tg>but why delete it?

primarily? to reign in clutter, because something is not on topic.

ideally, discussions about POET belong in the main board.

hence, (meta-)discussions (e.g. about the forum itself) should belong in the off-topic area, or if it's a pressing issue, perhaps in a PM to one of the mods.

similarly, posts that are more-or-less directed to just one other person (instead of more generally to the hundreds of people who follow the main forum) very likely belong in a PM.

there is currently no way to move posts around (e.g. to the off-topic area), or convert them to private messages.

so ... deletion from the main board (of an off-topic* post) is the only option available.

hope that helps.

cheers,

R.

* -- who decides when something is on-topic or off? well, ideally, the originator of the post! that's who. mack's post earlier today could have been summed up as: "THINK BEFORE YOU POST!".

if it's left to the mods, they will likely err on the side of de-clutterization, based on the answer to the question "does the post have some saving merit or valuable content?" to the wider audience.

is it fair? no, not always. but neither is blindly dumping the burden of making such a decision as to quality onto the laps of the mods.