All things are impermanent.  It is a fool's task to cling to anything much less ephemeral data.  The knowledge collected here quickly becomes outdated and moves to the bottom of the list.  Seems like this thread is much ado about . . . well, nothing really . . .  If we ever get a workable wiki, that is an entirely different medium with more lasting power.

Oooooo such big words and proclamations.  Please get over yourself.

(golinux yawns . . .)

Because that's the only way to insure that the outcome will be completely random and not engineered by someone with an axe to grind.

Nothing like that if you read the above.  That's just how I would do it to make the community response completely unbiased.  Not saying it will be done that way.

Deletion of an initial post should only be allowed if there are no responses, IMO.  That's the way the Debian forum does it.  I posted a link about that a few posts up.

Suggestion . . . maybe close your eyes and let the mind and breath settle for a few minutes . . . the world appears quite different when the churning stops . . .

This forum is less than a side-dish on Ralph's menu.  There would be no Devuan without Ralph.  Period. This issue will be discussed internally in a few days.  In the meantime, please be patient and constructive in your comments.  And remember to breathe . . .

There are backups but no revision software.  A forum is by nature ephemeral so there's not really a need for it IMO.  It is always possible to dig in the Internet Archive.

This forum, like debian's,  is a hybrid of problem solving, wiki-like documentation and social interactions.  It's been working quite well and I see no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater.   As I said before, we need to find the sweet spot between users having the option to improve/correct posts at the point where technical errors were made (not 10 posts later) while not having the ability to delete an entire thread which I assume deleting the first post would do.  Also . . .  as mentioned by Vernon, posters must have the ability to mark their issue as [SOLVED].

Here is a thread on the debian forum about their policy.

Excellent points.  +1

IMO, that time is too short.

People edit for many reasons, not just to delete.   I have sometimes edited content days, weeks, even years after posting.  There should be a more conservative time limit for deleting the first post of a thread.  That should only be allowed if there have been no responses.  My .02 . . .

Ralph has been tweaking the timeout limits on editing and deleting posts because there was a user who recently deleted all of their posts.  Please suggest time limits for consideration.

Unfortunately, those of us on help-desk just see the ones who don't.  A few every day on average.

If the fix in the Release Notes doesn't work, you might try an .asoundrc configuration.

Have you read the Release Notes?