Delete Reddit history

3 years ago by PeanutsHere to c/reddit

Hello Lemmy!

How do you recommend dealing with your old reddit account/ posts? Should I delete my old posts or just leave them there? Or maybe replace everything with the same text?

I heard that reddit might be restoring deleted posts. Would editing the post and then deleting it or just editing it be the better alternative to just deleting it?

I've seen the post that recommends doing all that BEFORE the API shutdown but now it's after so I figured maybe something had changed about the tactics?

How did you go about it?

atlasraven31 14 points 3 years ago

Editing everything to jibberish has a negative impact on Reddit and Google searches of Reddit. It's better than deleting since it still takes up database space:

Something like DROP_TABLE ALL;

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PeanutsHere 3 points 3 years ago

Thanks for the hint. What does

DROP_TABLE ALL

mean?

Also would you say random text that doesn't make sense is better or just copy pasting a paragraph from somewhere? Or just a one liner like: "Moved to Lemmy."?

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n3cr0 8 points 3 years ago

I would not make it too easy to filter out the edited comments. So replacing all with the same paragraph may not be the best idea. Some variation apears to be the key to me.

That said, I like the idea of pointing to Lemmy.

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satanmat 3 points 3 years ago

It is kind of a joke.

https://xkcd.com/327

It is SQL command and implies to delete or drop a database table

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PeanutsHere 2 points 3 years ago

Ah lol my bad. Thanks for clarifying 😅

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satanmat 1 point 3 years ago

No problem there’s a XKCD for almost every thing

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atlasraven31 1 point 3 years ago

It's an SQL command to delete the database named All. A lil programmer humor.

Either is good but I personally want to use maximum allowed characters and maybe Shakespeare. The more bot-like and irrelevant the better

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ekky43 1 point 3 years ago

Encode a link to lemmy in base64 and put that as your edit.

Would have done it myself if I'd have thought of that before.

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PeanutsHere 2 points 3 years ago

Whats the benefit of encoding it? Others might not know what that even is.

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RightHandOfIkaros 3 points 3 years ago

If you put "Lemmy" in your comments, Reddit will flag that instantly for removal or restoration (even though this is illegal in EU). If you put gibberish or base64, Reddit is too dumb to know to put that in their automatic detection tools.

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SomeoneElse 13 points 3 years ago

From what I understand deleted comments can and are being restored by mods. You’re better off editing your comments and either leaving them with gibberish or whatever, or editing them and then deleting them. If Reddit restore them it will only be able to restore the latest edit, so they’d just be restoring gibberish.

Your original posts will probably still be around somewhere on an archive site, but Reddit can’t make money from those sites so it doesn’t help them.

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Assassin2 8 points 3 years ago

Just edited and deleted mine. Sad to see 10 years of history go, and I'd forgotten a lot of the stuff. But had to happen, Reddit does not own me

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frankblack 4 points 3 years ago

How do you mass edit all of your comments and posts?

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Ado 3 points 3 years ago

I used Redact.app, but this was before the api changes. I’m curious how these apps work now, if at all

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mycoxadril 1 point 3 years ago

I tried this before the changes and it worked great, I got to the point of clicking a button to edit and delete, but figured I’d wait. On July 1 I couldn’t get it to work, would let me log into Reddit to give permissions but would take me directly (and only) to Reddit chat, which I’ve never used. Haven’t tried it since then, hopefully it’s fixed, or not sure what happened there.

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Longnosetony 1 point 3 years ago

Good question. No way I could edit or delete decades of comments and posts

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Skanky 3 points 3 years ago

Power Delete Suite, all the way

Just go here

Drag the button to your toolbar to create a shortcut

Go to your profile page on Reddit

Press the shortcut button you created on the toolbar

Select options*

Start deleting!

- strongly recommend creating a "goodbye" message to edit your posts to before deleting. This makes it extremely difficult for Reddit to restore your data to what it was prior to deleting it.

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Showroom7561 1 point 3 years ago

Seems like PDS is missing a lot of my comment (edits). Should I just keep running it or is Reddit blocking the edits?

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Skanky 1 point 3 years ago

Not sure. It got ever single one of mine and there were thousands.

Keep in mind that if you edit any top of a post, some subreddits may have a bot that will reply to it if it contained anything that might trigger an automatic rule. For example, if you wanted to make your last message "Fuck /u/spez" on all your posts, the auto bot on some of the subs might disallow you from doing that. Ask me how i know 😏

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Showroom7561 1 point 3 years ago

Yeah, I've just been banned from one. LOL I'm using a simple message and then gibberish. LOL

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Noiservoid 1 point 3 years ago

Thanks man. I was looking for this.

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Tygr 2 points 3 years ago

I deleted mine and occasionally log in to delete stuff from subreddits that have returned. I no longer get PMs from posts made years ago and that’s been nice.

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Duchess 1 point 3 years ago

personally i just deleted my whole account but i'm not sure whether that also deleted my comments and posts themselves.

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eth0slash0 9 points 3 years ago

It does not.

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Ganbat 1 point 3 years ago

Personally, I've been editing and deleting manually. It's not easy, but in the end, the only things left on my account will be links to Lemmy instances and proof of what a shit head spez is, so it's worth it.

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**You may not encourage brigading any communities or subreddits in any way. **

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Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.

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