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Permanency in the Digital Age

Submitted by Knackers on Wed, 06/10/2009 - 15:06

Howdy folks, and I'm here to talk about ettiquette.

Believe it or not -- and I'm not talking about dressage!

 

In an age where your words are not permanent as written, where they can be in some ways erased by you or others -- what are the boundaries of polite conduct?

On some things there is an emerging consensus -- it is NOT acceptable to merely edit your blog. You should post what has been edited, and why -- that way subsequent commenters don't look foolish.

 

On other issues, the consensus, if there is one, is less clear. Take a blog such as this one -- where you have a group of "Front Pagers" and the hoi polloi.

Is it okay to remove a post entirely? How about when it was done by one of the frontpagers? This site has in the past chosen to delete hoi polloi diaries when they do not comport with the decorum of this site. On other sites (like Kos and MyDD), people may see their posting priviledges revoked, but their posts retain a certain level of permanency in of themselves.

 

This has come up because freerepublic has recently decided to remove a post lauding the shooter in Washington DC in the Holocaust museum.

I personally, tend to take the middle road -- Admins should at minimum post notes saying "this site disagrees with this statement", and at maximum delete the post at time of posting. I believe, however, that no site should remove a post long after the fact. That's rather a violation of journalistic integrity, to the extent that it exists in a free medium. The admins, may, of course, put notes like "read this. didnt' realize he was an antisemetic violent retard. post looked harmless enough, erred on the edge of caution" or other comments addressing the problem.

Surely there are other debates -- like what to do if your FrontPager goes off the deep end... (ahem. 538 and RCP's rather public feuding).

 

Weigh in, the pools free.

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They own the electrons

Submitted by Repack Rider on Wed, 06/10/2009 - 19:02.

If you can modify or delete your previous postings, you have every right to do so.  Without delving too deeply into it, you can do whatever you wish with your own electrons.  However...

I agree that it is dishonest to disavow statements you once stood by.  How many politicians have been held to words they would have loved to make disappear?

Many of these embarrassing posts are archived on servers not under the control of the original author.  Like a newspaper, once you write it and send it out, you can't control who sees it.  Trying to hide stuff that has already gone out virtually guarantees that it will turn up on other sites along with the information that you were trying to rewrite history.

Bottom line, don't say anything online that you don't want to see quoted back at you.