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Author Message
25 new of 393 responses total.
ryan
response 128 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 18:42 UTC 2004

This response has been erased.

mary
response 129 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 18:42 UTC 2004

Staff is already getting requests to have whole items removed.
Evidently, others are having second thoughts about the public
discussions they started.  Yuck.

My advice would be for anyone who has responses *they've* made
that they now regret making, censor *your* comments.  Now.

But allowing users to kill other user's responses is a huge
shift in our philosopy.  Any change in policy should follow
public discussion and a vote by the membership.

I would be against any deal which would *sanction* a staff
member's abuse of power in exchange for their resignation.
jp2
response 130 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 18:46 UTC 2004

This response has been erased.

slynne
response 131 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 18:52 UTC 2004

I also think there is a difference between changing the policy so that 
some items can be put in control of the authors of said items and 
deleting items (and posts) that were entered prior to this discussion. 

I am not so sure it would be a bad idea to give item authors in certain 
conferences control over their items. In the future. 

gelinas
response 132 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 18:58 UTC 2004

(jp2, I argued for closing the censored log.  I agreed then that the
owner of the response should have control over its continued publication.
The only difference here is the identity of the owner: here, I claim that
there are, or can be, multiple owners.  I have been arguing in favour of
the desires of the most-restrictive owner.)

jp2 mentioned asking that an item be deleted and not getting a response.
I have not replied to his message because I wanted to make sure staff
agreed on any response I would make before I made one.  So far, the
result has been a clear lack of consensus.  {Left to my own devices,
my answer would be, "Sure.  No problem.  It's gone."  But I'm not left
to my own devices here. :) }

Based on the trend I have seen in this item, and the related items,
I predict the ultimate answer will be, "No."  If that is the answer,
it will apply to any other similar requests.
jp2
response 133 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 19:03 UTC 2004

This response has been erased.

ryan
response 134 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 19:09 UTC 2004

This response has been erased.

gull
response 135 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 19:16 UTC 2004

M-net would be the natural choice, but I think that'd be too easy. ;>
jp2
response 136 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 19:29 UTC 2004

This response has been erased.

cross
response 137 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 19:36 UTC 2004

Regarding #128; That's specious.  No one yelled fire in a crowded
theater here.  Some people did something that offended someone and hurt
her feelings.  Rude?  Insensitive?  Stupid?  Maybe.  Seriously damaging
to other lives or property?  No, not at all.

There might be valid reasons to delete entire items: a serial killer
decides to pick an item and track down everyone who ever posted to it
and kill them.  That seems like a good reason to get rid of the item in
question (and call the FBI), but that's not what happened here.
mynxcat
response 138 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 19:46 UTC 2004

Where do you come up with such scary scenarios. It's coz you're a New 
Yorker, right?

Now I'll have to go delete every post I ever made, or I won't be able 
to sleep at night.
cross
response 139 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 19:52 UTC 2004

This event has set a really bad precedent.  Staff has, so far, gotten two
requests to delete items in other conferences.  One staffer (I'm not going
to mention names here) suggested acting on one immediately and opening the
other for public discussion (which got which response is beyond the scope
of this note).  I think that that sets an even more dangerous precedent.

Folks, this is not good.  The issue goes beyond one person and her
feelings.  We're talking about freedom of expression, and granting other
individuals the right to deny you that freedom by erasing what you've
expressed.  It's a shame Valerie felt hurt by what happened to her baby
diary on mnet, but what she's done is far worse, not in and of itself,
but for the precedent it sets.

A lot of people are seeing the usual suspects complain loudly and saying,
``just drop it.''  But for once the usual suspects are on to something
(even if it is couched in hyperbole and self-righteousness in some cases).
This *is* an important issue, and it goes to the *core* of what Grex
purports to be all about.  Ignoring the argument because you don't like
who's arguing would be a tragic mistake.

At the end of the day, is removing Valerie's baby diary *that* big of
a deal by itself?  No.  But sanctioning it says we're willing to let
people trample on the words of other's when they feel they have reason,
even if those words present no clear and present danger to anyone,
and *that* IS a big deal.

Oh yeah, and for once, I actually agree with Mary!  (Actually, I've
agreed with Mary many times in the past.)
cross
response 140 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 19:54 UTC 2004

(Sapna slipped in.)

Yeah, living in the city has something to do with it, I guess.  A more
timid example would be someone picking a random item and publically
harassing all the participants in it with endless prank calls, house
eggings, anchovi pizza's, etc.
mynxcat
response 141 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 19:59 UTC 2004

Even scarier. 
jp2
response 142 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 20:03 UTC 2004

This response has been erased.

albaugh
response 143 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 20:16 UTC 2004

Aren't the fairwitnesses being overlooked here?  Since they, too, seem to have
the ability to fully kill items in their conferences, item-enterers should
be starting with the fairwitnesses of the conference in which the item was
entered, before going right to staff.

Now, if you say, "Well, fairwitnesses shouldn't be killing entire items willy
nilly either", then note that is a situation that has been around for a long
time, with this whole issue apparently overlooked.  If valerie had gone to
the fairwitnesses of the femme and kids conferences and got them to unlink
and/or kill her items, thus not needing to use her staff privileges, then no
one would have cause to accuse her of abuse, although this issue still would
remain for discussion.

If it is decided that neither staff nor fw's should be killing items outright,
except for clear security / legal reasons, that is likely to be strictly a
policy decision, since you can't prevent staff / root from doing anything,
and it might be the case that you can't take away fw's ability to kill items.
slynne
response 144 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 20:20 UTC 2004

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, if I had an item 
here that had really personal things in it, I would want to have 
control over that item. I was kind of experimenting recently with blogs 
and tried to do a sort of diary item blog thing (it is in the 
enigma.cf) similar to valerie's baby diary item. There are a number of 
reasons why grex's software isnt working for me for this purpose but 
one of them is the lack of control over an item's posts *and* the 
comments (although that isnt the biggest reason it isnt working for me) 
I also know that if I had an item here and I wanted it gone and I was 
on staff, I probably would use my staff/root powers to delete it but 
only if deleting it was more important to me than staying on staff. In 
other words, if I were in valerie's position, I would have done the 
same thing. 

I dont think it would be a good idea to adopt a policy where already 
existing items are deleted at the author's request. I do think it would 
be ok to adopt a policy where items in certain conferences are 
considered the property of the author. That way, anyone who really is 
worried about having their comments deleted can refrain from posting in 
those items if they wish. 

There also should be some policy about conference cleanup since if we 
make it a policy that no items can ever be deleted, things could get 
crowded around her real quick. 
mta
response 145 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 20:34 UTC 2004

FWIW, had Valerie asked me, as moderator of the Femme conference, I 
would have deleted her baby diaries immediately.
jp2
response 146 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 20:35 UTC 2004

This response has been erased.

mynxcat
response 147 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 20:37 UTC 2004

Re 144>The worry that things could get crowded around here hasn't come 
up 
before. I thought that it was a moot point. I could be wrong. 

If there are limitations to wht you can or cannot do on grex, and 
these limitations are cramping your blog style, and don't give you 
enough control, in terms of censorship, then move to another system. 
There are various sites out there. valerie has gone on to create her 
own software, and no one's complaining. But if you use grex to jot 
down stuff in, and you have people respond, what you're agreeing to is 
not deleting other people's comments. There's no screening here, 
unless it's the author of the comment. 
mynxcat
response 148 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 20:38 UTC 2004

Re 145> And this discussion would have come up about the fw of femme 
abusing her powers. This discussion has grown to beyond whether 
valerie was hurt or abused her staff powers. It's now whether one is 
allowed to delete posts made by other people, just because you created 
the item
mynxcat
response 149 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 20:40 UTC 2004

Re 142> You make it sound like kissing my favorite body part is a bad 
thing :(
valerie
response 150 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 20:43 UTC 2004

This response has been erased.

albaugh
response 151 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 20:51 UTC 2004

Sorry valerie, you still should have asked the fw's to help you first, before
alighting your light sabre.  But I personally don't care that much.

Re: #148 - The *discussion* might have been about a fw abusing her power, but
it would have been a false accusation - fw's have the power to exercise
discretion about what items to nuke.  It's been that way "forever",
apparently.  If that is not desirable, then a policy change / establishment
is needed.  I know, have a discussion about it!  :-)
naftee
response 152 of 393: Mark Unseen   Jan 7 20:55 UTC 2004

re 120 It's all about the logs.

re 135 What staff?

re 143 
>If valerie had gone to the fairwitnesses 
The scary thing is, she didn't go to anyone.  Except maybe to her 
husband to ask for the cfadm password.  Don't forget that 
fairwitnesses are not immune to being abusive.

re 144
>There also should be some policy about conference cleanup
Good point.  But at least on M-net, there's a time period where 
*everyone* is allowed to object or ask if some items are kept, etc.  
I'm going to wager a guess that the GreX policy is comparable.  But it 
is impossible to keep everything, and people accept that.  However, 
what happened in the femme cf was an act of selfishness, really, and 
was pretty much hidden from public view (e-mailing board and staff 
doesn't count.  Most of the posters don't receive their mail).

 
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