response 109 of 128:

May 29 16:41 UTC 2000

I certainly think the current policy is broken.

The incident in Agora rather points this up.  I think Steve ended up by
going into the censored log and deleting the text in question.  I think
he acted sensibly and compassionately, but not in accordance with Grex's
policy.  Which means, Grex's current policy is neither sensible nor
compassionate.

My opinions on this have varied in the past.  I understand the
philosophical arguments, and agree with them.  But if we don't allow
people true self-censorship, then I, as a staff member, will regularly
be placed in Steve's dilemma:

   Person A says something slanderous and embarrassing about person B,
   and immediately regrets it.  As a staff person, I have the power to
   erase the response.  Do I
   (1) Stand on principle and policy, and insist on leaving the
       statement up to embarrass both A and B forever, or
   (2) Bend the rules, erase the response, and put everyone out of
       their misery.
   Note that regardless of which choice I make, people are going to be
   pissed off at me.

This is an uncomfortable position for staff to be in.  We do stand on
principle on may other issues, but I believe more strongly in those
principles.

So currently I think the censored log should be depermitted so that only
staff can see censored responses.  (I think this is better than not
keeping a log at all - staff would be expected to treat censored
responses with approximately the same sensitivity that they treat
private email, but there may be rare circumstances where being able to
reproduce what was censored may be useful.)

response 111 of 128:

May 29 17:49 UTC 2000

I'm confused about what incident in Agora Jan is talking about.  Is it
mentioned somewhere else in this item that I've missed?

response 113 of 128:

May 29 19:45 UTC 2000

I don't know what incident he's referring to either.

response 115 of 128:

May 29 21:19 UTC 2000

        I trust the staff with my email. I would absolutely trust them
        with a depermed, censored item/response.

        To my knowledge, never - even when I have been a bit abrasive -
        have staff here, on grex, EVER abused their powers or taken
        great offensive to what I've posted or done - and I have, on
        occasion, pulled real boners that staff has privately explained
        to me.

        If you can't trust root, then you need a new system. It's that
        simple.

        I would add also that scribbled/expurgated items/responses, much
        like accounts people miscreate, might become something that you
        would ASK the staff to quietly thermonuke completely and totally.
        (I suspect a simple script could be created that would do this
         with no effort beyond invocation, and that staff/root might just
         process such requests in a batch).

        Time to treat the users as Adults, and accept that roots *are*
        godlike. AND, while you are at it, realize that folks CAN and DO
        make mistakes - it's normal, natural & here to stay. HOWEVER, even
        if the borg WANT and THINK the sun rises in the west, they have to
        acknowledge root, mistakes, users and Reality (what a concept).

        P.S. and BTW: even ROOT can make an occasional mistake. This is
        why their "empowerment" can be such a dilemma, and I suspect
        even marcus and janc would admit they try to be careful in what
        they do. Perhaps even to the extent of doing a backup-backup
        before something radical.

response 117 of 128:

May 30 05:08 UTC 2000

I, on the other hand, am so oblivious to the Grex staff communications
channels at this point that I am very unlikely to notice minor staff actions
unless they're pointed out to me.

response 119 of 128:

May 30 10:48 UTC 2000

Steve, is editing for content a "minor staff action"?

response 121 of 128:

May 30 19:39 UTC 2000

re 119:
        From the perspective of how oblivious I am to staff actions, it would
be a minor staff action unless it generated a huge amount of e-mail, with a
very noticable subject line.  The rest of you are free to guage the importance
of things on different criteria than how noticable they are in my mailbox,
of course.

response 123 of 128:

May 31 03:47 UTC 2000

Yes, very well said i (:

response 125 of 128:

May 31 23:28 UTC 2000

Grex staff are hard working volunteers with good hearts and I'd suspect
they all tend to agree that using root power to censor is not a good
practice. But I'd also suspect there is some room for interpretation when
push comes to shove.  Any action of this type deserves to be shared in the
"What I Did"  item, in the staff conference, so that there can be some
oversight and peer review of such actions.  I guess we are still waiting
to hear what this specific instance is about.  We may be waiting for some
time. ;-) 

response 127 of 128:

Jun 2 03:50 UTC 2000

The incident I was refering to:  Item 38, response 87 was scribbled by
hhsrat, apparantly after saying something inappropriate.  I interpreted
Steve Gibbard's response 94 as saying that he had editted the censored
log.  Maybe that's not what happened.