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Grex > Oldcoop > #75: Member Initative: Restore the Murdered Items | |
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| 25 new of 424 responses total. |
valerie
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response 30 of 424:
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Jan 10 05:51 UTC 2004 |
[I posted this first in the item discussing John Perry's proposal, but then
I realized that I should post it here too. So this is a duplicate response.]
Wow... it occurred to me that I should come back for long enough to
make a proposal for a membership vote on keeping my baby diary deleted,
so I logged in to do that, and found that there are at least two such
proposals on the table already.
A couple of thoughts:
At the beginning of Grex, fair witnesses were given very broad powers to
do whatever they pleased in their conferences. It was expected that they
could delete items and set up their own set of rules for each conference.
If you didn't like the way a fw ran a conference, you were supposed
to start your own similar conference with a different fair witness,
run it your own way, and if it was better than the original conference,
then people would hang out there instead of in the original. If that
meant that there were 12 cooking conferences, that was cool.
I can remember plenty of instances of fair witnesses legitimately
deleting items. In the classified ads conference, the fws deleted
old ads. In the kitchen conference, the fws (I was one of them) deleted
everything and started over, because the conference had gotten big and
we wanted it to stay manageably small. In the Enigma conference, John
Remmers would change the decor from time to time by deleting old items
and adding a "new western look" or whatever style he wanted to try out.
Nobody objected.
In conversation this evening, Jan said to me that he thinks that the
recent discussions about people being allowed to scribble their own
responses changed people's ideas of what the role of a fair witness is.
I don't know about that -- I sat out from those discussions -- but it
could well be true.
However, if the definition of what a fair witness can do has changed, I
think it is wrong to apply the new rules to old items. My baby diary ran
for over six years -- that is, it started long, long, before those recent
discussions. Misti says that for sure she would have deleted the baby
diaries from the femme conference if I had asked her to. Grace sounds
less certain than Misti, but she says that she thinks she would have too.
What I'm asking is that if people want a rule that says that fair
witnesses can't delete items, don't retroactively apply it to items that
the fair witnesses would have legitimately been allowed to delete --
such as my baby diary items or John Perry's deleted items.
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Also, I have to say, I thought that the title "Valerie's Baby Diary"
made it clear that I owned those items, just like I own the files in
my directory and my books in my home. Other people could post to those
items, but I viewed them as my own. The title made that clear. I had
no idea that people thought that any item in PicoSpan was the collective
property of the Grex user community. I'm not sure if this is something
that was unwritten and reasonable people made different assumptions,
or if it is something that got decided on during the big discussion
(that I didn't read) about scribbling items. But to me the idea that if
"Valerie's Baby Diary" is in PicoSpan, then it belongs to the community
and not to Valerie -- that idea was a surprise to me.
The first volume of the baby diary originally had another title, which
was changed later, so maybe some case could be made that this does not
apply to that volume. But the other five volumes were named "Valerie's
(pregnancy/parenting/childbirth/whatever) Diary" from the time when they
were entered. If the Grex community decides to make a policy that says
that Grex, and not the item author, owns all items, I hope the policy
won't be retroactive back to items that were entered before the policy
was defined, back when the ownership of items was ambiguous and people
came to different interpretations.
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Hm... I should post this response in the other proposal item too, since
it's much more relevant to that one than to this one.
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happyboy
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response 31 of 424:
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Jan 10 11:41 UTC 2004 |
if you're gonna leave then LEAVE.
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jaklumen
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response 32 of 424:
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Jan 10 12:46 UTC 2004 |
*sigh* (I am wondering why you're back... not sure it helps matters)
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willcome
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response 33 of 424:
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Jan 10 13:28 UTC 2004 |
Jay, does this initiative include the items deleted by mynxcat in the
international conference?
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mynxcat
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response 34 of 424:
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Jan 10 13:57 UTC 2004 |
As per Val's post, since there isn't any policy, I was fairly within my
rights.
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jmsaul
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response 35 of 424:
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Jan 10 14:11 UTC 2004 |
I wasn't aware that Valerie was a FairWitness of agora at the time she deleted
jep's items. I must have missed that.
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willcome
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response 36 of 424:
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Jan 10 14:31 UTC 2004 |
34: As I understand it, mynxcat, even if you were "within your rights", this
would supercede.
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jp2
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response 37 of 424:
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Jan 10 16:01 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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mynxcat
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response 38 of 424:
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Jan 10 16:02 UTC 2004 |
Not really, as per val's post, it seems that fw's had every right to delete
items they thought appropriate and if that had to change now, it should not
be applied retroactively to all conferences and items. Theres fore when I
deleted the items I was perfectly withing my rights.
Also she says that when she created those items the general idea was that the
author was the owner and it wasn't a grex collective owned iece of work.
Agian, if that were to change now, it shouldn't be applied retroactively. And
she says her diaries were named "Val's baby diary" etc. If we were to go with
these arguments, then my fat item should be deleted, ang with my piano item
and any other item I've ebtered over the last couple of years.
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naftee
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response 39 of 424:
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Jan 10 17:13 UTC 2004 |
If my name is somehow attached to it, it's mine!!!!! All mine!!!!!! BAHAHAHA
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willcome
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response 40 of 424:
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Jan 10 17:18 UTC 2004 |
Re. 37: FWs are at least quasi-staff members.
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jmsaul
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response 41 of 424:
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Jan 10 17:53 UTC 2004 |
Re #38: I wouldn't cite Valerie as an authority on what people with staff
or FW powers are allowed to do here. People of equal tenure don't
agree.
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mynxcat
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response 42 of 424:
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Jan 10 18:14 UTC 2004 |
I agree with you. Let's just say that my post is valid if it is ever agreed
that val's post is valid.
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janc
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response 43 of 424:
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Jan 10 20:37 UTC 2004 |
I would strongly oppose restoring the items intact and leaving them
on-line until jep/valerie got around to deleting their own responses.
Grex has recognized the authors right to delete their own posts. To
temporarily restore them allowing others to grab copies would be in
violation of previously established principles.
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mary
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response 44 of 424:
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Jan 10 20:52 UTC 2004 |
And they wouldn't be put back with Valerie's and John's comments
still available.
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richard
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response 45 of 424:
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Jan 10 21:51 UTC 2004 |
#43...but Jan does it not also violate grex's own previously established
principles, if authors delete other people's posts in the act of deleting
their own? I think its a question of whether you can infringe upon other
people's rights to have their own words posted while in the act of enforcing
your own. I posted in some of JEP's items, does he strictly speaking have the
right to request removal of my posts just because he has the right to request
removal of his own?
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naftee
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response 46 of 424:
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Jan 10 22:14 UTC 2004 |
re 43 But they would never get around to doing that! They'd stall on purpose!
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tod
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response 47 of 424:
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Jan 10 23:51 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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cyklone
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response 48 of 424:
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Jan 11 02:05 UTC 2004 |
I think jep's divorce item has too many valuable insights to disappear.
Even if his posts are deleted (which I certainly understand and do not
oppose), I believe the benefits others provided in terms of their own
opinions and experiences far outweigh the "benefit" of deleting the
entire item.
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jp2
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response 49 of 424:
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Jan 11 02:08 UTC 2004 |
This response has been erased.
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cross
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response 50 of 424:
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Jan 11 04:04 UTC 2004 |
Naming of an item is irrelevant. In a forum like this, creating an
item is an invitation for public discussion, by definition. There is
no ownership of a discussion amongst public participants; that's an
impossible concept. It's like asking, ``Who owns `speech'?''
If, therefore, there is no owner, then it is inappropriate for one person
to decide they have any authority to delete the words of another person.
Think of it this way: if someone else had created an item parallel
to Valerie's baby diary items entitled something like, `discussion of
valerie's baby diary', would Valerie `own' that too? Of course not,
it doesn't make any sense.
That said, I feel empathy for jep and valerie's emotions in wanting to
make their posts go away. I still think my previous suggestion is an
acceptible way to go that has the potential to accomodate all parties.
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jep
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response 51 of 424:
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Jan 11 04:05 UTC 2004 |
I agree there was value in my divorce items. However, it was all
intended for me, and for my situation. There was virtually no drift
in those items.
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cyklone
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response 52 of 424:
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Jan 11 04:26 UTC 2004 |
That's not the point. People said what they said, and just because those words
were placed in an item you began, and about you, does not mean you own those
words. Especially when those words may have independant value for someone
other than you.
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jep
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response 53 of 424:
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Jan 11 04:58 UTC 2004 |
I regret that that value was lost, cyklone. I wish I didn't think
there was a need to remove those items. It is possible someone would
have someday come across my items when in a similar situation and with
a similar mindset, and could thereby have gotten through the
experience a little easier.
You see, I do understand that aspect of the issue. What I would have
given for an account of that type of experience, while I was going
through it...
But those items mean something else, too. I wouldn't have entered
them, or at least wouldn't have said as much in them, if I'd had
appropriate concern for what might come of them some day. I just
*didn't care*. It seems to me to be pretty harsh to force someone to
have something remain when it was created under those types of
circumstances.
Also, that they're deleted now is an important fact about them. They
can not again be an obscure, past account of my feelings about my
divorce. Now they'd be a part of a political storm, a target for
people who have no concern about me at all, and also a target for
people who don't like that I had them deleted. They're deleted now.
That's real, and it has real impact. Undeleting them doesn't put
things back to where they were. Undeleting them is a completely new
action, which has never been done before on Grex.
That is of course true for Valerie's items, and for items all over the
conferences which once contained Valerie's responses. Restoring them
does not set back the clock. It'd be a whole new type of action,
compounding the consequences -- not erasing them -- of what has
already happened this week.
If I hadn't gotten my items deleted, they might well have gained new
usage from a different group of people; those who are archiving
controversial items just to show people they can't delete even their
own text.
It is *not* as simple as "the items were created once, now they should
be here permanently". Both because my items were deleted, and because
of other events, much has changed here this week.
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janc
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response 54 of 424:
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Jan 11 07:59 UTC 2004 |
Richard - nobody is arguing that their deletion was procedurally correct.
The person who deleted them has already resigned. We are all willing to
agree that that should not have been done in that manner. There is no need
to keep debating that point.
If I'd had my way, the items would have been deleted with the formal
approval of the board temporarily, so that we could have this discussion.
If that had happened, then there would be at least a little reason to
debate whether or not it was the right thing to do - it would have been
an official Grex action, not an accident that happened to Grex.
In any case, if they hadn't been deleted, one way or the other, then we
couldn't even be having this public discussion of the merits of deleting them.
The question here is to weigh the potentials for harm in each course.
One way, JEP is exposed to some risks that he has outlined. The other
way, Grex might have taken a small step closer to the slippery slope
of censorship. The first risks a person (two really), the second risks
an institution. None of us can do anything to mitigate the risks to
JEP if we restore his item. All of us can do things to prevent Grex from
sliding down the slope into routine censorship if we do don't.
I think there's no comparison here. It's a no brainer.
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