehow fixed using an add-on which sent a PC to user whom has been moderated, but I feel like it's useful for all users to be able to search and see why a post/thread has been trashed.

 

[Carlos]

I have a Trash forum to keep track of what the member did in the past.

In XF, and if I'm right, soft deleted posts/threads are not visible by normal users. For transparency reasons, I have a trash forum so it will avoid "where is my post/thread" question and it's kind of useful to have a "container" where you can search easily inside. This logic could be somehow fixed using an add-on which sent a PC to user whom has been moderated, but I feel like it's useful for all users to be able to search and see why a post/thread has been trashed.

And Bolded.