response 21 of 79:

Jun 6 00:11 UTC 2000

You do not have to delete it.  You can simply add to the item saying,
sorry I made a blunder in response # x.  The problem today here is people
are scared to admit they made a mistake.  They just want to act as though
they never did.  We all make mistakes at times, and people are forgiving
once you admit to your mistake.  Hence, all this garbage about scribbling
and retracting posted messages is dumb.  Such commands are censorship are
inherently troublesome, and things would be better without them completely
- as I've maintained all along.

response 23 of 79:

Jun 6 05:14 UTC 2000

Mic, I tried to enter an apology and clarification later (back in Winter
Agora), and I got my ass chewed by a few people for being "sketchy",
"lying", and "trying to get people on sides".  So, obviously, it's NOT okay
to change your mind or rephrase things.  

response 25 of 79:

Jun 6 07:42 UTC 2000

I think people need to take more responsibility for their actions, and not
run from them.  Who cares if a few people chew your ass?  You know you've
made an apology.  They're not mature, well so be it - you can at least be
happy with yourself.  They obviously are not if they're bitching at others
for trivial matters.  Let them be...

response 27 of 79:

Jun 6 10:27 UTC 2000

Do those who think they should have the right to delete their
own text, after it has been part of the public discussion, think
they should also have the right to edit their responses, at any
time?

response 29 of 79:

Jun 6 14:19 UTC 2000

   re resp:27: no.

response 31 of 79:

Jun 6 15:32 UTC 2000

        slow on the uptake, eh?

response 33 of 79:

Jun 6 18:30 UTC 2000

Backtalk actually has code supporting item editting, not enabled here. 
It flags editted items with the date on which they were editted, so that
as part of the item header it says something like "response editted by
author on Tue Jun 6 11:32:48 2000".  The original response text is saved
to the censored log.

I don't know if editting is worse or better than erasing.  Either is a
sufficient fix to the problems we have been talking about (retracting
slanderous statements, accidental copyright violations, etc.).  The
question is, which is more disruptive to the flow of discussion?

Editing seems like it could be more easily abused, like:

   #31 by Fred Smith (smith) on Tue Jun 6 11:32:48 2000:
      I like sally.
   #32 by Joe Blow (blow) on Tue Jun 6 12:32:24 2000:
      Me too!!!

becoming:

   #31 by Fred Smith (smith) on Tue Jun 6 11:32:48 2000
   editted on Tue Jun 6 14:32:22 2000:
      I think sally is a bitch.
   #32 by Joe Blow (blow) on Tue Jun 6 12:32:24 2000:
      Me too!!!

However, if editted responses are flagged, then at least you have a clue
to what happened.

But if people *aren't* trying to be nasty, then editting can avoid
disruption to the flow, because people can erase things with greater
sensitivity and selectivity, so you might have:

   #31 by Fred Smith (smith) on Tue Jun 6 11:32:48 2000
   editted on Tue Jun 6 14:32:22 2000:
    [This response originally contained a joke about a cat and a bald
     man, which I later learned to be copyrighted material from Dave
     Berry's Book "Dave Berry Bites an Octopus" book.  Sorry for not
     checking before posting here.]
   #32 by Joe Blow (blow) on Tue Jun 6 12:32:24 2000:
     That's hilarious!

That seems substantially *less* disruptive to the flow of discussion
than just deleting the response.

So it all depends on how people choose to use things.  I've never been
on a system that allowed retroactive editting of postings, so I don't
know how it would work out. 

In practice, if we enabled Backtalk response editting Grex, we'd have
the problem that Picospan would happily display the editted message,
but *not* any warning that it had been editted.  This would be
unacceptable.

response 35 of 79:

Jun 6 23:38 UTC 2000

ooh.  *that* was a thoughtful response...  (resp:34)

response 37 of 79:

Jun 7 01:39 UTC 2000

The minimum right someone has to their own text is to withdraw it from
publication.  Allowing it is sufficient to protect the author's rights.
Copyright gives the author the right to remove their work from
publication, but it does not permit them to force someone else to publish
it for them in a modified form.  Grex, under the law, can't force the
author to allow them to continue publishing the work (unless the author
has given Grex a license, as I discussed earlier), but it can refuse to
publish a modified version of it.

response 41 of 79:

Jun 7 17:45 UTC 2000

seldon is correct (but don't tell him I said so).

response 43 of 79:

Jun 7 21:25 UTC 2000

I'm not coming at this from a legal perspective.  Not allowing people to
withdraw something they have said, at least to the degree that is
technically feasible, seems wrong to me.  I'm not shocked if the various
lawyerly types say that the law says we must allow people that right. 
It stricks me as just another case of the law making perfect sense.

Given that I want to allow people the ability to delete text, there are
lots of ways we might implement that.  Some might do a better job of not
messing up the continuity of the item than others.  Some might be easier
to implement than others.  Allowing deletion but not editing is
definitely easier to implement, and might or might not do a better job
of retaining continuity.

However, if people wanted to enable retroactive editing as well, I'd be
fine with that.  I'd use it a lot too. Seems like I find some moronic
typo in every response I enter.  However, I'm not about to push for it,
because getting it implemented right would be a bear, it would bother a
lot of users, and simply making scribble work would alleviate all my
problems with the current setup.