Phlux- said:
im with the OP on this one
I agree and if House is amenable, I feel like this would be the most beneficial solution to the problem. As was already pointed out, if House feels that the words themselves are the issue and not the source, then there may be issue with that, but at the very least it's worth seeing what he thinks.
Honestly, as to the rest of this, I'm a little appalled at some of the arguments I've been seeing. This is a message board forum, yes. The things we type are in the public domain, yes. But, we (full users) all have a delete button next to every single post we make. There is no disclaimer stating that any and all posts become intellectual property of
www.dmt-nexus.me upon the poster hitting the "post" button. There is no forum guideline or rule stating that posts may only be deleted for X or Y reason. In fact, if this intellectual property were retained by the nexus and not the individual users, there would have been no need for me to draft up a short copyright statement for CEL stating that all trip reports are the intellectual property of the users who posted them.
IF, our posts are not our intellectual property after our posting and
DO in fact become property of the Nexus, this needs to be clearly spelled out somewhere. I don't mean to rattle any cages and part of the reason I have refrained from getting involved in this debate for so long is that I am not a fan of laying out more rules. Yet, if this debate continues on (and really, even if it doesn't) the issue of who "owns" our posts has been brought to the surface and might as well be addressed now. Either our posts are our property to do with as we see fit or they are property of the Nexus and all personal claims to ownership are forfeited upon posting.
I find it interesting that many people have compared the Nexus to publishing in print-media. These analogies are both incorrect and unnecessary. We do not need analogies as to the kind of media House is publishing in because we know what kind of media he is publishing in; an internet forum. This form of media was designed to replace real world bulletin boards initially. Therefore the analogy should be between putting up/taking down notes on a bulletin board, not printing and unprinting in a newspaper. When comparing apples to apples (or media to media) it seems the analogies made were completely off the mark as far as examining the media and, if anything, the type of mediium we are interacting through supports House's request. This is not a request by the online New York Times to remove stories about the attempted Times Square carbombing, but rather a request by a faculty member to remove his theories and revelations from an inter-departmental bulletin board. Can anyone voice any reason aside from "maintaining continuity" as grounds for denying House his request? If so, please state those grounds now.
ThirdEyeVision said:
Deleting a persons posts will not cure or help a psychological break but will affect every thread he posted on. It is important to keep the integrity of our community. Why sacrafice our community for a tantrum of one individual? What would it accomplish?
Who are you to determine what will or will not cure someone's psychological break (also, note that House never said it would "cure" him, just that it was one step among many that he is taking to get his life steered in the direction he is aiming for). I would never claim to be in someone's head well enough to know what (along the lines of these smaller steps) would or would not help someone deal with their psychological issues. It is important to remember that a community is only what it affords to its members. You talk of integrity of the community. Well, at the point where a valued member wants to cut ties with the community where is the communal integrity in denying him that right? If this was a real world meeting group, House could just pack up his things and leave. We would have no recourse for holding onto his uttered words aside from our own memories. Just because the medium is different here seems like rather flimsy reasoning to deny this request.
To make another point, House would have been able to do exactly what we are all discussing if he had never made his intentions known. I have deleted posts for numerous reasons, whether they were posted in anger or just aren't coherent or if I just didn't like the way that they sounded. Never did anyone question or challenge me on doing this. I know various other members on here have deleted numerous posts, some taking their post count down from close to 200 posts to less than 40. There was no outcry when this happened, there was no cry for "communal integrity" then. Why has it arisen now? I'll tell you why, because someone found out about House's intentions before he was able to delete his posts. Even if people had noticed afterwards, it's not hard to disappear those threads (as happened to a particular mescaline thread not too long ago...I'm not sayin'...I'm just sayin'...). My point is there needs to be consistency with regards to this. While it may not seem like big deal to those of us that are not House, I would propose that that is just why it does not seem like a big deal. We are not House and cannot view this request from his perspective and within his life circumstances. I don't understand how so many people have determined that they know what house does or does not need and have even gone so far as to question the credentials of people House has talked to in the real world.
Ya said:
Seriously Traveller, if you're going to make a rule, make it universal: all members are hereby not allowed to edit.
Of course moderators can keep edit/delete ability: just take the edit/delete ability away from all non-moderators.
Then we'll see how many members continue to claim, "House has no right to erase the words which he 'published'."
This is ridiculous. First of all, this has nothing to do with the edit function, only the delete function. House doesn't want his posts edited, he wants them removed (something you are intimately acquainted with, Ya). The EDIT function is crucial, many of my posts would look horrible if not for the ability to edit them. The DELETE function is equally necessary for a variety of reasons and these abilities being in the hands of users as opposed to becoming moderator tools is of paramount importance to the Nexus remaining a free exchange of thoughts an ideas. If these functions were removed, I would leave this forum without a second thought (but that's not really the issue at hand). Suffice to say that EDIT and DELETE are crucial user functions. We are faced with a case where a valuable member wishes to make use of the DELETE function in a manner that many seem to argue is beyond its appropriate use. If there is an appropriate manner for deleting posts (i.e. users are not free to go back and delete their posts, or it is greatly frowned upon) this should be stated somewhere.
This shouldn't be overly hard to resolve. I lament that this has become such a public firestorm, especially in light of the fact that this whole debate stemmed out of a request for this to be ended through ending the existence of House on this site. Honestly, I'm at the point where I just want to lay this to rest and have it stop popping up in the active topics section of the forum. There's really nothing that hasn't already been said, this particular case should be finished up between house and the mods.
peace
SB
