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Grex > Coop11 > #173: Motion to make scribble permanently erase response text | |
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| 25 new of 255 responses total. |
jmsaul
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response 75 of 255:
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Jun 1 19:03 UTC 2000 |
Laws regarding the ownership of writings are quite clear. The mere fact
that those writings are entered on a computer BBS is irrelevant. There are
certainly fair use provisions, but fair use is unlikely to cover Grex's
insistence on retaining entire posts against the will of the author.
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other
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response 76 of 255:
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Jun 2 02:40 UTC 2000 |
My natural instinct is to find a solution, and I'm getting frustrated because
I can't seem to find one that satisfies all of the reasonable concerns being
addressed. My inflammatory responses are because I was tired. I apologize.
Aaron makes a very good point:
<snip>
Right now, people can expurgate and scribble their comments, weeks or
months after the fact. Except for the few who are quirky enough to dig the
comments out of the censored log, the continuity is lost. Yet it doesn't
seem to be a problem. If it isn't a problem, why create a policy based
upon the premise that it is?
</snip>
Mary, before I attempt a response to that, I would like to get your thoughts
on it. The reason I ask is because you have presented the clearest arguments
in opposition to making scribble/erase actually do what it suggests.
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janc
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response 77 of 255:
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Jun 2 04:26 UTC 2000 |
I think I will vote for this one.
1 The current situation, where lots of people think they are erasing
their responses and only a few people know they aren't, is terrible.
2 Completely eliminating the self-censorship option is also bad. If
I screw up and say something slanderous and incorrect about someone,
then I should have some option other than leaving that statement up
forever. (I actually see as putting Grex at plausible legal risk.
If I make a slanderous statement and retract it and appologize
profusely, but Grex continues to publish it (albeit with my retraction
somewhere far below) even though everyone else involved wants it
removed, then I think Grex makes itself a plausible target for a
slander suit.)
3 A warning message or other improved documentation of the
ineffectiveness of the scribble command simply puts us in the same
situation as 2 if it is effective in informing people about the
censored log, and in the same situation as 1 if it isn't.
4 I don't think time delays address the basic issue.
So I'm left with making 'scribble' work as the only option that doesn't
feel completely wrong to me. I don't like it very much. We will have
people going through and censoring all their old responses just because
they are buttheads. It can mess up the continuity of old discussions.
But jerks will be jerks.
I don't buy the argument that it will occur irresponsibility in postings
if people know that they can censor themselves. Even if I did buy,
that, I'm not sure that it wouldn't make conferencing more fun if more
people felt a little freer to take risks.
It's true that after you censor someone, someone else might pull a copy
out of their scrollback buffer and repost it. Tough luck. It's up to
you to convince the person who reposted it to censor it.
Grex staff would release copies of censored material (1) at the request
of the original author, (2) at the request of legal authorities. It's
true that if someone broke into cfadm, they could read the log. They
could also edit every response in every conference on grex. Their
reading the log would be the least of our problems. The staff will
promise to take reasonable precautions to prevent this from happening.
If you want to put more of this kind of wording into the motion to make
clear that we can't *really* guarantee that it will forever be
accessible only to staff, then go ahead, but I think that should already
be obvious to most people.
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gull
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response 78 of 255:
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Jun 2 05:38 UTC 2000 |
Re #77: I, reluctantly, have to agree. I don't like it much either, but I
think it's better than the current policy. I also doubt we'll see much more
irresponsibility than we have now, since most people currently no doubt
assume scribble works the way the proposal would make it work.
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mary
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response 79 of 255:
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Jun 2 11:46 UTC 2000 |
Re: 76 I don't think that most people who post to the conferences
are (were) confused about how scribble works. Some, sure. Too many,
sure. Fix that part of it, you bet. But the fact that text
couldn't be erased from the system tended to keep text in the
conference. Or at least that's my take on it. I suspect if you
allow folks to remove all traces of whatever it is they want to
say that you'll see more self-censorship and fragmented discussion.
Anything which moves us away from expecting folks to think ahead and be
responsible with their posts is a huge step in the wrong direction.
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pfv
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response 80 of 255:
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Jun 2 13:01 UTC 2000 |
I have to agree with Jan and disagree with Mary.
Further, I find:
> Anything which moves us away from expecting folks to think ahead and be
> responsible with their posts is a huge step in the wrong direction.
..to be rather comical. What it implies is a parental attitude
_about_bbs_, implying that what is NOT bbs isn't of importance.
It seems to me that either "the curb is too low", or it is not:
this is a personal call. And, unless it has become the goal of
Grex to instill "thought and responsibility", then the argument is
downright silly.
I'd rather see all this energy spent on solutions to the space/toy
problems which seem to regularly chew up the drives.. Or the
sexual harrassment stuff - whatever.. Anything but specious
arguments against a person deleting his own material.
Jan? Would there still be a way that folks could post and "hide"
something exceptional long - making it item-material - that the
readers could explicitly CHOOSE to read? I seem to recall several
long, technical items handled this way.
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jmsaul
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response 81 of 255:
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Jun 2 17:47 UTC 2000 |
The censor command does that.
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aaron
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response 82 of 255:
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Jun 2 18:56 UTC 2000 |
Using a number of systems where after-the-fact removal of text (or
editing of text) is permitted, I am reminded of one guy who made
after-the-fact changes that they now use his name to describe that
process. ("I wish you would stop 'smithing' your posts.") The idea
that continuity would disappear is absurd, given the trouble one has
to go through to presently retrieve scribbled remarks. The notion
that Grexers are so stupid that they could not figure out what the
game was is just plain insulting.
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goroke
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response 83 of 255:
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Jun 2 21:25 UTC 2000 |
Okay, instead of changing the current command set to do something else, what
about leaving those commands as-is, and adding a new option, "retract", which
would write to an unreadable log, and have scribble and expurgate write to
the readable one? This would allow staff to track who uses which command and
assemble some meaningful stats as to whether the new option materially
affected user habits.
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albaugh
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response 84 of 255:
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Jun 3 03:23 UTC 2000 |
I gather that cfadm's have some editing capabilities w.r.t. conference
items. Clarification: Are cfadm's considered "staff"? If not, then,
to be precise, I should amend my motion to say "non-staff" and "non-
cfadm" (appropriate wording & logic to follow).
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i
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response 85 of 255:
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Jun 3 16:08 UTC 2000 |
All the conference data files are owned by cfadm, so cfadm has unlimited
power to add/edit/delete/whatever. (Whether & under what circumstances
a cfadm might use that power are another matter.) In the broad/official
sense, cfadm's are staff (must be approved by other staff & the board,
etc.).
For purposes of this discussion on conferences, censorship policies, etc.,
cfadm's are definitely staff.
In many other specific contexts, though, "staff" is used to mean "has
root-level powers", and cfadm is NOT staff in that sense. If some little
brat graduates from scribble-on-the-walls-with-crayons to bog-down-grex-
with-a-forkbomb-script, cfadm can't do anything more about it than can
Ivan from Ukraine who just ran newuser yesterday.
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janc
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response 86 of 255:
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Jun 5 13:27 UTC 2000 |
Right. As far as the conferences are concerned, 'cfadm' is as good as
root, since essentially all files are owned by 'cfadm' (including the
Picospan and Backtalk programs) and could theoretically be editted in
arbitrary ways. And, like root-staff, cfadm is expected to do
substantially less than they are theoretically capable of, operating
only within the restrictions of Grex policy. So they are officially
staff. So are 'partyadm' people.
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cmcgee
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response 87 of 255:
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Jun 5 17:48 UTC 2000 |
I will be voting for a new policy which allows me to permanently remove one
or more of my responses from a discussion item. I have no problem with that
entry being stored in a file that only staff can view. I do have a problem
with the current policy which allows the techie-few to view those files, and
creates the (inaccurate) feeling that scribbling and/or expurtgating a
response has deleted it from this system entirely.
I like being able to enter a long response, and then shielding the casual
reader from screens full of text by "hiding" that response
_within_the_discussion_item_.
I too have been persuaded on this decision by the copyright concept that Grex
does not have control of my words just because I published them on a bbs.
No matter where I publish, I still retain the copyright. I am willing to
grant staff limited use of those words by retaining a non-public copy of
anything I post, even if I come to believe that I am causing harm by leaving
it publicly readable. (Or for any other reason that I want to burn my own
books).
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remmers
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response 88 of 255:
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Jun 5 18:12 UTC 2000 |
Re #87, 2nd paragraph: I don't think there's any controversy
about the hide/expurgate command.
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mwg
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response 89 of 255:
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Jun 6 17:56 UTC 2000 |
Yet again, an item that exists primarily because people want to escape the
consequences of stupidity.
I have, in the past, metaphorically given myself athletes' teeth, and will
no doubt do so in the future. The idea is to learn from this sort of
thing. Copyright law is already near to, if not past, the point where
we'd be better off aggravating the problem it suppossedly addresses.
Applying copyright to a conversational medium in the manner suggested here
is so non-sensical I can't even describe it adequately.
The coffee is hot, you should know to watch where you put it without being
told.
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jmsaul
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response 90 of 255:
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Jun 6 18:45 UTC 2000 |
It's my coffee; I should be able to take it away if I want to.
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orinoco
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response 91 of 255:
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Jun 8 02:41 UTC 2000 |
<resists the temptation to burst into song>
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jmsaul
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response 92 of 255:
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Jun 8 02:43 UTC 2000 |
(I know. I just couldn't think of a way to get the joke in there.)
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rcurl
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response 93 of 255:
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Jun 9 16:42 UTC 2000 |
I say "no". I believe the character of grex exists in part because
individuals take responsibility for their own words. This action would
negate that. (But the action of expurgate/scribble should be written
into the instructions, which can be done without a vote.)
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slynne
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response 94 of 255:
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Jun 9 17:53 UTC 2000 |
I am somewhat concerned because I am in the group that feels that I own my
words that I post here. When grex refuses to allow me to permanently erase
something I have said, I really feel that The-Powers-That-Be are somehow
trying to control what I say. Mary Remmers's comments that grex needs to have
publicly readable censor logs so that people will behave better online
especially makes me feel like this is more an issue of control than it should
be.
I mean, come on, how often to people really scribble their own posts? Hardly
ever. This is such a non-issue when it comes to the day to day operation of
grex that it is laughable and yet, people like me get all up in arms about
it because we dont like people to control what we say and people like Mary
Remmers get all up in arms about it because they seem to believe that keeping
everything publicly readable will give them more control over things. And
that's funny too because not allowing someone to erase what they write doesnt
really take that much control away from them and letting everyone read
scribbled responses probably doesnt make them behave any better.
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mary
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response 95 of 255:
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Jun 9 21:53 UTC 2000 |
Fine point, maybe, but I'm not advocating a publicly readable
censor file, but rather that the scribble command be removed
entirely. And this has nothing at all to do with controlling
what you can say. You can say whatever you want, no sweat.
Unsaying it is the tricky part.
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jmsaul
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response 96 of 255:
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Jun 9 23:03 UTC 2000 |
Being forced to keep saying it is what we're talking about.
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slynne
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response 97 of 255:
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Jun 10 00:00 UTC 2000 |
Removing the scribble command probably wont make people behave better either.
I have said all kinds of rude things to people over the years and I dont
generally scribble what I say.
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albaugh
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response 98 of 255:
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Jun 10 03:29 UTC 2000 |
The final wording of the motion appears here between the === lines:
=============================================================================
Shall the picospan "scribble" and backtalk "erase" commands
permanently make the text of responses inaccessible to non-staff users?
Note: For the purpose of conference item administration cfadm's are
considered "staff".
=============================================================================
I think that the note line will be clarifying for those people that care
about these subtleties, and thus should be part of the motion text.
But I can be persuaded otherwise.
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jmsaul
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response 99 of 255:
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Jun 10 04:28 UTC 2000 |
Looks very reasonable.
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