VideoSift account policies
It appears Facebook is undergoing similar upheaval about making all user content permanently the possession of Facebook Inc. or whatever corporation that buys them out. They look like they will revert to allowing user created content to be the propety of users who can delete their accounts anytime.
Obviously a site like this is damaged if a user could delete all of the content, but I think VideoSift should adopt a similar policy allowing for users to delete their account. I think all the submitted videos should transfer to Siftbot or some other account and the Channel be put up for adoption. But the comments and blog posts should be allowed to be deleted.
This will allow users to leave gracefully without resorting to vandalism. It's not clear what to do with banned accounts, but I think a banned user who expresses a desire to just delete their account should be allowed.
Also of interest is the move toward a sift-like community discussion/voting on policy changes like has always been encouraged here.
Anyways, I was kind of disturbed when the unilateral decision was made to make comments undeletable and if you tried to discard your videos or otherwise close your account it is no longer allowed.
I think it can technically be done with the submission ownership (it might be too much work). I guess deleting comments is a sticking point and it looks silly to change the name on the comments. I don't know if I care that much other then it messed up some older threads. In addition any quoted comments will always link to the username.
In summary I don't really care other then I think users should have control over their accounts and content, but it does affect some people who naively use the same username all over the internet and then have remorse like karaidl.
Obviously a site like this is damaged if a user could delete all of the content, but I think VideoSift should adopt a similar policy allowing for users to delete their account. I think all the submitted videos should transfer to Siftbot or some other account and the Channel be put up for adoption. But the comments and blog posts should be allowed to be deleted.
This will allow users to leave gracefully without resorting to vandalism. It's not clear what to do with banned accounts, but I think a banned user who expresses a desire to just delete their account should be allowed.
Also of interest is the move toward a sift-like community discussion/voting on policy changes like has always been encouraged here.
Anyways, I was kind of disturbed when the unilateral decision was made to make comments undeletable and if you tried to discard your videos or otherwise close your account it is no longer allowed.
I think it can technically be done with the submission ownership (it might be too much work). I guess deleting comments is a sticking point and it looks silly to change the name on the comments. I don't know if I care that much other then it messed up some older threads. In addition any quoted comments will always link to the username.
In summary I don't really care other then I think users should have control over their accounts and content, but it does affect some people who naively use the same username all over the internet and then have remorse like karaidl.
9 Comments
swampgirlI agree about blogs only. The rest is a permanent part of the archive. If comments can be deleted then there will be gaps in the comment threads
Taking ownership in what you do publicly is an obvious consequence of joining this type of community.
KrupoAgreed - I think we already stated a policy on this front after the last few self-immolations, eh?
gourmetemuI'm sorry it's time everyone learned that their actions and words happened and your past cannot just be deleted and have a do over. This is the problem of my generation and younger; we think that we can have complete anonymity or live consequence free. However we all need to learn not to throw everything someone has done/said back in their face and learn that people can change. Live and let live.
joedirtBefore everyone gets too "of course it has to be this way"...
VideoSift existed for a long time with the ability to edit comments. It never broke anything, and you really wouldn't even notice if they were gone. They "could" be replaced with "redacted" and 99% of the conversations wouldn't notice a gap in the thread (of a one year old conversation about a two year old video).
My bigger concern isn't really the comments but ownership of videos should be transfered if someone wants to delete their account. Instead they can only be modified by * dead and maybe it really doesn't matter because half of the submitted videos are by non-existant users. But this option does prevent the need to vandalize and lose content.
Much of the internet does in fact allow you to remove your comments and edit them. Yes, some websites like large political forums or digg do not, but many places do, and they note the date modified. Some comments are always live unless someone responds to it (which means thread integrity).
gwiz665I'm not sure I would want to let people erase all traces of themselves, and in many ways I agree with gourmetemu. What I would like to see, however, is some indication on the user page whether the user is active/inactive. Which could be automatic based on time since last vote and comment (and so on) or could be self-imposed, so that if you choose to leave, you can hit "disable account" or something, which could be like a self-hobble.
There is an issue with videos that are dead and people who have left, but we could setup special rules for videos that have inactive accounts, so that - I dunno - diamonds had much more power over them or something.
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Can you give me some examples of community blogs that allow permanent deletion of published content? I'm not being flippant - but I'd like to get an idea on how other sites handle it. I guess the sites that spring to mind are Reddit, Metafilter, Digg - etc. Do they allow it?
deputydogthere's a simple solution to this 'people leaving' thing chaps.
punish people who leave. financially. when you sign up, you pass your bank details over to lucky, agreeing to certain terms with a click of the mouse (make it a really long read to discourage people from getting to the end. maybe even write it in a different language - latin?). as soon as someone's been absent for more than a week, hit them with a charge, say $20, then sit back and carry on upvoting cat clips. for each successive week, the charges rise, until BAM!, they open a statement and their world crumbles. they come back and start a shitty sift talk about these mysterious charges from Videosift Corp, you point out the terms at the bottom of the FAQ via the Google Latin translation tool and then wait for the realisation to sink in...
the first rule of videosift is... you do NOT leave videosift
within months you'll have no deserters and your server charges dealt with. pageviews will be through the roof. there's no such thing as bad publicity.
for rich people who won't care about charges, i dunno. maybe just go for their loved ones or pets?
anyway, just a thought. i'm throwing ideas out there. i'll be around all week if you need more input.
kronosposeidonThe VAST majority of web sites and blogs are set up for permanent, unchangeable comments. Virtually all of them allow no comment editing whatsoever - no 24 hr grace period, no 24 second grace period. Once you hit 'enter' or click 'submit' your comment is there FOREVER. So we here at VS are lucky that we have 24 hrs to edit our comments. So I still don't see what the big deal is. If you're so scared of your words becoming permanent, then don't write them. No one is forcing you to comment.
I think publicly expressed comments of all types, whether they're blog comments, or words from an interview, or a speech, or a letter to the editor, etc., should become part of the public domain. Most of those already are. So choose your words carefully if you want to express your opinion.
NOW, I still believe we should be able to delete our video posts and blog posts whenever we want, even if we do it in a killing spree just like karaidl did. And here's the one and only reason I support that: If dag and lucky decided to sell this site to someone (for example, Digg, or Google, or (gulp) Disney) I would want the ability to nuke everything (except my comments) that I ever posted. I don't want my contributions here to help line the pockets of some asshole corporation in the future. Like I said, I'm willing to let my words enter the public domain, but I don't want some heartless conglomerate to make money on all the video posts that I took the time and effort to find and submit. I know it might sound silly that a big corporation would want to buy VideoSift, but I don't think it's impossible. So that's why I still want the option to kill my videos at will, without restrictions.
But to get back to the point, our current comment policy is just fine as it is.
MINKwhere the fuck is karaidl.
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