response 139 of 170:

Jan 13 22:34 UTC 2004

As I've been one of the most vocal using the word vandal in reference to
Valerie, I can say at least that I'm not calling her a vandal for
deleting all her own postings.  I think it was stupid and petulant
behavior, but not vandalism.  
  Deleting everyone else's posts in the baby diary and in jep's items
was vandalism.  Restoring those posts in those items is not about
punishing anyone, it's about repairing the damage that a vandal has done
to the system.  

I just think it's a really, really awfully bad idea for Grex to put up
with anyone deleting other people's comments, no matter who they are or
how compelling the reason.  If we allow it in general, we're setting
ourselves up for years of having to make decisions about the validity of
other people's reasons for wanting items deleted.  If we disallow it in
general but allow it in these particular cases, we're saying that
valerie and jep are somehow more important and their reasons for
censoring people are more important than anyone else's could possibly be.  

Suppose next year polytarp logs in and says that he is going to be
conducting job interviews, and he wants all the items in which he acted
like an asshole deleted because he has changed and they could
potentially hurt him if a prospective employer got ahold of them.  Are
we going to have this whole discussion again?  Or are we just going to
tell him to delete his own posts and go away?  Why is polytarp different
from valerie and jep?  

I don't buy the water-under-the-bridge argument.  This *isn't* in the
past; we have backups which are (presumably; maybe valerie owns a
magnet) still intact and so nothing is final.  If we do not restore
these items from them, we are collectively just as culpable for this
censorship as valerie.