On these forums, it's possible for someone to create a thread and then delete it, even if that thread has replies. Therefore, that person has the ability to delete other people's posts.

I think this should be changed. Quite a few times lately I've been looking for a thread I recently posted it, and it's simply gone! It's gone because the thread-started has deleted the thread and all its replies.

Other forums do not allow this, for good reason. On other forums, only admins can do this.

It's their thread.

 My opinion is voiced by mattattack99.

I disagree. They started the thread, but it's not theirs. It's everyone's.

I recently posted in a thread—a debate with about 100 replies, which I was following with interest—and earlier today I decided to check up on the latest reply to this thread. And, as I'm sure you can predict, I found that the whole thread had been deleted!

The thread-started had deleted all my posts, some of which took a long time to write, and all of the interesting posts by other people. And the thread-starter had only made about three posts in the thread.

The thread is theirs to control. I'm sorry if they deleted all your posts, but it is their choice.

 Yes, right now it is. He's just proposing to change that, because it's stupid.

Then it won't be their choice anymore.

I highly doubt it will change. I don't see what all the complaining is about.

I agree that a thread should cease to belong to a user as soon as they hit submit.  There should also be a statute of limitations on editing and deleting posts -- say 15 minutes or so -- and that there should also be automatic disclosure on edited posts such as:

This post was edited on June 22nd 2009 at 8:12 am

Well, Chess.com staff is very busy trying to improve live chess and other stuff, so I think your proposal will be at the bottom of their "To do" list.

That's fair, and it's entirely their call.  No-one said it was a pressing problem that needed immediate attention, just that it was deserving of inclusion on the list.

Yes, that's another problem on these forums.

yeah for all the "great" things people want see about chess.com there are some obviously novice aspects.  i have never heard of a message board that allows editing to occur without a disclosure tag on the post that has been edited and that allows the original post-er to delete entire threads.

say what you want about how peachy this place is and how hard they work, but chess.com is pretty goofy about a lot of stuff.

there is no way a person should be able to delete entire threads.  yet chess.com allows it, and has people believing it's ok.  

it certainly isn't the end of the world to me but it's just one more thing on the list... 

That's the problem with the list... It's Huge!

The issue of the staffs To Do list being long has nothing to do with the validity of the OPs concern.

I'm just saying that there are more important things to do, e.g. fixing live chess, then worrying about restricting the control that somebody has over their forum.

i don't care how huge the list is; it's still valuable to point out the flaws--all of them.  so many members here at chess.com just smile and nod and jump off the cliff with the rest of the members rather than stand up.  just becasue it is, doesn't mean it's right or good and valuable or whatever.  this request is a simple fix.  it's not one of erik's--we're looking into it and it may be fixed sometime in the next few weeks, issues.

however, i assume it will be ignored. 

how cool would it be if we could all put off payment for weeks on end while still getting the benifits of payment...

it's essentially the same thing they ask of us.

Because it's not a big deal.

Just because it's not going to be the top priority doesn't mean it should be ignored or excluded from the list.  I agree that it's not that big a deal, but it's also not ideal.

i think it is a big deal...  not a deal breaker mind you, but still a big deal.  it's just one more thing to add to the list that makes this site far less legit than they want us all to believe it is.