4 ms·

There's not just one sense of something being someone's data. The comments people make here are part of public conversations with other people, like in a newsg

by pg 13y ago

There's not just one sense of something being someone's data. The comments people make here are part of public conversations with other people, like in a newsgroup. There's a different sense of something being someone's data in a situation like that than there is in, say, Google Docs. Imagine one of those collaborative drawing programs in which multiple users can make marks and the resulting drawing is the sum of all their marks. Should one of the users be able to come back later and claim that he wanted all the marks he'd made deleted, on the grounds that they were "his content?" I'd argue that someone doing that would be violating an implicit social contract with the other users. Similarly, if someone wanted all their HN comments deleted, they'd ruin other people's comments by making them incomprehensible. And how far would deletion be expected to go? If user y quotes part of a comment by user x, is that also supposed to be deleted if x wants his comments deleted? It should be if it's "his personal data," right? We do delete individual comments and submissions when people do something they worry will get them in trouble. That combined with the fact that accounts are anonymous and that users can wipe their profiles seems to me to strike the right balance.

onedev 13y ago
> Imagine one of those collaborative drawing programs However this isn't a drawing board, this is a message board where people discuss various topics. I think reddit handles this situation well in that the content isn't deleted but the "name" associated with the content just shows up as "[deleted]".
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  But with reddit, you can also roll through every last comment you ever wrote and delete them (as it should be; you own the copyright to those comments): Reddit History Wiper http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/111025 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/111025
  - lalalalalalala 13y ago
    You have granted Reddit a perpetual license to them though, so they can keep them if they want > you agree that by posting messages, uploading files, inputting data, or engaging in any other form of communication with or through the Website, you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, enhance, transmit, distribute, publicly perform, display, or sublicense any such communication in any medium (now in existence or hereinafter developed) and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so. ^Reddit copyright policy
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      Reddit still gives you the ability to delete your comments at any time. Hacker News does not.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  You misunderstand how reddit works, the comment can be deleted as well. This leads to a fairly common occurance of people asking what was said to generate the responses.
  - onedev 13y ago
    Ah you're right, what I was referring to was what happens during account deletion.
- malandrew 13y ago
  I would love it if sites like Reddit took this a step further and used stylometry obfuscation techniques in addition to removing the name on the account. We desperately need tools to help make content as anonymous as possible after the fact, but still retain the essence of that content so that conversations that are a public good can still be maintained for posterity.
SilkRoadie 13y ago
Why not delete an account without removing the content? Basically disassociate the comment from the creator. This would give people back some control. I don't see why comments by [deleted] would damage the site or flow of comments.
- pg 13y ago
  Yeah, I'd be open to replacing the username. One of the biggest things I overlooked when I wrote HN is that I didn't make any provision to let people change their usernames. There are no internal ids underlying usernames; the actual usernames are stored everywhere. But if I wrote something to let people change their displayed username, it could also be used for this.
  - pavs 13y ago
    something like this would be interesting I think: <randomnumber>+accountdeleted so unlike reddit, in a discussion if multiple users delete their account but keep their comment, you don't get confused if its the same user or different user.
    - pg 13y ago
      If it was also the feature users could use to change their displayed username, it would have to work that way.
      - michaelkavanagh 13y ago
        There's also the issue of "does the username belong to the user". So if user a deletes their comment and user b quotes them both by comment and name, should user a's name be masked when they delete said post? Well, isn't that user b's content that's now being infringed upon? The current non-delete mode is fine - just don't write stuff you don't want on the web on a forum, and if you do then update with a new comment retracting the statement.
        13y ago
protomyth 13y ago
The WeLL worked like that (come back and erase comments), it made for some very problematic reading of old conversations.
chris_wot 13y ago
This is no different to contributing to Wikipedia. You can't just have your edit history deleted. Wikipedia treats privacy seriously!
ronaldx 13y ago
> And how far would deletion be expected to go? I believe this is a 'slippery slope fallacy'. If I have the right to delete my comments, it doesn't immediately follow that I have the right to delete occasions where someone has quoted me. The awkwardness of deleting quotes does not contribute any awkwardness to deleting comments. Legally, this matter is simplified by acknowledging that written work is copyrightable. The law around publishing copyrighted work is different than the law around quoting copyrighted work.
hawkharris 13y ago
Hi Mr. Graham, thanks for taking the time to personally respond to my criticism. I'm a big fan of your essays (especially Keep Your Identity Small). Having read your comment, I have a better understanding of why HN does not make the account deletion option available to users. I agree that preserving the flow of public discussion is important. At the same time, I think other users in the comments below have raised interesting ideas (making comparisons to sites such as Reddit) about how to preserve the integrity of discussions while granting users a little more freedom to manage their data. Besides offering criticism, I should reiterate that I think HN is a uniquely valuable forum. And I appreciate how difficult it must be to manage a technological website for technological people — because every user has a million suggestions and believes he or she knows best. :)

by pg 13y ago

onedev 13y ago

> Imagine one of those collaborative drawing programs However this isn't a drawing board, this is a message board where people discuss various topics. I think reddit handles this situation well in that the content isn't deleted but the "name" associated with the content just shows up as "[deleted]".

toomuchtodo 13y ago
But with reddit, you can also roll through every last comment you ever wrote and delete them (as it should be; you own the copyright to those comments): Reddit History Wiper http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/111025 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/111025
- lalalalalalala 13y ago
  You have granted Reddit a perpetual license to them though, so they can keep them if they want > you agree that by posting messages, uploading files, inputting data, or engaging in any other form of communication with or through the Website, you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, enhance, transmit, distribute, publicly perform, display, or sublicense any such communication in any medium (now in existence or hereinafter developed) and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so. ^Reddit copyright policy
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    Reddit still gives you the ability to delete your comments at any time. Hacker News does not.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
You misunderstand how reddit works, the comment can be deleted as well. This leads to a fairly common occurance of people asking what was said to generate the responses.
- onedev 13y ago
  Ah you're right, what I was referring to was what happens during account deletion.
malandrew 13y ago
I would love it if sites like Reddit took this a step further and used stylometry obfuscation techniques in addition to removing the name on the account. We desperately need tools to help make content as anonymous as possible after the fact, but still retain the essence of that content so that conversations that are a public good can still be maintained for posterity.

SilkRoadie 13y ago

Why not delete an account without removing the content? Basically disassociate the comment from the creator. This would give people back some control. I don't see why comments by [deleted] would damage the site or flow of comments.

pg 13y ago
Yeah, I'd be open to replacing the username. One of the biggest things I overlooked when I wrote HN is that I didn't make any provision to let people change their usernames. There are no internal ids underlying usernames; the actual usernames are stored everywhere. But if I wrote something to let people change their displayed username, it could also be used for this.
- pavs 13y ago
  something like this would be interesting I think: <randomnumber>+accountdeleted so unlike reddit, in a discussion if multiple users delete their account but keep their comment, you don't get confused if its the same user or different user.
  - pg 13y ago
    If it was also the feature users could use to change their displayed username, it would have to work that way.
    - michaelkavanagh 13y ago
      There's also the issue of "does the username belong to the user". So if user a deletes their comment and user b quotes them both by comment and name, should user a's name be masked when they delete said post? Well, isn't that user b's content that's now being infringed upon? The current non-delete mode is fine - just don't write stuff you don't want on the web on a forum, and if you do then update with a new comment retracting the statement.
      - 13y ago

protomyth 13y ago

The WeLL worked like that (come back and erase comments), it made for some very problematic reading of old conversations.

chris_wot 13y ago

This is no different to contributing to Wikipedia. You can't just have your edit history deleted. Wikipedia treats privacy seriously!

ronaldx 13y ago

> And how far would deletion be expected to go? I believe this is a 'slippery slope fallacy'. If I have the right to delete my comments, it doesn't immediately follow that I have the right to delete occasions where someone has quoted me. The awkwardness of deleting quotes does not contribute any awkwardness to deleting comments. Legally, this matter is simplified by acknowledging that written work is copyrightable. The law around publishing copyrighted work is different than the law around quoting copyrighted work.

hawkharris 13y ago

Hi Mr. Graham, thanks for taking the time to personally respond to my criticism. I'm a big fan of your essays (especially Keep Your Identity Small). Having read your comment, I have a better understanding of why HN does not make the account deletion option available to users. I agree that preserving the flow of public discussion is important. At the same time, I think other users in the comments below have raised interesting ideas (making comparisons to sites such as Reddit) about how to preserve the integrity of discussions while granting users a little more freedom to manage their data. Besides offering criticism, I should reiterate that I think HN is a uniquely valuable forum. And I appreciate how difficult it must be to manage a technological website for technological people — because every user has a million suggestions and believes he or she knows best. :)