I wish to make a user proposal that my two items recently deleted by 
loginid valerie not be restored.  The two items were:

agora40, item 63
agora41, item 11

357 responses total.

This response has been erased.

I vote no.

I wish to ask that these items not be restored for the following 
reasons:

1) They were entered during a time of great stress and despair.  During 
that time, I was diagnosed as undergoing major depression, and received 
presciption medication as well as therapeutic treatment for my illness.

2) The material I entered during that time was of a highly personal 
nature.  I don't believe I would have entered it if I had been in 
my "right mind".  I just didn't care then that I could be causing a 
future problem for myself.  I care now.

3) Some of the material could potentially be used to harm both myself 
and my young son.

4) The material contained within them was focused on me, and my own 
personal problems, and had very little if any relevance to anyone else.

5) The items are currently deleted from the system.  They were unused 
for a period of over a year.  I believe they were not being read by 
anyone, and am certain they had not been responded to for over a year.  
I don't believe there is any compelling reason for these items to be 
restored.

6) The items were deleted by my request, with no intention to harm 
anyone else because of having them removed.  I do not believe anyone 
*has* been harmed because of their removal.

7) The items would garner an unusual amount of interest if restored 
now, because of circumstances which have nothing to do with the intent 
or current content of the items.  People who read the items now would 
be doing so because they'd been deleted and thus become part of a 
controversy, not because of any desire to help me through my problems 
of a couple of years ago.

I appreciate the assistance of the members of Grex in gaining 
acceptance for this proposal.  Thank you very much.

You have my permission to leave them deleted, but I don't think you should
be embarrassed about your psychological problems caused by the stress of
divorce.  It was really educational for the rest of us when you shared them
with us and I at least respect you for being able to do so.

I don't think it's true at all that the items had no relevance to other
people, John.  But I have no heart to fight you on this.

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I think both this proposal and the previous one should be put on hold 
until Grex has an actual policy about whether people can delete their 
own items.  I think it's wrong to try to short-circuit the policy 
decision this way.

Life does not come with a rewind-erase button.  Get used to it.

I disagree that those items should not be restored.  Every time items get mass
deleted, posts get mass deleted .etc, you are essentially re-writing and
revising grex's history.  Grex has been like a great experiment, and
preserving what it was, and what it has become, is important.  This is why
I don't like Valerie mass deleting all her posts.  In how many old items is
she taking other people's comments out of context by removing her posts to
which they were replying.  Same thing with JEP removing his posts.  This
is affecting not just their posts, but to the posts of those who
participated in those items.  

Suppose two users have a heated argument in an item, and then one of the
users removes all their posts.  Now anybody reading that item will only
see the other user's posts, and not have the context of the whole
discussion, and that other user could look bad.  Is that fair to the other
user?  Does one user have the right to tear large holes in an item and
potentially embarrass other users who posted in that item in the process?

I'm gonna have to vote to restore these items if the proposal comes up.
 I think that preventing the existence of a precedent for deleting other
people's writing is more important to Grex than preventing the narrow
risk that Jep might be embarrassed by something written by someone else
in those items.  Note that if these items are to be restored, we should
of course make sure to remove jep's responses first if that's what he
wants.  

As I posted in previous item, I think that a user should only be able to
scribble their items, and thereby potentially take other users comments in
those items out of context, if it is reasonable to think that those other
users are still around and would have the opportunity to clarify their
comments.  Grex should fully protect anything posted more than a year ago as
"historical" and disallow scribbling of responses that old or older.  When
people post to grex, they have the right to assume that anything they post
won't be taken out of context years down the line by some  user who suddenly
goes back and scribbles and puts holes in old items.

Unfortunately, that aspect was decided on when they decided to do away 
with the scribble log.

jep, if your items are restored, and only your posts are deleted, 
would this serve your purpose? (I never really read those items 
through, so I wouldn't know.) What if we could get people who entered 
stuff that made obvious responses to what you said to delete their 
posts? I know this would take time, but I think it could be done. Most 
people who responded really cared about you, and I don't see them not 
doing this if it makes you feel better. 

I hate to see your items becoming the reason for allowing other users 
to delete items they've entered. We've already seen a huge loss to the 
system in terms of mass-scribbles, and it would be a shame to see any 
more.

In a reversal of my position on the publicly readable scribble log 
(due to copyright concerns primarily), I'll say this: 
Under absolutely no circumstances should posts which were removed by 
their proper owners be restored, even in the process of restoring 
comments made by others in response to or about those removed posts.

Also, if any posts not made by the users who removed them or 
requested their removal are restored, any quotes of a full sentence 
or more from the properly removed text should also not be restored, 
but should be replaced by something along the lines of:
   [quotation removed by request of original owner/poster]

Richard, your notion of "fairness" is remarkable only for its 
convoluted and self-serving nature.

bullshit other, fairness to one isn't fairness to all, and if I or any other
user post in a conference, we have the right to think that if we leave the
conf or the board, that our comments won't be later taken out of context. 
That items won't be cut up.  If the items are new and the user(s) affected
are still around, thats not an issue.  But if a period of time has passed,
and some or most of the users who posted in that item are no longer around,
it is not fair for that item to be retroactively cut up.  Why can't the
scribble command be limited so it can't be used on posts over a year old?

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I understand what richard is saying. About a year ago, polytarp made 
me make an apology in bbs for something (the details are  hazy), but 
he later went in and scribbled all his posts. While I wasn't and am 
not upset about the result, it did make me look a little ridiculous 
with all his posts gone, and just my words. 

I personally think the scribble command should be revoked. But that's 
another issue.

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re 13:
You're right.  You have the right to think anything you want.  You 
do not, never have, and never will have the right to make sure 
anything you say, in any medium, will always and forever be 
presented only in the context in which it was originally said, which 
is exactly what you are trying to say you have the right to expect.

I challenge you to correct me.

I think actually that any user who posted during the years that the scribble
log was available, thereby posted under the assumption that other people's
comments would be available and people would always be able to see the
context.

Therefore staff should have closed the scribble log only for new posts. 
Valerie is now going back and deleting eight or ten year old items, where
people posted thinking the comments to which they were replying would always
be available, even if scribbled, in the log.  It is not fair to those old
posters who posted in good faith thinking the scribble log would be
around, for Valerie to go back now and delete her posts in those items now
when that log is no longer around.  Staff should restore
everything deleted this week via backup tapes, and then make it so you
can no longer scribble posts that were made when the scribble log was
open, because it isn't open now and it isn't fair to other users

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re #17...Other, this isn't a matter of "rights", it is a matter of decency.
I am saying that Grex, for historical reasons, should strive to maintain the
integrity of its old items, and should want to protect its old or former
users.  Anyone who posts on Grex should be able to expect that they can leave
this board, and not have what they posted here taken out of context five or
ten years down the line.  

In real life, if this was a real town hall, you can't go back and pretend
conversations never happened.  Real time conversations happen in the context
of a time and a moment. 

Either reopen the scribble log OR disallow the scribbling of old posts mor
than a year old altogether.  How else can you be fair to those who posted here
in good faith in the past under different rules?

re resp:4: I am not embarrassed by anything I wrote two years ago.  I 
have gotten those two items deleted solely because I think the contents 
could come to hurt me, and/or hurt my son.  Now I want them to stay 
deleted so nothing bad comes of them now, for either of us.

I asked for help in Agora when I entered those items, and I got it.  I 
am extremely grateful for the great kindness that people offered me 
during that period of my life.  I believe the participants in those 
items saved my life.  I am certain they/you helped me to avoid doing 
things which I would have regretted.  Please don't read any lack of 
gratitude into this proposal.

Those items were very important to me two years ago, when I created 
them and while I was participating in them.  I was in miserable shape 
then.  I am better now.  I'm in better position to decide whether I 
want the items around.  I don't want them around.

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If I could be objective about this, I would have to agree that the 
items should be restored. I am not feeling very objective right now 
though. I really like jep and I totally understand his reasons for 
wanting those items deleted. I think if this came up for a membership 
vote, I would vote to leave them deleted. If they ever are restored, I 
would not mind it if my posts were purged from the item.

I hope they stay deleted.

jp2 Im not worried about myself, I can go back and scribble my own posts in
those items if I want because I'm still here.  But what about users who have
left and are no longer around?  They can't defend themselves from having their
comments being newly misinterpreted.  If Grex will not change current policy,
they should take all old, not-current conferences off the board.  Those
conferences, like all the old coops and all the old agoras, are there for
historical purposes.  There comes a point where those confs need not be ever
again altered in any way, becuase the users of those conferences   most
of them are no longer around. Valerie is altering those conferences. She
was wrong in what she did because if affected others and not just her.

It is like if a person who owns the rights to a documentary film where people
are interviewed, and years later they go back and edit the film, take people's
comments out of context by removing certain content, and re-releases the film.
How is that fair to the people who originally participated in that project
for the director, years later and embittered, to go back and make them look
bad retroactively even if that wasn't the intent?

How can Grex ask people to post here in good faith if staff will not
protect the integrity of what they posted once the conference has closed
and been archived.  

To reiterate/reinforce Jamie's most salient point, I had never heard 
of the scribble log until very shortly before the proposal to close 
it.

To reiterate my initial point, Richard, your concept of fairness is 
utterly convoluted and serves desires you obviously have and are 
ascribing to everyone else possible and it just doesn't hold up.

My comment, by the way, was in resp:12

> ===========
> #10 of 24 by (richard) on Fri Jan 9 15:35:36 2004:
> 
> ...When people post to grex, they have the right to assume that 
> anything they post won't be taken out of context...
> ===========

> ===========
> 20 of 24 by (richard) on Fri Jan 9 16:16:26 2004:
> 
> re #17...Other, this isn't a matter of "rights"
> ===========

As far as letting me scribble my responses from those items, then re-
posting the items... how would the items be restored but kept so only I 
can see them, until I'm done scribbling?

Who is going to go through any responses from others which I request to 
be deleted, and delete them?

If the items are restored, I will certainly begin by removing all of my 
responses from them.  I think I wrote about 2/3 of the responses in 
those two items.  I don't think the discussions will be quite the same 
after I'm done.

The items are deleted now.  All I am asking is that they be left 
deleted.

Richard, you've brought up the issue of fairness.  Is it "fair" that my 
son (then age 5, now 7) be subjected to the results of whatever garbage 
I posted when I was so despondent I was saying anything?  Do you think 
the right of Grex users to plow through old items is so great that he 
should just have to live with what I posted?

Just let the items be deleted.  Leave them alone.  I'm really sorry for 
causing problems to other people by this action, but in the case of 
these two items, I am pretty sure I care more about them than everyone 
else on Grex combined.  I'm asking for a break from Grex.  It's 
completely outside of normal system policy.  I'm asking for it to be 
done that way anyway.

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This response has been erased.

Other, what is convoluted about wanting the words of old users who are no
longer around to be protected. If people posted here in good faith, using
their names, and they have their words taken out of context years later when
they aren't around to defend themselves, how is that fair?  Grex is on the
web, anybody can go read these old confs.  Other, you have no sense of
decency if you can't see how some old user's rep could potentially be damaged
by old confs getting cut up by an embittered user.  

Posting here is like if you published something in a newspaper and a magazine.
When you do that you can't take it back, because the publications are out
there. If I send a letter to the editor of a newspaper and they publish it,
I can't go back and ask them to edit the letter out of future microfilm copies
of the paper.  Grex is publishing what you say, it is sending it out, making
it available on the web.  Why does Grex not allow editing of posted items?
I thought it was the taking other posts "out of context" in the process
argument.  I think it is unfair to allow scribbling, or editing for that
matter, of items that are so old that it is reasonable to think that affected
users might not be around to defend or clarify themselves.

That Other is called decency.  Grex can't grow as a conferencing environment
if it does not show that decency, if it does not show that it will protect
its past

jep wrote in #21

> I'm in better position to decide whether I 
> want the items around.  I don't want them around.

Frankly, jep, I don't think it's any of your business whether the item
is around.  Ok, well, maybe you feel it's important to you that the item
be gone in entirety; I'm not sure why.  But you don't have the right to
ask that of grex.  What you can do is two things:  you can scribble all
of your responses, and you can ask for help again:  ask people
sympathetic to you to scribble their responses in that item themselves.
 I'd be quite willing to do that if you asked nicely; I don't care about
anything I may have written in them.  (I don't even really remember if I
responded, though I know I read them carefully)  

I think you're going to have to get used to the fact that there are
those of us who care enough about what has happened and about doing the
right thing about it that we're not just going to let it drop without a
fight.  

I will vote against this proposal if it comes to a vote.  I'll do this 
not because of my feelings about the overall issue, but because I think 
that member votes about specific users are a bad idea in general.

If this (jep's) item went to a vote, I would vote no.  I think it has to
succeed or fail based on the vote for jp2's proposal.  If it never comes to
a vote, or gets voted down, then jep's proposal is not needed.  If jp2's
proposal is passed, and someone on staff actually carries it out, I think that
jep will just have to deal with it, and work with staff and other posters to
scribble stuff individually, sufficiently.

richard, we have read your "proposal", rehashed several times.  We understand
your point of view.  We just disagree.  It's not going to happen.  scribble
is scribble, it's what it is, it doesn't know about date ranges, what
"oldness" means.  Give it up.  Forget it.

Re: #12: >>Also, if any posts not made by the users who removed them or
 requested their removal are restored, any quotes of a full sentence
 or more from the properly removed text should also not be restored,
 but should be replaced by something along the lines of:
    [quotation removed by request of original owner/poster] <<

I totally disagree (BTW, that text is not part of any proposal, it's just
someone's opinion at this point).  Quotations from another item are "hearsay".
Since the original post isn't around, no one need believe the quoter that it
is what was originally said.  It has no weight.  You will surely argue that
since the original item isn't around, people are just going to assume that
the quote is accurate.  That is their problem for assuming that.

(WHAT do we do if both jep's and jp2's initiatives pass?)

re resp:33: Jan Wolter suggested I make this proposal.  Without it, 
it's always possible some staff member might decide to restore my 
items, or that the Board would order that done.  With a member vote, he 
thought, that wouldn't be a possibility.

re resp:32: I understand your misgivings.  I have some of that type, 
too.  General system policy should be up to the Board or the users, and 
specific policy should be up to the staff.  I have until now been very 
comfortable with leaving specific decisions up to whatever staff member 
happens to make them.  This time, though, it's controversial among the 
staff.  I hope the items never get restored, even if this initiative 
fails.

re resp:31: You're writing as if you're very hostile to me, but in the 
discussion item, you're seeing more and more what I did, why I did it, 
and I think, why it was reasonable for me to do.

I don't want to mess up Grex.  I don't want to cause problems.  I don't 
want to be part of a controversy.  I want to be reasonable.  I want the 
right thing, too.

I dispute that the right thing for maintaining a policy is always the 
right thing for Grex, the Board, the staff, or an individual Grexer to 
do.  Individual people matter, too.  Feelings, concerns, they matter.  
I ask you to consider that what is good for me, in this case, might be 
more important that maintaining Grex's immaculate policy.

This response has been erased.

Now that is just so silly, tod.

I support jep on this.  Leave them deleted.

I'll keep this short:  Undelete those items.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss