response 37 of 78:

Jun 6 03:41 UTC 2000

Y'know, Senators and Representatives get to edit their comments as they 
appear in the Congressional Record, adding or deleting as they see fit.
Why should members (and other uses) of grex not have the same privilege?

response 39 of 78:

Jun 6 04:50 UTC 2000

Sigh.  Congresspersons have a responsibility to the public that mere members
of the public like us do not.  This isn't a deliberative body, and none of
us represent anyone but ourselves.  We're private citizens, not public
figures.  The idea that it's somehow immoral for us to delete our own words
from a computer BBS because it's immoral for elected officials to tamper with
public records is frankly bizarre.  It borders on the surreal.

You can feel that conference items are public records as strongly as you like,
but the rest of the public -- and the genuine legislators -- do not agree.

response 41 of 78:

Jun 6 13:33 UTC 2000

I didn't know there were any YAPP BBSes in Austin TX.

response 43 of 78:

Jun 6 18:19 UTC 2000

I repeat, pulling copyright in to inappropriate places is a bad idea.  But
if you must, consider this:  Anyone with the computer sophistication to
get into a system like Grex is aware that anything they place in
discussion sections *WILL* be seen all over the world.  Posting here is
like feeding your words into an on-demand printing press, then deciding
after 5000 copies have been mailed all across the world, to filch the
printing plates out of the machine.

If people are going to insist on thumping copyright law on this, simply
create a policy that says that text entered by its' creator in public
areas of Grex is placed in the public domain, without asserting any rights
over copyright material that may be posted without the consent of the
owner.  If someone wanted to expose something on Grex and still retain
any semblance of copyright, they could post a file pointer to a non-public
space, the pointer would become public domain, but the file could always
be removed later.

Several people will point out that they will leave if this is implemented.
The existance of the argument pretty much indicates that some of the
losers will leave no matter what the winning position is.  Accept that
this issue will drive some people away and opt for the smooth running of
Grex.

The coffee is hot.

response 45 of 78:

Jun 6 18:49 UTC 2000

Re #43:  Ah, a restatement of the "only people who are computer experts
         and never make mistakes should post on BBSes" argument.  You
         even included the obligatory silly analogy to other types of
         communication that aren't really analogous.  Perfect example
         of the form.

response 47 of 78:

Jun 6 23:21 UTC 2000

   absolutely.

   grex is not a governing body and has no authority to establish law,
no matter what its users might think of various laws already extant.

response 49 of 78:

Jun 6 23:36 UTC 2000

Ok, now suppose the same case as remmers presents in resp:46 except that 
the user is *not* able to prove their identity, but argues vehemently the 
case that the posted text is theirs and is to be removed.  Have they a 
legal leg to stand on should they pursue legal remedy?  Is Grex staff in 
any way obligated to respond to the demands presented sans proof of 
identity?

response 51 of 78:

Jun 7 14:29 UTC 2000

OK, so in an effort to actually move this debate into the realm of practical movement, let's look at the following options, which I think cover all the choices being promoted in this discussion:

1. Do nothing.

2. Change nothing, but inform users a) that scribble saves to a publicly readable file, and b) how to read it.

3. Make /bbs/censored readable by staff only (whether or not we make additional policy regarding how staff may access/use file contents).

4. Disable/remove scribble entirely.

5. Link /bbs/censored to /dev/null so that scribble actually completely removes responses (without consideration of whether removed responses have already been copied and/or reposted).

Now if everyone will please pick one of the above and make a condensed argument for why this is the best choice for Grex, instead of picking apart the choices everyone else is making, is it possible that we can actually get done with this and make it go away?

If you're viewing this in picospan, apparently the list is not numbered, as it is in backtalk. You can refer to the choices by number (1 through 5).
-- Jan, is there any particular reason why backtalk translates <ol> identically to <ul> for picospan?

response 53 of 78:

Jun 7 15:38 UTC 2000

Thank you.  I think that your suggested additional option would be an 
improvement over the existing option of making scribble actually remove 
responses, rather than a separate option.  The "who" would be obvious, 
but adding a "when removed" would be valuable, as seen in context of the 
dates of the adjoining/subsequent responses.

Anyone else?

response 55 of 78:

Jun 7 16:10 UTC 2000

Of the various options presented, I don't know what the best choice
is because I don't know what the law is.  I've read various claims
here about what the law is and what it implies for Grex, but before
basing any policy decisions on that, I would want, at the very least,
a second opinion.

response 57 of 78:

Jun 7 17:43 UTC 2000

re #46: Is that your way of agreeing with Mr. Bumble, albeit on a
        slightly different point of law?

re #55: Opinions aren't hard to come by.

response 59 of 78:

Jun 7 21:11 UTC 2000

On logs:

  Grex keeps lots of logs of all sorts of stuff.  I can tell you every
time you logged onto Grex for the last several years.  I can tell you
every backtalk button you clicked for the last week, and I can tell you
the exact x/y coordinates your mouse was at when you clicked it.

It's possible that lawyers might someday descend on us demanding some of
this data.  So what?  I don't see that as a reason for not keeping it or
not keeping it.  Yes, it might incriminate someone, but it might also
exonerate someone.  And if the data is accurate, it will tend to
incriminate the guilty and exonerate the innnocent, which is probably a
good thing on the whole.

The very idea that we should avoid knowing anything because it might
involve us in a lawsuit just doesn't make any sense to me.  We aren't
running a crackhouse here.  We should keep it if we think it is worth
the disk space to us, and not worry one way or the other about whether
some lawyer will someday want it.