Question about posts in Talk

I have a question. I joined LibraryThing years ago to catalog my books and write reviews. I never got involved in Group discussions or participated in posting any thing in the "Talk" threads. Recently I realized all the posts - of all the threads were still available to me. I have no idea how far back. I have been a member since 2007. How far back in time are those posts saved and available for me to look at? I have started deleting those that are of no interest to me. Is that recommended or doesn't it really matter? Will it eventually cause problems with the system if no one ever deletes old posts?

All threads are available to everyone by default, excepting (1) the rare topic deletion that group admins can very recently do with new topics and (2) posts in members-only groups.

When you say you're deleting posts, do you mean that you're selecting the "ignore" option?

It is a forum - unless the poster deletes their own message, they are here since the day the site was created or since the post was made - whatever time the message was created. :) If you are deleting your old posts to save space, all you are doing is to make the old threads a mess (I know it is a valid option and so on but it is annoying in some threads). Even someone joining today will have access to all the old threads.

If as >2 aspirit: says, you are ignoring the threads, all you are doing is to tell LT not to show them to you in the regular lists - you still can get them via the Ignored list. That’s what the Ignore function is built for. I use it only if a thread is high on my list and distracting (old ones fall on later pages anyway so I just let them be) but you can manage your ignores anyway you want.

Closing this as "not a bug"

If you're planning to ignore all the threads in all of LT.....that would be a lot. I'd suggest keeping "Talk" sorted by date so you only see the most recent threads at the top and don't have to see the older ones.

As far as I know there are no plans for the site to delete old Talk posts or topics.

>2 aspirit: No, I was actually going back in time and deleting certain old posts - like "name this book" and some Group posts that I knew I would never be interested in.

>5 LadyLo: You cannot delete a post you had not posted. If you are saying you are deleting your own posts - see >3 AnnieMod: If you are clicking on the red x, this is just ignoring the thread for you.

If you are an administrator of a group and you are deleting/hiding posts you do not care about, then there is a big problem. But I don’t think this is what you mean.

Oh - Sorry for the confusion. So what I have been doing is clicking on the ignore button. So that is ok then - right?
And does that mean the ones I ignore are still there and retrievable if I change my mind later? Or are the old ones I "ignored" permanently blocked for those old posts?

>7 LadyLo: Yep. They are in your ignore list. When you are in Talk, there is a menu where you select if you want to see Your Groups, Your Posts and so on. There is a group in there called More. Inside of it is the link for the Ignored topics. They are not split by group so the list can be very long if you ignore a lot but they are all there.

>8 AnnieMod: Thanks so much for your help. I am now going through the Groups categories and ignoring entire groups that I am not interested in. That is so much easier than ignoring one post at a time as them come in.

>9 LadyLo: You can also choose to see just groups you follow and threads you've starred/favorited, without having to ignore anything. There are different filtering options on the left on the main Talk page (or above if you're following Talk as one of the modules on home page), such as Groups and Posts (which shows only groups you follow and threads from those you don't follow but you have posted in them), Your groups, Started by you, etc. You can easily switch between any of those at any point.

LadyLo (#1):

I have started deleting those that are of no interest to me.

Because, of course, you are the only person who matters.

The level of selfishness here is utterly jaw-dropping. Just because a post no longer interests you personally you decide that nobody else ever gets to read it either?

>11 lorax: I think they meant they're ignoring topics, as noted in >7 LadyLo:

>12 kristilabrie: They were - but they also believed they were actually deleting them and doing a favor to the site - which was what >11 lorax: reacted to.

That's how we lose a lot of CK data - people delete things they are not interested in, not understanding what is shared data and what is personal data. Not the case here because of how LT works but...

My guess is this was a case of a member thinking that every one of us has a copy of all the Talk threads stored on their own account, as if Talk is a private inbox in an email service.

Lately, I've been seeing people not only here but on other sites getting very confused about how online forums function.