Renaming an existing feature in phpBB 3.1.4

[Ancient Viking]

About 1-2 weeks ago I installed my first phpBB 3.1.x forum and notice one thing that could confuse some people. What I'm talking about is of course the post soft delete feature.

Why do I think that feature might be confusing is that the content of the post is hidden for members (if permission allows you to read a soft deleted post) in threads, because the content has been hidden from everyone and you need to click on the show post content button to view the actual post.

Which is similar to the hide a post feature that exist in IPS. If a post is hidden in a thread in IPS you can still read its content if you have the permission to do so without clicking any button to view the content, but a hidden post in a thread or a hidden thread are still hidden for regular members in IPS.

So I suggest that the post soft delete feature is renamed to "Hide post content" in the next stable release if feasible of course and I think that's less confusing.

[MattF]

It's not a post hiding feature. It is a soft delete feature.

Soft delete means just that - it has been deleted, but is still recoverable, which is why Admins and Global Mods (if allowed) can still view it, so they can undelete it if they want. As opposed to hard delete which is unrecoverable.

It's actually quite clear.

[JoshyPHP]

I think that hide/delete is more meaningful to the users and less confusing than making a distinction between soft delete and hard delete.

[DavidIQ]

Soft delete is not new to 3.1. It's actually much older than that, several years now as a matter of fact. The only ones that see soft deleted posts are admins and moderators anyways. If they don't understand what soft delete is then I don't think renaming it is going to really help a whole lot. Making it more descriptive for the few that won't read up on what it is before using it doesn't sound like a feasible thing to do.

[Ancient Viking]

I think that hide/delete is more meaningful to the users and less confusing than making a distinction between soft delete and hard delete.

That's exactly why I brought it up in the first place, because it can confuse people who doesn't have the knowledge or experience to know what it is.

[leschek]

I think that hide/delete is more meaningful to the users and less confusing than making a distinction between soft delete and hard delete.

It would be +1 for me, if user who hide the post would be able to unhide it, so I guess delete is better description for what it does.

On other hand I would prefer if it's working in way, that admin sets posts to be soft deleted, so user just delete post and doesn't know it is recoverable.

[DavidIQ]

Again normal users don't see these posts at all nor do they know they exist. Only admins and moderators do. A user that soft deleted their post will be unable to recover it without admin or moderator intervention. I don't even think a user can see their own post if they soft deleted it themselves either.

[MattF]

It would be +1 for me, if user who hide the post would be able to unhide it, so I guess delete is better description for what it does.

Again, this isn't hiding. There is no such feature as post hiding or unhiding in phpBB (except in the case of foes).

It's soft deletion (recoverable) vs. hard deletion (permanent).

The terminology is perfectly fine, and industry standard lingo.

To use terminology like hide/unhide is to totally misrepresent what is being done with this functionality.

[leschek]

It would be +1 for me, if user who hide the post would be able to unhide it, so I guess delete is better description for what it does.

Again, this isn't hiding! There is no such feature as post hiding or unhiding in phpBB (except in the case of foes).

OK, I agree with you. That's why I wrote "It would be +1 for me, if..."

On other hand I would prefer if it's working in way, that admin sets posts to be soft deleted, so user just delete post and doesn't know it is recoverable.

I figured out that I can disable hard delete permission, so user doesn't have option to choose how he/she wants to delete the post.

[MattF]

OK, I agree with you. That's why I wrote "It would be +1 for me, if..."

Sorry, I only read as far as "+1 for me" before I made my reply.

Mainly I'm just trying to say that the OP didn't seem to understand a new feature in 3.1. And suggesting it be changed into something it's not is just not worth discussing.

Instead, we have documentation for these things:
https://www.phpbb.com/support/docs/en/3 ... ls_delete/
https://www.phpbb.com/support/docs/en/3 ... s_restore/

And as DavidIQ mentioned, this is for Admins and Mods... not regular users. Admins and Mods are expected to understand how the forum software works, and if not...see documentation linked to above