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Grex > Coop11 > #173: Motion to make scribble permanently erase response text | |
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| Author |
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albaugh
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Motion to make scribble permanently erase response text
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May 28 04:47 UTC 2000 |
The debate has by now indeed raged in at least 2 items in 2 conferences.
Everyone by now (who cares) is undoubtedly aware of the issue and its
various aspects. Probably most people are tired of debating it.
So accordingly, I make the following motion (in the form of a question):
Shall the picospan "scribble" command (and accordingly the
backtalk "erase" command) permanently erase the text of a response?
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| 255 responses total. |
albaugh
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response 1 of 255:
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May 28 04:58 UTC 2000 |
We already know from a technical standpoint that causing a response's
text to be permanently erased can easily be done.
We know that people should indeed carefully consider what they intend
to say before making a response in a BBS.
We know that it is possible for an individual to make a personal copy
of response text before the author has a chance to erase it.
We know that it could be awkward to see follow up responses refer to a
response whose text is subsequently erased.
We know that all manner of childish games relating to this could be
played by people acting childishly.
However, for me, most of those are hypothetical situations,
intellectual debate and fear mongering over worst case scenarios.
To me, it's just a simple matter of letting the response author "think
better of it" after the fact. The fact that this isn't possible in e-
mail (sometimes it is!), letters to the editor, on TV, etc., while
intellectually interesting, has no bearing on whether or not grex can
do it. Some might argue that just because you can do something doesn't
mean you should do it. True enough. But in this case, I don't happen
to think allowing permanent erasure of response text is going to cause
the sky to fall, or put out the lights at the pumpkin.
When this comes up for a vote, I shall be voting "Yes".
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mdw
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response 2 of 255:
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May 28 08:36 UTC 2000 |
Actually, it's not so easy to make responses go away. If they've been
there over a month they're very likely on backup tapes.
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void
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response 3 of 255:
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May 28 13:12 UTC 2000 |
even so, scribbling them stops the items' continued publication.
unless, of course, the backup tapes are available in some publicly
readable format unknown to most grexers.
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mary
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response 4 of 255:
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May 28 13:39 UTC 2000 |
No.
Allowing folks to permanently remove their text, after it has become part
of the dialogue, encourages them to act in an irresponsible manner. It
will foster conferences filled with holes, do nothing to resolve any
differences of opinion, and might even bring new weapons to those very
few who are looking to cause trouble by allowing them to make,
essentially, drive-by verbal assaults. Yuck.
The way things stand now there is a problem with folks not realizing
how permanent their text is but that's about as broken as it gets.
I agree we should make it clearer how the scribble/expurgate commands
work.
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robh
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response 5 of 255:
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May 28 14:59 UTC 2000 |
I will be voting "no" on this, for the same reasons that mary
stated in #4.
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void
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response 6 of 255:
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May 28 15:58 UTC 2000 |
re resp:4: it does not and it will not. can you give one reason for
usurping control over users' text which does not boil down to, "this
will immediately lead to the worst possible scenario anyone can
imagine. besides, i like being able to sneakily read newbies' posts
that they think they have removed?" in all the debates over this issue
so far, i have not heard a single reason for keeping the present system
the way it is which does not basically mean one of the above, while
jmsaul has listed several valid reasons for changing it.
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pfv
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response 7 of 255:
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May 28 16:01 UTC 2000 |
well, void..
They DO continue to also try arguing the positive: "it improves
the quality of bbs and postings", (then they hit the other side
again).
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scott
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response 8 of 255:
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May 28 16:46 UTC 2000 |
I'm in favor of putting a warning on the expurgate/scribble, but no other
changes.
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gull
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response 9 of 255:
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May 28 17:14 UTC 2000 |
I agree with the "drive by verbal assault" argument, and for what it's
worth, I've only looked at the scribble log once, and it wasn't to "snicker
at the ignorant newbies." This isn't some vast conspiracy to make people
look stupid, and it disappoints me that several people seem to believe it
is. My first preference is for scribble to be disabled, and a warning put
on expurgate. My second preference is for scribble and expurgate to work as
they currently do, but display a warning.
The argument that allowing self-censorship would encourage irresponsible and
childish behavior by some people isn't speculation; it's been observed on
other conference systems.
An interesting point of debate is whether the scribble warning should give
the location of the file and how to read it. I'm not sure about that, but I
do think the expurgate warning should explain how to read expurgated text.
It's not fair for only "l33t" users of Picospan to know how. ;>
While I agree that the sky won't fall if the scribble log is removed, it
hasn't fallen under the current system, either. I think the way things work
now is just fine, and the more misleading aspects need to be fixed. I
agree, though, that any of the options given are better than the current,
misleading situation.
I don't feel that making the scribble log readable by staff is effectively
any different than making it nonexistant, unless it's necessary to cover us
legally.
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remmers
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response 10 of 255:
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May 28 18:22 UTC 2000 |
My preferences are essentially the same as gull's.
Although I intend to vote against the motion, I'm at least
glad that Kevin worded it narrowly as a technically feasible
change to the behavior of specific commands, rather than
something broader such as "Users shall have the right to
delete their responses permanently." Since Grex doesn't
validate users and since users occasionally change login id's,
that would be virtually impossible to implement without
radical and odious changes to the way Grex is administrated.
Does the motion imply that that a scribble log shall not
exist (even one that is unreadable by the public)? Bear
in mind that if someone broke into a user's account and
maliciously scribbled the user's responses, in the
absence of a scribble log there'd be no way to recover
the responses.
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albaugh
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response 11 of 255:
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May 28 18:39 UTC 2000 |
To me, permanent means "permanent", except for that text which is captured
by normal tape backups. Such text is not accessible by users. Could tape
backup be used to restore vandalized response text due to an account breakin?
I guess. Another worst case scenario...
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mdw
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response 12 of 255:
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May 28 20:10 UTC 2000 |
Backups don't happen often enough to make them a reasonable means of
restoring text vandalized due to an account break-in.
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i
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response 13 of 255:
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May 28 20:41 UTC 2000 |
And restoring someone's responses from tape would be a very long, tedious
task even if we did backups often enough. (In other words, don't expect
any of grex's unpaid volunteer staff to put in yet more time on this.)
I can see enough possible (though unlikely) legal angles on this that we
might want to ask what the legal plusses & minuses, for both grex and our
users, are for the various options.
I see the "sneakily read newbies' posts that they think they have
removed" thing as both a red herring and bit of sloppiness on our
part. Just like any other command, what scribble & expurge do should
be clearly spelled out. Amost anyone with the time and interest to
be browsing through the deleted responses log can find much bigger
& better thrills elsewhere.
I'm personally opposed to the more-powerful scribble/erase commands,
but i'm much more concerned that we handle the decision well and don't
make a lot of grief for staff, make a bad legal situation, etc.
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pfv
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response 14 of 255:
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May 28 21:00 UTC 2000 |
I reiterate: symlink the censor-logs to /dev/null - I'd bet it
would take less than 15 minutes, and it certainly means the
program doesn't need a (further) hack.
I'm curious, what with all the defense: how many times have
user-accounts been hacked and had all their postings
semi-deleted?
Does this rank up there with the user name that could be recycled
and the lack of the uid and name match-test I recall hearing of
earlier? (I recall hearing both were STORED, but they weren't
both used together as a 'persona-test': implying something).
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gull
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response 15 of 255:
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May 28 23:52 UTC 2000 |
Re #14: You've posted your "symlink them to /dev/null" solution at least
three times in various items, now. You don't seem to understand that this
isn't a technical issue, but a policy one. I'm sure staff *knows* how to
take care of this, technically. The question is whether they should.
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md
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response 16 of 255:
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May 29 00:42 UTC 2000 |
I can think of at least one reason to want to hide
text but leave it viewable to all users at the "unhide"
command. Someone might want to enter a lengthy aside
of a purely technical nature that a handful of readers
would find fascinating but that most would find obtrusive
and annoying. It's nice to be able to enter such a
response and point to it with a one-liner in the next
response or a cleverly worded pseudo in the response
itself. The interested few can read it with minimal
fuss, the rest get to breeze on by. But I guess this
refers to the expurgate or hide commands, which aren't
so controversial.
Someone questioned "whether the scribble warning should
give the location of the file and how to read it." I think
the location of the file and how to read it should be
explained to everyone in "help scribble", on the Grex BBS
starting page and on the conference home page, assuming you
want to keep the current policy. (I also think it needs to
be made viewable from BackTalk if it isn't already.)
That's in addition to warnings that scribble and erase mean
nothing of the kind. I still don't know what they do mean
-- that is, what exactly did the staff (or board or whomever)
want to accomplish with them that hide and expurgate don't
accomplish? Both can be read by anybody. The only difference
I can see is that it's harder to read scribbled/erased files.
What does being harder to read accomplish? This sounds to me
like one of those nonsensical "that's just the way it is"
policies that happen by accident, and that corporate types are
oddly compelled to find reasons for retroactively.
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hhsrat
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response 17 of 255:
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May 29 01:49 UTC 2000 |
(disclaimer: I'm not a programmer, I don't know if this would work or
not)
Would it be possible to put in a 5 minute delay, during which time the
author of a post could edit or delete it if they felt it necessary?
With e-mail, I know that I have my POP software set to hold something in
the out queue for 5 minutes, before sending it, so I can change/delete
if necessary. Letters to the editor, you need to take time to address
it, stamp it, and put it in the mailbox, at any point you can change
your mind. I think you should be allowed to change your response to say
something more clearly, or to not say something, if you change/delete
within a set time limit.
The way I see it, this would give people a little time to change
comments, and the later discussion couldn't be affected, because all
posts are delayed 5 minutes before ever making it onto the page. Like I
said, I'm not sure if this is even feasible, but it could be an
acceptable solution.
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mdw
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response 18 of 255:
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May 29 02:25 UTC 2000 |
It's not feasible. Or, in more detail, I can't speak for what Jan would
like to do with backtalk, but I suspect he would find building in a 5
minute delay would be painful, because he'd have to design in
complicated new logic to store the response/item somewhere out of the
way, keep it there for 5 minutes, then post it "for real", & worry about
resource limits, "what happens if" (the system crashes, etc.) and other
potentially messy situations. For PicoSpan, the problem is similar,
only even more messy - things like "synchronous" items aren't
particularly compatible with the whole concept of building in a 5 minute
delay.
I also believe a 5 minute delay would buy very little--most of those
"damn, I shouldn't have said that" type thoughts usually occur several
hours after the fact. 5 minutes isn't long enough for active thoughts
to leak out of "fast memory" - or another way to say it is that whatever
convinced you this was a good thing to say 5 minutes ago is probably
still true now.
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aaron
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response 19 of 255:
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May 29 03:37 UTC 2000 |
I had no idea that such little changes could cause the sky to fall.... A
censored log that very few people on the system know about, and even
fewer exploit, somehow "protects" the system from... what? Creating a
false impression that "scribble" permanently removes text from public
view protects the system from... what? Ignoring copyright law, which is
anything but ambiguous on this point, protects the system from... what?
Sometimes, opponents of an idea use "reductio ad absurdem" to challenge
the proponents' positions. Fortunately or unfortunately, those who want
to change the status quo have no need to do so, as the arguments in favor
of the status quo seem absurd on their face.
What if somebody breaks into another user's account, and posts some
inappropriate items and responses? Part of the permanent public record,
despite any defamatory or inappropriate content?
What if somebody posts illegal material, which is stripped from the
conference. Now it is maintained only in a file under the exclusive
control of Grex, perhaps courtesy of one of its agents -- a cfadm or
fw. Do "safe harbor" provisions protect Grex, in its perpetuation of
on-line access to information its own agents don't want on public display?
I know on M-Net that certain users have used superuser powers, or had
superuser powers used, to retroactively modify statements. Has anything
like that ever happened on Grex? Why?
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aaron
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response 20 of 255:
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May 29 03:38 UTC 2000 |
Incidentally, I don't much care what policy you end up with, as long as
it is reasonable. When somebody proposes that M-Net's policy is a "5" and
Grex's is a "1" on the scale from sensible to nonsensical, I think Grex
should be able to present a better defense than, "I think M-Net's really
a '4'".
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mdw
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response 21 of 255:
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May 29 04:50 UTC 2000 |
Why so adversarial?
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scg
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response 22 of 255:
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May 29 05:18 UTC 2000 |
I'll be voting no on this because I don't care, and I think I ought to have
a good reason to vote yes and enact a policy, espeically in a membership vote
which implies not trusting the board to get the question right.
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aaron
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response 23 of 255:
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May 29 05:20 UTC 2000 |
re #21: I don't know, Marcus. Why are you so adversarial? Did the reference
the an account break-in raise your hackles?
re #22: You will maintain the status quo, not for any good reason, but
out of apathy? Have you considered a run for the M-Net Board? ;)
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scg
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response 24 of 255:
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May 29 07:04 UTC 2000 |
Yes, and yes.
I decided not to run for the Arbornet board because I wasn't feeling
sufficiently motivated for it to be worth my time, and decided that people
actively involved with M-Net would be better board members.
I generally think my default vote on ballot proposals ought to be no. To vote
no is to leave the rules as they were without any ballot proposals. To vote
yes is to support a very specific change to the rules. As such, unless I'm
willing to support that very specific change, it makes sense to vote no.
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