A Fresh Start

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Re: A Fresh Start

Postby Jack Road » Mon Apr 11, 2016 5:15 am

As a tack-on argument, might I suggest that threads that have not been updated in over [insert time frame] or so be deleted? Maybe three years or so?

I left PWOT because I couldn't edit what I said. There, like here, I tended to be quiet unless drunk because of an extreme dislike for myself and what I had to say. Because of that behavior, what I ended up writing was probably around 60% good and 40% insulting or banal or weird. I'm being generous. And because of aforementioned self-hatred, when sober, I despise each and every word I have ever spoken or written anywhere. It is a significant problem, and one I am trying to find a solution too. It takes up a great deal of energy. I probably obsess over it three to four hours a day, and that is just consciously. That is not intended as a justification, just a reasoning of a pattern of behavior that I don't think is uncommon, especially on this site. And of course it is ridiculous to care that much when it is unlikely that anyone else does, and not anyone's problem but mine. But it is there.

Having been warned twice now for my poor behavior on this site, I have decided to just stop for awhile, until I am in a better place mentally. I've mostly abandoned the Jack Road username throughout the internet, and I'm taking a break and have gone back to just reading. The temptation is always there to go through and delete my posts, and I have done so quite a bit over the years. It is immediately attractive to someone like me. However, when you do delete, what you said is still remembered by people, and just the fact that it is deleted leads a viewer to imagine that it was an inherently bad post.

But time is supposed to heal, I think, and that becomes challenging on the internet, where what you say is often for all intents and purposes, eternal.

To me it would be wonderful if, after a long period of time and inactivity, but less time than say, a decade, my posts might fade.

As for limiting edits on past posts. This is still a pretty small site. I don't think it would take any real wrangling of the code. Just a unified philosophy among moderators and admins. When someone is frequently editing posts to the extent of removing the content of the post, perhaps an intervention. Someone to ask why they are doing that, and what purpose they think it will serve? A gentle reminder that editing written words doesn't replace memories.

Or, another idea, perhaps an option to "delete your account" which will keep all posts where they are, but transfer the ownership to an account entitled "Inactive Account" or some such.

I know the philosophy is "if you put it on the internet, it is on the internet, so think twice before clicking submit"

But sometimes people are idiots, and they have a lot of regrets.*cough* I think they should be afforded some amount of grace. Some ability to eventually recover.

Technology is wonderful, and can solve all sorts of problems that we have. But you have to design in humanity, it doesn't come standard. It is very alluring to simply go for the simplest fits-all solution, such as limiting all past posts edits for everyone. But we aren't massive, and therefore I don't think we need such an encompassing corporate strategy.

I once posted a string of incredibly personal stories on Hidden Couch that I then deleted. It was always my intention to delete them. The point was to tell someone, to get it out, to be told by anyone that my pain was not invalid or unwarranted. But if anyone involved in those stories should chance upon them, they would immediately recognize themselves in the narrative, and they would be hurt and angry. They would also realize certain things about me that they were not previously aware of, and that could lead to my safety being jeopardized. If such a rule existed where I knew I would not be able to delete those posts, my choice would have been to not post them. And I think that would have limited a very innocent and fragile voice that is already too often not present on forums for that very reason.

That may be okay with most people here, I'm not saying me writing those stories was needed or even wanted. But me personally, if someone is hurting to the degree I was when I wrote those stories, I would want them to have an environment where they felt like they could speak and still protect themselves. Maybe that isn't appropriate for this forum. If so though, I think that needs to be an outspoken united philosophy of the admins and mods that they do not want that voice. Because a choice to limit editing says that, I think, even if it is unspoken.
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Re: A Fresh Start

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Mon Apr 11, 2016 9:51 am

Matthew Notch wrote:I guess this is just one of those things I don't really get. Why won't we let users delete their accounts, but we will let them go through and erase enormous pieces of content from the forum when they:

A) get nervous about who might be creepin on them

B) start to have ideological differences with the forum at large

C) do something embarrassing and just can't live it down

D) feel like taking a wrecking ball to the community and its enshrined conversations for some other bizarre reason I can't fathom?

There are some valid arguments to be had for limiting or disallowing edits on posts, none of these reasons presented here are valid.

a). If someone has someone creeping on them, and editing their posts can help with that, then I sure as fuck want them to be able to edit their posts ASAP, and waiting for a mod to do it for them just prolongs that process. This is the internet, shit like this does happen. Obviously, the mod team here at TCS is more than happy to do what they can to help when this occurs, but it's better for all parties involved if they don't have to wait on the mod team for something they can easily do themselves. We've had a few nefarious characters happen by over the years, and while we did ban them, I don't want to put anyone in a position where they have to wait on us longer than they have to on things they can handle. Yeah, the mods have to do the banning, but the user can edit their posts if they want.

b). This is a pretty odd reason to go back and edit your post, but if someone feels that strongly about a difference with the forum at large, then let them edit.

c). So someone says something embarrassing and wants it to go away, okay let them. It's really not a big deal to let someone edit a post for this reason.

d). This is really a stretch, sure that'd be a shit reason to edit posts, but that's really overplaying how disruptive it is when someone blanks a post, or even all their posts. I get it, it's annoying to not be able to read a post that was once there, and sometimes people even edit out really good posts. But the thing is, they don't owe you their post, and this point comes off as sounding very entitled to something that no-one here is. Yes, people do sometimes troll via edits, but mods do have the ability to lock their posts for editing, which is something we've done before. We'll sanction someone for this, and if it continues/escalates, we'll ban them. Remember Sheogorath? He did this, a lot. Honestly, it's pretty funny looking back on it, and as annoying as it was, it wasn't disruptive enough to justify eliminating user edits altogether. If we were a bigger forum then maybe that would be a different case, but as it stands it's not.

If I could make a suggestion, how about place a time limit on edits, and after that make it to where additional text could be added to the post, but original text could not be deleted? That way, if you just can't stand the thought of someone reading something you said at one time hoping someone would read it, you can slap spoilers around the whole thing and just ask users politely to not read it, thanks. And in cases where you absolutely have to make a hard change (case in point: Ambi pointed out that I actually used Mrs. Notch's first name in a couple of my early posts here) you could just ask a friendly mod to do it for you.

I can understand the arguments for a time limit on posts, a lot of forums have it, and it allows you to fix some typos/spelling/grammar or add something you forgot if you catch it quickly, but it's just not necessary here. Making it so you can only add text to a post makes that not really effective, and if we switch it to add-only after a set time, well, that's still not really helping all that much. And I don't for a second believe that anyone is going respect someone slapping on spoilers and asking someone to not read their post.

And the thing that really gets me, is that you're suggesting this after having just edited a couple of your posts because you didn't want to leave something up on the internet. What makes that one valid and someone else's not? Kate made a good point about who are we to decide who has a valid reason to edit and someone else doesn't? I sure as shit don't want to be the one to make that decision. Not to mention that that is just a hassle on the mod team, why the hell should we have to go through and edit all of someone's posts, even if they have a very good reason? That's potentially hours and hours of work, just to blank posts.I get sick of just editing in the youtube=hidden tag because people forgot to use it for the millionth time. It's an unnecessary workload for the mods with no good reason.

There are good reasons to edit out your posts, probably the most common one is that you don't want someone IRL to see what you wrote. Another good one, and Jack mentioned this, is sometimes people just need to talk about something at the time, but afterwards don't want it left up. If posting and then editing out helps them, then I really want them to have that option.

While I largely agree with he argument of "think twice, post once," I think we can and should have some leniency when it comes to edits. I'm very much the type that wants to just leave all their posts up, a record of conversations past. I love getting thumbs for old-ass posts I wrote, it makes me feel like I wrote some of value that still holds down the line. But that's not how TCS as a forum is intended, we're not the Library of Congress, nor should we be. I'd hate to go back and blank all my posts, I'm pretty proud of some of them even. And I try to be very careful about writing things in a way that makes it so I'm not identifiable in meatspace. But if for whatever reason the time comes where I need to do some editing, I'm glad I have the ability.

It's not something I'm asking because I want to poo poo all over our God-given freedom to retract things we say ever. It just, frankly, feels a little insulting when it looks like someone decided I'm not good enough any longer to be allowed to read his or her musings on ANYTHING. And before we so quickly jump to "So yeah, Notch is a fascist then," I ask you to reconsider what would happen if you did ask a friendly mod to replace every one of your posts ever with ".". Would they do it? Would they like it even if they did? I wouldn't know because, bless my soul, I'm not a mod.

You are taking people editing their posts way to personally. I'll be extremely surprised if anyone here on this forum edited their posts because they don't want YOU personally to read what they wrote. And even if they did, well, too bad. Not to mention that if that's the case you really need to have a chat with them and resolve your issues, not forbid edits.
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