I mean, if I accidentally wrote something that gives away my location (maybe a discussion topic about bars and I mention my local bar Barname is super great?) I want to be able to have that GONE instead of kept alive in the name of discussion and keeping content. I am sure you can think of multiple cases where actually getting rid of some content would be useful. Is there a solution that allows for both? Would editing over my comment, as a comment below mentions, work? Typical deletion allows recovery, but editing over lets me obscure my accidental self-dox?
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Edit the part you fucked up out. Why delete the whole thread?
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Always assume that anything you put up on the internet will be there forever. Just because you deleted it doesn't mean it hasn't already been copied hundreds of times a minute after being posted (IE like how federation works; delete requests are not always respected). You really can't put the genie back in the bottle, most of the time.
Delete whole thread specifically because I imagine that is two layers to check through, you both have to find the deleted post and then its edit history, instead of just edit history. The whole principle of "a determined thief could probably break into anywhere, but they'll probably pick the low-effort unlocked house and skip over the one with a security camera, two dogs, and a tall wire fence," just make it harder and more inconvenient to find the post content. (I do say this not being 100% aware of how the code behind the Fediverse works, nor if we have something similar to the Reddit undeleter sites yet. Also do not know if the Reddit undeleter sites recovered old versions of posts before edits.)
I usually do make the assumption anything on the internet is for forever, but I also think we're well aware that sometimes people make mistakes, and sometimes people realize only after they commit the mistake. I am not so sure just saying "well the internet is forever, just give up" is the smart decision here. I'd prefer losing an online discussion over someone self-doxxing and being unable to take it down.
In general, I also use deletion because sometimes I'll type out a reply I think is nice and measured, but then I think of if the other person is going to be okay with me trying to politely disagree or if I'll get a much more harshly-worded reply full of insults in return. I end up deleting to avoid the conflict and misery. I can understand why people would want to access the discussion, especially since I'm pretty sure I still stand by what I said in those but just took it back to save myself "fuck you!!!" in my inbox, or worse a lovely logical disagreeing response… with a bunch of namecalling surprise at the end. I'm not sure I'd be able to keep calm and report instead of sending back a whole thing on how that wasn't very nice and how heartbreaking it is that I was engaging in good faith (and not just pretending to and using that as a cover, not sealioning) and got responded to as if I was being much nastier, what happened to kindness and civility and educating people you think are wrong instead of hating on them immediately… (and then I delete it because I realize how bad it looks and that it'd only invite more vitriol.)
No, this has not happened to me yet, especially because most of my opinions fall in line with the Fediverse at large. I have not posted transphobia and rightfully gotten bashed for it and then end up crying about why people are so mean to me when I just said the T slur. But I have seen enough unkind replies like this to a person not being nasty or bigoted that I do fear it. Even now I kind of want to delete because I'm worried you'll say "well just then block em lol, grow up" (yes, I would, but obviously being told the nasty things meriting a block in the first place does not feel good) and a bunch of "toughen up you snowflake" type things to me. In real life, I have not really had people be nasty to me and I have continued expectations that people will continue to treat me in a way that does not involve hostility, so of course I do not have high defenses for that.
Funnily enough this only happens with typed words. In real life I think I only ever said something I wanted to take back once in elementary, but I have also encountered a much smaller number of belligerent people who I think would swear at me in real life than I have online.
What I personally would like to see, and which PieFed now offers (though it did not at the time I made this meme, an entire day and a half ago! 😂) is for people to own their own content.
So in that case, yes you could blank out your own words, and choosing to delete the content would do that for you automatically, in both the title and text and any links associated with the post.
However, the responders would likewise have the ability to own their own words as well. So you as the OP wouldn't get the power to delete other people's words.
If someone doxxed you though, that already is covered under existing rules - you would just file a report on the content in question. They don't have the right to do that, even if you were the one who did it first.
And that is all that you, as a general purpose user, could accomplish... at least on your own. Then mods and admins have higher privileges, so in such a case where deletion of your own words is considered to be insufficient, and the other parties are unresponsive to requests to delete their responses to you (or among one another) then you would want to request from mods that they, acting on your behalf but under their own discretion and authority, arbitrate that disagreement in favor of deletion of the full post, or maybe deletion of a handpicked subset of the answers would be sufficient.
And this is already how it works now (again, I mean here the "now now", not the "then now" when I started this post) - I think users can only delete their own content, whereas mods have the choice to either remove the post or else entirely delete it.

Of course, if someone were to save the original doxing material on their own - by saving a screenshot, submitting to an archive service, printing to a PDF, copying and pasting, etc. - then there is only so much that PieFed could do in such a case. Chiefly in helping to avoid spreading it further.
Hey, thanks for explaining! Not new to the Fediverse, but new to PieFed. I agree with your philosophy: own your own content.
It is done, announcement to follow.
Now I need to work on a meme (that somehow won't get me banned from Fediverse memes) like "typical response time for PieFed feature request: 16 minutes".

Haha. This one has been brewing for a while, @hendrik@palaver.p3x.de started pushing for it almost a year ago.
Good things brewing takes time to percolate, for sure... :-)
I mod !fedimemes@feddit.uk , this type of threads tend to spiral into Piefed vs Lemmy endless debates.
Maybe !piefed_promo@piefed.social is a more fitted place
Agreed, for something that specific to PieFed.:-)