Start a new topic

What happens when you delete a post?

 Hi there. I was just wondering if deleting a post here worked more like twitter or tumblr.


Twitter, you retweet a post, and the original one gets deleted and essentially removed from any retweets, but, on tumblr, a reblogged post lives on through other reblogs no matter what you do. I don't know where else to put this... so apologies if this is in the wrong place.


Ideally, as a feature request, I would like it to be like twitter in that aspect that when you delete a post it's really gone.


Thanks to anyone that can help me out : )


2 people like this idea

The potential trouble I see here is whether deleting the post will accordingly delete all reblogs of it, including ones with replies. Useful in the case of harassment, less useful if people are attaching resources and such. You could probably strike a balance by replacing any deleted posts in the chain with a generic anonymized "this post was deleted" placeholder.

2 people like this
(To be clear, I'm not sure how deleting posts works either, though I could probably find out with some sidepage testing.)

 I tested it.

The direct link to the post leads to a 404 page.

The reblogs of the post has the OP blanked out with the contents replaced by the sentence '[deleted]'. This is regardless of the contents, eg if it's short or long text, or if it includes images.


The links to the reblogs lead to a functioning, non-404 page but the op contents are still blanked out with the sentence '[deleted]'
Reblogging the reblogs of the original post are disabled. You are still able to comment on the reblogs of the original post.

Editing one's reblog of the post is still an option.

Likes on the reblogs of the original post appear in the notifications of the original poster, but not the reblogger(s).

Likes of the post appear in the 'posts you've liked' page of the blog that liked the post.

If I've missed anything, please do share. I have no idea if this answers your question or suggestion as I've never had a twitter account.


6 people like this

Thank you so much Eurydice! That does answer my question perfectly!!


The appeal of being able to go "scorched earth" on a post or piece of art you dont like anymore on twitter is very nice, and i'm glad theres a similar approach here by the original post leading to a 404/the contents replaced by [deleted]. Having it live on through tumblr after you delete the og post is a little stressful to think about sometimes, haha!


Have a wonderful rest of your day! And thank you again!


1 person likes this

Thanks for testing that, Eurydice! 


Based on that, there are a few improvements I'd like to see to the process:

1. Links to deleted posts should present a user-friendly "This post has been deleted" page, rather than a 404. This is just a little QoL thing that would make the experience a little nicer. 

2. Reblogs of replies to the deleted post should still be enabled. If someone puts something interesting in a reply, then the original post gets deleted, I would like to still be able to share the reply. 

3. Likes on reblogs should notify the rebloggers, not the OP who deleted their post. 


2 people like this
Login or Signup to post a comment