I've only ever deleted one comment I've made. I was having a bad day, I was being overly pissy and inflammatory, and the comment didn't add anything to the conversation. If I had been the mod of that community, I would have deleted it and possibly banned myself. Since they didn't, I did. Once I came to my senses.

For the most part, though, I'm happy to leave my stupidity up for the future to see.

I regularly notice how some people simply delete their post because they don't like the way people are answering to it. It's fine they don't like those answers, it's not fair they are given the power to mute them.

I find that behavior annoying. Not because someone deletes their post. I mean, they're free to do whatever they want, but because by doing so they also render the entire discussion unavailable.

Like if all the other participants were submitted to their whims.

Imho, a solution could be to let people delete their post but not the technical-something-whatever that made their post accessible to read and to answer. And so, no matter how shy or regretful the OP could ever be, people that have answered would not be dependent on their willingness to let them speak. And even if the OP was deleted other people would still be able to read the comments and maybe keep on discussing without te OP being involved.

Cuz I said some stupid shit and wanted it gone before anyone noticed.

Unfortunately deletes don't always federate so it doesn't help

I generally only delete posts when I double post on accident. I'm happy to leave my stupidity on display because fuck it.

I wish I could delete what I say in real life too tbh

I've deleted a few, usually if I accidentally doxx someone or literally post the wrong place (like I intended to reply to one person but somehow the message was posted as a response to another)

 WHAT DO YOU MEAN, "YOU PEOPLE?"

I generally don't, even when I am dead wrong - it was my opinion and I was an idiot, no need to hide away from my past mistakes.

But I do delete my posts when I, for example, completely misunderstand what the OP is talking about, so I'm not adding anything to the conversation.

Usually it's just that upon reflection, I didn't look as hot as I thought i did.

1. I was wrong

2. Connect went haywire and posted to a completely different thread than the one I actually posted in.

3. DELETED

I'll try and answer seriously, with some non-exclusive options, in no particular order:

• Feeling ashamed, mostly because they're realizing they're either wrong or sounding stupid.
• Not wanting controversial stuff related to them to be "saved" for others to find and use for scrutiny.
• Honest mistakes (wrong community, thread, etc.)
• The post becomes a cesspool in the comments.
• Other personal reasons (feeling threatened, wanting a clean inbox, question got answered and they don't care about historic purposes, etc.)

These are just my guesses though, and I try and not delete anything personally. I'm aware that anything I put on the internet will be immortalized, and that the healthiest thing I can do is own both my mistakes and my opinions, even if I'm convinced of my stupidity or ignorance at a later time. I'm only a human after all, and doomed to talk before I think. Best I can do is to learn as much as possible from it, and hope that others can also learn from my actions.

created by deleter

deleted by creator

Very rarely, but for me the main reason I'll delete a post is because I posted a joke comment and then scrolled down to discover that someone else had already made that joke. Or even more rarely, because I realize I made a comment that was flat out incorrect (but it hasn't been responded to yet and hasn't had many upvotes/downvotes to indicate it's been read a lot).

Otherwise, I leave all my comments up. I want AI to align with my values so I am glad they're in the training sets.

Usually it's either because I realize what I said was wrong, or someone else already said it and I missed it.

I've deleted posts because while I was busy writing up a summary, someone else posted the same news. I'd rather one post get seen than have two posts splitting votes and possibly getting lost. I don't care who gets 'credit' for posting as long the news is visible. If the faster poster used a different link, I might comment something like, 'more details here' if indeed there are more details worth noting.

ill delete mine if:

1. it has any form of information that could potentially be used to personally identify me when I realize retroactively

2. i get embarrassed when I try to contribute to a community and get down voted to oblivion

Because people treat their profile like an extension of their identity, and if they retrospectively decide that a post doesn't paint them in the right light, they just delete it.

why?

that's why

I do it when I leave. It's interesting for me to do it on discord servers and notice how the conversation still flows smoothly like i was never a part of it in the first place.

I tend not to, but only because I don't post a lot.

But I'll echo some of the answers here and say that if I would delete my post it'd be because:

• it was a duplicate
• it was posted on the wrong community
• it was not the "right kind of post" for the community
• it offers nothing of value

And fears that my post will be one of those listed above keeps me from posting.

As for comments, I also tend not to delete, but might if:

• it was a duplicate
• it was posted on the wrong thread
• it was not the "right kind of comment" for the post
• it offers nothing of value (but I tend to let this be anyways)

And again, fears that my comment will be one of those listed keeps me from commenting.

I don'

Because some of y’all are assholes

Some bot accounts delete routinely so their behavior cannot be studied as easily.

knowledge can be posted freely but NOT SHARED

any time someone on here corrects your grammar or usage, just remember they absolutely didn't get picked for peer review for anything to Nature

Shame induced by illiteracy

Very rarely anymore. Mostly only if I type it out and post before I realize it was stupid or completely wrong or if I mistook something, especially if it was obvious.

I deleted one once because I complained about someone by name, hoping someone else would have experience with them and could offer better advice.

I think it would have been relatively easy for them to find that post, which I didn't want to risk given that they could cause me harm by denying their services. It wouldn't have been hard to work out who I was given the context I provided.

I've always read deleted by creator as

God vaporized them for their terrible comment.

Anxiety

Lol

The "because comments suck" reasoning is something I've never considered. It's surprising to me that people feel that level of investment or ownership over forum posts.

I don't really post, so I don't think I've ever deleted a post. As for comments, I think I've only deleted duplicates.

Cowardice and lack of accountability (even in a pseudonymous forum, which is just ridiculous, lol), usually. The polite and mature thing to do is to post something afterwards like "my bad, I misunderstood/was having a bad day/can be very silly at times/etc.". On the other hand, I'm using Redact on Reddit to change everything into nonsense because fuck Reddit. 🤷

Shame, naturally