"gnu" sent me a couple of PMs about this. I still have no idea why anybody would instinctively think of only malicious uses for a feature which I have only seen used to constructive effect in several forums over several years. Any experience to back that up? - if so, say what it is.

I can't see myself ever wanting to tone anything down after posting it. I've never wanted to change the substance of anything I've said on a public forum; maybe I might want to remove a grammatical obscurity so as to refine either a compliment or an insult to be more stylish, but I wouldn't ever want to change the tone. Some of the most carefully thought-out and extensively revised postings I've ever made have also been the most scatologically offensive. I don't do that sort of thing as a reflex action.

Usenet had mechanisms for cancelling or replacing your own posts. I think I used that feature three times in 20 years, in which time I'd posted something like 20,000 messages, in each case because I'd done something like get somebody's name wrong.

I posted a bit about the ethics of posting things for the record in a different thread a short while ago:

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