response 226 of 255:

Jun 28 02:44 UTC 2000

Speaking for myself, I've thought about it a lot.  Anyone is welcome to
come to Grex and become a member.  There's no question that that means our
system is fragile - if anyone were sufficiently motivated, they could find
a way to take over the system.

We operate on the good will of our users.  And, frankly, there isn't a lot
to gain in taking over Grex.  Because Grex *is* its users, and if someone
were to take it over and chase away the users, what would be left?

Joe, I've worked very hard for Grex, and I care about it a lot.  I care
about it enough to be very sad at the prospect of something like a
takeover happening.  But despite that I still believe in the democratic
system we have.  Because if we didn't have that, it wouldn't be the same
place.

response 228 of 255:

Jun 28 03:21 UTC 2000

Woohoo  -  my vote, and sentiment, was backed up (:

response 230 of 255:

Jun 28 04:03 UTC 2000

You could've bought mine, no prob.

[Some anonymous person used to keep on buying me mnet 
memberships (or patronships or whatever) and I could
never find out who it was or why they did it.  In fact,
I was starting to think it was some fluke in the 
accounting system, but then mnet turned to mush and I
left and never pursued the matter.  Anyway, the only
thing I ever used it for was dialing in on the patron 
lines, but telnet and the web interface have rendered 
that moot.]

response 232 of 255:

Jun 28 06:43 UTC 2000

Grex does not have the source to picospan.  If the current Grex machine 
were to die, we would likely replace it with a near duplicate, since it 
is likely that what would be involved in the machine dying would not be 
so systemic as to destroy all the parts, and we have much duplication.

Any source changes to picospan would have to be such that marcus would be 
convinced that they were worth his time and the involved violation of the 
terms of the license he holds to the software.

response 234 of 255:

Jun 28 13:37 UTC 2000

re resp:220 - Thanks, I'll take that as a compliment.  :)

re resp:231 - Personally, I'm in the camp of those who'd like to see
scribble/erase disappear completely.  In my opinion, the most accurate "real
world" analogy to this situation that I can think of is a newspaper with back
issues in the library.  You may "own" writings of yours that you've allowed
to be published in the newspaper, but you can't un-write them.  You can't get
back issues of newspapers removed from libraries because you no longer think
what you wrote, the best you can do is publish a retraction.  Now, here's the
key point:  This seems like a good system to me.  
  But I still don't think it's a very important issue.  

response 236 of 255:

Jun 28 13:51 UTC 2000

(Coupled with another complete misunderstanding of the legal definition of
 "publication," I should add.)

response 238 of 255:

Jun 28 14:47 UTC 2000

Greg's analogy is dumb.  Grex is a BBS.  BBSes have been around for almost
20 years now, so we should have enough idea how they work to just talk about
them, instead of trying to come up with strained analogies to other kinds of
speech.  One of the things that is eminently practical on a BBS, even though
it's impossible in a football stadium, living room conversation, newspaper,
radio broadcast, Mayan stela, etc., etc. is allowing people to take their
words out of publication.  In fact, it's very easy to do.  So easy that most
users thought it was actually happening here for many years.

Grex doesn't have the limitation of hardcopy like a newspaper, and it
continues to publish your words years after you said them, unlike a
conversation where the words are spoken and then are not present for the
next person who walks into the room, let alone someone who walks in ten
years later.  Stop trying to bind it to old paradigms of communication.

response 240 of 255:

Jun 28 16:40 UTC 2000

Um, if you're that worried about not being able to "contla your own text",
you might think about limiting the amount you put here.

response 242 of 255:

Jun 28 16:47 UTC 2000

Oh, sorry, I forgot.  I'm an idiot.  I'll change my mind right away...

response 244 of 255:

Jun 28 19:36 UTC 2000

No, I'm not saying you should leave.  I'd be happy if you cut your message
down to a few bullet points, that's all.  ;)

response 246 of 255:

Jun 29 00:55 UTC 2000

I am of the opinion that the closest thing to an ethical position in this
question won.  A forum like this should only remove text for two major
reasons, the avoidance of destructive litigation, and technical issues
like responses containing terminal control codes, raw HTML, or similar
destructive goop.  The former would obviously have to vanish completely,
the latter could be stored elsewhere so as not to leap on the
unsuspecting.

I find the mere existance of the censor and scribble commands ethically
dubious, but as they don't actually erase anything, I see it as not worth
arguing over.

Warning people that they have to live with what they say is simply
reminding them of one of the fundamental principles by which life
operates.

As some people here can tell you, I have posted some incredibly stupid
things in my day, barring drive failures, it is all still here somewhere.
No doubt the hot coffee crowd will class this response and my position on
this matter as stupid, so be it.

While I would not leave Grex if such a vote were to go the other way, I
would take such a vote as a sign that the system was taking a destructive
heading in the long term.

I could go on, but I suspect that it would be pointless to do so.

response 248 of 255:

Jun 29 04:06 UTC 2000

(Scott would get over it, too.)

response 250 of 255:

Jun 29 04:10 UTC 2000

Russ, my opinions change over time.  It's called learning.  Has it ever
happened to you?