BuddyPress

Delete implies that the item itself (e.g. forum post) will be deleted, when really what you’re talking about is removing the item from Activity, i.e. hiding it. So how about renaming Delete to Hide?

I disagree. The activity stream item’s delete button does delete the activity stream item, not hide it. There’s no way to get it to reappear, so “hide” would be inaccurate. There’s a bit of an uneasy tension between the activity stream items and the actual content that they refer to, but I don’t think renaming this button is it.

I agree with you on a technical level that it is actually deleting it. I just anticipate my users thinking that their Forum post (or photo, or wiki page, etc) is deleted, and becoming upset later when they realize that the post is still there. They’re not used to thinking of Activity as a separate set of data from the actions that undergird that activity.

I guess the ultimate solution would be to have a dialogue (a la Facebook) that asks, “do you want to delete this item or simply hide it from activity,” but that would be much harder to do.

Anyway, just some feedback.

If that’s all you’re looking to do, you could use a function like this in your theme:

function my_reply_hide_text() {
     echo my_get_reply_hide_text();
}

function my_get_reply_hide_text() {
     // Get activity type
     $activity_type = bp_get_activity_type();

     // Set default text
     $text = 'Reply';

     switch ( $activity_type ) {
          // Activity types to "hide"
          case 'new_forum_post' :
          case 'new_forum_topic' :
               $text = 'Hide';
               break;
     }

     return $text;
}

You would put <php my_reply_hide_text(); ?> in place of <?php _e( 'Reply', 'buddypress' ) ?>