- Messages
- 5,321
So apparently, Reddit has been caught red-handed in restoring user-deleted content. Now, let's get the obvious out of the way first. Spez is an asshole and he is also indeed in gross violation of the CCPA and blah de blah. Nevertheless, after all that, it does raise an interesting question. Am I, at Sanctuary, an asshole as well for not allowing for users to delete their own content (unless there is PI in it) in any way whatsoever? On the surface, it certainly seems so. Why shouldn't users, on a free speech forum no less, be allowed to delete what they contributed to the site? If they want to completely pull content, that should be their decision, right?
Well, perhaps one of the biggest differentiators is that Sanctuary isn't making me any money. At all. In fact, it is actually costing me money every year for the server with at very least a projected 3x more cost to support future file and video hosting along with continuing to pay XF for support and future versions, and maybe also the game server that is paid for as well if you wanna include that. There isn't even anyone to shoulder those costs with me. Further, Sanctuary is not getting planned to be monetized in any way anytime soon. So for the foreseeable future, this site is going to continue to be a large debit on my bank statement and nothing else, and the more users and content that is here, the more I actually am going to lose money. But that's okay. I accepted that right when I started the site. With this kind of deal, you go big or you go home and I'm really not ready to go home right now.
Legally speaking, we are not hosted in Cali. Hell, we're not even hosted in the damn United States even tangentially. The only link we had was Cloudflare, and that got shut down around last year, so we are now completely and utterly independent of US servers. There IS the GDPR, but that only applies to PI, which we already don't want, don't encourage people give, and provide a clear provision for deletion to anyone who wishes to have that removed. Houseman has even proposed that ANY PI should not be allowed to be posted by anyone, end of story, which may indeed be a route we might take. In any case though, the GDPR doesn't apply to any other part of what users contribute to the website.
So, I am actively paying to have this content available, and the GDPR and CCPA pretty much don't apply to us, but that doesn't really answer the initial question, does it. Is it wrong to not allow users to delete any content they contribute to Sanctuary? Well, let's look at the other side of this coin here. There are few things more infuriating than going to a post to find out information or to retrieve a rare file only to see that that post or upload has been removed either because the user wanted it gone or because the website staff decided it wasn't valuable enough to keep around anymore. That might have been the only place to get what you wanted too, but too bad! It's gone forever now! :) And all because some user had a hissy fit or the website administration couldn't spare the few dollars extra to keep the content around.
Furthermore, it also punches incredibly irritating gaping holes in conversations around the forum. And what's funny is that you will still probably not be able to delete everything anyway as people often quote a post in their own post. XF may have functionality to delete those too, but I'm not quite sure. What's more, some users may try to say or upload something shitty and then they'll try to delete it and force other providers like archive.org to delete the post too. "What post? I sure didn't make that post. :) You're misremembering! Hahaha, so silly!"
Allowing deleted content also gives attacking groups another avenue for disruption as they can just continually post a ton of content in incredibly rapid time and then demand later that it all be deleted immediately. If we don't go through with it or do it in a timely enough fashion, then they'll accuse us of lying or at least being incredibly inconsistent. "What, you don't respect your own rules that you wrote? LOL!!!!"
And finally, for what reason do you even want to delete your content here anyway outside of posting something in error? Just because you grew a hate-boner for the site? So that hate boner is going to justify butchering any threads you participated in and depriving other users of content? The content here is not even entirely the main draw of Sanctuary. We aren't like useless sites such as Reddit where the only value they offer is that everyone else is there. Sanctuary provides a service nobody else offers in a way nobody else offers either, even if there was no one here and no content whatsoever. Now, content is valuable, no doubt about it, but it's not what already exists here that we're really selling anyway. We're selling freedom of speech, reliability, and safety from so much other bullshit that is meted out on other websites.
The content we offer as well is definitely a very nice cool bonus, but you shouldn't be posting on Sanctuary just because you saw a kewl article or liked some files that we offer for download. You should be here because you believe in what we do here and because you want to be a part of this community and what we're trying so hard to accomplish. So no, in summary, we are not going to allow users to delete content as it's not justifiable when taken together with all the major issues involved with doing so. If you do not agree, that's totally fair, but you'll have to find somewhere else to post then.
On Sanctuary, assuming contributions are following the rules, either EVERYTHING stays or EVERYTHING goes. For your benefit, and for our benefit, and for everyone else's.
Well, perhaps one of the biggest differentiators is that Sanctuary isn't making me any money. At all. In fact, it is actually costing me money every year for the server with at very least a projected 3x more cost to support future file and video hosting along with continuing to pay XF for support and future versions, and maybe also the game server that is paid for as well if you wanna include that. There isn't even anyone to shoulder those costs with me. Further, Sanctuary is not getting planned to be monetized in any way anytime soon. So for the foreseeable future, this site is going to continue to be a large debit on my bank statement and nothing else, and the more users and content that is here, the more I actually am going to lose money. But that's okay. I accepted that right when I started the site. With this kind of deal, you go big or you go home and I'm really not ready to go home right now.
Legally speaking, we are not hosted in Cali. Hell, we're not even hosted in the damn United States even tangentially. The only link we had was Cloudflare, and that got shut down around last year, so we are now completely and utterly independent of US servers. There IS the GDPR, but that only applies to PI, which we already don't want, don't encourage people give, and provide a clear provision for deletion to anyone who wishes to have that removed. Houseman has even proposed that ANY PI should not be allowed to be posted by anyone, end of story, which may indeed be a route we might take. In any case though, the GDPR doesn't apply to any other part of what users contribute to the website.
So, I am actively paying to have this content available, and the GDPR and CCPA pretty much don't apply to us, but that doesn't really answer the initial question, does it. Is it wrong to not allow users to delete any content they contribute to Sanctuary? Well, let's look at the other side of this coin here. There are few things more infuriating than going to a post to find out information or to retrieve a rare file only to see that that post or upload has been removed either because the user wanted it gone or because the website staff decided it wasn't valuable enough to keep around anymore. That might have been the only place to get what you wanted too, but too bad! It's gone forever now! :) And all because some user had a hissy fit or the website administration couldn't spare the few dollars extra to keep the content around.
Furthermore, it also punches incredibly irritating gaping holes in conversations around the forum. And what's funny is that you will still probably not be able to delete everything anyway as people often quote a post in their own post. XF may have functionality to delete those too, but I'm not quite sure. What's more, some users may try to say or upload something shitty and then they'll try to delete it and force other providers like archive.org to delete the post too. "What post? I sure didn't make that post. :) You're misremembering! Hahaha, so silly!"
Allowing deleted content also gives attacking groups another avenue for disruption as they can just continually post a ton of content in incredibly rapid time and then demand later that it all be deleted immediately. If we don't go through with it or do it in a timely enough fashion, then they'll accuse us of lying or at least being incredibly inconsistent. "What, you don't respect your own rules that you wrote? LOL!!!!"
And finally, for what reason do you even want to delete your content here anyway outside of posting something in error? Just because you grew a hate-boner for the site? So that hate boner is going to justify butchering any threads you participated in and depriving other users of content? The content here is not even entirely the main draw of Sanctuary. We aren't like useless sites such as Reddit where the only value they offer is that everyone else is there. Sanctuary provides a service nobody else offers in a way nobody else offers either, even if there was no one here and no content whatsoever. Now, content is valuable, no doubt about it, but it's not what already exists here that we're really selling anyway. We're selling freedom of speech, reliability, and safety from so much other bullshit that is meted out on other websites.
The content we offer as well is definitely a very nice cool bonus, but you shouldn't be posting on Sanctuary just because you saw a kewl article or liked some files that we offer for download. You should be here because you believe in what we do here and because you want to be a part of this community and what we're trying so hard to accomplish. So no, in summary, we are not going to allow users to delete content as it's not justifiable when taken together with all the major issues involved with doing so. If you do not agree, that's totally fair, but you'll have to find somewhere else to post then.
On Sanctuary, assuming contributions are following the rules, either EVERYTHING stays or EVERYTHING goes. For your benefit, and for our benefit, and for everyone else's.