Deletion policy

The standard behavior of discourse is to prevent users from deleting the first post if there are already replies. Only a moderator would be able to to that in this case.

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By default (from here):

  • trust level 2 users can “Edit their own posts for up to 30 days after posting
  • trust level 3 users can “Make their own posts wiki (that is, editable by any TL1+ users)” which can effectively be “exploited” to edit any of their posts at any time.

Although I would not advocate for mass deletion though edits. It is technically possible. But if this is used, please follow some netiquette and use it moderately…

Yes, the post edit is public, but I don’t think that is indexed through search engines and I’d bet only someone actively trying to target you would go through that effort.

So as you all can see, for long-term users, it is effectively possible to edit their posts for a long time… does this information help long-time users users feel a bit more empowered?

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This is technically true except all history is kept, so effectively it is not an edit but just adding new information.

Absolutely. Actually, everything you do should follow some netiquette, not just edits.

Three-letter agencies are trying to target everyone, so I bet they do store all this information. This is cheap enough to do, no personal targeting is necessary.

I would say the opposite: it is effectively impossible to edit the posts for anyone, except for the first 5 minutes.

Given the above arguments, I’m afraid the answer is no…

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Yes, but I think any edit (even if hidden) would ever prevent anything. It’s simply outside of the threat model of someone who wants to mitigate an edit.

If anything because they have access to the Amazon AWS back-end most likely. So the concern is mostly about public indexing, I think (please correct me if I am wrong).

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Wow – Over 70 posts. I’m really late to the party… :frowning: And probably too late for any comments to matter… But FWIW, since I also feel strongly about this, a few thoughts in case this ever gets resurrected:

  • After reading through the whole thread over the weekend and then going back to the beginning, it seems the actions decided upon here are rather an over-reaction to the original concern, which was mostly about disappearing threads. Simply implementing the one universally-agreed change to prevent any user from deleting any other user’s posts would have been well beyond an 80-20 resolution to the original issue and would have been consistent with Qubes’ perspective as well as common sense. Nothing more should have been done.

  • I have seen other forums with threads that are missing posts, including the original post. Is that annoying? Sure, but even without that post(s) there is often useful information remaining in the thread.

  • It seems far more KISS and “cleaner” that users should always retain full control of their posts – edit them at will, delete them at will (including all edits), delete them all, delete their entire account (anonymize is not the same thing). Whatever mostly annoyances and sometimes real problems would arise from this would be more than made up for by supporting the individual (including their security & privacy), putting as much of the responsibility & maintenance burden as possible where it belongs, having a “neater”, uncluttered forum (wouldn’t maintain edit history either), minimizing running afoul of Powers That Be, etc.

  • @JTeller3’s (& others’) perspectives of the users, tech vs. social issues, choice of tool means one lives with its limitations, confusing technology itself with the uses to which it’s put, privacy & security, etc. are more compelling than the other perspectives raised.

  • On the other end, statements like @sven’s “Once you said something, it no longer belongs to you” are rather over the top, and, read verbatim and extrapolated, rather scary. Not to mention that ownership by “everyone” is a hugely destructive fallacy…

  • Arguments that violate the rights of one to supposedly support the rights of others – or even worse, the rights of a group – are fallacious. Especially when “rights” gets misused…

  • Similarly for arguments that claim we know better how people should behave – often more for our own benefit than anything else - and can make better people by using our power to reduce their freedom of choice; rather than working with them as equals so all make better choices on their own.

  • And that there’s some “right” to have the context of one’s posts protected. There’s no such right. In fact, just the opposite – as @sven’s statement above proves even in that view of the world – if you no longer own what you said, then whoever does (or has the control, e.g., a Moderator) has full authority to re-context or twist it at will any way they want. As Qubes itself says – we don’t trust the infrastructure! So why would you give it more power? Especially at the expense of users! Rather than the false hope of some purported utopia where supposedly the context of your posts will always be protected and your words will never be twisted, all of course without any serious adverse consequences, instead accept that you in fact live in the Real World™ where you will often be taken out of context, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose. Instead, build a better world by teaching everyone else that this is reality for all of us, and everyone therefore needs to take responsibility, think before posting, consume critically, and do their own due diligence before accepting, rejecting, or judging any post or person.

  • There’s so much more that could be said, but probably best to quit here with this from https://www.qubes-os.org/intro/: “Qubes is designed with the understanding that people make mistakes, and it allows you to protect yourself from your own mistakes. It’s a place where you can click …, open …, plug …, and install … free from worry. It’s a place where you have control over your software, not the other way around”. And yet, here, mistakes are made permanent and control is taken away from the users… Surely a Qubes Forum can do better and be consistent with Qubes itself!

Denouement:

While I believe that everyone involved here is trying to do what they think is best for Qubes, and certainly appreciate all the volunteer efforts, the overreach of this meta New Normal and the precedent it sets are decidedly in the wrong direction – away from Qubes’ objectives of user sovereignty, privacy, and security.

Since I am now prevented, I request that the Moderators delete my account, all my prior posts, and everything else existing that relates to me in any way.

I also request that Forum members too honor this request, and not employ the “workaround” mentioned a few posts above.

This post, since it is made with knowledge of the new regime, may be maintained if you so desire, but if so I request that it be anonymized completely, including removing anything that could remotely now or in the future possibly be or contribute to PII, including IP, time of post, etc.

I will continue to be a Qubes user, but return to just lurking, as with the prior forum. Best wishes to all.

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Remember a standard saying about security? Something like “you are as secure as a price to break your security”. Same thing is said about privacy: “You are as private as a price to deanonymize you”. There are never perfect security of privacy, just prices. By editing posts we make it harder to deanonymize us, because it would require storing all edits, having a direct access to Amazon AWS as you said and/or possibly breaking their ToS and GDPR for information storage (in case the access to Amazon AWS is not real-time but delayed). It would require more resources to perform all those actions and hopefully more expensive, even if just a bit. (Not sure if it’s worth the time, but it’s everyone’s own decision what to do with their own time.)

The corresponding treat model includes defense from the three-letter agencies by legal means and making deanonymization a little more expensive. However, as @QubicRoot explained, it’s not just defense against someone. It’s also a feeling of being in power of your own online world, the feeling of ownership over your words. Isn’t is the same as following standard copyright laws which assume by default that everyone owns their creations (including texts)? I did not see anything in the Privacy Policy of Qubes Forums about removing the copyright from the owners and I hope it will never be implemented. By the way, the Privacy Policy of this forum does not really exist despite being definitely very important to the users. Please consider making it clear and up to date as soon as possible.

@QubicRoot Thank you very much for explaining what I feel and showing a different side of it. I really hope that all your posts will not be deleted, since you really contributed a lot to this forum. Would you consider giving some time to us and to moderators to think it through and make the final decision before doing what you are asking?

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https://forum.qubes-os.org/privacy

@deeplow As discussed in the thread which I linked, the Privacy Policy does not cover everything it should cover.

If you think something is missing, share that in the related thread.

I don’t see a problem with users being unable to delete their posts. If one is aware of the policy, can’t one plan accordingly? Most posts I see deleted in forums are just when people think they asked dumb questions and got embarrassed. But inevitably someone else will ask the question again and the process repeats. Admittedly I’m a novice in matters of security and privacy.

Amazon AWS […] It would require more resources to perform all those
actions and hopefully more expensive, even if just a bit.

To obtain a permanent record of all original unedited posts (minus the
first 5 minutes):

  1. setup free GMail account or similar
  2. register it as user in forum & enable mailing list mode
  3. lean back and watch the data accumulate

feeling of being in power of your own online world, the feeling of
ownership over your words.

Isn’t that even more dangerous if you think you are in control - but
are not? Wouldn’t that make one less careful?

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Hello @Sven,

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I was concerned that I seemed too confrontational before, but you at least do not appear to have taken it that way. I only hope you can tolerate another endless scroll. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I agree that the ability to edit after the fact allows one to exercise that power maliciously, but that is a given of power as such. With great power comes great responsibility, as I learned from my years among comics. :wink: So while that is a problem, I do not think the solution therefore must be to divest everyone of that power for fear that it can be abused. Such a thesis on power is fundamentally hostile to the very concept of freedom.

But malicious activities like that are ultimately beyond the scope of the present issue, which was originally about otherwise innocent abuses of post deletion that inconvenienced some fellow members. They are also able to be handled without the need to restrict global user control, as well, since sanctions and restrictions can be applied to problem users who stray into malicious abuse.

Anyway, a technical solution to this very well may be appropriate (at least when it comes to edits), at least in that there can be a time limit on how long one can edit a given post, which prevents malicious changes long after the fact. Even this is likely unnecessary so long as edits remain public, however, since anyone attempting such an attack can be quickly exposed and sanctioned by simply seeing the post’s public changelog. Deletions are more difficult to address, but typically the flow of a conversation is such that any omission tends to be obvious unless it was so insignificant that no one else acknowledged that it even occurred.

But I object to the notion that editing and deleting posts infringes upon anyone else’s rights because it implies that I do not actually own my own contributions. Who owns this post? As far as I am concerned, I do, as do you own yours. Why do you have a “right” to access my creative works, which may constitute personally identifiable information (I consider writeprints to be PII), unless I consent to that? Why would I have a “right” to yours? I ask these questions as moral questions, not legal ones. By arguing against the modification of my own creative works as I see fit, at least in-so-far as my modifications do not malign others, you are effectively arguing that I do not own this post because my submission of it relinquishes its ownership to The Community.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it institutionalizes the community and renders it institutionally adversarial to the interests of its own members. No longer are we fellow members who collectively decide our interests through discussion and aggregation, but rather mere members of a Community whose interests trump ours and which owns everything we create, not because we have collectively agreed upon that through discussion and aggregation but because we have alienated the system of our collectivity from its individual parts and assigned it an authority over its namesake. This alienation deforms what it means to be a community, to have community, and ultimately leads to the death of community through the rise of an estranged Other that governs for us. For whom is this community? Its members? Or itself?

Exemplary of this logic is the notion that preserving the context in its original state preserves the original intent of its members, even though it is the members who determine their intent and not the representations they have crafted. The context, and its content, is preserved only to the extent that its members wish it to be so. Anything more or other than that is a thesis that the members are not the owners of their own creations, having been supplanted by those creations through the abstraction of their relation to them.

Coming back down to earth, what I am saying here is that it is extremely dangerous to posit The Will of The Community separate from the concrete wills of its members, since doing so renders us superfluous to the system we have produced. This is why I ask who owns these posts, for if your answer is “the community” then that illuminates yet another schism between us—one in which I think the “freedom” you seek is the freedom of the only entity under discussion that is not real, namely the “community” as such.

I think freedom only means something if the freedom is real, and freedom is real only if the free are, too. I do not consider The Community to be real, at least not real like you or I are, and so I am not interested in its “freedom”. I am interested in my freedom, in your freedom, in our freedom, and I think that is not served by denying us power over our own contributions just so that The Community can be free to preserve them.

On the matter of having community members worthy of the responsibility and respect we wish them to have, this is only achievable if it is possible and right now it is not possible, at least not with respect to responsible use of deletion. Such character, of both individuals and the communities they form, is cultivated through the social efforts I have described before and demonstrated through their exercise. This cannot be done if there is no possible way to exercise that power and cultivate such standards through it. Of course there will be those who abuse their power, but part of our responsibility as members is to address those abuses with the same mutual consideration we seek to establish and preserve.

As I mentioned before, all of the actual cases described above appear to have been failures of “netiquette” or other frustrating but ultimately innocent breaches of norms. The malicious scenarios you have described can occur, of course, but have they? Even if they have, but especially if they have not, does that warrant limiting the freedom of all just on the chance that it may happen (again)?

On the specific experiences you mentioned here: As I said before, those are unfortunate and unacceptable and should not occur. But is such frustration at being unable to reply sufficient justification to eliminate an entire degree of freedom from all community members? Regarding quoting, should we as members not also have a responsibility to be careful and judicious in our quoting others, erring to omit when unnecessary and editing quotes to exclude potentially sensitive information? Yes, these edge-cases can be difficult to navigate and they are ripe opportunities for asynchronous decision-making resulting in frustrating outcomes. But if we allow these to dictate our basic freedom to participate here, especially at a technical level and not just a social or normative one, then we may just be sacrificing control over the very software we use just to satisfy hypothetical faux pas that rarely occur.

(For the record, I would be opposed to any deletion that deletes the original content of others without their express consent. This includes deleting topics and thus all its replies, but does not include deleting quoted text from within replies.)

You are talking to a pessimist here, Sven. I do not have a high opinion of humans or of the current state of humanity. So, I am not one to be polyannish about the noble character and great integrity of strangers, or very trusting of them either. Nonetheless, I do not think that the appropriate response to the threat of freedom should be to render us unfree.

I especially do not consider such a response to be acceptable when this did not even achieve consensus throughout the community, only a slim technical majority among the handful of original participants in this thread. Many of us were simply not informed of these decisions affecting us and relying on our vigilance to preserve our freedom is not how any society should operate, not even small online communities like this.

Some side points to show that I am not just being contrarian:

  • I (too?) have an archivist/data historian impulse that mourns the loss of any information and desires the preservation of all human works as the collective legacy of our species, so coming to terms with how antithetical these romantic notions are to basic principles such as autonomy and privacy is still a struggle. Many days, I am still genuinely angry that we have lost some of the works of important thinkers from hundreds or even thousands of years ago, and I still find it tragic that almost none of the writings of every-day people have survived the centuries, yet here I am arguing for the permission to ensure precisely that within digital systems that were literally designed for indefinite data retention. We must always remember that while information does have a life of its own, its life is never as real as its author, whose interests should take precedent.
  • Most of what I have learned over the years has also come from forums, message boards, mailing lists, Usenet posts, even chan threads if you give me enough bourbon to admit it. Their eventual loss is always a tragedy, in much the same way the loss of any information is, but we should not let our desire to preserve knowledge be a justification to disregard the lives of its creators.
  • I hate the fact that Discourse requires cookies and JavaScript to function properly and consider this to be an entirely avoidable failure of the software. I also dislike its locally centralized architecture (compared to peer-to-peer networks), but at least Discourse permits many self-hosted instances, which is far better than can be said of most alternatives (including email for all but the technically inclined and motivated sysadmins among us). Some of the problems of Discourse aesthetically and spatially are also apparent to me, which I have seen others describe on other Discourse forums. My use of Discourse anyway is mainly because of the features it provides over email, though, and thus is despite these flaws. It is also easier to keep segregated from my work and personal life, since it’s not all flooding into the same mailbox.

Lastly, I think we can both agree that the original specific problem cases for which you created this topic are legitimate and real and really annoying and deserve a community response of some kind that halts their occurrence. You were right to raise the topic, of the particular deletion abuse you noticed; I only disagree with the conclusion that it is apt to restrict deletion capabilities altogether. So whatever happens, let us at least ensure that experiences like those you had are minimized.

Kind regards,
John

P. S. I am aware of the other thread that is currently ongoing. This essay (plus my complicated support request topic) has been enough Discourse for me today, so I will address that thread another time. Much of what I say here is relevant to that thread and may help explain my views on these subjects, but I chose to post it here anyway due to its focus on the thread topic. I hope you understand.

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I do not know if you will read this, and I do not know if this post counts as relating to you in any way, but I nonetheless wish to say that your contributions here have been greatly valued and their loss truly would be a tragedy.

And I cannot help but feel responsible for this, since I reignited this thread when it was otherwise “solved”, which only furthers my regret. Had I continued to keep my thoughts to myself, this may have never happened.

I still maintain that even in the face of such loss, we must respect the dignity of the person, at least to the extent that we satisfy their requests and interests while preserving as much of their contributions as we can. There is good in preserving knowledge, even knowledge provided by those who wish to have it now destroyed, all while respecting their wishes; but it is difficult to do, and do well, and I have no good answer for how beyond rewriting in our own words the works of those soon to be lost.

John

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statements like @sven’s “Once you said something, it no longer
belongs to you” are rather over the top, and, read verbatim and
extrapolated, rather scary.

The full sentence was “Once you said something, it no longer belongs to
you but to everyone who heard/read it.”

Once something was heard/read, the idea is now in other minds. The
originator put it out into the world and is truly unable take it back.
This should hopefully lead most to think before sharing something. I am
no stranger to being embarrassed. It happens, it’s human. We learn from
our mistakes.

Not to mention that ownership by “everyone” is a hugely destructive
fallacy…

Please explain. Isn’t that precisely what is by something being in the
public domain? What is a “hugely destructive fallacy” in this context?

Arguments that violate the rights of one to supposedly support the
rights of others – or even worse, the rights of a group – are
fallacious. Especially when “rights” gets misused…

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within
limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add
‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s
will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

  • Thomas Jefferson

My formulation might have been rather poor compared with Mr. Jefferson
but the spirit of my words was “limits drawn around us by the equal
rights of others”

Would you please point out what is “fallacious” about this?

Similarly for arguments that claim we know better how people should
behave – often more for our own benefit than anything else - and can
make better people by using our power to reduce their freedom of
choice; rather than working with them as equals so all make better
choices on their own.

Then why have a code of conduct?
A bill of rights?
In fact: any laws or rules?

And that there’s some “right” to have the context of one’s posts
protected. There’s no such right.

Agreed. That was tongue in cheek as a response to the somewhat
self-centered view of having the “right” to control what one put out
into the world – after the fact. Not by retraction or correction but by
a “magic undo” (which doesn’t even really work).

In fact, just the opposite – as @sven’s statement above proves even
in that view of the world – if you no longer own what you said, then
whoever does (or has the control, e.g., a Moderator) has full
authority to re-context or twist it at will any way they want.

The point was that the idea was shared in the public domain and is now
no longer owned or controlled by anyone.

build a better world by teaching everyone else that this is reality
for all of us, and everyone therefore needs to take responsibility,
think before posting, consume critically, and do their own due
diligence before accepting, rejecting, or judging any post or
person.

I am all with you and somewhat surprised how you managed to paint my
contributions as being opposed to that goal.

All I wanted when starting this topic was to remove a frustration for
those actively engaged in helping others – I hope you are able to see that.

I also reject viewpoints based in self-deception (“feeling that
something is the case, while acknowledging that it isn’t”),
self-interest (“my needs trump those of everyone else”) and twisting the
words of others (in general, this is not in any way directed at you).

There’s so much more that could be said, but probably best to quit
here with this from https://www.qubes-os.org/intro/: “Qubes is
designed with the understanding that people make mistakes, and it
allows you to protect yourself from your own mistakes. It’s a place
where you can click …, open …, plug …, and install … free
from worry. It’s a place where you have control over your software,
not the other way around”.

Qubes OS is a tool you use to control your property and to protect
yourself from your mistakes interacting with buggy or malicious software.

And yet, here, mistakes are made permanent and control is taken away
from the users…

Qubes Forum is a public place where everyone is welcome to contribute,
ask, share and receive advise. We have a code of conduct. It is a
written, asynchronous medium that allow individuals from all over the
planet and in all time zones to interact in a lasting manner.

…otherwise they’d use the IRC channel?

I will continue to be a Qubes user, but return to just lurking, as
with the prior forum. Best wishes to all.

This saddens me greatly and it was by no means my or to my knowledge
anyone else’s intention to have people leave the forum because of this.
I truly do not understand.

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Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I was concerned that I seemed too
confrontational before, but you at least do not appear to have taken
it that way.

I appreciate strong opinions, especially the ones not shared by myself.

But malicious activities like that are ultimately beyond the scope of
the present issue, which was originally about otherwise innocent
abuses of post deletion that inconvenienced some fellow members.

Agreed. I too think we have strayed far from the original topic and
think at least our philosophical exchange should move to another
category :wink:

I also think the current solution of allowing edits and anonymization
while preventing all out removal of contributions is a good compromise
and can hopefully lead to a conclusion of this thread.

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See here: https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/expectation-of-control-in-a-public-forum/3259/6?u=fsflover.

This is true, but bad policy pushes people away, so only those who like the policy will stay making the community (significantly?) smaller and weaker.

Edits are currently now allowed. What is allowed is not edits but adding new information as I explained above. They do not solve problems I described here. Anonymization may be meaningless without actual editing of posts, because the speech itself is a fingerprint.

Is this history public, where can I see it?

You go to the web interface and click on the “pen” icon above the post, near the time stamp. All history is saved if you edit later than 5 minutes after posting. Check out my last post above.

See also: Deletion policy - #70 by deeplow.

I disagree that a vague and subjective “feeling of power” is desirable. As has been mentioned, it may even lead people to make poor decisions.

Your argument that this is bad policy because bad policy pushes people away seems circular to me.

If this forum is truly a discourse, it makes no more sense to allow deletions than it does for an individual taking part in a conversation to be able to erase the memories of those who heard him say something.

Why is this vague? I explained how it improves your privacy to a certain degree, depending on the time of your edit. It may even save you from an abusive person who managed to deanonymize you as I explained. This is not vague to me.

This is a valid argument against editing, but it’s hard to evaluate the importance of it in comparison to the opposite problems which I mentioned.

This is a vague and subjective argument (as is the next one). The current policy did push valuable people away, it’s a fact.