I could still have time to delete this January 24, 2025 4:47 PM Subscribe
A formal proposal for allowing users to anonymize or delete their own posts and comments as part of the new site.
In the most recent site update, discussion around improved account wiping capabiltiies led to a debate over the ability for users to directly delete specific posts or comments which may contain information that puts them at risk. Allowing users to target specific posts or comments could mean that users could maintain their account without having to wipe all of their contributions; however, this also goes against long-standing site norms that all content should be considered permanent. Additionally, the current way of deleting posts also generally means that all comments on that post are either deleted or made inaccessible.
As we're moving closer to testing a new version of the site, we have the opportunity to implement this feature. This proposal is a starting point for discussion, and aims to balance the need and right of users to delete their contributions from this site with the community's desire to maintain conversation and discussion over long periods of time.
Definitions
Capabilities
In the most recent site update, discussion around improved account wiping capabiltiies led to a debate over the ability for users to directly delete specific posts or comments which may contain information that puts them at risk. Allowing users to target specific posts or comments could mean that users could maintain their account without having to wipe all of their contributions; however, this also goes against long-standing site norms that all content should be considered permanent. Additionally, the current way of deleting posts also generally means that all comments on that post are either deleted or made inaccessible.
As we're moving closer to testing a new version of the site, we have the opportunity to implement this feature. This proposal is a starting point for discussion, and aims to balance the need and right of users to delete their contributions from this site with the community's desire to maintain conversation and discussion over long periods of time.
Definitions
- Post Page - The web page served to a reader that includes the post text and all comments on the post
- Post - Refers to the post text (including the More Inside section) written by a user. Usually this is considered the same as the Post Page; the difference between these two things is at the core of this proposal
- Comment - Material written by users and submitted on the Post Page in response to the Post.
- Comment Container - For lack of a better term, this is the comment equivalent of the Post Page—it is the Comment text along with the user name, time stamp, and web anchor point on the page
- Anonymize - Change the account associated with the post or comment to the anonymous account.
- Delete - Change the text of a post or comment to a standardized phrase, such as "[Deleted by user]". This fully removes the text from the website and the database.
Capabilities
- Users should have the ability to anonymize or delete their posts and comments via the UI. Deleting a post or comment would also anonymize it. Importantly, these options generally will not remove the Post Page or the Comment Container, the way that mod deletions work on the current site: When a post was deleted, a user would still be able to find the Post Page (from search or their own history) and see all comments, but the text of the post would have been replaced with [Deleted by user] and the poster account would be anonymous. Similarly, when a user deleted a comment, the Comment Container would remain but would now hold the placeholder text and be associated with the anonymous account.
- When deleting posts with links to other sites (such as the Blue or from Fanfare), links in the original post would be maintained for context as part of the "More Inside" text. The displayed text of the link would be replaced with the URL of the link itself. If I deleted this post in the future, the link to the anonymous user profile would be the only thing displayed in More Inside, like this: https://www.metafilter.com/user/17564.
- To maintain discussion and the integrity of moderation, users would not have these options available in the UI immediately. Users would have to wait 30 days or until a Post was closed—whichever comes first— before they could anonymize or delete their content. This would prevent users from anonymizing or deleting content from active posts on the Blue on their own, but is also a reasonable time limit for the other sites. It would still be possible to reach out to a mod to delete something before the waiting period ended, but the point of discussion here is to retain some permanence. If you aren't comfortable with something lasting on this site for 30 days, you should not post it.
- Deleting posts from Projects, Music, and Jobs should delete the Post Page and all associated comments.
- Ask is the trickiest subsite, and I suspect most of the debate about this feature will revolve around it. Not only are people more likely to ask questions with personal information, all of the comments will be in direct response to the question, potentially repeating that personal information. This means that, in the event a user deletes a question (post) from Ask, the Post Page should be deleted as well. However, that can result in people being less likely to answer questions (they think their work will be thrown away), and it prevents Ask from being a long-term store of knowledge. To offset the potential for deleting too freely, the website should ask the user to confirm they want to delete the post, or if they want to anonymize it instead. Should the user choose to anonymize, a log should be maintained temporarily linking them to the post so that they can reach out to a mod to actually delete it for a short period (a week? a month?) if they change their mind. But that log must be temporary, to ensure that the anonymity is total without further action on a mod's part. Ideally, there should also be a way for the moderation team to track how frequently a user is deleting content—such as a simple count of how many posts or comments a user has deleted—so that moderators can issue a warning, a time out, or a ban if the feature is abused.
- This feature is only requested for the new site. It will not be available on the old site UI, though if the two sites retain data compatibility, the deleted text and anonymization would be reflected on the old site as well.
If you aren't comfortable with something lasting on this site for 30 days, you should not post it.
This is a totally fine compromise to me. I never have recent stuff I want to delete, just stuff that on retrospect is "ehh, between this and this other post and this other one if someone were searching about x they could piece together a lot more than I wanted." If I had something pressing I would feel comfortable messaging a mod. But I have a lot of comments older than 30 days that add up in ways that make me nervous. There's only so many [$redacted] people who are [$redacted] in the state of [$redacted] with [$redacted] degree in [$redacted], you know?
posted by brook horse at 5:02 PM on January 24 [11 favorites]
This is a totally fine compromise to me. I never have recent stuff I want to delete, just stuff that on retrospect is "ehh, between this and this other post and this other one if someone were searching about x they could piece together a lot more than I wanted." If I had something pressing I would feel comfortable messaging a mod. But I have a lot of comments older than 30 days that add up in ways that make me nervous. There's only so many [$redacted] people who are [$redacted] in the state of [$redacted] with [$redacted] degree in [$redacted], you know?
posted by brook horse at 5:02 PM on January 24 [11 favorites]
From this admirably comprehensive framing of the issue (thanks, thecaddy!) and brook horse's comment, we are well on our way to some good policy/procedures on deletions.
Very cool and much appreciated by us gawkers
posted by ginger.beef at 5:34 PM on January 24 [9 favorites]
Very cool and much appreciated by us gawkers
posted by ginger.beef at 5:34 PM on January 24 [9 favorites]
Yes, that was very well constructed post, thank you!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:49 PM on January 24 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:49 PM on January 24 [1 favorite]
I think once you post something on Ask, MeTa or on the blue, you no longer own that post. The post plus comments is a collaboration between the OP and the commenters and neither should be able to delete it all unilaterally.
In specific cases, users may want to anonymize their post (either by removing their username from it or potentially by removing identifying details as well) or in very rare cases there may be no way to effectively anonymize a post, in which case it should be deleted. I think all of these cases should be handled in discussion with a mod, because if we make those tools available to everyone, they can and will be used casually. Once you built an automated tool to do something, it very much becomes normalized and I don't think that's what we want to do here.
We're all here typing text in little boxes, so I think we can type a little more text in a box to contact a mod to handle this kind of situation if it comes up. I trust that our mods are able to work with someone if they are in immediate distress or danger and need help in anonymizing or removing certain content quickly.
Comments are a lot less fraught and I think we can generally allow deletions of these via mod, unless the user is abusing this.
posted by ssg at 5:50 PM on January 24 [12 favorites]
In specific cases, users may want to anonymize their post (either by removing their username from it or potentially by removing identifying details as well) or in very rare cases there may be no way to effectively anonymize a post, in which case it should be deleted. I think all of these cases should be handled in discussion with a mod, because if we make those tools available to everyone, they can and will be used casually. Once you built an automated tool to do something, it very much becomes normalized and I don't think that's what we want to do here.
We're all here typing text in little boxes, so I think we can type a little more text in a box to contact a mod to handle this kind of situation if it comes up. I trust that our mods are able to work with someone if they are in immediate distress or danger and need help in anonymizing or removing certain content quickly.
Comments are a lot less fraught and I think we can generally allow deletions of these via mod, unless the user is abusing this.
posted by ssg at 5:50 PM on January 24 [12 favorites]
I can understand deletion of comments and Asks, but can someone describe a situation where you'd want to delete a post on the blue (rather than simply anonymizing)? I can think of plenty of bad reasons for that (maximalist threadsitting), but no good reasons.
posted by mittens at 5:57 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
posted by mittens at 5:57 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
I don’t have any issue with anonymizing posts rather than deleting them, or even asking a mod to do that rather than automating it, but let me delete my own comments without having to go through a mod (with whatever time limit makes sense).
posted by brook horse at 6:00 PM on January 24 [6 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 6:00 PM on January 24 [6 favorites]
I really don't understand the 30-day time limit (or any time limit) at all. That seems like unnecessary friction and I don't understand the benefit.
A few people have said that the idea that AskMe posts might be deleted would cause them to engage less. I wonder if that might encourage answerers to engage with the actual question being asked rather than posting for posterity. I could see definite benefits to people engaging with each other more and with future potential readers less.
posted by lapis at 6:15 PM on January 24 [8 favorites]
A few people have said that the idea that AskMe posts might be deleted would cause them to engage less. I wonder if that might encourage answerers to engage with the actual question being asked rather than posting for posterity. I could see definite benefits to people engaging with each other more and with future potential readers less.
posted by lapis at 6:15 PM on January 24 [8 favorites]
I only care about deletion/anonymization policy for comments on AskMeFi and MeFi. On these sites, comment writers (including myself) often spend non-trivial time writing in-depth comments about esoteric topics. As a random specific example, this is a comment that took highly specialized knowledge on my part and a non-trivial amount of time cross-referencing industry standards to write. This is not the sort of content you see on other websites. It's specifically the sort of content I go to MetaFilter to see.
Bluntly, right now all of my comments are subject to random deletion at any time due to account wipes from other users, where the requesting user needs to spend zero effort to do so.
That is broken. No other website on the internet that I am aware of allows users the ability to delete public-facing comments of other users for no reason and no effort.
I don't know how to express this in any other way than I already have. As a result of my comments being deletable by the original poster at any time, for any reason, with no effort on their part, I have decreased my engagement with the website. MetaFilter has decided that a hypothetical use in such a high risk situation they both can't expend a single second identifying specific identifiable information and can't even identify their high risk situation has a more important claim to my content than I do. This proposal doesn't change that, so I won't change how I interact with the site.
posted by saeculorum at 6:22 PM on January 24 [32 favorites]
Bluntly, right now all of my comments are subject to random deletion at any time due to account wipes from other users, where the requesting user needs to spend zero effort to do so.
That is broken. No other website on the internet that I am aware of allows users the ability to delete public-facing comments of other users for no reason and no effort.
I don't know how to express this in any other way than I already have. As a result of my comments being deletable by the original poster at any time, for any reason, with no effort on their part, I have decreased my engagement with the website. MetaFilter has decided that a hypothetical use in such a high risk situation they both can't expend a single second identifying specific identifiable information and can't even identify their high risk situation has a more important claim to my content than I do. This proposal doesn't change that, so I won't change how I interact with the site.
posted by saeculorum at 6:22 PM on January 24 [32 favorites]
I agree with others that anonymizing posts is fine, but deleting posts (and all their associated comments) is bad.
I do support allowing people to delete their own comments within some time limit, the same as how we can edit our comments (because you could always edit your comment to be empty anyway). But deleting your comment at any time is bad - it breaks the conversation thread. Again, anonymizing is fine, but not deletion.
You can always ping a moderator for deletion if you really need to remove a post or comment and they can apply their judgement.
What I don't want is to see is Mefi turn into Reddit where subs are littered with deleted posts and comments, creating disruptive gaps - a series of comments referring to a deleted post, or post with comments responding to other unknown, deleted comments.
If deletion is enabled, I give it less than a week until a "remove your history from Mefi" script is available for people to purge their online presence and leave Mefi full of content holes (this is already available and done in Reddit, X/Twitter, etc.).
posted by jpeacock at 8:13 PM on January 24 [8 favorites]
I do support allowing people to delete their own comments within some time limit, the same as how we can edit our comments (because you could always edit your comment to be empty anyway). But deleting your comment at any time is bad - it breaks the conversation thread. Again, anonymizing is fine, but not deletion.
You can always ping a moderator for deletion if you really need to remove a post or comment and they can apply their judgement.
What I don't want is to see is Mefi turn into Reddit where subs are littered with deleted posts and comments, creating disruptive gaps - a series of comments referring to a deleted post, or post with comments responding to other unknown, deleted comments.
If deletion is enabled, I give it less than a week until a "remove your history from Mefi" script is available for people to purge their online presence and leave Mefi full of content holes (this is already available and done in Reddit, X/Twitter, etc.).
posted by jpeacock at 8:13 PM on January 24 [8 favorites]
Is the purpose of this feature to satisfy a common user request or to decrease an operational load on mods?
posted by jpeacock at 8:14 PM on January 24 [1 favorite]
posted by jpeacock at 8:14 PM on January 24 [1 favorite]
If deletion is enabled, I give it less than a week until a "remove your history from Mefi" script is available for people to purge their online presence and leave Mefi full of content holes (this is already available and done in Reddit, X/Twitter, etc.).
We already have this via account wipes. This is asking for a LESS DESTRUCTIVE option. If we don’t get it, more people will wipe their accounts rather than have to “ping a mod” and be subject to their “judgement” about thirty different comments about, say, being trans that they might not want to be so public anymore. Particularly if they’re fed up with the site.
posted by brook horse at 8:26 PM on January 24 [10 favorites]
We already have this via account wipes. This is asking for a LESS DESTRUCTIVE option. If we don’t get it, more people will wipe their accounts rather than have to “ping a mod” and be subject to their “judgement” about thirty different comments about, say, being trans that they might not want to be so public anymore. Particularly if they’re fed up with the site.
posted by brook horse at 8:26 PM on January 24 [10 favorites]
Is the purpose of this feature to satisfy a common user request
People have been asking for it since account wipes became a thing years ago. I don’t know how many times it’s been asked in a month though.
posted by brook horse at 8:31 PM on January 24 [1 favorite]
People have been asking for it since account wipes became a thing years ago. I don’t know how many times it’s been asked in a month though.
posted by brook horse at 8:31 PM on January 24 [1 favorite]
We already have this via account wipes. This is asking for a LESS DESTRUCTIVE option.
Agreed, account wipes are destructive. Maybe we shouldn't have them? I think the default should be anonymization, with the option for users to identify posts that they think will still be a problem if anonymized.
posted by ssg at 8:32 PM on January 24 [7 favorites]
Agreed, account wipes are destructive. Maybe we shouldn't have them? I think the default should be anonymization, with the option for users to identify posts that they think will still be a problem if anonymized.
posted by ssg at 8:32 PM on January 24 [7 favorites]
Well, I’m definitely 100% leaving the site if we remove account wipes as an option. I’m sure I signed something that gives Metafilter the right to use my words forever and ever, but damn would it be an authoritarian move to enforce. Super within Metafilter’s values to say “fuck you” to letting people have control over their work because your desire for perpetual access to it overrides their decision that they no longer want to make it freely available.
I can’t even tell if I’m being sarcastic right now, damn. It’s gotten that bad, huh.
posted by brook horse at 8:46 PM on January 24 [15 favorites]
I can’t even tell if I’m being sarcastic right now, damn. It’s gotten that bad, huh.
posted by brook horse at 8:46 PM on January 24 [15 favorites]
For background, the quick-n-dirty mechanism previously was:
- Flag or use the contact form to delete individual posts and comments (typically granted)
- Close account, retain all contents
- Close account, and request Anonymization -- a tricky manual process that's not usually done, iirc
- Close account, and request a wipe -- this zeroes out the profile page, deletes all the comments and favorites, soft-deletes all the posts (still accessible via URL and with the comments inside still searchable), and hard-deletes all the Ask posts for privacy reasons (making them totally inaccessible even with a direct link)
- Close account, and insist on a *total* wipe - this hard-deletes everything, including posts from all subsites. This has only been done a small handful of times in unusual/emergency circumstances, and is no longer done because it's extremely disruptive -- not only does it effectively delete the hundreds or thousands of comments from other people attached to those posts, but they all still show up in search, leaving random broken links everywhere. (Regular wipes do this for Ask already, but a total wipe expanded it to all posts sitewide.)
There definitely needs to be a more nuanced approach, varying by subsite, and ideally one that maximizes the ability to remove one's own content without needlessly affecting others. For the current site, this could be along the lines of:
- Flag or use the contact form to delete individual posts and comments (always granted, no questions asked)
- Close account, retain all contents
- Close account, and request Anonymization
- Close account, and request Anonymization, plus a list of specific posts/comments/subsite areas to delete in accordance with below
- Close account, and request a wipe -- get offered Anonymization/deletion as a last-chance option; if not: zero out profile, hard-delete all comments, hard-delete Ask/Music/Projects/Jobs posts, Anonymize and erase the post bodies for everything else (while leaving the comments intact)
This would necessarily be a manual process (one I've volunteered to help carry out). It's harder, but would allow for useful exceptions, like retaining certain broadly-popular Ask posts as long as the post is Anonymized, the OP's comments deleted, the original question replaced with a placeholder, and any username mentions removed from the comments. This would be unwise (and impractical) to do for everything -- sensitive personal questions would clearly need to be hard-deleted, for ex (sorry, human relations answerers!). But retaining some non-identifying threads like "name that book" or "recommend a recipe", scrubbed of any personal details, is worth the extra effort, both to respect the time commenters put in and to preserve their help for others to use. I also really like thecaddy's suggestion of retaining a list of links to help orient deleted MetaFilter and MetaTalk posts.
As for the new site, it should be flexible enough to support automating much of this -- making post/comment deletion and more granular account wipes self-serve, with a temporary backend log for mods to undo accidental deletions and see if anyone is abusing it. Bespoke stuff like anonymizing and restoring the occasional Ask post would be a lot more manageable under those circumstances.
Idk how much of this is doable out of the box, but it should definitely be easier to achieve something like this in the new codebase than it is now.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:47 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
- Flag or use the contact form to delete individual posts and comments (typically granted)
- Close account, retain all contents
- Close account, and request Anonymization -- a tricky manual process that's not usually done, iirc
- Close account, and request a wipe -- this zeroes out the profile page, deletes all the comments and favorites, soft-deletes all the posts (still accessible via URL and with the comments inside still searchable), and hard-deletes all the Ask posts for privacy reasons (making them totally inaccessible even with a direct link)
- Close account, and insist on a *total* wipe - this hard-deletes everything, including posts from all subsites. This has only been done a small handful of times in unusual/emergency circumstances, and is no longer done because it's extremely disruptive -- not only does it effectively delete the hundreds or thousands of comments from other people attached to those posts, but they all still show up in search, leaving random broken links everywhere. (Regular wipes do this for Ask already, but a total wipe expanded it to all posts sitewide.)
There definitely needs to be a more nuanced approach, varying by subsite, and ideally one that maximizes the ability to remove one's own content without needlessly affecting others. For the current site, this could be along the lines of:
- Flag or use the contact form to delete individual posts and comments (always granted, no questions asked)
- Close account, retain all contents
- Close account, and request Anonymization
- Close account, and request Anonymization, plus a list of specific posts/comments/subsite areas to delete in accordance with below
- Close account, and request a wipe -- get offered Anonymization/deletion as a last-chance option; if not: zero out profile, hard-delete all comments, hard-delete Ask/Music/Projects/Jobs posts, Anonymize and erase the post bodies for everything else (while leaving the comments intact)
This would necessarily be a manual process (one I've volunteered to help carry out). It's harder, but would allow for useful exceptions, like retaining certain broadly-popular Ask posts as long as the post is Anonymized, the OP's comments deleted, the original question replaced with a placeholder, and any username mentions removed from the comments. This would be unwise (and impractical) to do for everything -- sensitive personal questions would clearly need to be hard-deleted, for ex (sorry, human relations answerers!). But retaining some non-identifying threads like "name that book" or "recommend a recipe", scrubbed of any personal details, is worth the extra effort, both to respect the time commenters put in and to preserve their help for others to use. I also really like thecaddy's suggestion of retaining a list of links to help orient deleted MetaFilter and MetaTalk posts.
As for the new site, it should be flexible enough to support automating much of this -- making post/comment deletion and more granular account wipes self-serve, with a temporary backend log for mods to undo accidental deletions and see if anyone is abusing it. Bespoke stuff like anonymizing and restoring the occasional Ask post would be a lot more manageable under those circumstances.
Idk how much of this is doable out of the box, but it should definitely be easier to achieve something like this in the new codebase than it is now.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:47 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
Having account wipes isn’t going to change in the sense of allowing people to remove their content. but we are looking to minimize the destruction of the content that other members have contributed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:48 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:48 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
Thanks BB. Good to know that “let’s get rid of account wipes” (or some other way to mass-remove contributions) isn’t on the table. I’d be happy if we could just delete our own comments—posts being something to work out with the mods to minimize destruction to others makes a lot of sense. But people in past threads and now in this one have complained deleting comments leaves holes in conversation and therefore we should be forced to leave our comments up and “just anonymize them” which I don’t agree with.
posted by brook horse at 8:51 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 8:51 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
Mod note: Please let us know if there is anything we can do to remove or make anon anything you no longer want on the web. It is not a problem, especially if it makes you more comfortable remaining on the site.
This goes for any member.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:57 PM on January 24 [9 favorites]
This goes for any member.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:57 PM on January 24 [9 favorites]
Hey thecaddy, just wanted to say thanks, this is a really well-crafted proposal! Clearly specified, and with design choices thought through carefully from people's needs across the subsites. Wish all my professional colleagues worked at this level. :)
I can see reasons to disagree with these choices, but you've articulated a framework to make that discussion better.
posted by away for regrooving at 10:04 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
I can see reasons to disagree with these choices, but you've articulated a framework to make that discussion better.
posted by away for regrooving at 10:04 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
I agree that comments should definitely be deletable by users. Not so sure about posts because other people have comments: maybe only posts with no comments should be deletable.
I don't agree about the 30 day limit. The thing is that especially with issues around comment deletion, you can't ignore the way humans have emotions. People get angry, they post a comment and regret it within minutes or hours. Even if you regret posting an angry comment one minute after posting it, under the editing rules you're theoretically not supposed to edit it away. If you regret it 6 minutes later, you're out of luck even if you want to break the rules.
Other emotions that exist include embarassment. If you've posted something stupid, you might not want to draw the moderators attention to it. And let's face it: some people feel hostility towards the moderators and don't want to interact with them.
Statements like "If you aren't comfortable with something lasting on this site for 30 days, you should not post it" don't really account for emotions very well.
I think allowing users to delete their own comments would take some pressure from moderators, and maybe some heat out of the debates. It's a good idea.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 4:02 AM on January 25 [2 favorites]
I don't agree about the 30 day limit. The thing is that especially with issues around comment deletion, you can't ignore the way humans have emotions. People get angry, they post a comment and regret it within minutes or hours. Even if you regret posting an angry comment one minute after posting it, under the editing rules you're theoretically not supposed to edit it away. If you regret it 6 minutes later, you're out of luck even if you want to break the rules.
Other emotions that exist include embarassment. If you've posted something stupid, you might not want to draw the moderators attention to it. And let's face it: some people feel hostility towards the moderators and don't want to interact with them.
Statements like "If you aren't comfortable with something lasting on this site for 30 days, you should not post it" don't really account for emotions very well.
I think allowing users to delete their own comments would take some pressure from moderators, and maybe some heat out of the debates. It's a good idea.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 4:02 AM on January 25 [2 favorites]
> Statements like "If you aren't comfortable with something lasting on this site for 30 days, you should not post it" don't really account for emotions very well.
Agreed, however just a PSA - the webarchive is very good at crawling metafilter and its various subdomains and is very recent and goes back very far -> http://web.archive.org/web/20250123183051/https://ask.metafilter.com/
If you're not comfortable posting information here then you should not do it under your primary account (i don't know if second accounts are allowed here?).
Really this goes for anywhere you're posting stuff online.
posted by lawrencium at 5:08 AM on January 25 [4 favorites]
Agreed, however just a PSA - the webarchive is very good at crawling metafilter and its various subdomains and is very recent and goes back very far -> http://web.archive.org/web/20250123183051/https://ask.metafilter.com/
If you're not comfortable posting information here then you should not do it under your primary account (i don't know if second accounts are allowed here?).
Really this goes for anywhere you're posting stuff online.
posted by lawrencium at 5:08 AM on January 25 [4 favorites]
Second accounts, called 'sock puppets', are totally fine, with a few caveats.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:17 AM on January 25
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:17 AM on January 25
What's the decision making structure for user proposals like this, now that there's a Board in place? My assumption is that the Board is the decision maker? (And my hope is that going forward there's a place to talk about things that require user feedback that's not just an unthreaded unfacilitated MeTa thread, with the assumption that loudest voices win.)
posted by lapis at 9:54 AM on January 25 [4 favorites]
posted by lapis at 9:54 AM on January 25 [4 favorites]
What's the decision making structure for user proposals like this, now that there's a Board in place?
I was just asking myself this same question. I think this would be a good subject for a separate MeTa. We are so used to petitioning whoever is in charge for change via MeTa like this, but now it doesn't have to be that way any more.
Should the board just take feedback from MeTa posts like this? Should we have some kind of mechanism to propose policy and vote on it so we have more direct democracy? I don't think we just have to replace the site owner / mods as decision making authority with a board; we can imagine a different way to make decisions and set policy.
posted by ssg at 10:50 AM on January 25 [2 favorites]
I was just asking myself this same question. I think this would be a good subject for a separate MeTa. We are so used to petitioning whoever is in charge for change via MeTa like this, but now it doesn't have to be that way any more.
Should the board just take feedback from MeTa posts like this? Should we have some kind of mechanism to propose policy and vote on it so we have more direct democracy? I don't think we just have to replace the site owner / mods as decision making authority with a board; we can imagine a different way to make decisions and set policy.
posted by ssg at 10:50 AM on January 25 [2 favorites]
No particular decision making structure has been defined or communicated to the mods, as far as I know. This isn't a bad thing or a gotcha, I'm sure they'll get there.
I believe one of their major goals is getting/implementing some sort of voting software so the community can actually vote on things, but I don't know the status of that. But it has been mentioned several times in meetings.
As an employee I definitely view the board as the decision maker/decider on things these days.
If folks want to start a separate MeTa about that question, feel free! Just keep in mind that running MeFi isn't their job, they have actual full time jobs and lives, so they may not move as quickly as even they would like, but they do move! So have a little patience, they're clearly committed to doing the best by MetaFilter.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 11:15 AM on January 25 [4 favorites]
I believe one of their major goals is getting/implementing some sort of voting software so the community can actually vote on things, but I don't know the status of that. But it has been mentioned several times in meetings.
As an employee I definitely view the board as the decision maker/decider on things these days.
If folks want to start a separate MeTa about that question, feel free! Just keep in mind that running MeFi isn't their job, they have actual full time jobs and lives, so they may not move as quickly as even they would like, but they do move! So have a little patience, they're clearly committed to doing the best by MetaFilter.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 11:15 AM on January 25 [4 favorites]
I’ve needed the mod-enabled post wipe feature in the past for reasons I truly could not have anticipated at the time of the post. I’m OK if people don’t want to engage with my future contributions for that reason. I’m also OK with my comments here being evanescent in case of another member’s second thoughts about their post. There’s kind of a stochastic digital Goldsworthy property to the internet anyhow. My two cents.
posted by eirias at 12:15 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
posted by eirias at 12:15 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
The proposal looks really good to me!
One thing I'd like to add, if it is not too much of a burden, is for deleted comments to be 'returned to sender', as it were, by sending a copy to the comment's author via MeMail. This would ensure that a comment someone has possibly spent an hour writing is at least available for re-use elsewhere.
I recognize that if we apply this even to Ask, these MeMails may contain confidential information that was repeated from the question. Since we cannot stop people from keeping an offline record of their posts (in fact, people might start doing just that if the idea of their comments getting deleted bothers them), I'm inclined to think that would be acceptable.
posted by demi-octopus at 12:35 PM on January 25 [5 favorites]
One thing I'd like to add, if it is not too much of a burden, is for deleted comments to be 'returned to sender', as it were, by sending a copy to the comment's author via MeMail. This would ensure that a comment someone has possibly spent an hour writing is at least available for re-use elsewhere.
I recognize that if we apply this even to Ask, these MeMails may contain confidential information that was repeated from the question. Since we cannot stop people from keeping an offline record of their posts (in fact, people might start doing just that if the idea of their comments getting deleted bothers them), I'm inclined to think that would be acceptable.
posted by demi-octopus at 12:35 PM on January 25 [5 favorites]
anonymization Yes. deletion No.
We are asked to examine our comments for civility before hitting the send button. It's not too much to ask of a commentator to reread their comment for clarity, tone, or intent.
Posts + comments create a conversation. It seems reasonable to ask that your MeFi ID be disassociated from a comment, but removing a comment from a thread is not sensible except when it violates the site norms because it affects the conversation.
posted by mule98J at 5:19 PM on January 25
We are asked to examine our comments for civility before hitting the send button. It's not too much to ask of a commentator to reread their comment for clarity, tone, or intent.
Posts + comments create a conversation. It seems reasonable to ask that your MeFi ID be disassociated from a comment, but removing a comment from a thread is not sensible except when it violates the site norms because it affects the conversation.
posted by mule98J at 5:19 PM on January 25
You don’t have the right to perpetual access to someone’s writing just because others’ won’t make sense without it.
Yeah, the impact deletion has on conversation sucks, but autonomy over your own work is something I thought Metafilter valued.
posted by brook horse at 5:25 PM on January 25 [17 favorites]
Yeah, the impact deletion has on conversation sucks, but autonomy over your own work is something I thought Metafilter valued.
posted by brook horse at 5:25 PM on January 25 [17 favorites]
removing a comment from a thread is not sensible except when it violates the site norms because it affects the conversation
The problem is, when you've been on a particular site long enough, and you've engaged in enough conversations, the details of your real life can come together in an identifiable way. And if you're unlucky enough to have a stalker, there's this awful sense of doom and helplessness because all you wanted to do was talk to people--like normal people do!--and now your very conversation can be a weapon against you. It's not even a new threat, we saw it happening back in the usenet days, I'm sure it happened plenty even prior to that.
So we do have to make a choice between the sanctity of the conversation (which I do believe in, it's important for us to have a sense of continuity!) and the sanctity of our users (which I believe in more, because good lord, cyberstalking is terrifying and no one should have to go through it).
posted by mittens at 5:30 PM on January 25 [9 favorites]
The problem is, when you've been on a particular site long enough, and you've engaged in enough conversations, the details of your real life can come together in an identifiable way. And if you're unlucky enough to have a stalker, there's this awful sense of doom and helplessness because all you wanted to do was talk to people--like normal people do!--and now your very conversation can be a weapon against you. It's not even a new threat, we saw it happening back in the usenet days, I'm sure it happened plenty even prior to that.
So we do have to make a choice between the sanctity of the conversation (which I do believe in, it's important for us to have a sense of continuity!) and the sanctity of our users (which I believe in more, because good lord, cyberstalking is terrifying and no one should have to go through it).
posted by mittens at 5:30 PM on January 25 [9 favorites]
you no longer own that post
yeah the copyright notice at the bottom of every page expressly says that this is not true
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 6:02 PM on January 25 [6 favorites]
yeah the copyright notice at the bottom of every page expressly says that this is not true
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 6:02 PM on January 25 [6 favorites]
yeah the copyright notice at the bottom of every page expressly says that this is not true
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm guessing that even if you own copyright, that just means you can sell it somewhere else if you want to (and probably metafilter can't sell it), but I'm guessing that by posting it you've granted metafilter a perpetual license to publish it on the site. So yeah, you own it, but Metafilter owns a license.
But anyway, that's not what I came to say. I came to say that another possible option is allowing redaction of information. Like if someone were happy to have a post stay and be associated with their name but they just want to erase that they mentioned their mother's maiden name or the street they grew up on, or their alma mater or any sort of potentially identifying information. In this case the post would stay and non-anonymized, but the offending information would be replaced with ...oh let's say the text "[redacted]" with that text possibly linked to the redaction policy. This would obviously require mod action or, if self-initiated, would be subject to mod-approval or review.
Second, if people are going to be able to anonymize their comments, then we need to plan for the possibility that there will be more than one anonymized commenter in a given post. This would make it kind of odd to try to follow a conversation if a bunch of comments written by different people look like they're written by the same person.
My suggestion is that in each post the anyonymous user-id be Anonymous[Site Identifier][PostNumber]-[AnonWithin-Post-SerialID]. For example, if the Site Identifier for MetaTalk were T, then the first person commenting in the post to anonymize their account would have their "posted by" info changed to "Anonymous MT26555-1" the second to anonymize would be "Anonymous MT26555-3". etc. All the Anonymous user names would link to the same anonymous account. Anonymous usernames attached to someone who anonymized their account would be different for each post so it shouldn't be possible to link Anonymous comments across posts.
If there's concern that the serial-numbering of the anons could somehow de-anonymize posters then the number could instead be a random number or pasted on the comment number of the first comment that person posted within the thread.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:39 PM on January 25 [1 favorite]
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm guessing that even if you own copyright, that just means you can sell it somewhere else if you want to (and probably metafilter can't sell it), but I'm guessing that by posting it you've granted metafilter a perpetual license to publish it on the site. So yeah, you own it, but Metafilter owns a license.
But anyway, that's not what I came to say. I came to say that another possible option is allowing redaction of information. Like if someone were happy to have a post stay and be associated with their name but they just want to erase that they mentioned their mother's maiden name or the street they grew up on, or their alma mater or any sort of potentially identifying information. In this case the post would stay and non-anonymized, but the offending information would be replaced with ...oh let's say the text "[redacted]" with that text possibly linked to the redaction policy. This would obviously require mod action or, if self-initiated, would be subject to mod-approval or review.
Second, if people are going to be able to anonymize their comments, then we need to plan for the possibility that there will be more than one anonymized commenter in a given post. This would make it kind of odd to try to follow a conversation if a bunch of comments written by different people look like they're written by the same person.
My suggestion is that in each post the anyonymous user-id be Anonymous[Site Identifier][PostNumber]-[AnonWithin-Post-SerialID]. For example, if the Site Identifier for MetaTalk were T, then the first person commenting in the post to anonymize their account would have their "posted by" info changed to "Anonymous MT26555-1" the second to anonymize would be "Anonymous MT26555-3". etc. All the Anonymous user names would link to the same anonymous account. Anonymous usernames attached to someone who anonymized their account would be different for each post so it shouldn't be possible to link Anonymous comments across posts.
If there's concern that the serial-numbering of the anons could somehow de-anonymize posters then the number could instead be a random number or pasted on the comment number of the first comment that person posted within the thread.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:39 PM on January 25 [1 favorite]
but I'm guessing that by posting it you've granted metafilter a perpetual license to publish it on the site. So yeah, you own it, but Metafilter owns a license.
Nothing in the privacy policy, guidelines, FAQ, sign-up page, or anywhere else on the site contains language giving Metafilter a perpetual license. The only language that discusses their rights is this section of the FAQ:
posted by brook horse at 7:04 PM on January 25 [8 favorites]
Nothing in the privacy policy, guidelines, FAQ, sign-up page, or anywhere else on the site contains language giving Metafilter a perpetual license. The only language that discusses their rights is this section of the FAQ:
On the footer of every MetaFilter page is: © 1999-2023 MetaFilter LLC. All posts are © their original authors. What this means is that people own their own content. So if you wanted to publish a book of your own MetaFilter comments, you could. However if you wanted to publish a book of other people's MetaFilter comments you'd need to speak with those individual users; MetaFilter is not the owner of the copyright of that content. People have, however, granted MetaFilter the right to display their comments. MetaFilter will generally go after websites that are making wholesale reproductions of MetaFilter content, but limited content quoting is considered fair use and will be treated as such.There is no language about granting this right irrevocably or in perpetuity. And this isn't in the privacy policy or the guidelines, so I don't know if it even counts as something users "agree" to. But even if it is, while Metafilter is granted the right to display comments, absent language indicating otherwise a copyright holder can revoke that right at any point. (IANAL but I've navigated the online display of my creative work before.)
posted by brook horse at 7:04 PM on January 25 [8 favorites]
I'm really confused why we're arguing about whether account wipes and comments deletions should even be allowed. Account wipes have been allowed for years. Comment deletions happen regularly by the mods. It seems entirely more in the spirit of respecting users to allow us to manage our own content, as opposed to the random deletions that happen now. It also has the very important benefit of allowing people the dignity of managing their own comfort levels about what they've shared previously, rather than requiring it to be adjudicated by people who have no knowledge of the situation causing, or potentially causing, harm. Especially as we move into a political climate where people are getting fired for criticizing Musk, or having their online presence scrutinized for DEI positivity by their employers. It's ridiculous to think that someone else's experience of MetaFilter is more important than a poster's actual wellbeing, whether that's physical, emotional, or financial.
brook horse, you've been doing an amazing job of pointing out a lot of this and I'm sorry you're getting such pushback.
posted by lapis at 7:58 PM on January 25 [16 favorites]
brook horse, you've been doing an amazing job of pointing out a lot of this and I'm sorry you're getting such pushback.
posted by lapis at 7:58 PM on January 25 [16 favorites]
The mods, board, lawyers, etc. are not interested in forcibly retaining people's content; the changes described here are just trying to make sure that blanket deletion isn't the default and that removing/Anonymizing/etc. impacts *other* people's content as little as possible. Personally, I don't enjoy seeing people delete their accounts, but agree they should be able to.
As for the broader question about site terms -- this is a legacy of the site's informal beginnings, but when you sign up for an account, you're presented with links to the site guidelines ("It's important that you read and understand them") and "Further Reading" that includes the FAQ and Privacy Policy, which discuss a range of relevant topics. Following that is:
"Sound good? Great, go ahead and sign up for an account here."
IANAL, but the fact that the site's rules and policies are presented first, and the link to actually sign up comes after that sort of "please read/sound good?" language, pretty clearly implies acceptance (or at least reasonable notice) of those policies as a condition of active membership. This could always be strengthened by a more explicit clickwrap page, but that's not really a high priority atm. (I say this not to contest what brook horse is saying about right to deletion, more to head off any Sovereign MeFite-esque shenanigans like "I can totally sue the site for deleting my shitpost because I never ticked a gold-fringed ToS consent box when I signed up in 2002.")
posted by Rhaomi at 9:17 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
As for the broader question about site terms -- this is a legacy of the site's informal beginnings, but when you sign up for an account, you're presented with links to the site guidelines ("It's important that you read and understand them") and "Further Reading" that includes the FAQ and Privacy Policy, which discuss a range of relevant topics. Following that is:
"Sound good? Great, go ahead and sign up for an account here."
IANAL, but the fact that the site's rules and policies are presented first, and the link to actually sign up comes after that sort of "please read/sound good?" language, pretty clearly implies acceptance (or at least reasonable notice) of those policies as a condition of active membership. This could always be strengthened by a more explicit clickwrap page, but that's not really a high priority atm. (I say this not to contest what brook horse is saying about right to deletion, more to head off any Sovereign MeFite-esque shenanigans like "I can totally sue the site for deleting my shitpost because I never ticked a gold-fringed ToS consent box when I signed up in 2002.")
posted by Rhaomi at 9:17 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
What I don't want is to see is Mefi turn into Reddit where subs are littered with deleted posts and comments
there's already a mefi subreddit ...
i'm fine with more anonymity
if you wanted to publish a book of your own MetaFilter comments, you could
*resumes searching for publisher*
posted by HearHere at 4:00 AM on January 26
there's already a mefi subreddit ...
i'm fine with more anonymity
if you wanted to publish a book of your own MetaFilter comments, you could
*resumes searching for publisher*
posted by HearHere at 4:00 AM on January 26
My highest-priority feature request is the ability to anonymize comments and posts retroactively without going through mod approval. Thanks for this thread!
posted by seemoorglass at 6:23 AM on January 26 [7 favorites]
posted by seemoorglass at 6:23 AM on January 26 [7 favorites]
Posts + comments create a conversation. It seems reasonable to ask that your MeFi ID be disassociated from a comment, but removing a comment from a thread is not sensible except when it violates the site norms because it affects the conversation.
I mean, I feel like folks on Metafilter are the kind of people that LOVE history and LOVE museums, and rely on documentation in their day jobs and just in general self select for loving the written word. And I think coming from those sorts of backgrounds, where you, as part of your everyday work and play, use things written in the past, it's easier to identify with some future reader who might be confused. The fact is though: that reader is a hypothetical, and the person who wrote the comments and now wants them removed is real.
If we are having conversations, then let's treat it like a conversation, temporary and subject to interruptions. This website exists for the people who use it currently, not for the people who may want to reread it.
And look, I've mentioned this before, but I literally don't have a memory from 2020-mid 2021, and even after that it's really patchy for awhile. I rely on reading old things I wrote to know what I was thinking and experiencing. If my stuff from Metafilter were suddenly gone, that would be a real loss to me in a way I don't think very many people can understand. But, in the end that's just the nature of time, things get lost.
I know we were all warned that the internet is forever, and in someways it's good to act like it is, but that's for considering what WE post, not claiming ownership of others output.
posted by Gygesringtone at 8:09 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
I mean, I feel like folks on Metafilter are the kind of people that LOVE history and LOVE museums, and rely on documentation in their day jobs and just in general self select for loving the written word. And I think coming from those sorts of backgrounds, where you, as part of your everyday work and play, use things written in the past, it's easier to identify with some future reader who might be confused. The fact is though: that reader is a hypothetical, and the person who wrote the comments and now wants them removed is real.
If we are having conversations, then let's treat it like a conversation, temporary and subject to interruptions. This website exists for the people who use it currently, not for the people who may want to reread it.
And look, I've mentioned this before, but I literally don't have a memory from 2020-mid 2021, and even after that it's really patchy for awhile. I rely on reading old things I wrote to know what I was thinking and experiencing. If my stuff from Metafilter were suddenly gone, that would be a real loss to me in a way I don't think very many people can understand. But, in the end that's just the nature of time, things get lost.
I know we were all warned that the internet is forever, and in someways it's good to act like it is, but that's for considering what WE post, not claiming ownership of others output.
posted by Gygesringtone at 8:09 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
account wipes are destructive. Maybe we shouldn't have them?
In the EU the GDPR 'Right to be Forgotten', means that there must be some process to completely wipe content when requested.
posted by Lanark at 8:14 AM on January 26 [11 favorites]
In the EU the GDPR 'Right to be Forgotten', means that there must be some process to completely wipe content when requested.
posted by Lanark at 8:14 AM on January 26 [11 favorites]
In the EU the GDPR 'Right to be Forgotten', means that there must be some process to completely wipe content when requested.
Real question: does that apply to things not associated with one's real name?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:32 AM on January 26
Real question: does that apply to things not associated with one's real name?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:32 AM on January 26
My highest-priority feature request is the ability to anonymize comments and posts retroactively without going through mod approval.
This seems like a good thing (probably we want to put some kind of time limit on it, so people aren't anonymizing posts they made an hour ago for fighty reasons).
In the EU the GDPR 'Right to be Forgotten', means that there must be some process to completely wipe content when requested.
This applies to personal data not content in general. Not a lawyer, but I don't think anonymous questions that are generic enough to not identify anyone would be personal data.
posted by ssg at 8:56 AM on January 26
This seems like a good thing (probably we want to put some kind of time limit on it, so people aren't anonymizing posts they made an hour ago for fighty reasons).
In the EU the GDPR 'Right to be Forgotten', means that there must be some process to completely wipe content when requested.
This applies to personal data not content in general. Not a lawyer, but I don't think anonymous questions that are generic enough to not identify anyone would be personal data.
posted by ssg at 8:56 AM on January 26
does that apply to things not associated with one's real name?
A username can be a personal identifier that could be used to track people from one website to another.
It is often possible to dox someone by piecing together bits of data from multiple websites, which is why the right to be forgotten law was brought in.
Also some people do choose to use their real name as their online handle.
posted by Lanark at 9:41 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
A username can be a personal identifier that could be used to track people from one website to another.
It is often possible to dox someone by piecing together bits of data from multiple websites, which is why the right to be forgotten law was brought in.
Also some people do choose to use their real name as their online handle.
posted by Lanark at 9:41 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm guessing that even if you own copyright, that just means you can sell it somewhere else if you want to (and probably metafilter can't sell it), but I'm guessing that by posting it you've granted metafilter a perpetual license to publish it on the site
no, that only happens with an agreement for perpetual license. it's not how it otherwise works; DMCA takedowns are effective regardless of whether the absence of the material does anything negative. but you don't have to guess or be a lawyer—this is not hard to learn more about.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 10:04 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
no, that only happens with an agreement for perpetual license. it's not how it otherwise works; DMCA takedowns are effective regardless of whether the absence of the material does anything negative. but you don't have to guess or be a lawyer—this is not hard to learn more about.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 10:04 AM on January 26 [5 favorites]
Let me be very specific about my opposition, because it appears there's a mixture of opinions here. This is in the original post:
This means that, in the event a user deletes a question (post) from Ask, the Post Page should be deleted as well.
This proposal (and current MeFi policy) allows users do delete other users' comments, with no reason whatsoever. This is an extraordinary ability that is not shared by any other website I'm aware of. Although in the proposal this ability is tracked, there is nothing stopping a user doing so wholescale either through an account wipe (which deletes all AskMeFi posts) or through just deleting posts rapidly until mods notice and take action (essentially the same thing). Regardless of whether users are allowed to delete/anonymize their own content, users should not have the ability to delete other users' content as a normal site function.
I'm not suggesting that comment deletions of other users should never happen. Such deletions may be necessary in case of personally identifiable information. However, I think MetaFilter should impose the bare minimum requirement that for a user to delete other users' comments, the user should either provide specific identifiable information, or provide evidence of a high risk situation that requires immediate action and allows for no time to identify that information.
This site needs a principle that users do not have the ability to modify/delete other users' content on a whim. It's astounding to me that principle does not exist yet.
posted by saeculorum at 12:21 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
This means that, in the event a user deletes a question (post) from Ask, the Post Page should be deleted as well.
This proposal (and current MeFi policy) allows users do delete other users' comments, with no reason whatsoever. This is an extraordinary ability that is not shared by any other website I'm aware of. Although in the proposal this ability is tracked, there is nothing stopping a user doing so wholescale either through an account wipe (which deletes all AskMeFi posts) or through just deleting posts rapidly until mods notice and take action (essentially the same thing). Regardless of whether users are allowed to delete/anonymize their own content, users should not have the ability to delete other users' content as a normal site function.
I'm not suggesting that comment deletions of other users should never happen. Such deletions may be necessary in case of personally identifiable information. However, I think MetaFilter should impose the bare minimum requirement that for a user to delete other users' comments, the user should either provide specific identifiable information, or provide evidence of a high risk situation that requires immediate action and allows for no time to identify that information.
This site needs a principle that users do not have the ability to modify/delete other users' content on a whim. It's astounding to me that principle does not exist yet.
posted by saeculorum at 12:21 PM on January 26 [7 favorites]
I agree with this as well—situations where other users’ comments need to be deleted or redacted should be handled by a mod. Everything else should be user controlled. Only having account wipes as an efficient way to handle control of content is leading to more destruction than is likely necessary in most instances.
posted by brook horse at 12:35 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 12:35 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
no, that only happens with an agreement for perpetual license. it's not how it otherwise works; DMCA takedowns are effective regardless of whether the absence of the material does anything negative. but you don't have to guess or be a lawyer—this is not hard to learn more about.
When I joined Metafilter the policy was that accounts were not deleted/wiped. You could not change your username (I believe this second part is still true). I believe this is what I was told as part of the sign-up process. I nonetheless posted material here. Learning about DMCA would not have told me if this constituted consent to have Metafilter keep my material permanently. Sorry that you don't think I adequately researched the laws and legal precedents of another country. I just assumed because the "we don't delete stuff" policy was known, this might create implicit consent and also that figuring out if that was the case would require more familiarity with case-law than I was likely to get with simple google.
This means that, in the event a user deletes a question (post) from Ask, the Post Page should be deleted as well.
This proposal (and current MeFi policy) allows users do delete other users' comments, with no reason whatsoever. This is an extraordinary ability that is not shared by any other website I'm aware of.
This is the case on virtually any threaded platform that allows people to delete their posts. If I delete a post on facebook, every comment on my post is deleted. If I create a blog post and a bunch of people respond, their responses are gone if I delete the blog post. Medium. Quora. Just about everywhere where some material is "nested" under other material, deleting the higher level stuff will delete everything nested within it.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:39 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
When I joined Metafilter the policy was that accounts were not deleted/wiped. You could not change your username (I believe this second part is still true). I believe this is what I was told as part of the sign-up process. I nonetheless posted material here. Learning about DMCA would not have told me if this constituted consent to have Metafilter keep my material permanently. Sorry that you don't think I adequately researched the laws and legal precedents of another country. I just assumed because the "we don't delete stuff" policy was known, this might create implicit consent and also that figuring out if that was the case would require more familiarity with case-law than I was likely to get with simple google.
This means that, in the event a user deletes a question (post) from Ask, the Post Page should be deleted as well.
This proposal (and current MeFi policy) allows users do delete other users' comments, with no reason whatsoever. This is an extraordinary ability that is not shared by any other website I'm aware of.
This is the case on virtually any threaded platform that allows people to delete their posts. If I delete a post on facebook, every comment on my post is deleted. If I create a blog post and a bunch of people respond, their responses are gone if I delete the blog post. Medium. Quora. Just about everywhere where some material is "nested" under other material, deleting the higher level stuff will delete everything nested within it.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:39 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
When I joined Metafilter the policy was that accounts were not deleted/wiped. You could not change your username (I believe this second part is still true). I believe this is what I was told as part of the sign-up process. I nonetheless posted material here. Learning about DMCA would not have told me if this constituted consent to have Metafilter keep my material permanently.
yes and the problem this eventually posed—as came up in 2016/2017 post-election iirc—is that it is not in keeping in line with copyright law and they just hoped/expected that people would not invoke copyright law.
Sorry that you don't think I adequately researched the laws and legal precedents of another country. I just assumed because the "we don't delete stuff" policy was known, this might create implicit consent and also that figuring out if that was the case would require more familiarity with case-law than I was likely to get with simple google.
i neither care what country you’re from or what you assumed. i am not a lawyer. it actually is not harder than a simple google. if you want to run around saying “i’m not a lawyer but” and then say whatever unqualified thing you’ve had in your head, then you’re going to be told you’re wrong, which is what you seem to have trouble accepting here. sorry you don’t like it.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 1:25 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
yes and the problem this eventually posed—as came up in 2016/2017 post-election iirc—is that it is not in keeping in line with copyright law and they just hoped/expected that people would not invoke copyright law.
Sorry that you don't think I adequately researched the laws and legal precedents of another country. I just assumed because the "we don't delete stuff" policy was known, this might create implicit consent and also that figuring out if that was the case would require more familiarity with case-law than I was likely to get with simple google.
i neither care what country you’re from or what you assumed. i am not a lawyer. it actually is not harder than a simple google. if you want to run around saying “i’m not a lawyer but” and then say whatever unqualified thing you’ve had in your head, then you’re going to be told you’re wrong, which is what you seem to have trouble accepting here. sorry you don’t like it.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 1:25 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
This is the case on virtually any threaded platform that allows people to delete their posts.
But other Q&A platforms don't allow users to delete their posts. For instance, you can't delete your own question on Stack Exchange if it has been answered.
Quora
Quora has become a total dumpster fire, but I don't think you can delete your own question if it has been answered on Quora either.
posted by ssg at 1:43 PM on January 26
But other Q&A platforms don't allow users to delete their posts. For instance, you can't delete your own question on Stack Exchange if it has been answered.
Quora
Quora has become a total dumpster fire, but I don't think you can delete your own question if it has been answered on Quora either.
posted by ssg at 1:43 PM on January 26
if you want to run around saying “i’m not a lawyer but” and then say whatever unqualified thing you’ve had in your head, then you’re going to be told you’re wrong, which is what you seem to have trouble accepting here. sorry you don’t like it.
I have no trouble accepting that I'm wrong nor being told that I'm wrong. In fact, inviting people with better knowledge and better ability to parse relevant information sources to tell me I'm wrong is half the reason for the "I'm not a lawyer part." The other half is so that nobody reading assumes that what follows is right. I suppose I could have googled copyright licensing law and consent in all the jurisdictions that might be relevant. But I know from my own field that people with low-knowledge will often read material that assumes a level of expertise they don't have and then misunderstand it. And I know that often with law there's often more to it that the text of the legislation, but there's often case-law and in some places common-law that comes into play. So I assumed that looking up one piece of legislation would not, by itself, tel me if knowingly signing up on a site that says "once you sign up you can't delete your stuff" amounts to giving them license to keep your stuff.
So I guess I could have worded my point differently. Maybe I could have said "Since I'm not a lawyer I don't know if this is the case, but I wonder if our signing up for a site that we know at sign-up time doesn't allow us to delete our accounts or posts amounts to consent to have the site keep our posts/licensing of those materials. It seems like it would since we knew about it at sign-up and chose to sign up anyway, but I am not qualified to determine which laws apply or or how they would apply in this context."
As established, I cannot delete or replace the old post, but please consider me to have amended the comment this new version.
Also, I was wondering about Quora, and found that whatever dumpster fire they may be, they allow you to anonymize all the content you've posted. So there's a site using that model. It looks. from that article, like they do actually take copyright of your posts, which is different.
Which actually I think raises a question. If an account is anonymized will there be any record anywhere in the back-end of the system of who the original poster was? Because if there's not, the site might have a problem if someone anyonmyizes all their posts and then later decides they actually want to wipe it all and if some jurisdictions would require the site to comply with that request.. I do not know what legislation to look up to find out if that would create a problem and do not feel qualified to evaluate what law might apply or how, so I'm not asserting this would be a problem. But I"m throwing it out there as a problem to consider if anonymizing an account is offered as an option.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 3:53 PM on January 26
I have no trouble accepting that I'm wrong nor being told that I'm wrong. In fact, inviting people with better knowledge and better ability to parse relevant information sources to tell me I'm wrong is half the reason for the "I'm not a lawyer part." The other half is so that nobody reading assumes that what follows is right. I suppose I could have googled copyright licensing law and consent in all the jurisdictions that might be relevant. But I know from my own field that people with low-knowledge will often read material that assumes a level of expertise they don't have and then misunderstand it. And I know that often with law there's often more to it that the text of the legislation, but there's often case-law and in some places common-law that comes into play. So I assumed that looking up one piece of legislation would not, by itself, tel me if knowingly signing up on a site that says "once you sign up you can't delete your stuff" amounts to giving them license to keep your stuff.
So I guess I could have worded my point differently. Maybe I could have said "Since I'm not a lawyer I don't know if this is the case, but I wonder if our signing up for a site that we know at sign-up time doesn't allow us to delete our accounts or posts amounts to consent to have the site keep our posts/licensing of those materials. It seems like it would since we knew about it at sign-up and chose to sign up anyway, but I am not qualified to determine which laws apply or or how they would apply in this context."
As established, I cannot delete or replace the old post, but please consider me to have amended the comment this new version.
Also, I was wondering about Quora, and found that whatever dumpster fire they may be, they allow you to anonymize all the content you've posted. So there's a site using that model. It looks. from that article, like they do actually take copyright of your posts, which is different.
Which actually I think raises a question. If an account is anonymized will there be any record anywhere in the back-end of the system of who the original poster was? Because if there's not, the site might have a problem if someone anyonmyizes all their posts and then later decides they actually want to wipe it all and if some jurisdictions would require the site to comply with that request.. I do not know what legislation to look up to find out if that would create a problem and do not feel qualified to evaluate what law might apply or how, so I'm not asserting this would be a problem. But I"m throwing it out there as a problem to consider if anonymizing an account is offered as an option.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 3:53 PM on January 26
My highest-priority feature request is the ability to anonymize comments and posts retroactively without going through mod approval.
Look, right now of all times, things are really scary, and I would very much like anything that allows us the ability to delete or anonymize past posts. Like, I'm not worried about users here, but maybe I would prefer AI not have the ability to trawl through every vacation spot I've ever mentioned to figure out a list of the top three places I would be most likely to run, you know?
posted by corb at 6:10 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]
Look, right now of all times, things are really scary, and I would very much like anything that allows us the ability to delete or anonymize past posts. Like, I'm not worried about users here, but maybe I would prefer AI not have the ability to trawl through every vacation spot I've ever mentioned to figure out a list of the top three places I would be most likely to run, you know?
posted by corb at 6:10 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]
I have no trouble accepting that I'm wrong nor being told that I'm wrong. In fact, inviting people with better knowledge and better ability to parse relevant information sources to tell me I'm wrong...
people, people, can you please stop arguing amongst yourselves like this?
hmm... if there were only some way to allow the expression of opinions anonymously...
posted by HearHere at 7:38 PM on January 26
people, people, can you please stop arguing amongst yourselves like this?
hmm... if there were only some way to allow the expression of opinions anonymously...
posted by HearHere at 7:38 PM on January 26
Something I have noticed on Reddit that is not in place here (and I think should be) is that when a user deletes a comment, it shows up as [this comment deleted by user] and the username changes to [deleted]. I find that a lot easier to parse than the Metafilter version, where the comment is just gone, with no break in the comments, because on Reddit you can go 'oh, a comment was posted at this specific point in time and then deleted, I guess this person is referring to a deleted comment' whereas on Metafilter occasionally I've had the experience of reading a comment section that suddenly goes completely off the rails for no reason at all that I can see, and it invariably turns out that a comment was deleted somewhere upthread, and maybe if I'm lucky there's a mod note 10 or 20 comments later.
I would like for deleted comments to be replaced with the text 'this comment deleted by user' or similar, and the username of the author of the deleted comment to be replaced with the text 'deleted' or similar, rather than just vanishing the whole thing into the ether with no sign anything was ever there.
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:02 AM on January 27 [21 favorites]
I would like for deleted comments to be replaced with the text 'this comment deleted by user' or similar, and the username of the author of the deleted comment to be replaced with the text 'deleted' or similar, rather than just vanishing the whole thing into the ether with no sign anything was ever there.
posted by ngaiotonga at 1:02 AM on January 27 [21 favorites]
if I'm lucky there's a mod note 10 or 20 comments later
this is an example:
posted by HearHere at 4:44 AM on January 27
this is an example:
One deleted, Don't comment just to insult fellow members; don't continue to repeat those insults. If you don't care for the discussion, there are other threads, and other sites.i.e. if you want [other sites] go to [other sites]. here autonomy is valued, along with civility
posted by HearHere at 4:44 AM on January 27
My two cents:
User deletions are fine. Most sites allow them. Leave a note that the comment was deleted by the user. That's all.
There's no need for a 30 day lock in window. If someone realizes a comment was stupid two minutes after they posted it, they should be able to go ahead and delete it. If they want to delete what they wrote after reading a few responses and realize what they wrote was poorly worded, triggering bad faith reactions, or just plain wrong, then deleting it then is fine too.
I think it'd be smoother to strike through the comment in that case, rather than delete it, but it can be up to the user.
Again, most sites allow this and survive. If MetaFilter ends up with so many deletions that it makes many threads unreadable, then that's a sign of some deeper problem.
posted by mark k at 10:39 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
User deletions are fine. Most sites allow them. Leave a note that the comment was deleted by the user. That's all.
There's no need for a 30 day lock in window. If someone realizes a comment was stupid two minutes after they posted it, they should be able to go ahead and delete it. If they want to delete what they wrote after reading a few responses and realize what they wrote was poorly worded, triggering bad faith reactions, or just plain wrong, then deleting it then is fine too.
I think it'd be smoother to strike through the comment in that case, rather than delete it, but it can be up to the user.
Again, most sites allow this and survive. If MetaFilter ends up with so many deletions that it makes many threads unreadable, then that's a sign of some deeper problem.
posted by mark k at 10:39 AM on January 27 [6 favorites]
Second, if people are going to be able to anonymize their comments, then we need to plan for the possibility that there will be more than one anonymized commenter in a given post. This would make it kind of odd to try to follow a conversation if a bunch of comments written by different people look like they're written by the same person.
This complication was floating around in my head when I commented in favor of anonymizing all comments, but I didn't have my wits about me well enough to think it through.
If you make a stupid comment, own it and move on.
Being stalked can be terrifying experience. By the time you get back to deleting anything, your stalker will likely have found your comment. Check your comment for sensitive info before hitting the ern button
posted by mule98J at 11:36 AM on January 27
This complication was floating around in my head when I commented in favor of anonymizing all comments, but I didn't have my wits about me well enough to think it through.
If you make a stupid comment, own it and move on.
Being stalked can be terrifying experience. By the time you get back to deleting anything, your stalker will likely have found your comment. Check your comment for sensitive info before hitting the ern button
posted by mule98J at 11:36 AM on January 27
Yeah honestly I never actually understood why we couldn’t just delete comments or posts. I’m for this (no need for 30 days either, why?).
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:59 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:59 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]
HearHere I'm not sure if you meant it that way, but to me your comment sounded a lot like 'go back to Reddit then'. I was under the impression this was a thread to discuss ways deletions could be handled on the new site, and I thought providing a concrete example of a way I've seen that done well could be helpful.
What I thought I had been pretty clear about, but apparently not - the feature I would like to see is that when a user deletes their own comment (thus having autonomy over their own words &c), the text of the comment is removed but a marker is left in the thread to let people know that this is the place from which something was removed. We don't currently have that.
posted by ngaiotonga at 12:17 AM on January 28 [3 favorites]
What I thought I had been pretty clear about, but apparently not - the feature I would like to see is that when a user deletes their own comment (thus having autonomy over their own words &c), the text of the comment is removed but a marker is left in the thread to let people know that this is the place from which something was removed. We don't currently have that.
posted by ngaiotonga at 12:17 AM on January 28 [3 favorites]
Firstly, this post was framed extremely well and obviously had a lot of thought put into it. It's clear to me that this has made the responses a lot more focused and civil than may have been the case were it framed the way most posts on MeTa have been.
Secondly, I'm not and don't expect to be in a position where people are chasing me across the Internet with the intention of doing me harm, so my perspective is different from the perfectly valid views of anyone who might be in that position.
As a first principle, I very strongly believe that we all should not publish information about ourselves or others that may lead to identifiable information being available about anyone here. The long-standing view that anything you put on the internet is permanent and public still stands and everyone needs to remember that before they post anything. Even if information can be anonymised or deleted from MetaFilter, that doesn't mean it's no longer available elsewhere, so any mechanisms to do those things will not remove the information from the public domain entirely. Yes, I appreciate that people's lives change unpredictably, so what might be fine today may be a threat tomorrow and there are and will continue to be situations where all care was taken not to create a risk of harm, but something later alters the risk.
I agree that users should be able to anonymise any or all of their content via the UI, but that this be subject to a 'cooling off' period (I like the 30-day or thread closure suggestion) to stop the inevitable drama because a current conversation suddenly makes less sense. If you regret a comment made because you were angry, you should not get to anonymise it 10 minutes later. In this world, we are the words we write and need to stand by them. If there are genuine emergent reasons why the time limit creates a genuine problem, this could be handled from the mod side, but nobody should get to vanish a comment just because they regret it.
I don't agree that users should be able to delete content via the UI but, if this is the wish of the community, there should always be a placeholder left to show something is missing. This is a long-standing and well-known problem here where comments are deleted without evidence they ever existed and it should not happen, whether anything is deleted by a user or by a mod. This should be either flagged as 'deleted by user' or 'deleted because' and mod deletions should require a reason every single time, even if it's just a drop-down list. This does not replace the comprehensive moderation log that has been requested for a long time and which should also be implemented in the new site.
I guess maybe MetaFilter has played a bit fast and loose with things like copyright and GDPR. The site re-design is a chance to fix that, if so. If the fact is that MeFi intends to retain and publish content created by users in perpetuity, the sign-up info should make that clear. If there is a need to ensure that an actual hard delete (ie deleted from the database) can be done, anonymising or deleting via the UI will need to ensure a record is kept in the database of which user published each deleted or anonymised item so they can be identified and hard deleted.
TL/DR:
1. Yes to anonymising via UI
2. No to deleting via UI
3. Absolute yes to leaving placeholders for anything removed for any reason.
posted by dg at 4:57 PM on January 28 [3 favorites]
Secondly, I'm not and don't expect to be in a position where people are chasing me across the Internet with the intention of doing me harm, so my perspective is different from the perfectly valid views of anyone who might be in that position.
As a first principle, I very strongly believe that we all should not publish information about ourselves or others that may lead to identifiable information being available about anyone here. The long-standing view that anything you put on the internet is permanent and public still stands and everyone needs to remember that before they post anything. Even if information can be anonymised or deleted from MetaFilter, that doesn't mean it's no longer available elsewhere, so any mechanisms to do those things will not remove the information from the public domain entirely. Yes, I appreciate that people's lives change unpredictably, so what might be fine today may be a threat tomorrow and there are and will continue to be situations where all care was taken not to create a risk of harm, but something later alters the risk.
I agree that users should be able to anonymise any or all of their content via the UI, but that this be subject to a 'cooling off' period (I like the 30-day or thread closure suggestion) to stop the inevitable drama because a current conversation suddenly makes less sense. If you regret a comment made because you were angry, you should not get to anonymise it 10 minutes later. In this world, we are the words we write and need to stand by them. If there are genuine emergent reasons why the time limit creates a genuine problem, this could be handled from the mod side, but nobody should get to vanish a comment just because they regret it.
I don't agree that users should be able to delete content via the UI but, if this is the wish of the community, there should always be a placeholder left to show something is missing. This is a long-standing and well-known problem here where comments are deleted without evidence they ever existed and it should not happen, whether anything is deleted by a user or by a mod. This should be either flagged as 'deleted by user' or 'deleted because
I guess maybe MetaFilter has played a bit fast and loose with things like copyright and GDPR. The site re-design is a chance to fix that, if so. If the fact is that MeFi intends to retain and publish content created by users in perpetuity, the sign-up info should make that clear. If there is a need to ensure that an actual hard delete (ie deleted from the database) can be done, anonymising or deleting via the UI will need to ensure a record is kept in the database of which user published each deleted or anonymised item so they can be identified and hard deleted.
TL/DR:
1. Yes to anonymising via UI
2. No to deleting via UI
3. Absolute yes to leaving placeholders for anything removed for any reason.
posted by dg at 4:57 PM on January 28 [3 favorites]
How's the plan to make any of these proposals work with the Wayback Machine / archive.org? As mentioned above, the various archive.* sites archive metafilter all the danged time. I've no worry with deleting things here but it isn't like it's going to be gone, right? Or are we planning on sending emails to info@archive.org for each deletion?
posted by introp at 6:53 PM on January 28
posted by introp at 6:53 PM on January 28
My assumption was that we were hoping most stalkers and other problematic searchers would search the wayback machine. Or rather treating that as not within the scope of what Metafilter can address.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:56 PM on January 28 [3 favorites]
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:56 PM on January 28 [3 favorites]
Also, I believe that the wayback machine doesn't crawl/cannot access user pages with full info which makes it a little trickier to figure out where you want to look for anonymized or deleted material on the wayback machine.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:00 PM on January 28 [2 favorites]
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:00 PM on January 28 [2 favorites]
I think we can assume, at this point in the history of the internet, that users are aware that things they post on the internet are public and copy-able in ways they can't automatically anticipate. The lecturing about such is feeling patronizing, especially as it seems to be coming from people with little risk and directed toward people with more risk. I promise you, we know how the internet works. Which is also why we're also fully aware that MeFi is behind the times in allowing users control over our own content.
posted by lapis at 9:09 PM on January 28 [8 favorites]
posted by lapis at 9:09 PM on January 28 [8 favorites]
I think we can assume, at this point in the history of the internet, that users are aware that things they post on the internet are public and copy-able in ways they can't automatically anticipate.
Unfortunately, this is absolutely not true for many people.
posted by dg at 9:29 PM on January 28
Unfortunately, this is absolutely not true for many people.
posted by dg at 9:29 PM on January 28
The "multiple commenters in a post may anonymize their comments, and then it's hard to follow the conversation because anons might respond to each other" concern is a very solved problem. Just assign each anonymized user a per-post anon ID. So anonymous1, anonymous2, and anonymous3 can all fight on MeTa to their hearts' content, the thread makes total sense to anyone reading it, and those identifiers aren't correlatable to any other posts or user identities.
I use a site where all identities are per-thread (no it's not 4chan) and I honestly love it. It makes it very easy to engage wholly in a conversation and be honest with people, without worrying I'm destroying my "personal brand" on the site overall. A new thread is a new leaf. I wouldn't move to that model on Metafilter but I think it's a totally reasonable way to anonymize comments in a lively conversation.
posted by potrzebie at 11:04 AM on January 29 [2 favorites]
I use a site where all identities are per-thread (no it's not 4chan) and I honestly love it. It makes it very easy to engage wholly in a conversation and be honest with people, without worrying I'm destroying my "personal brand" on the site overall. A new thread is a new leaf. I wouldn't move to that model on Metafilter but I think it's a totally reasonable way to anonymize comments in a lively conversation.
posted by potrzebie at 11:04 AM on January 29 [2 favorites]
Are you picturing edits to user comment that refer to other users by their username? If I say "Barbie, thanks for the tip on eyeshadow!" and Barbie's comment is now labeled as Anonymous3's comment but it is the only one about eyeshadow in the thread, we know they made it. Anonymous3 talks about something sensitive later in the same thread and now that is mapped back to Barbie the user. After the fact anonymizing like that is a different puzzle.
posted by soelo at 1:18 PM on January 29
posted by soelo at 1:18 PM on January 29
I think in the lion's share of cases, if Barbie is that concerned about her comment being referenced, she would just delete that one eyeshadow-tip comment, leaving ambiguity about which anonymous identity is her, or if any of them are her.
I suspect it's relatively rare to run across a situation where a user is referenced by name in a way where it's very clear which comment is theirs, participates heavily in a conversation, and later wants to anonymize their contribution. I actually like the idea that if you anonymize your contribution to a thread, you also get an opportunity to search-and-replace for your username in the text of other users' comments as part of the transaction, but depending on how all this is implemented that may or may not be Annoying To Code Up. But I do not think the lack of that feature would be a dealbreaker in like, 95% of the use cases I can imagine.
What I think most people are concerned about is not the "stalker is close-reading every thread in Metafilter that references my username to try to figure out my SSN" scenario (if that's the case, omg, just nuke it from orbit!! it's the only way to be sure!!) but rather the "I just get a retroactively creepy feeling from how hard I engaged in that thread about my small liberal arts college, which actually only graduates 150 people a year and it's therefore clear from how I showed up in the thread that I am one of about 600 people on this green planet of ours, which I really should have thought about before I posted, but alas, I don't always think through the consequences of my actions when someone is wrong on the internet" scenario. I think thread-local anon identities totally fits that kind of "nothing specific going on, but the amount of potentially identifying info I revealed just gives me some palpitations" desire for anonymization.
posted by potrzebie at 2:02 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]
I suspect it's relatively rare to run across a situation where a user is referenced by name in a way where it's very clear which comment is theirs, participates heavily in a conversation, and later wants to anonymize their contribution. I actually like the idea that if you anonymize your contribution to a thread, you also get an opportunity to search-and-replace for your username in the text of other users' comments as part of the transaction, but depending on how all this is implemented that may or may not be Annoying To Code Up. But I do not think the lack of that feature would be a dealbreaker in like, 95% of the use cases I can imagine.
What I think most people are concerned about is not the "stalker is close-reading every thread in Metafilter that references my username to try to figure out my SSN" scenario (if that's the case, omg, just nuke it from orbit!! it's the only way to be sure!!) but rather the "I just get a retroactively creepy feeling from how hard I engaged in that thread about my small liberal arts college, which actually only graduates 150 people a year and it's therefore clear from how I showed up in the thread that I am one of about 600 people on this green planet of ours, which I really should have thought about before I posted, but alas, I don't always think through the consequences of my actions when someone is wrong on the internet" scenario. I think thread-local anon identities totally fits that kind of "nothing specific going on, but the amount of potentially identifying info I revealed just gives me some palpitations" desire for anonymization.
posted by potrzebie at 2:02 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]
Are you picturing edits to user comment that refer to other users by their username? If I say "Barbie, thanks for the tip on eyeshadow!" and Barbie's comment is now labeled as Anonymous3's comment but it is the only one about eyeshadow in the thread, we know they made it.
This is already the case. I can think of one example, I won't link to obviously, where a person who wiped their account is still named and quoted in the thread by someone else. Though the account is wiped, the quote and naming remain.
I guess if a person wanted to anonymize comments in just one post instead of their whole account this could be a problem. but couldn't this be a "contact the mods" sort of situation? Maybe mods could edit to "thanks for the tip on eyeshadow*" email the thanker to let let them know their comment had been edited? If an account is being anonymized completely I don't think this matters because nobody reading the quoted name can user the username to look up the rest of the posting history. There is no more posting history.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:34 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
This is already the case. I can think of one example, I won't link to obviously, where a person who wiped their account is still named and quoted in the thread by someone else. Though the account is wiped, the quote and naming remain.
I guess if a person wanted to anonymize comments in just one post instead of their whole account this could be a problem. but couldn't this be a "contact the mods" sort of situation? Maybe mods could edit to "thanks for the tip on eyeshadow*" email the thanker to let let them know their comment had been edited? If an account is being anonymized completely I don't think this matters because nobody reading the quoted name can user the username to look up the rest of the posting history. There is no more posting history.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:34 PM on January 29 [2 favorites]
"lol once its on the internet its on the internet forever" is both facile and snide. It's a "nothing is perfect so there's no point in trying" cop-out. There's an entire range of accessibility for information on the web. Knowing when and where to look on archive.org is a lot harder than finding something indexed by Google. We've seen twenty years of internet sleuths putting together innocuous scraps of information from posts to build really detailed profiles of people for harassment, including Mefites.
If Metafilter had new users joining, I can't imagine trying to explain to them that they couldn't have control over their own data because the community valued illusory permanence over users experiencing threats that they didn't understand.
posted by theclaw at 5:54 PM on January 29 [6 favorites]
If Metafilter had new users joining, I can't imagine trying to explain to them that they couldn't have control over their own data because the community valued illusory permanence over users experiencing threats that they didn't understand.
posted by theclaw at 5:54 PM on January 29 [6 favorites]
Yeah, like, I'm honestly a little embarrassed that it's 2025 and I use a website that doesn't support self-service deletion of my comments. It's against my principles as someone who cares about my data and what I get to do with it. I wouldn't sign up for a website afresh that had policies that disrespectful of its users. I just happen to be already hooked on this one.
posted by potrzebie at 7:50 AM on January 30 [4 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 7:50 AM on January 30 [4 favorites]
"we all should not publish information about ourselves or others that may lead to identifiable information being available about anyone here. The long-standing view that anything you put on the internet is permanent and public still stands and everyone needs to remember that before they post anything. "
That is a fine sentiment with which I agree. Partly because I now have stalkers. But
Precisely because I do have people with an unhealthy interest in me, I now know that this is a very high standard to reach, one that inevitably people fail in, and also it's the case that things change over time. What is safe to say now may get you in trouble 5 years from now. And the conversational stance encourages disclosure, the familiarity with other people (even pseudonymously) lowers your guard, it's just very possible that you will feel safe saying something that you regret later.
As an aside, things are permanent and public on the internet when someone (often not us) chooses to make them permanent and public. I am increasingly of the mind that our defaults should be private and ephemeral.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:54 PM on January 30 [5 favorites]
That is a fine sentiment with which I agree. Partly because I now have stalkers. But
Precisely because I do have people with an unhealthy interest in me, I now know that this is a very high standard to reach, one that inevitably people fail in, and also it's the case that things change over time. What is safe to say now may get you in trouble 5 years from now. And the conversational stance encourages disclosure, the familiarity with other people (even pseudonymously) lowers your guard, it's just very possible that you will feel safe saying something that you regret later.
As an aside, things are permanent and public on the internet when someone (often not us) chooses to make them permanent and public. I am increasingly of the mind that our defaults should be private and ephemeral.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:54 PM on January 30 [5 favorites]
I’m just not sure it’s possible to have a healthy community in which nobody ever says anything that could identify them. That way lies 8chan or something. It’s fine if you don’t believe this should be a community, but then why post in MetaTalk, which only exists to make it one?
posted by eirias at 5:13 PM on January 30 [5 favorites]
posted by eirias at 5:13 PM on January 30 [5 favorites]
Also your status as to what needs to be private can change rapidly. You might find out that the last person you dated is a stalker. You can be featured by a right-wing source like "Libs of TikTok" and suddenly find dozens of motivated people trying to doxx you.
It is very possible to very suddenly need to look through your history of things that you used to think were fine and decide "that's got to go... need to remove that... got to get rid of that..." if you don't want to just nuke everything.
If you're in that situation, the fewer barriers to deletion the better.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:57 AM on January 31 [5 favorites]
It is very possible to very suddenly need to look through your history of things that you used to think were fine and decide "that's got to go... need to remove that... got to get rid of that..." if you don't want to just nuke everything.
If you're in that situation, the fewer barriers to deletion the better.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:57 AM on January 31 [5 favorites]
I can think of one example, I won't link to obviously, where a person who wiped their account is still named and quoted in the thread by someone else.
When I quote someone else's comment, I almost never include the username, largely because I think this is a group conversation and so what was said is more important than who said it. Anyone who really cares can search for the phrase and find out who posted it. Im wondering if that should become a site norm (not including usernames when quoting) so that deleted comments/accounts will not be linkable to anything.
I can see very little reason for allowing people to delete posts completely rather than just anonymising them (which is all that I think is needed legally) but one case might be if you have a very old post and the links are all now going to a link farm or a domain squatter or something.
With that in mind, I think the delays should be something like this:
Anonymise a post or comment = 48 hours.
Delete a comment = 48 hours.
Delete a post = 1 year or maybe never?
posted by Lanark at 8:23 AM on January 31
When I quote someone else's comment, I almost never include the username, largely because I think this is a group conversation and so what was said is more important than who said it. Anyone who really cares can search for the phrase and find out who posted it. Im wondering if that should become a site norm (not including usernames when quoting) so that deleted comments/accounts will not be linkable to anything.
I can see very little reason for allowing people to delete posts completely rather than just anonymising them (which is all that I think is needed legally) but one case might be if you have a very old post and the links are all now going to a link farm or a domain squatter or something.
With that in mind, I think the delays should be something like this:
Anonymise a post or comment = 48 hours.
Delete a comment = 48 hours.
Delete a post = 1 year or maybe never?
posted by Lanark at 8:23 AM on January 31
I can see very little reason for allowing people to delete posts completely rather than just anonymising them (which is all that I think is needed legally)
Metafilter doesn't have a perpetual license for users' writing.
This isn't something I have any concern about myself--I'd be happy to simply anonymize my posts about e.g. local politics (though those often come with a string of "thanks for posting this brook horse!" which I appreciate but make post-hoc anonymization difficult). But on principle, if someone decides they no longer want their writing on this site, then they should have that option. "But I want to keep your writing on the site and don't think you have a good reason to take it off" isn't a moral or legal argument for stealing someone's work (and scrubbing their name off of it) if they've revoked license to it.
posted by brook horse at 9:14 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
Metafilter doesn't have a perpetual license for users' writing.
This isn't something I have any concern about myself--I'd be happy to simply anonymize my posts about e.g. local politics (though those often come with a string of "thanks for posting this brook horse!" which I appreciate but make post-hoc anonymization difficult). But on principle, if someone decides they no longer want their writing on this site, then they should have that option. "But I want to keep your writing on the site and don't think you have a good reason to take it off" isn't a moral or legal argument for stealing someone's work (and scrubbing their name off of it) if they've revoked license to it.
posted by brook horse at 9:14 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
The problem with anonymizing is that if what is in the post is identifying, or becomes identifying later, “anonymizing” it doesn’t actually solve the problem at all. (Can I get an “amen” from the librarians in the house?) There needs to be a way to delete full posts too, even if the community norms suggest it should be used sparingly. Some of you are arguing for the removal of a right we already have, and it would be a button moment for me if that right went away.
posted by eirias at 9:35 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
posted by eirias at 9:35 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
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posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:51 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]