A Cool New Member has hijacked a thread I started on the films of Sacha Guitry in Movie Talk and uses it to launch personal attacks against me in retribution for perceived past wrongs on my part in another forum years ago. I am not responding, I sent him a reminder of the forum rules and I have written (1) dvdtalk, (2) the founder and (3) forum@dvdtalk but nothing is being done so far to ban this member or make him stop.

Can I delete my own thread by simply deleting my Original Post in that thread or is there another way?

You can't.

Report the post to the moderators using the red triangle icon on the left.

Thank you! I never saw this icon.

But what happens if I delete my original post? Doesn't it delete the thread at the same time?

It used to, but you can no longer delete the first post of a thread, for that reason.

Yeah, I remember there was a big brouhaha here a while ago where there was a HUGE discussion thread going about something and then it turned against the OP's views so he just deleted the thread along with the thousands of posts in it.

Which is exactly why threads should never be deleted.

Closed, yes, but never deleted.

But I'm a free speech monster and don't even believe that any post should ever be deleted.

There are plenty of reasons. Basic things like a double post or forgetting a poll are pretty simple and easy for the poster to delete themselves rather then waiting for a moderator.

True, but I'd rather just ignore the double postings and close the forgotten poll threads and open a new thread/poll.

The cons of deleting free speech outway those minor annoyances in my opinion, for what its worth.

FYI.

What happened in my case (I'm the OP), the thread was locked, which means that Cool New Member's baseless paranoid rants against me will stand forever. And he hasn't been banned for his personal attacks against my age and my profession.

The thread was last posted on over a week ago and fallen off the map. I'm not sure why you would be worried about his posts sitting in DVDTalk archive history.

I had stopped contributing to the thread long before that. The man is guilty of the first offense in the book: personal attacks, compounded by slander, not to mention hikacking a thread and squatting on it. He hasn't been disciplined and his attacks are allowed to stay online.

True maybe, but I'd stop worrying about it.

Anyone that really matters to you would not read the thread and think negatively of you.

And besides, you and he were pretty much the only people in the universe reading the thread.

You mean just like the posts you made to me when you disagreed with what I had posted?

You repeatedly flat-out called me a liar, speculated about a disease I might have that would affect my sight, called me a troll, etc. That sure sounds like personal attacks and slander to me.

Did you get disciplined and were your posts allowed to stay online? Physician, heal thyself!