How moderators SHOULD manage multiple posts about the same program

Delete the OLD post and redirect to the new one when attempting to view.

Reply if you've ever used precious time on a brand new post and had all your work on the new post wiped.

Delete the old post and have all those replies… do what?

You should edit the old post, that's why the edit button is there.

Nothing is destroyed in a merge. Copy the content to the first post of the original topic. Stop making new topics for the same program.

Moderators have been merging similar thread for a long time now, there's no point in making a whole new thread for each and every other version of your program.
I do agree that the forum guidelines doesn't have anything for this, or if there is, might be too unclear.
Anyhow, your post wasn't destroyed, here it is,
you can easily edit your thread's first post with its content and that would be solved.

Lupus590, on 29 March 2016 - 06:25 PM said:

Delete the old post and have all those replies… do what?

You should edit the old post, that's why the edit button is there.

I don't need the old replies, especially when someone I joked with left bad feedback for no reason. I told them to leave feedback and they ended up deterring anybody who reads the post. However that is no longer the issue as individual versions are now being released instead of one version with auto-update.

LoganDark, on 29 March 2016 - 07:32 PM said:

Lupus590, on 29 March 2016 - 06:25 PM said:

Delete the old post and have all those replies… do what?

You should edit the old post, that's why the edit button is there.

I don't need the old replies, especially when someone I joked with left bad feedback for no reason. I told them to leave feedback and they ended up deterring anybody who reads the post. However that is no longer the issue as individual versions are now being released instead of one version with auto-update.

If criticism in the comments bothers you, then this is not the place to be. I can assure you, I've made my mistakes too, but that makes people who want to read the comments sort of "believe" that the program is trustworthy or untrustworthy to use.
Even though that "bad feedback" was meant as a joke, then use that bad feedback and carry on. When you get constructive criticism(or not) you should listen to the comments and improve the product if necessary ("Customers are always right")

Auto-updates are really useful, since people often (in my perspective) do not want to go on the website to get a new pastebin ID for the newer version. Since auto-updating lets you change the source of the program it can also be abused a lot. One single update *could* change the program from being trustworthy and not containing malicious code to untrustworthy and containing malicious code. So auto-updating is a very strict feature, since users expect the author of the content has tested the update for bugs etc.