Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Policy & Help >

Is Barbelith an archive? Should it be?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

07:21 / 22.01.05

I'm spinning this out from the Moderation requests thread because I'd like to keep that 'clean' for people to make and discuss moderation requests, and I think there's a bigger question at play here:

Sally Dammerung, ginger ninja Just as a pleading request to people who make requests to have ancient posts deleted- please, please, please, would you put a reason? Something more than, "delete please"? ...I just don't want to see potentially interesting old threads moth eaten by deletions to the point that they're incomprehensible.

Now, we have a fun little board here and it's unlikely that this would ever be a major problem, but there have been a few occasions, such as when Tom let Google in to spider the board, where people have been uncomfortable with the level of private information they've released on to the board and had to go doing some delete/modification work. If one of the big guns, like Haus or Flux or Anna DeL*, wanted to leave AND delete all trace of their existence from the board, quite apart from the headache it would create for moderators, do they have the right to do something that would disrupt the integrity of so many threads across pretty much every forum?

* Just examples mind!

09:18 / 22.01.05

I *never* delete posts that other people have referred to, unless there's a *really* good reason (or they're double posts). As far as I'm concerned, posting is contributing to the board rather than building up a little portfolio of your own work - though I think you have rights not to have your posts edited and misrepresenting you. The point being, deleting or editing your posts may change the meaning of other people's posts further on.

If it turns into an issue, maybe we need some sort of copyright statement.

If someone puts up personal information that could be hazardous, then that sounds like something that should be deleted or edited - the importance would justify the inconvenience and gaps in the thread (best edit rather than just delete in that sort of case). But "I don't like this post any more" doesn't cut it for me. If someone wants to delete all their own posts and nobody's ever replied to them or referred to them then fine, but just the wish to see a suit disappear isn't enough to justify making a whole lot of other people's posting meaningless.

11:35 / 22.01.05

This is more or less the main reason why distributed moderation was introduced in the first place, isn't it? One person throwing a paddy and deciding to wipe all trace of their past contributions to the board.

I've also got a feeling that we've had this same discussion - or something along very similar lines - in the recent past. The outcome that time was that Barbelith *is* an archive of sorts, and that once you hit the Post Reply button, your words become the board's property.

The only reason I'd agree with deleting a post in an old, dead topic would be if there were no direct replies to it, and even then I'd have to think twice - the post may be referenced in another thread. Hell, I won't even agree to delete a post in an ongoing thread if it's already been replied to, so there's very little chance that I'd pass one in an old conversation.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:23 / 22.01.05

Hmmm, I've always tended to go along with the request for the opposite reason, believing that posters 'own' what they write. But I'm a Convo mod, so it doesn't matter so much there as it would do in the Headshop or the Temple.

14:53 / 22.01.05

Maybe "the board's property" isn't exactly what I mean. It's more that no post stands on its own, that once it's up in a public thread it's more a part of that thread than anything else. So you're not the only person who can claim possession of it any longer - it's now the property of everybdy who's contributed to that thread.

A thread's a collaborative creation and if you delete your contributions to it, you're also negatively affecting every other post in there.

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:31 / 22.01.05

Having said which, it can go either way... for example, if somebody moves to delete a post most of which is not personal, but which contains some personal information that is causing the desire to delete the post, I think it's worth disagreeing the action but PMing suggesting that they proposed a moderation instead, dealing with that personal information as they see fit.

23:54 / 23.01.05

The posts that have instigated this discussion were just other people's poems that this poster liked enough to post three years ago, and that's why I think we shouldn't delete them. They're not personal information.

If someone posted something personal, and then that poster's circumstances entirely changed, then I think requesting a deletion could be considered OK.

Say, for example, that three years ago I had posted a direct reference to being physically female, and then I underwent a sex-change operation and I didn't want people to know about it (or for it to be googleable) then in that case I think I would have good reason to request that three year old post be deleted. (I know this is a clumsy argument since presumably in that instance I would have been unlikely to make a reference to being physically female in the first place, I'm just trying to find an example of an acceptable request for deletion.)

But I think when it comes to innocuous things like liked poems we have to take the viewpoint that those posts stay don't we? Otherwise, we could potentially end up in situations such as:

Delete Post Request: (date 2002)
"I really like bacon sandwiches."

Reason: (date 2005)
I am now Vegetarian.

I think the point is, it's a not entirely sensible for moderator's to delete posts on the basis of poster's taste changing, when it's three years since the post was written.

Obviously if a poster makes a post about bacon sandwiches and then instantly requests deletion on the basis of momentaneously forgetting that they were Vegetarian then we should agree it. Although, obviously ridicule it via PM.*

*I am kidding.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:14 / 24.01.05

But I don't think we're talking about necessarily refusing to delete old posts regardless, see Sally's post that started this off, it's refusing to delete old posts that don't have a reason, and in your example I would accept 'SRS' as a very good reason, though depending on context I might now ask that you edit rather than ask for delete.

Ugh, my brain isn't working this morning, forgive me...

20:53 / 25.01.05

I'm sorry, I'm being obtuse- SRS?

10:05 / 26.01.05

Sex Reassignment Surgery? was my guess, at least... (since I can't make it anything to do with bacon sandwiches)

07:26 / 27.01.05

That would make sense, now wouldn't it.

09:10 / 27.01.05

The point is - I think - not about who owns the posts specifically, but who owns the conversations. If someone starts a thread, or engages with a discussion, they have an impact on the thread itself. Other people react to it, other people invest time and effort into responding to it. By extension, a group of people have invested effort in creating a thread and my personal opinion is that if deleting a post would reduce the value that they have collaboratively created in any way, then they should have some kind of say in it.

Practically, this isn't a functional way of operating on a board - so my recommendations on this matter would be - (1) if the person concerned has exposed personal information that they no longer wish to be in the public sphere, then they should be encouraged to edit the post concerned to remove that information and to explain why they're doing it in the reason field, (2) otherwise all efforts should be made to keep the thread as intact as possible, with people being required to stand by or apologise for positions that they may have articulated but are now ashamed of, rather than simply expecting to be able to delete it.

10:49 / 27.01.05

I suppose the next question is: what's a good reason?

I'm not exactly sure what criteria are being accepted here to distinguish good reasons from bad. Even in The High Priestess's examples, the distinction doesn't seem as stark to me as perhaps it does to her. A vegetarian might have hir reasons for concealing hir omnivorous past, mightn't ze? And in either case, if there was a thread *about* transsexuals or meat-eating, it might be impossible to edit out without eviscerating the discussion.

There might be particularly compelling cases where a poster has exposed themselves to prosecution or persecution in a way that would have been impossible to anticipate at the time of posting. But given the anonymity Barbelith affords, I kinda think that members should be encouraged to take responsibility for what they reveal - as they would in any other sphere of life. And if dire circumstances meant that a poster really wants to sever the connection with what's ze's written in the past, there is the option of burning the suit and starting again, isn't there?

I suppose what I'm arguing is that we should encourage an attitude that contributions are permanent once the Post button is hit. I might be wrong - people might take more risks, venture more interesting opinions, or engage with threads they might otherwise lurk through if a 'post now, you can always modify it later' mentality prevailed. But if that was the net effect, I'd be surprised. I’d prefer to see mod actions justified in terms of the benefit to the board rather than the person requesting it.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:38 / 27.01.05

I guess there can't be a hard and fast rule- it's gotta be a case by case thing.
Smoothly's right- we should try to foster an attitude whereby later "revisions" (as opposed to just plain old corrections), while possible, are the exception rather than the rule. Not sure how this idea translates into actual (or indeed virtual) practise, though.

22:51 / 27.01.05

I put in a request to have the first post edited in that 'Is this an initiation' thread that I made last week, is there any problem with this? Will it mess up the rest of the thread? Is it so important seeing as the nature of the thread is so crazy anyway?

I'm just wondering because I feel stupid about it, I know I've been here a lot of times before, but this time I genuinely feel really stupid and like I caused upset to a couple of other people. I don't think I'll be doing anything of that nature ever again, that's kind of why I'm asking. I know you can't just believe that I won't make any threads of that type of stupidity again and I can't expect you just believe the words I'm typing, but it's more of a feeling that I have than anything I can explain that I'm done with being an idiot like that around here for good. (I put in a request 12 hours or so ago and it's still there, so I'm just curious.)

Hell, it may even teach me a lesson if you deny my request, I can understand that, but I feel bad about it and would rather not have it there.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:54 / 27.01.05

Check your PMs, dude.