Posts and ownership

[BrianShaw]

I have no concerns about the proposed revision.

[Leigh]

I think text and forum-hosted images should be held in perpetuity, i.e. an irrevocable license.

Google already does this, without even asking permission, and with no relationship to the posters.

Images hosted elsewhere and linked here can be removed from the host at the owner's discretion, and
in the case of Flickr at the host's discretion (why anybody uses that mess is beyond me).

Deleting relevant content at the request of the originator is simply fraud on his part.

- Leigh

[polyglot]

Real names

I disagree with this. You don't gain anything by knowing who I am (though in my case you can trivially figure it out from the links in my signature; my pseudonym is just a bit of fun leftover from when I was an undergraduate) but there are no shortage of people who legitimately obtain significant value from acting pseudonymously online, e.g. because their real name is noteworthy. And that value they obtain is not to your detriment.

Read this and this and note carefully that pseudonymity is NOT the same as anonymity. Say that LFPF decides on "Real Names Only" - who the hell is going to verify that? You gonna come over here and look at my driver's license? Rick "ain't nobody got time for that shit" Denney will probably be looking for volunteers.

If you need strong identity to participate in a monetary transaction, it's up to you to authenticate the other party to your satisfaction, not the forum.

[Tin Can]

point taken

I still prefer real names. Similarly I do not discuss politics with non-voters.

I disagree with this. You don't gain anything by knowing who I am (though in my case you can trivially figure it out from the links in my signature; my pseudonym is just a bit of fun leftover from when I was an undergraduate) but there are no shortage of people who legitimately obtain significant value from acting pseudonymously online, e.g. because their real name is noteworthy. And that value they obtain is not to your detriment.

Read this and this and note carefully that pseudonymity is NOT the same as anonymity. Say that LFPF decides on "Real Names Only" - who the hell is going to verify that? You gonna come over here and look at my driver's license? Rick "ain't nobody got time for that shit" Denney will probably be looking for volunteers.

If you need strong identity to participate in a monetary transaction, it's up to you to authenticate the other party to your satisfaction, not the forum.

[welly]

Most forums warn users of an irrevocable license, while the copyright ownership is still with the author.

This includes pictures.

For pictures, that are hosted elsewhere and just linked here using the IMG tags, the photographer can at any time alter the link so that it will no longer appear here. So, those who decide to host pictures here instead of externally will have a choice.

But mainly we don't want past threads to be rendered incomprehensible, and we don't want people to be able to run from accountability by demanding that we delete their posts.

Rick "trying to take the forum and its moderators out from the middle of disputed transactions" Denney

And you don't want more extra work as moderators by having to delete snotty messages by people who shouldn't have posted them in the first place.

[Struan Gray]

I'm all for irrevocatibility. I think it makes for a better forum if people know they will have to stand by what they say.

But in reasonable cases it should be possible to remove a posting or image. There are clear cut cases where deletion is the right thing to do, even given the impossibility of completely scrubbing the internet (I'm thinking of things like Eugene Smith's Tomoko Uemura photograph). Personally, I think we can trust the moderators to be human, but if airtight rules are being written, some kind of let out or appeal mechanism would be good.

[Ralph Barker]

I'm all for irrevocatibility. I think it makes for a better forum if people know they will have to stand by what they say.

But in reasonable cases it should be possible to remove a posting or image. There are clear cut cases where deletion is the right thing to do, even given the impossibility of completely scrubbing the internet (I'm thinking of things like Eugene Smith's Tomoko Uemura photograph). Personally, I think we can trust the moderators to be human, but if airtight rules are being written, some kind of let out or appeal mechanism would be good.

Under most circumstances, we don't have a problem with requests for deletion of a single post.

[Ralph Barker]

Since vBulletin uses a database, wouldn't running a simple query and command to remove the posts do the job? A quick Google search turns up plenty of help on that exact problem.

Yes, that is possible, but the forum would need to be taken off-line, and then completely re-indexed after the operation.

[Jim Jones]

Problems can arise when using real names. Both the famous author and the infamous cult leader who shared my name are gone, but others abound on other forums.

[bob carnie]

plus one on the real names only

I enthusiastically support that revision. Anything to motivate responsible behavior and posting. Next, how about "real names only?"