31 May, 2010, Cratylus wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Kline said:
See Tyche's explanation here (no, not needed): [link=post]5263[/link]


Who was the OP on that?

-Crat
31 May, 2010, Runter wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
My money is on tah samson.
31 May, 2010, Tyche wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
Cratylus said:
Kline said:
See Tyche's explanation here (no, not needed): [link=post]5263[/link]


Who was the OP on that?

-Crat


I can't read his PMs either.

QSF Portal has exited with an error!

Undefined index: user_signature
Notice [8]:
The error was reported on line 341 of /home/****/mblive/func/pm.php

Code:
338 $from['user_avatar'] = null;
339 }
340
341 if ($from['user_signature'] && $this->user['user_view_signatures']) {
342 $from['user_signature'] = '…………………….<br />' . $this->format($from['user_signature'], FORMAT_CENSOR | FORMAT_HTMLCHARS | FORMAT_BREAKS | FORMAT_MBCODE | FORMAT_EMOTICONS);
343 } else {
344 $from['user_signature'] = null;


Backtrace:

File: /home/****/mblive/func/pm.php
Line: 341
Call: See above for details.

File: /home/****/mblive/func/pm.php
Line: 72
Call: pm->view()

File: /home/****/mblive/index.php
Line: 176
Call: pm->execute()



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31 May, 2010, Orrin wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Everything from Samson seems to have been hosed from the forum, presumably at his insistence. If you mouse over the PM you can read the teaser, but attempting to open it gives an error.
31 May, 2010, Cratylus wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
Orrin said:
Everything from Samson seems to have been hosed from the forum, presumably at his insistence.


It's my understanding he didn't actually request that.

Whatever personal rancor generated this, I think that expunging people's names is an obviously bad idea.

It causes confusion and it breaks things and I sincerely hope it's not going to be part of policy around here.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
31 May, 2010, Chris Bailey wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
Careful Cratylus, you might be purged! :)
31 May, 2010, Orrin wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
It's my understanding he didn't actually request that.

I don't know any of the details, I just remember there was an incident where someone had logged in using his account and when contacted about it he requested his account be deleted or something along those lines, so when I saw this I assumed it was as a result of that.

In general I don't think deleting people's names is a good thing, but I think as the current ToS stands people do have a right to withdraw their contributions to the forum, and if that's going to be done then this way is less confusing than deleting the actual post content. There probably should be some kind of provision in the ToS specifically to address this though as I agree it's not ideal.

Obviously if his name was removed for some other reason and not at his request then I think that's a very bad idea.
31 May, 2010, Asylumius wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
IIRC, Samson specifically asked that his account be deleted from the database, not just deactivated, so that his name would not appear on posts. Of course to make that work we had to assign all his posts to author nobody. At one point, perhaps briefly, I remember Davion telling me that Samson wanted his name scoured from the site.

I'm 95% sure that is exactly what he demanded. Nobody on MB at the time wanted to scrape his name from the website.

We would have loved to not only keep his posts (which we did), but also continue to make sure he got the credit for them, just like we would have liked to keep his uploads to the repository for others to use as well.
31 May, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
Samson said himself numerous times that he wanted the posts deleted, on IMC, his blog, comments in various places, etc. As Orrin said, the current ToS don't give MB any ownership or control over the posts, so I suppose it was within his right to do so – just like for everybody else, really. I asked the MB admins to address this some time ago because it's a pretty sticky situation to be in.
31 May, 2010, Sandi wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
Let's accept that Samson was a special case.

As a matter of policy, I don't think users should be allowed to request deletion of either their posts or accounts, no matter how hissy their fit is. A "contribution" is exactly that - a gift to the community. Individuals should not be allowed to weaken or bereft the community.


And just to get it out of the way, yes, Tyche, I'm a pinko tart. :cool:
31 May, 2010, Asylumius wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
Sandi said:
Let's accept that Samson was a special case.

As a matter of policy, I don't think users should be allowed to request deletion of either their posts or accounts, no matter how hissy their fit is. A "contribution" is exactly that - a gift to the community. Individuals should not be allowed to weaken or bereft the community.


I agree. Requesting uploads be removed is fine. I think it's weak and lame, but if that's your prerogative, fine.

Accounts and posts on the other hand, sorry, no. That's not how any forum I frequent works, and pretty much any site of significance on the Internet that is based on user-submitted data comes with a TOS / Privacy Policy that gives them the right to keep your posts, for example.

My major concern is not only does it detract from the value of the site and confuse people, given the technical capabilities of our software, it requires manual work on the part of an admin to do, and they have better things to do.

If you can live with the possibility that you may some day want to totally nuke all evidence of your identity on a forum after posting for 2+ years and not be able to, just don't bother.
31 May, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
Asylumius said:
Accounts and posts on the other hand, sorry, no. That's not how any forum I frequent works, and pretty much any site of significance on the Internet that is based on user-submitted data comes with a TOS / Privacy Policy that gives them the right to keep your posts, for example.

Sure. But this one doesn't. (And as a side note, any content posted before and until such a change is potentially made won't be covered by the change, either. If you're going to talk about ToS and privacy policies, etc., you have to do it correctly…)
31 May, 2010, Runter wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
I also recall Samson after the fact giggling about how he didn't really expect the deletions to happen. Sure makes it hard to take people serious in the future after that.
31 May, 2010, quixadhal wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
I still maintain that neither users nor posts should ever actually be deleted. Hidden from view, perhaps, but not actually removed. I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that posting a comment on a forum is akin to writing a book and having it published. The author may very well demand that the publisher stop selling his book (if there's no contract saying otherwise), but he can't forcibly take already sold books out of the hands of those who purchased them.

Likewise, a forum is a publisher. A poster may be able to demand that their posts be hidden from view, but they really shouldn't be able to demand they actually be deleted (even if they had a way to determine if that was actually done).
31 May, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, like you said, you're no lawyer… :) The issue here is very different from book publishers and taking books away from people who purchased books. Heck even in your example, unless a licensr or contract said otherwise, if the author demanded that books be removed, the publisher couldn't just hold on to copies anyhow…
31 May, 2010, Runter wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, I think it's lame on both fronts. Both to ask for the removal with threats of lawyering, and backing down and giving up the ghost at the expense of everyone else who frequents these forums.

That being said–The content is still here. Just because they took his name off of it doesn't make it any less his words or his contribution. In other words, I don't think this type of obfuscation even solves any legal dilemma that could arise from him demanding the content be removed.
31 May, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
That being said–The content is still here. Just because they took his name off of it doesn't make it any less his words or his contribution. In other words, I don't think this type of obfuscation even solves any legal dilemma that could arise from him demanding the content be removed.

Shhh, put that skeleton back in its closet where all those other pesky details belong.
01 Jun, 2010, quixadhal wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
Well, like you said, you're no lawyer… :) The issue here is very different from book publishers and taking books away from people who purchased books. Heck even in your example, unless a licensr or contract said otherwise, if the author demanded that books be removed, the publisher couldn't just hold on to copies anyhow…


Couldn't they? What's stopping them from doing so? It would be pointless, since without being able to sell them they'd just take up warehouse space and cost money, but I can't see how an author demanding their books be withdrawn from publication equates to running around burning all the existing copies, no matter who holds them.
01 Jun, 2010, Runter wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
David Haley said:
Well, like you said, you're no lawyer… :) The issue here is very different from book publishers and taking books away from people who purchased books. Heck even in your example, unless a licensr or contract said otherwise, if the author demanded that books be removed, the publisher couldn't just hold on to copies anyhow…


Couldn't they? What's stopping them from doing so? It would be pointless, since without being able to sell them they'd just take up warehouse space and cost money, but I can't see how an author demanding their books be withdrawn from publication equates to running around burning all the existing copies, no matter who holds them.


I think it's a bit different of an issue. In my view, it's more like if a publisher had an online version of a book being distributed on third party sites. It would be within their right to request the distribution of those books to be brought down. This really comes down to who is the ultimate owner of the material. It's pretty well established that the forums themselves are, perhaps to the point where it's understood without disclaimers and terms of service indicating such. But maybe not, a lot of major forums *do* go out of their way to make users agree to the terms of service each and every time they visit the forum.

Also, as the post count gets high and it represents a cumulative body of work, there's far more incentive for someone to perhaps litigate it and win. I'm not sure Samson ever had any intention of this other than threatening. Furthermore, if had had spent time and coin to litigate such a thing it's likely Davion would have had to spend time and money in kind to defend himself or receive a default judgment. In any event, like I said already. I'm not convinced Davion has done anything to actually guard against this. He's just punished people who actually still frequent this site.
01 Jun, 2010, quixadhal wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
In my view, it's more like if a publisher had an online version of a book being distributed on third party sites. It would be within their right to request the distribution of those books to be brought down.


Exactly. "to be brought down" is NOT the same as "deleted". I agree that the author might well be able to demand that his works not be further distrubuted (which would mean making them inaccessible to the public), but I don't agree that they can force you to actually destroy them.
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