Bitcoin Forum

How is it possible to change a topic into self-moderated retrospectively?
Would be useful for some existing topics, which got spammy over time after a few dozen pages.
And sometimes, I just miss to select self-moderated and don’t know how to change it after the topic is created.
I’ve tried to find it, didn’t see any option.
Editing a topic doesn’t offer that option currently, which is very weird and tiresome.

Same applies for adding polls retrospectively. I don't find where we can enable it after a topic has been created / for existing topics...

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Edit after a few confusions:
When a topic would be changed to self-moderated, all the comments left before should get treated as it has been before (not possible to be removed). It's just about the new comments coming after the topic gets changed, which would be self-moderated.
Because when a topic is changed to self-moderated retrospectively, our message "self-moderated topic" would be displayed and everyone would see it.  :)

It's not possible to make a topic self-moderated if you didn't select "self moderated" when creating the topic. That's how it should be and I don't agree with allowing users to do so.
The poster has the right to know if his/her post can be deleted by the topic starter when making the post.

Assume that I create a topic which isn't self moderated and you make a post. (You may not want to post in my thread if it's self-moderated). Then I make the topic self-moderated and delete your post.

Just lock it, and (before locking it) make the last post point towards a new self-moderated topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1424634.msg18066166#msg18066166).

I often forget to tick "self-moderate". Just create a new topic, and move the old one to Archival.

You can't self-moderate on this board (Meta).

Wow, sad to hear...
So, once a topic is created it can get filled with spam and we can't prevent that, we are just dependent on moderators deleting it?
Recently, even bans are not handled anymore consistently.
Would be nice to enable it to combat spam more effectively.

Doesn't make any sense in my opinion because I see zero reasons to disable it. It's just beneficial for spammers.

I can agree here but that could be solved by making it possible for the OP to delete only posts which were made after the topic gets changed to self-moderated.
Easy solution in my opinion.
No need to disable a change towards self-moderation retrospectively.
Same goes for adding polls.

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It's a solution but that would split the discussion into 2 parts on 2 different places...

This has happened to me and I ended up leaving the topic to remain unmoderated. There is always a tendency that one could forget if your consciousness is not there.


This should not be a big problem.
The program be written that posts which were made when the topic wasn't self moderated shouldn't be possible to be deleted. The ones which were made after the post became moderated can be deleted.

Same here.  :D :D
And sometimes, I just notice it a few hours later, after several new comments below my OP.
By then, it's too late to delete / trash my topic since it would also trash the comments which were already left...


Exactly this. Would be enough to get a self-moderated topic once it's turned into a self-moderated one.
Previous comments shouldn't be affected.  :)

Sorry 1miau, I agree with @hosseinimr93 here: if one posts into a self-mod topic he knows that his post may get removed. This doesn't happen with a "free" topic. Changing this "during the game" is unfair advantage for topic owner.

Just imagine a shady business getting a couple of bad reviews: in your proposal it will be allowed to change to self-mod and remove those. Those users, if they would have known that there's a chance their posts get removed may have been made the complaints in completely different topics.

Your use case takes into account only your situation when the topic starter is honest and the posts he wants to remove are probably spam (which can be reported) or bad intention garbage (which, at an extent can be ignored, and if a threshold is passed the topic ends with a link to the new moderated topic). We are old enough around here and can find our ways. Let's not give more tools to the scammers only because we want some things be easier for us.


This would make sense, but may be more difficult to implement.

You can still report all the posts you consider to be spam and moderators will probably delete most of them, if you created that topic.
It wouldn't be fair to change topics from normal to self-moderated later and I think scammers could abuse that function.
Just lock the old topic and create new one that is self-moderated... it's not that hard.

It doesn't make sense that you can't delete topic you created, but you still can't, and many other things  :P

One option to consider is implementing specific local rules within your OP and enforcing them, rather than creating a self-moderated topic. Any posts that violate these rules can be reported to the moderators for further action.

I've not demanded anywhere to delete old comments from before the topic was changed to self-moderated.
When it's changed to self-moderated, all the comments left before should get treated as it has been before. It's just about any new replies coming after the topic gets changed.
Then, our known message "self-moderated..." topic would be displayed and everyone would see it.

I have added a hint in my OP to avoid confusion.  :)

Once again, I didn't demand that.

I don't know how much more difficult it would be but doesn't sound much more difficult?

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Sure, it's an option but after all, we would dependent on a moderator to delete it.

I didn't demand to delete old posts, my request is only for new ones because when a topic is changed to self-moderated, our usual message would show up.

I have added a hint in my OP to avoid confusion.  :)

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Yes, it's an option as well but most spammers won't care, unfortunately.  :'(
We can't really enforce it, if it's not a self-moderated topic, as it would also require a moderator to delete it.
But it's a good suggestion.
Maybe it would help a little bit after all, which would be already nice.  :)

Somehow I think moderators can do it on user request, but if it is not approved then the last advice is lock old topic and create new topic with self moderation. But I haven't found a case like this done before, or maybe I've missed it.


It's true, spammers will not care. But reporting it as spam to moderators is the best option if you don't want to lock the topic and create a new one.

Once in a while, a user goes wild and deletes all his own posts. It would be much worse if he can delete all other posts in his own topics too.

I don't expect that to happen any time soon indeed.

Interesting idea, maybe I'll PM a moderator to ask if it's possible and an appropriate solution. Or a moderator can reply here if it's possible. Most likely, approving such request has a high chance to decrease work for moderators overally, if that's possible for moderators to change it manually.
Of course, having such an option available in our edit settings would be the best solution that all comments made from that point of time are self-moderated.

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Sure but such an issue is a general argument against self-moderation and such cases might be very rare.
And when we handle it as described to treat all the comments left before will be unaffected, while only new replies  coming after the topic gets changed to self-moderated can be deleted, we won't have that problem, when members are deleting old posts.


Most likely you are 100% right here.  :'(
 :D :D

Sometimes it takes a long time to get handled. Also, there is no guarantee that my report will be handled. I believe this is one of the main reasons you want to create a self-moderated thread (to respond quickly).


Both arguments got some good points. I agree with this statement as well. As others already discussed, if old posts don't get affected, I don't see any harm in the implementation of this system. Imagine you created a topic and it has more than 20 replies already, then you realize you wanted to make it self-moderated.

It is only one-sided procedure.

• You can change your topic from self-moderated to non-self-moderated by Moving it to Meta (Meta board does not allow self-moderated topics), then move it back to the initial board.
• It's impossible to change a topic from non-self-moderated to self-moderated. It is helpful to prevent scammers to turn their topics to self-moderated and censor user posts or inquiries about their scam projects.

If you are not scammer, but want to make a topic as self-moderated, do as above users suggested: Pin a last post in your initial topic, direct posters to your new self-moderated topic and lock an initial one.

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You can bring your request to Self-moderated topics (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152876.0)

That may be the reason why topics that have already been created can no longer be converted to self-moderated topics.



IMO - It has to be one of the most effective solutions if the OP can no longer prevent spammers from bombarding non self-moderated thread. Meanwhile the OP can also report some spam posts in the non self moderation thread if he doesn't want to create a new one.

Some projects and their representatives in forum do the same too.

They created a new announcement topic, announce it in a past topic, lock it and move onwards with a new one, that is self-moderated.

I also see some projects do an opposite: initially they create self-moderated topic, later after community complains, they locked it, and create a non-self-moderated topic. I believe they did not know about the procedure I shared above (move it to Meta the move it back to where it belongs to)  :D

I'm kinda on the fence about this idea; part of me agrees with OP that it'd be nice to switch a thread you created to a self-moderated one in order to get rid of shitposts (which has plagued so many threads on this forum, it's ridiculous).  On the other hand, I suspect that if Theymos were to implement a feature like this, it would be the focal point of a massive number of complaints by members who had their posts nuked, even if said feature wasn't being abused.

A few years back, there was discussion about senior members making their threads self-moderated in order to combat low-value posts, but that seemed to go nowhere.  I was one of the members who'd intended to do it, but I kept forgetting and in the end just gave up on it.  So I guess the answer is to either make your thread a self-modded one from the get-go or take whatever is coming in terms of post quality.  I don't think Theymos is going to change how threads are structured retroactively.

They may not know how it works. Some of them don't really care about this kind of stuff ^{[newbie or non contributor],} so it certainly makes sense why they'd make a new one and lock up the old one. Another reason, they don't bother to care about how the forum works is because they tend to think about developing the project.

I just checked  (in a section where self-moderated topics are enabled) and we have no option to change a topic to self-moderated.

And it's not bad in my opinion. We will see this kind of topic : "Oh no, the evil mod didn't want to put my topic in self-moderated to protect his corrupted friends."
Or : "Oh no, the evil mod changed the topic to self-moderated so that my opinion is deleted now."

Interesting to know that self-moderation has been around since 10 years already but from reading replies in that topic, it's not intended to request moderators to make a topic self-moderated.
In addition, it's a pretty inactive topic.

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My request would only affect new replies, after a topic gets changed to self-moderated. All post left before wouldn't be affected. This would prevent abuse of mass-deletion of old posts.
Should a member make a new reply in such a topic which has been switched to self-moderated, our current "topic is self-moderated" banner would be displayed as usual.

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Many thanks for checking out.  :)

The feature can be really great to have but I don't think it will be in the priority list of theymos so the possible solution is locking the non self moderated topic and create the new one, and if you managed to realise you want the topic to be self moderated after creating a non self moderated before any replies made then you can report your own thread to be deleted using report to moderator button and just create a new one.

I dont see that happend at all , and why would you like to change a topic from normal to self-moderated after you see some spam and other posts you dont like,
if you cant delete them if there is the option to make it self-moderated  but it wont effects the existing and already done replies on it .
Just report the posts you maybe see as spam or what ever and all should be good.
The next thing if it would be possible to change the topic into self-moderated it would be maybe abused by scammers and other shaddy Users.

This is also what I knew: you can always (through a small trick) change a self-moderated topic into a non-self-moderated one, but the opposite is not possible. In order to change a self-moderated thread into one without self-moderation you have to move your topic to a board where self-moderation is not possible (Meta, for example).

But there is no possibility to add self-moderation to a topic which was created without self-moderation. I understand your purpose but this is not possible...

Furthermore, be aware that a bug may also prevent you from creating self-moderated threads: so if you start writing a topic and you added its title and a few lines of text then you decide to add self-moderation from "Additional Options", although you'll check that checkbox, the topic won't be self-moderated after it will be posted. To make sure that your topic will have self-moderation you should always check the checkbox for self-moderation just after clicking on "New topic" button.

This is an old bug which was never fixed and it may affect you in case you won't pay attention to selecting to have the topic with self-moderation just after clicking on "New topic" button.

It would be acceptable to have it if the OP could ONLY delete posts that were made AFTER the topic was changed to "self-moderated," and not the other way around.

When the WO thread was full of spam, it was converted to a self-moderated thread and handed over to an active (New) OP, and nothing went wrong after that.

Of course that would help anyone with good intentions, but what if it was the other way around?
Someone who eventually turns into scammer could easily delete some of your replies after few years on the thread if the feature existed, but I can expect something positive from it. The solution is to close the old thread, start new thread, or report spam and keep it up.

OP, to be honest that I've asked about the same thing a few years before: Can admin enable feature I forgot in a published thread? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5347736.0)

And this is one of the most helpful answer for me: