Is it OK to delete my post?

[Cruise]

 Hi ya'll,

Some online communities raise their brow for post deleted. How about here? Deleting my own posts fine or not really?

Thanks

Maggie 

[Reeza]

If no one has answered, feel free to delete. If someone has answered, you shouldn't delete it but feel free to post that you no longer need a response. I'm not sure you can actually delete a question after you have responses though you can Edit it to delete the content. 

That's not ok IMO, especially if someone has answered.

[ChrisHemedinger]

You can try...but if others have responded you might not be able to delete it.  You can delete your own replies to other messages...again, if no one has replied to you.

In general, we don't like folks to delete posts but sometimes it's needed -- to remove references to sensitive information that was accidentally shared.  If that happens, use the "Report Abuse" feature and we can handle this for you.

[Cruise]

Thanks guys,

I could edit to make codes more generic then. Taking off of the libname et.c. 

Thanks again. 

[Reeza]

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@SUNY_Maggie wrote:

Thanks guys,

I could edit to make codes more generic then. Taking off of the libname et.c. 

Thanks again. 

---

TBH editing a post is unhelpful. For one, I don't go back and read the initial posts for every thread I've responded to. If you post a new message I'll read that but it doesn't occur to me to re-read the first post unless I don't understand the question anymore (or at all). 

I understand the need to not post real information, but in that case you should take the time to mock up examples that are relevant and can stay up. Please remember that the focus of this community is to both help you answer your question today and help future users find answers to their questions as well. Editing and revising posts or not having the full information there will make it less useful. To be honest, if I find that people remove content AFTER I've answered their question I'll no longer answer their questions. In fact, I'm leaning more and more towards this policy for new users since it seems like there's been a rash of people deleting content after they get an answer. That's a waste of my time. 

Obviously this is my opinion. @ChrisHemedinger is the community manager so his response should have more weight.

[Cruise]

Oh Reeza,

I can not express my gratitude enough how much I truly and really appreciate you guys. You're such a frequent helper I know of. I'm against distorting the original contents in the posts. I work with confidential data and I figured out that I had included some sensitive information by means of variable name and path associated with the libname which would easily be recognized for instance by patient or my colleague who ever is slightly knowledgeable of what I am talking about. 

The extent of change I'm talking about was leaving dots in the place of actual path to my folder et.c. 

[ballardw]

Edits that do not change the actual questions or original behavior such as you mention changing a statement such as libname to something generic shouldn't be any problem.

What raises an amount of discontent is posting data, code and sometimes error messages. And then after a few responses editing the posted code, data and or error messages to something completely different. At that point the first X responses will not make any sense to someone joining the discussion or especially finding it a year or more later from a web search.

I will finding out that a post has been deleted while composing an answer and getting a 'message not found' when attempting to post the response does chap my hide.

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

If I find that someone deletes their posts after I have spent time and brain cycles on solving their problem, that person will very quickly enter my personal shit list.

Exception when sensitive data only is removed and a note for that is left. Sometimes I had to edit my posts because I overlooked a piece of sensitive information (like a userid in a log) when first posting.

[Cruise]

Total agreement here