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Grex > Coop11 > #160: Scribbling and Expurgating: Is it Effective? | |
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gelinas
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Scribbling and Expurgating: Is it Effective?
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Mar 20 16:53 UTC 2000 |
A question of the effect (and effectiveness) of scribbling has arisen.
Apparently, 'scribbled' entries and responses are recorded in a file which
can be read by anyone. Having discovered this, some who have sribbled
responses are reporting that their expectations have been violated.
I've not yet explored the effect of "expurgating", but I seem to remember
reading somewhere that 'expurgated' items and responses are written over
and so are not available, at all, for further review.
What should be the effect of these two commands?
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| 128 responses total. |
gelinas
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response 1 of 128:
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Mar 20 16:59 UTC 2000 |
On the system that I learned computer-mediated conferencing, there were two
commands for removing a previous response. It *looks* like there is a
similar mechanism here.
The first command, "retire", hid the response but made it available upon
request. (The request was "read noforget", FWIW). It seems this what
the "scribble" command in PicoSpan does.
The second command, whose name I've forgotten, actually removed the entry,
so that no one could ever see it again. Is this what "expurgate" does?
If this is the way PicoSpan works, then I'd say we need only to make sure
that the help for scribble and expurgate makes plain the effect, so that
people know what to expect.
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remmers
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response 2 of 128:
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Mar 20 17:59 UTC 2000 |
There's the same two options here:
(1) "expurgate" - hides the response, but it's still there. A person
can read it after typing "set noforget". (or by clicking a button
in Backtalk)
(2) "scribble" - deletes the response by overwriting it with junk
characters.
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gelinas
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response 3 of 128:
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Mar 20 18:30 UTC 2000 |
Except that both commands copy the response to a world-readable file.
Without warning.
I think I understand the underlying philosophy, but I also think there is
a . . . wrongness . . . to the behaviour.
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void
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response 4 of 128:
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Mar 20 18:34 UTC 2000 |
i agree with gelinas. scribbled responses should be just
that...scribbled, unreadable, unavailable. period.
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janc
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response 5 of 128:
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Mar 20 22:56 UTC 2000 |
I think this was a compromise between people who wanted to be able to
scribble respones, and people who wanted no censorship on Grex, not even
self-censorship.
'expurgate' (called 'hide' in backtalk) only causes the response to
lower its profile a bit. It's still easy to see if you want to (one
mouse click in backtalk).
'scribble' (called 'erase' in backtalk) does thoroughly remove the text
from the conferencing system, but leaves it in a separate log file.
Since that log is publically permitted, text there can still be read
with some difficulty.
I agree that this is non-obvious and that that is bad. Solutions I
like better:
- Have the scribble command print a warning saying the text is still
available.
- Remove the scribble command.
I don't like depermitting the censor.log file. I'm one of those who
think self-censorship is an undesirable feature.
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i
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response 6 of 128:
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Mar 21 01:37 UTC 2000 |
Perhaps we should better explain the current options. I don't think that
we could offer any "for-sure completely delete it" option - the ease of
copying things that appear even briefly on grex would usually falsify such
a claim. Better to have a trustworthy version of words that someone
recanted available (for those determined to know) than to get into
conflicts involving private or unverifiable copies of things.
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gypsi
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response 7 of 128:
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Mar 21 05:34 UTC 2000 |
There is still a problem. I entered a response then later decided to delete
it since I knew it would cause an unintentional uproar. I didn't know it
would be saved in a log. Imagine my surprise when I got mail and posts in
the item yelling at me about the post. So, it wasn't very effective to delete
it, was it? What's the point of scribbling something if someone can read it
anyway?
I don't like censorship, but if it's my decision to delete something I've
posted so that nobody will read it and bring it to light, then why shouldn't
I be able to make that decision?
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goose
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response 8 of 128:
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Mar 21 06:11 UTC 2000 |
I never realized that scribbling a response didn't totally remove it from the
eyes of the general populus. I think we need the log to check for abuses,
but that it should not be world readable. I'm not comfortable with the system
deciding that sefl-censorship is not good for *me*.
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mdw
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response 9 of 128:
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Mar 21 07:03 UTC 2000 |
Who do you think *should* be able to read such a log? Keep in mind that
even if "scribbled" responses weren't saved *anywhere*, that doesn't
mean the response wasn't seen, or saved, by random people before it was
deleted.
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mary
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response 10 of 128:
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Mar 21 11:44 UTC 2000 |
The time to self-censor is before you say or post something. If folks are
aware of this then they are put in control of everything they make public.
If you allow after-the-fact censorship you'll still be in the position of
never really knowing who is reading what. Truth.
And how would you handle something like this - Jack posts something and
for whatever reason Jill copies it to a file. Jack later comes back and
censors his comments and Jill renters Jack's comments as part of her item
or response. I can see where Jill might even want to do such a thing for
very good reasons. Do you then ask the staff to censor Jill's response?
Or what of the person who comes back months or weeks later and out of
anger decides to delete everything they've ever written, leaving holes and
broken threads throughout long discussions? Now, at least the person
knows such an action is only mildly vindictive as nothing is truly erased
once posted.
Would the staff be expected to release information from a de-permitted
censor log? Sure, but under what circumstances? Would it require legal
action? Would the staff be asked to make the decision whether what was
posted and public then censored was libelous and others had the rights to
see what had been posted and to allow for a response.
There are way more examples of how this could go badly.
The way it stands now all of this is moot. You think before you post and
take responsibility for your actions. But I agree that it would be a good
idea to have the censor command do a better job of warning people of its
limitations.
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gypsi
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response 11 of 128:
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Mar 21 12:07 UTC 2000 |
When people scribble something, they've usually done it for purposes of
rephrasing or because they changed their mind after the fact. If Jill digs
through the log, copies text Jack wrote, and responds to it, it seems rather
silly. When Jack scribbled his post, he was effectively removing it from the
discussion. For Jill to bring the hidden response back into discussion is
kind of weird since Jack hid it for those reasons...he either doesn't feel
that way anymore or doesn't want people to see it since he worded it wrong.
Jack should have worded it right the first time, yes. I agree. But some
people have a hard time getting their point across, or decide a few moments
later that they didn't phrase it well enough to be understood. So, Jill
would just be playing devil's advocate, digging through hidden posts as if
they're a diary, and putting them out in the open for all to see while Jack
has to defend himself against something he had *already* retracted from
discussion.
Example: I write something in my diary that I later decide would be bad if
found. I rip the page out of my diary, tear it up, and throw it away. Little
brother comes into my room, digs through my garbage, tapes the diary entry
together, and puts it on the fridge for Mom to see. Mom grounds me for a
week. Yes, I was wrong for writing something that would be bad if found,
but little brother could have left it alone and ignored his nosy urges.
Make sense? I don't read scribbled posts because I figure that if someone
scribbles something, they don't want people to see it. I guess if people want
to read it, that's their business, but to paste it into a discussion just
seems wrong.
It's like saying, "Look what I found!!! Look what I have!!!" and grinning
like a little brother.
<birdy reads her post over and over again, decides it's just fine the way it
is, and makes it so>
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void
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response 12 of 128:
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Mar 21 13:18 UTC 2000 |
denying people self-censorship is every bit as vile as denying them
freedom of speech. in fact, it *is* denying them an aspect of free
speech.
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goose
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response 13 of 128:
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Mar 21 15:15 UTC 2000 |
That's the way I see it too void. If we have an unscrupulous staff member
poking around the censored file we've got bigger problems. The file should
be reviewed by staff and or board when there's a need. I forget, does Pico
keep track of who did the censoring? If so there's even less of a need forthe
censored file to be there. If I want to go back and get rid of everything
I wrote here that's my perogative and I believe within my rights, but I
understand that people may have downloaded the cf's or many people may have
already read what I posted. I think the worst chance of abuse exsists now
with folks getting a false sense of security. Especially through backtalk,
calling it 'erase'? Hardly.
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mary
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response 14 of 128:
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Mar 21 16:05 UTC 2000 |
Posting to Grex is nothing like writing in a diary. It is public. If
it is posted and anyone reads it it has become part of the discussion.
To think you can call it back or make it private is foolish.
Imagine yourself at a podium, speaking to an audience where listeners
may even be tape recording the contents. You say something, think maybe
it was a bad idea, so you go back to the microphone and say, "Nevermind,
pretend I didn't say that". That's what conferencing is all about.
And if you think spoken word more fleeting than written text, well,
it all depends on what you've said, isn't it.
I'd much rather we encouraged folks to think ahead and be responsible
for their actions. Treat them as adults, more or less. ;-)
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remmers
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response 15 of 128:
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Mar 21 16:08 UTC 2000 |
Re resp: 11 - Posting something in a public forum is not the same
as writing something in a private diary.
Re resp:12 - I don't follow that one. If you make a speech at a town
meeting or write a letter to the editor that gets published, you don't
get to go back and erase your words.
I think we'd be better off without the scribble command, and
cautioning people to take responsibility for what they post and
to think before they type.
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remmers
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response 16 of 128:
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Mar 21 16:10 UTC 2000 |
(Mary's #14 slipped in and said much the same thing as I was trying
to, and said it better as well.)
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janc
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response 17 of 128:
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Mar 21 17:50 UTC 2000 |
Mary articulates well why I think self-censorship is a bad idea. Lots
of forms of speech are irrevocable. Most of them even.
I strongly agree however that allowing people to think they are
censoring themselves when they are not is bad. That means the current
system is bad, but it also means that trying to make 'scribble' really
work is bad, because you can't really do it. Soon after you have posted
something, it will be in lots of people's scrollback buffers, browser
caches and memories. It wouldn't odd at all if someone reposted what
you deleted. It's much better not to foster any illusions about this.
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keesan
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response 18 of 128:
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Mar 21 18:53 UTC 2000 |
Sarah, if Jill responds to something that Jack wrote before he scribbles it,
quoting part of what he wrote, only Jill can scribble her response.
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jep
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response 19 of 128:
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Mar 21 19:18 UTC 2000 |
The current setup seems like the worst way to handle the situation. If
"scribble" doesn't remove text from public view, then the option should
be removed. If it exists, then it should work the way most people will
expect it to work. I'm startled each time I re-discover (through an
item like this) that if I use "scribble" on Grex my remarks are still
readable.
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gypsi
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response 20 of 128:
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Mar 21 21:47 UTC 2000 |
Ditto.
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gelinas
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response 21 of 128:
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Mar 22 03:14 UTC 2000 |
I would expect my scribbling my responses to be permanent. I would expect
the conference's fair witness scribbling my responses to be reversible.
But that's just because that's the way it was somewhere else. This is a
different place, with different norms.
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other
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response 22 of 128:
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Mar 22 07:24 UTC 2000 |
The expurgate command is useful for presenting asnswers to questions which
people may want to figure out for themselves and then check against the
expurgated response, so there is a perfectly legitimate use for expurgate as
it now functions.
Scribble, on the other hand, seems to be worse than useless if it really does
not do what it suggests, and I, for one, think that it should not be offered
as an option (after doing the thinking that this discussion has resulted in).
The point is simply that we should all take the time and make the effort to
consider what we post in any public forum before doing so, and the scribble
command does nothing more than further the false sense of security that
unsuspecting users may already have about computers and the internet.
I find myself frequently using the replace command in gate (the editor I use
in bbs) to correct errors in my posts, and sometimes even to change what I
have written. I recommend it, because once you put it out there, you just
cannot take it back.
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krj
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response 23 of 128:
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Mar 22 17:33 UTC 2000 |
I would hate to see "scribble" go away. I usually use it for quality
control, when I suffer a severe brain fart while trying to post something
and the syntax comes out mangled. Or there is terrible net lag and I
get some sort of editing disaster, and the mangled text escapes and
gets posted -- that happens mostly on M-net, though. So when I
scribble something a corrected version runs as soon as I can in a
subsequent response.
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remmers
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response 24 of 128:
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Mar 22 18:19 UTC 2000 |
Wouldn't "expurgate" be sufficient for that?
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