creative control

[Nah]

Not a tyrant... a bad faith ignorer. --Because of the way you ignore, in bad faith.

As if quoting the policy is a reason against changing it.
As if claiming to consider what people think and not even doing a poll are consistent.
As if telling me that you're a moderator, and not the owner, is a reason to think that ILP does not have the mindset that it owns and controls all your work.
As if posting unrelated pictures, making off topic posts, mass quoting and repetition are not grounds for calling you far worse than I have.

Faust is honest about why it's not being changed. You're not. You're ignoring in bad faith. --That's not name calling, that's honesty.

I saw Jayson giving you many reasons, which YOU ignored.
I don't know you are ignoring in bad faith or not, though.

When we explained that you can edit even after 48 hrs, we had to repeat at least 5 times before you understood and started to try it.
So, I tend to think you are just a bit slow in catching things and what Jayson has been doing (repeating things) is probably suitable method for you.

And you never know with Faust, just like any other old rascal.
Maybe he loves you so much that he is lying to you so that he can explain his perspectivism (or whatever) instead of this.


EDIT:

I just saw you writhing this in another thread:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176400&p=2246356#p2246356

Emotional thinking is like wishful thinking, then. Wishful thinking can lead you to believe in the reality of things that you have no grounds to believe in---it's an unreliable means of belief acquisition. I saw a supermodel, I wanted her to like me---and somehow I started to believe that she did! --Or take God and the afterlife as an example.

I think you explained what you have been doing in this thread, very well.
Good job!

You saw ILP, and you wanted her to like you and behave as you wished --- and somehow you started to believe that she would !
Wishful thinking of yours.

[Xunzian]

Nah's work with the unofficial ILP wiki lead me to discover this gem. Read it and think about it.

[captaincrunk]

Tentative has pretty much got it.

Although, it's not just the property of ILP, imo, because ILP (Excepting Staff Discussion, Quarantine, and Rant House) is a public site. In other words, the information belongs to everyone because everyone has access to it as soon as you post it.

This doesn't have to remain the case though.

[Slow John]

wow i am indeed...

confused.

why. would. anyone. care. to. delete. a post.

its all spitting in the wind tunnel anyway guys.

say it, retract it, restate it, recant it,

that's the beauty

scrawling the shit that can't be owned

trawling below the photic zone

"oh dear what can i do baby's in black and i'm feeling blue
tell me oh," does ILP own that, too?

I never noticed this rule and wouldn't care if I had.

when journeys come to me more brutal than a billion sisyphusian tumbles,

"take your finger out of your pussy," goes the zen slap across the face.

inscribed in my soul's helmet.

YOU own that for eternity.

i don't know what all the fuss is. I Love P isn't about 'own,' it's about 'love.'

all dead soon and this sepulcher dead with us. and yet we squander breath on own...

[Contra-Nietzsche]

responding to this from Mo's signature, saw it on another thread, and only read first page of this.

1) This site does not own anything anyone posts on it unless they release the copyright to it. This is not a grey area, this is fact that is not disputable. This is not a opinion, this is not up for debate, this is the law of the land of the USA. This is a American forum.

2) Copyrights exists independently of submission of a work to the US copyright office. I know, I've been to the copyright office, and sat down and went through all the stupid laws on the green form they use- I have a long history in interest in publishing, and done a few things myself. Everything everyone writes here is copyrighted. It is NOT owned by the site in the sense they can run off and print a anthology. They are NOT publishers of material (no editing, no direction of what to and not to write beyond moderation- which exists on community bulletins and has a long tradition in the common law in and of itself- the owner of the bulletin doesn't own the material pinned up) nor editors.

3) The owners do not have RIGHTS persay, but they do have monopolies on a set of actions, such as deletions and editing as they feel fit. This isn't a legal right, it's just fiat of having control, and as there is little to prevent them from doing otherwise, many feel they can do so. Forums market this activity, and there is little legal or financial incentive to cause them to do otherwise. This doesn't mean it's legal though. Nor does it mean it's not- and I can't even qualify it as a grey area as I haven't heard of anyone leading that crusade in a legal sense. However, the owners do certainly have liabilities, and as a risk they carry, they have a certain degree of leeway in preventing a legal downfall, as well as to protect their investment (even though its at best from what I can see is legally a hobby and not a financial investment for some sort of capital return).

-----------

So, from page one of this (and I don't care to read further, as everyone was wrong on page 1 and likely increasingly wrong thereafter......

1) Website does not own shit other than it's webaddress, and the electronic format it either bought or rented, unless you ceed those rights.... however, keep in mind, even when the rights are ceeded, you can't always get rid of your liability, nor can they inherit all types of liability- just as if I hypothetically inherited the rights Mein Kampf, I can't inherit liability to it's past harm, not claim it either successfully in a court even if I wanted to.

2) Just because they say otherwise (moderators or owners) doesn't mean they are right in the least. Stating things like grey areas or 'yes we do' doesn't change the fact that they certainly, beyond a reasonable doubt under the laws and traditions of the USA, do not.

3) They control the site y fiat, and it's unlikely to be seriously challenged by anyone who would care THAT MUCH. So they can run around in little circles with most of you and do whatever. However, as some people here do occasionally publish books, it's quite easy to get a cease and assist order. Wassyphilis, Alaska is a small town north of Anchorage, Alaska, and it's police force is largely ex members of the 1-501st, and I know most of them as I used to be in that unit, it will be stupid easy to track down that link of the chain so the courts can legally get into the site and protect your copyright laws..... they don't have much else other than shiver and look at moose jog down the highway.

4) I don't know what part of the site this is on, so don't respond to me expecting a reply as I won't see it, as it's wherever the hell this lands. I am alot busier not, and don't have the time to search for stuff that was a dead done deal legally a good few centuries before my birth. It's not up for debate, this is not a philosophical grey zone, this is how it is. No one saying 'Look at me, I am a authority figure and am really smart and have degrees in so and so and have sued so and so' can change this. Let's have no more of this nonsense now.

[Faust]

Everyone agrees to this when they register. So let's have no more of this nonsense.

"You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “ILovePhilosophy.com” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us. The IP address of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that “ILovePhilosophy.com” have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should we see fit. As a user you agree to any information you have entered to being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, neither “ILovePhilosophy.com” nor phpBB shall be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised."

[von Rivers]

The other people are dismissive enough to make bad objections to a good idea, but smart enough to know when the objections haven't worked. So there is this silence. What keeps the rule the same, I don't know. I was suggesting a change for the better. It had nothing to do with copyright whatever, until some shining star (from the Religion forum) put forth the brilliant argument that, "No, no changes, we own everything, therefore NO". Fine piece of reasoning, indeed.

You see a touch of it in Faust's reasoning. Which goes like this, "Here's a reason not to change part of a rule... I'll just restate that part of the rule".

[Carleas]

Contra-Nietzsche, (even though you may not read this):
You may be right as far as ownership of the posts is concerned, i.e. posters probably retain the copyright in their postings. However, in posting it here, you explicitly give away many of the rights that that copyright affords you. You give the site a perpetual license to display your copyrighted work, and implicitly to decide what software we'll use to display that work, and what functions that software will provide the user.

Also, Jayson is not the owner of this site, and would not bear any liability for wrongs committed by it. The owner (me) lives in Urbana, IL. In any case, a local police force will probably not be able to reach all the jurisdictions involved in the operation of the site. The URL is registered though a company in the UK but the TLD is controlled by the US. The server is in the UK, though the listed nameservers may be in the US. There is also a real choice of law question about whose copyright laws to apply.

Mo_, there are two questions here: does ILP have the right to prevent users from editing their posts, and should ILP exercise that right. I read Faust's point to go to the first question, in response to CN.

[Jayson]

So there is this silence.

Honestly, I just got tired of talking to you about this.

P.S. I also hung up the moderator hat. And everything I wrote in here still stands as the case even without me being a moderator; because aside from how nice it is to paint sides, I had little singular control over the way the ruling was.
And that's because ILP, because Carleas allows it (since, after all, it's actually all his property; his dollar; his allowance that even gives us this place to talk in at all), is ran by a moderating team that largely does everything democratically amongst the staff.

[MagsJ]

What Faust said... whenever anyone signs up to a site they agree to abide by the terms and conditions of that site.

[Moreno]

We should be able to add to, edit, or delete our posts---indefinitely. I take this as fairly intuitive; our posts are our posts. All good philosophers always have to imagine a counterargument, and I suppose it would be this: "You could damage the context of a debate". That would be true if the context wasn't always preserved by the person quoting what they are responding to.

I agree with this suggestion and find many of the responses rather humorous, especially those that implied or stated, basically, that suggesting this, in itself, was problematic. What we can currenly do -That we can edit for the period we can - creates most of the problems with damaging the context, since it is in the early/recent flow of a thread that most people are reading for context. Of course this also reduces the importance of later editing, but I see no disaster hovering over such a change.

As an aside: the way we all post does much more to damage the context than a change like this would even be visible in.

[Moreno]

What Faust said... whenever anyone signs up to a site they agree to abide by the terms and conditions of that site.

So no one should ever suggest changes in the terms and conditions?

[derleydoo]

We should be able to add to, edit, or delete our posts---indefinitely.

I don't think you'll get too much of an argument.

[Faust]

You want "creative control"? Firstly, if any of us had any self-control, we wouldn't even be here. We'd be out doing what normal people do, whatever that is. Americans would be shopping and attending sporting events and europeans would be drinking and dabbling in homosexuality, and canadians would be hunting and trapping, I guess. Secondly, if we were at all creative, we wouldn't have 1342 threads discussing whether or not something is really nothing or that nothing might really be something.

You guys just gotta get over yourselves.

[Moreno]

You want "creative control"? Firstly, if any of us had any self-control, we wouldn't even be here. We'd be out doing what normal people do, whatever that is. Americans would be shopping and attending sporting events and europeans would be drinking and dabbling in homosexuality, and canadians would be hunting and trapping, I guess. Secondly, if we were at all creative, we wouldn't have 1342 threads discussing whether or not something is really nothing or that nothing might really be something.

You guys just gotta get over yourselves.

You could save the bulk of this and use it as a response to suggestions in general. An 'out of office' automatic response. It is very hard to counter and wonderfully lateral - a la de Bono.

[PavlovianModel146]

You want "creative control"? Firstly, if any of us had any self-control, we wouldn't even be here. We'd be out doing what normal people do, whatever that is. Americans would be shopping and attending sporting events and europeans would be drinking and dabbling in homosexuality, and canadians would be hunting and trapping, I guess. Secondly, if we were at all creative, we wouldn't have 1342 threads discussing whether or not something is really nothing or that nothing might really be something.

You guys just gotta get over yourselves.

You could save the bulk of this and use it as a response to suggestions in general. An 'out of office' automatic response. It is very hard to counter and wonderfully lateral - a la de Bono.

In all fairness, this Suggestion was addressed by the Moderators, including myself, in full...for eight pages. I believe that, at a minimum, I gave the matter serious consideration, there was a Closed Discussion by Staff, and we have decided that this is not a policy that we are amenable to changing, particularly not the changes requested by the OP'er.

In short, just because we don't agree with the OP'er does not mean we have not thought about it. Keep in mind, the Edit policy used to be exactly what the OP'er was Suggesting, so we have experience, on this site, doing it both ways. We prefer the way it is now.

If you have any posts that you wish to have Edited for reason of wanting to use them somewhere else, for profit, please let me know via PM. Each request for an Edit after 72 hours will be handled and decided individually.

[Jayson]

How is it hard to understand that:
1: Every website forum submits the user to a terms of use agreement.
2: phpBB is offered in America with the feature to restrict, or remove, editing included; thereby clearly defining it as a legal software feature to employ on website forums.
3: The edit feature was on indefinite setting previously.
4: Users did use the feature inappropriately counter to Rule ix of the rules in place since 2004 frequently enough to cause the Moderator and Admin/Owner to discuss the matter at length.
5: The Moderators and Admin/Owner democratically decided to restrict editing to 48 hours so to better implement board adherence to Rule ix of the rules in place since 2004, since reprimand to violator's of Rule ix was aside from the impact which Rule ix addressed.
6: That you don't own any property on the internet that you submit to any website or website forum as ownership of the virtual property of the website.
7: That the decision is ultimately the decision of the Owner of the website or website forum as to how much property right any user retains.
8: That any user at ILP doesn't have to be given any editing control at all, as is done on several website forums on the internet.

As examples of similar property right scenarios:
Garageband.com (now iLike.com) had/has an agreement whereby if you upload your music to share, they retain controlling rights to dispense that music however they like freely without payment to you.
You retain your right to do the same, but do not retain the right to remove the content from their data library or request them to.
You may remove the content from your profile, but it will not be gone from their data server, or their media circulation access for dispersion.

Hulu.com; pretty much the same thing.

Hubpages.com; pretty much the same thing.

Poetry.com; pretty much the same thing.

And every website forum on the internet...pretty much the same thing, save that in some cases you may or may not have access to remove or edit content depending on the website forum's standards.

Hell, how many people play World of Warcraft and chat on the website forum?
Let's see what the license agreement looks like there?
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/ab ... ofuse.html

Account.
NOTWITHSTANDING ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY HEREIN, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOU SHALL HAVE NO OWNERSHIP OR OTHER PROPERTY INTEREST IN THE ACCOUNT, AND YOU FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT ALL RIGHTS IN AND TO THE ACCOUNT ARE AND SHALL FOREVER BE OWNED BY AND INURE TO THE BENEFIT OF BLIZZARD.

D. User Content.
"User Content" means any communications, images, sounds, and all the material and information that you upload or transmit through a Game client or the Service, or that other users upload or transmit, including without limitation any chat text. You hereby grant Blizzard a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, paid-up, non-exclusive, license, including the right to sublicense to third parties, and right to reproduce, fix, adapt, modify, translate, reformat, create derivative works from, manufacture, introduce into circulation, publish, distribute, sell, license, sublicense, transfer, rent, lease, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, provide access to electronically, broadcast, communicate to the public by telecommunication, enter into computer memory, and use and practice such User Content as well as all modified and derivative works thereof. To the extent permitted by applicable laws, you hereby waive any moral rights you may have in any User Content.

That's right.
Anything you even speak over voice chat in World of Warcraft is their property to use any way they wish perpetually.

Your right, in all of the above cases, is to not accept the user license agreement and end use, or to accept the user license agreement and continue use.

Just as a consumer's right is to purchase or not purchase a product.
A consumer's right does not grant controlling power over the product itself according to their will.

ILP is a product.
The owner has decided to offer the product for free and foot the bill on his own.
The owner of ILP does not have to offer the product for free.
ILP could charge for this product because ILP is a product.

Your consumer right to a product with a usage, and therefore a user license agreement, is to accept or not accept the user agreement of a product.

ILP has full rights legally to declare full use of property rights for any and all content on ILP and reuse the information.
Example: if ILP made TV commercials, ILP (or any website forum) has the right to display any user's post contents in the advertisement.
ILP has simply chosen to arrange the current form of the user agreement to stipulate that such action would not be conducted without the user's consent of content use.
ILP does not have to have even this part of the user agreement (most sites don't).

If you do not like that you give away intellectual property rights of the instance of your writing and that writing's instance of content by writing something on a forum such as ILP or World of Warcraft, then do not agree to the terms of use, and do not post there.

At ILP, and at most places, the declaration of this agreement is at the initial signup of service:

By accessing “ILovePhilosophy.com” (hereinafter “we”, “us”, “our”, “ILovePhilosophy.com”, “http://ilovephilosophy.com”), you agree to be legally bound by the following terms. If you do not agree to be legally bound by all of the following terms then please do not access and/or use “ILovePhilosophy.com”. We may change these at any time and we’ll do our utmost in informing you, though it would be prudent to review this regularly yourself as your continued usage of “ILovePhilosophy.com” after changes mean you agree to be legally bound by these terms as they are updated and/or amended.

Our forums are powered by phpBB (hereinafter “they”, “them”, “their”, “phpBB software”, “www.phpbb.com”, “phpBB Group”, “phpBB Teams”) which is a bulletin board solution released under the “General Public License” (hereinafter “GPL”) and can be downloaded from http://www.phpbb.com. The phpBB software only facilitates internet based discussions, the phpBB Group are not responsible for what we allow and/or disallow as permissible content and/or conduct. For further information about phpBB, please see: http://www.phpbb.com/.

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “ILovePhilosophy.com” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us. The IP address of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that “ILovePhilosophy.com” have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should we see fit. As a user you agree to any information you have entered to being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, neither “ILovePhilosophy.com” nor phpBB shall be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.

Unfortunately, most people tend to treat user license agreements like this:

[Moreno]

How is it hard to understand that:
1: Every website forum submits the user to a terms of use agreement.

I edited most of the post out of space concerns.

I guess I read the OP of the thread as a suggestion about changing policy, not as a victimized cry of injustice.
IOW I, for example, think this would be an OK idea - to allow one to edit whenever - but do not feel mislead by the website or that some violation is taking place.
How hard is that to understand?

[Moreno]

You want "creative control"? Firstly, if any of us had any self-control, we wouldn't even be here. We'd be out doing what normal people do, whatever that is. Americans would be shopping and attending sporting events and europeans would be drinking and dabbling in homosexuality, and canadians would be hunting and trapping, I guess. Secondly, if we were at all creative, we wouldn't have 1342 threads discussing whether or not something is really nothing or that nothing might really be something.

You guys just gotta get over yourselves.

You could save the bulk of this and use it as a response to suggestions in general. An 'out of office' automatic response. It is very hard to counter and wonderfully lateral - a la de Bono.

In all fairness, this Suggestion was addressed by the Moderators, including myself, in full...for eight pages. I believe that, at a minimum, I gave the matter serious consideration, there was a Closed Discussion by Staff, and we have decided that this is not a policy that we are amenable to changing, particularly not the changes requested by the OP'er.

And I did not read all 8 pages, just a few pages and then hopped to the end. Good to know how it was dealt with. But I was responding to Faust's specific post - which I at the same time enjoyed - and also reacting to what I read in the first couple of pages of the thread. I wasn't suggesting the moderators as a whole had done a bad job or just responded frivolously.

Jayson's huge post above seems to continue what I think is an odd reaction, though perhaps I missed a bunch of posts by people in favor of the change all claiming to be mislead and his post is really a response to those. But my impression was the thread was primarily coming from a suggestion for a change.

It seems like the best response is the one you give here.

We used to do that, we didn't like what happened, we won't go back.

as far as I can see - I now read more of the thread - most of the arguments against his proposal work just as well against the ability to edit at all, especially the moral ones, the ones based on a letter analogy and the context argument.

But I haven't experienced whatever the negative outcomes are of being able to edit long term, so you all may know something I do not.

[Jayson]

How is it hard to understand that:
1: Every website forum submits the user to a terms of use agreement.

I edited most of the post out of space concerns.

I guess I read the OP of the thread as a suggestion about changing policy, not as a victimized cry of injustice.
IOW I, for example, think this would be an OK idea - to allow one to edit whenever - but do not feel mislead by the website or that some violation is taking place.
How hard is that to understand?

It wasn't a suggestion about changing policy, unfortunately.
If you read through the OP, Monooq/Mo_'s stance was, "We should", and, "our posts are our posts".
If there's doubt on this interpritation, look at the following posts whereby great length was taken in explaining the position and Monooq's stance became an open debate of right rather than a request of featured privilege.
It addressed several tangents:
1: There are no damages to ILP property for the purpose ILP supplies its property.
Monooq still holds that no damages occur. Examples have been made, and explanations have been given as to how ILP's property for its purpose is definitely damaged when abuse of the edit feature took place previously.

2: That no such damages, given the axiom that they are damages, take place frequently enough to cause any issue worth noting.
This was countered by explaining that it occurred enough times that it provoked a Moderating Staff and Owner/Admin meeting that went on for great length; indicating that ILP's property value was being impacted in the opinion of ILP. That, further, it was this value, the value to ILP itself of its property, that dictated whether something was impacting enough to merit address or not.

3: That the legal right of the individual retains the authority to perpetually edit or remove ones post contents.
It was shown clearly that this perception is quite simply legally incorrect. This assertion (#3) was later recanted and asserted as not the point, but instead the point being of the following (#4)

4: That the inherent moral right of the individual to their philosophical ideas refrains any restriction to the individual's control and dispersion of those ideas by any agency providing website forum products for the venture of philosophical discussions.
This has been countered quite simply by both explanation and rhetorical questioning regarding how #3 protects the product of the agency to the valued interest of the agency owning the product, and that any interest in moral right of the individual resides in agreeing or not agreeing to the user license honestly. Furthermore, that individual claims which counter this market ethic of agreement are immoral for the individual for going back on their agreement with the agency of the product after already agreeing with the agency on the use of the product previously.

In short, the only leg the entire argument has to stand on is that revolving around assertions #1 and #2, as #3 and #4 are immediately incorrect by all ethical and legal standards of use on the internet regarding website content and user submission of content to such agencies.

Regarding #1 and #2, no one has been able to convince any of the Moderating Staff, or the Owner/Admin, of ILP to readdress the democratic decision as no one has brought up any perspectives on the matter which were not already discussed during the long meeting of the Moderating Staff and Owner/Admin of ILP when this issue came up for address.

In other words, no one has said anything the staff and owner haven't already weighed a valued judgement on collectively.
It would be like going to the same supreme court with the same arguments that that same supreme court already heard previously when they decided in favor against your position.

So until either the Staff or Owner largely changes (like swapping out a supreme court), or someone brings up an angle regarding issues #1 and #2 that the ILP staff hasn't already thought of and addressed during the meeting, and has valued weight of interest to the concerns of the value of ILP's product to itself, there really, really, really isn't going to be a shift.

[PavlovianModel146]

Moreno,

Thanks for the compliment.

You're right that many of the arguments that have been espoused could also be extended to barring people from Editing at all, but there are a number of reasons that we would not want to do that. The, "Purest," purpose for Editing is to correct spelling, grammar and usage errors, and we certainly would want to continue to have a window by which people can do that. Further, the site actually appears more intellectual, on the whole, if every thread is not loaded with grammatical errors in every other post.

Furthermore, people (including myself) might occasionally say something stupid and it gives them a very short-term opportunity to, "Take it back," though you'd want to do that in under 72 hours. For instance, if I were to make a post insulting someone mercilessly, it might only take me ten minutes to realize that such is a very immature thing for me to do, and I may Edit the post to contain non-insulting arguments instead. I think people should continue to have that ability, to some extent, because I'd hate to be tossing out Warnings for ad hom attacks that would have been revoked ten minutes later, or something.

With 72 hours, the assumption is kind of that the poster certainly meant to deliever a personal attack, or it can equally be assumed that the poster is not really concerned with, or is unaware of, any grammar or usage issues. Furthermore, with such a limited Edit window, if anyone were to Edit their posts in a manner designed to destroy the context of a thread, they are more likely to be caught (and given a Warning) rather than being able to do it three months into the future. I may have mentioned this, but one of the most egregious incidences of this was brought to our attention by a Non-Moderator and involved a thread that had not been posted in for nearly a year. However, it is clear that someone still wanted to read it and wanted the context to be there. Were it not the case, we would just scrub threads that have been dead three months or more and save space, but we want them preserved.

[Moreno]

How is it hard to understand that:
1: Every website forum submits the user to a terms of use agreement.

I edited most of the post out of space concerns.

I guess I read the OP of the thread as a suggestion about changing policy, not as a victimized cry of injustice.
IOW I, for example, think this would be an OK idea - to allow one to edit whenever - but do not feel mislead by the website or that some violation is taking place.
How hard is that to understand?

It wasn't a suggestion about changing policy, unfortunately.
If you read through the OP, Monooq/Mo_'s stance was, "We should", and, "our posts are our posts".

I did read a number of his posts. And sure he considered it a right, but not in a sense you are responding to. I don't think he was claiming that he was misled or that the site couldn't under existing law do what it was doing, but yes, that it shouldn't do what is was doing, and all the quotes from rules don't really respond to that since it could be decided to change those rules. In fact, in Pavlovs response I learned that it was once like that here. So his concept of should fit with the sites policies then and could fit now.

IOW one can consider something right that, for example, a government rejects via law. One can argue that the the law goes against a right and do this as part as a call for a change in that law. This does not mean that one thinks governments do not have certain powers and entitlements.

For example, that black people could be rejected service based on race was entirely legal in many places in the US once. One could argue, as many did, that this went against certain human rights. Reading people the race based laws of the time is not a rebuttal. It is off the mark. No one was saying it wasn't a law - when it wasn't that is.

[Jayson]

that it shouldn't do what is was doing

I addressed that as well.
Several times.
I summarized how that went in reference summary number 4 above.
And I have mentioned the previous iteration of the rule being indefinite several times in the thread, as well as just above.

[Moreno]

that it shouldn't do what is was doing

I addressed that as well.
Several times.
I summarized how that went in reference summary number 4 above.
And I have mentioned the previous iteration of the rule being indefinite several times in the thread, as well as just above.

i wasn't saying that everything you wrote was relevent. I just thought a great deal of it was in that post and others like it, a number not yours.

On the first page I find Mo responding to you with....

Wake up. This is the forum for "suggestions"---I'm making a suggestion about what I think ought to be the case. I already know what is the case.

it seems to me this directly contradicts your....

It wasn't a suggestion about changing policy, unfortunately.

The fact that he talks about rights and shoulds is not inconsistent with his suggesting a change nor does his arguing with these concepts mean he is claiming to be mislead or not to understand policy, as I argued above.

[Moreno]

Moreno,

Thanks for the compliment.

You're right that many of the arguments that have been espoused could also be extended to barring people from Editing at all, but there are a number of reasons that we would not want to do that. The, "Purest," purpose for Editing is to correct spelling, grammar and usage errors, and we certainly would want to continue to have a window by which people can do that. Further, the site actually appears more intellectual, on the whole, if every thread is not loaded with grammatical errors in every other post.

I think this position has merit, though isn't relevent really to a number of the objections, including your letter analogy. I am glad we can edit as much as we can.

Furthermore, people (including myself) might occasionally say something stupid and it gives them a very short-term opportunity to, "Take it back," though you'd want to do that in under 72 hours. For instance, if I were to make a post insulting someone mercilessly, it might only take me ten minutes to realize that such is a very immature thing for me to do, and I may Edit the post to contain non-insulting arguments instead. I think people should continue to have that ability, to some extent, because I'd hate to be tossing out Warnings for ad hom attacks that would have been revoked ten minutes later, or something.

From now on I will insult people primarily when they are online, then edit. Nah. This argument makes sense, but I would also think it is fairly rare. I could be wrong.

With 72 hours, the assumption is kind of that the poster certainly meant to deliever a personal attack, or it can equally be assumed that the poster is not really concerned with, or is unaware of, any grammar or usage issues.

Well, that seems a stretch. I would say after about 10 minutes, they meant it. I try to imagine coming back even after several hours having realized I was being rude and I can't really see it.

urthermore, with such a limited Edit window, if anyone were to Edit their posts in a manner designed to destroy the context of a thread, they are more likely to be caught (and given a Warning) rather than being able to do it three months into the future. I may have mentioned this, but one of the most egregious incidences of this was brought to our attention by a Non-Moderator and involved a thread that had not been posted in for nearly a year. However, it is clear that someone still wanted to read it and wanted the context to be there. Were it not the case, we would just scrub threads that have been dead three months or more and save space, but we want them preserved.

Short term editing power has much more liklihood to damage a threads flow and context than long term. Primarily this is a spontaneous medium, people are engaging others in an ongoing process, generally not thinking of creating something like a paper or article. After 72 hours much of the back and forth is in place and people have gotten what they wanted from the exchanges. Changes in that first period are much more likely to derail, disrupt flow, and create context confusions. Not that I am remotely arguing for an elimination of editing, because I think people generally can work with this. They work with what they find, even if the precise previous poster was in a different kind of thread, given the changes that have occured since that post.

Of course my argument also argues that there is a diminishing need to change things as time goes by. Perhaps I don't realize how much people actually use past threads as reference materials. I would rarely go to an old thread to get information - I would head to, for example Standford's Online Philosophy Encyclopedia or more specific sources. Where people have spent time assembling a more permanent product and there is likely some oversight and quality control. Of course that's me.

So what happened that you really didn't like and how often. I would be curious about more than 'the context was damaged on this thread', but rather, something like you got 'a lot of complaints when people went back to older threads and found they could not follow the context because people had done a lot of post 72 hour editing.' Or some other what I would call practical problematic result of having permanent editing, as opposed to, perhaps, a more abstract ideal that you noted was being infringed on by this ability. You mentioned that you gone into this somewhere already in the thread. You can just direct me to that page or post if the ansewr is already here. Or whatever. I am not passionately striving for the change, but when I read many of the responses here, well, I thought the reactions were kind of oddly aggressive and dismissive and off the mark. That sparked my interest more than the suggestion. I tend to agree with it, but I have rarely felt the urge to go back. IOW I fail, perhaps, my own abstract ideal vs. practical consequences distinction that I am above confining you to. Hey, I want to see the double blind tests of how consistent minds are actually better minds for life on earth, I say.