So the goal here is to improve the usefulness of the site. I’m open to the idea that people should be able to delete old posts. We just need to be aware of the consequences. It will make some threads harder to read and people will remove useful content when they decide to leave the site. Since this isn’t something we decided to change, it’s better to stick with the way things were.
Stuff like badges and the scrollbar are features we believe are better for the site. These are features that make the site more engaging for students, who are the primary beneficiaries of the site. I have no problem discussing how these features might be improved. And I’m happy to revisit the decision to allow deletions if that’s something y’all think would be a good addition to the site. (I assumed that most people would rather prevent deletions, which is why I changed the setting. Did I assume incorrectly?)
This requires a bit of developer work. At the moment, they are focused on fixing performance problems. (Some good news coming on that front!) In anticipation of being able to change the profile display, I asked this question. The poll results strongly suggest removing “read time”, “days visited”, “posts read” and “topics read”. (Maybe more too. There isn’t a clear line.)
I don’t want to minimize your frustrations. But I do want to be transparent about what we can and can’t do. For the most part, the new platform gives us substantially more flexibility. We’ve accomplished more in January than we could all of last year. But the cost is we are learning about the new platform too. We only figured out yesterday how to disable deletions. So some things will be easy to adjust and others just won’t be.