board77

dhspgt,

I have had no time to post at all these last months and I missed the party. I just wanted to say goodbye and thank you. It has been great reading your posts.

Semprini to dhspgt: It has been great reading your posts.

I hate to disagree, but I will.

There was a time when it was great to read dhspgt's posts. That was before he/she evicerated the Istari discussion thread, this thread and even my own shared welcome thread with him/her for who knows what reason.

I can take ususual posts that stretch attempts to understand them. I like those kinds of posts. What I can't take is this sort of wanton editing, where entire discussions are destroyed or dealt crippling blows.

Honestly, I hope dhspgt comes back. And stops abusing the edit feature. Though I don't think either of these things will happen.

Is this a disagreement? I said that I have had a great time reading dhspgt's posts, while despite your own enjoyment, you seem to resent the fact that he apparently (I have not followed all this; I was absent when it happened) edited them. We are not talking about the same thing.

But if you want to talk about dhspgt's editing his posts, I will say this: he certainly had his reason to do that and that is enough for me as these were his posts. If I do not know what his reason is, how can I judge him?

I think dspht was reacting to the reaction about some statements I made in a thread started by V in the business forum related to ownership of posts. I tried to make the case that past some point, the posts belong to the board and not the poster because a microstructure consisting of other posts may have been built around it and deleting or editing the post at this point damages the board. My idea wasn't well received, but dhspgt went on to demonstrate this and several of my related points by manipulating his posts in several threads.

I agree it was disruptive and damaging to the Istari thread. That is precisely the reason it was done. I doubt very many understood his intent. Based on this, I assume he/she is as concerned about the integrity of threads as I am. Maybe Faramond agrees.

dshpgt was right - when we go back and edit out parts or all of our posts, it damages the entire thread. We've been doing that a lot lately, to please certain people, but it hurts all of us, because it is a form of re-writing history. Yes, I said some things in anger. Keeping those angry posts documents what I actually felt at the time. Later posts in the same thread demonstrate how I reconciled with those I was angry with, and came to some understanding. I say that those angry posts have nothing to do with what I feel now, and erasing them would not change how I feel right now. But I have been pressured to do so, anyway. To me, to erase them is to deny that I was ever angry. But to certain other people, to erase them is to prove that I am no longer angry. Two completely different interpretations, in my mind.

That makes 3 of us. I don't get the revisionist concept at all. We all contribute to the discussion. The contributions belong to the group in the discussion. It isn't that I never change my opinion, but when I do, I don't deny once having held another. Retaining the record of the discussion for any length of time seems pointless if anyone is allowed to change or withdraw their contribution on a whim.

People always seem to take this kind of discussion more seriously when it relates to money. So, what if your employer could withdraw their 401k contribution (already duly recorded) on a whim? Or maybe I could tell the Red Cross I really didn't mean it. It was only a contribution.

Faramond wrote:

Semprini to dhspgt: It has been great reading your posts.

I hate to disagree, but I will.

There was a time when it was great to read dhspgt's posts. That was before he/she evicerated the Istari discussion thread, this thread and even my own shared welcome thread with him/her for who knows what reason.

I can take ususual posts that stretch attempts to understand them. I like those kinds of posts. What I can't take is this sort of wanton editing, where entire discussions are destroyed or dealt crippling blows.

Honestly, I hope dhspgt comes back. And stops abusing the edit feature. Though I don't think either of these things will happen.

I have to say I agree with Faramond. If dhspgt's purpose was to show that editing posts can be a bad thing, he certainly succeeded. But that does justify doing a bad thing. I did not know that he had edited out his posts in the Istari thread, for no good reason. As the threadstarter of that thread, that is very upsetting to me.

Should this discussion be being made in the Buissness forum?

Really don't think this is the place for this. Could some kindly admin move it please?

Thanks,
x

Not without the permission of the threadstarter.

dhspgt, if you are unwilling to post, please PM me.

Alatar

Actually, that's not quite correct, Al, if you don't mind me saying. You have the power to move a thread at the request of a member (as Din as done), and the only requirement is that you inform the threadstarter before hand. From Article 3:

Quote:

¶4: Routine powers of Rangers ...

• Lock, split, or move threads upon request of members, or when it is necessary to improve the coherence of a forum; the thread originator must be notified beforehand;

I express no opinion, of course, as to whether you should or should not do so. But you do have the power to do so, so long as you inform dhspgt first (presumably PMing him would be sufficient).

I see no reason why any of this should be moved as dhspgt wrote stories and this is the forum for them. People are now discussing the meaning of his/her stories, which of course, belongs in this forum.

I don't think the thread should be moved, either.

And as for PMing dshpgt, there is still a PM in my outbox that I sent to him the day he left. PMs remain in the sender's Outbox until they are picked up by the receiver. Since this PM has not been transfered from my Outbox to my Sentbox, he clearly has not looked at his PMs since August 17th, has probably not signed in, and may not even be lurking.

My first impulse when he gutted the story was to take mine out, too. But I am resisting. I don't really have the heart to continue this story, if dshpgt really is gone. He did say that the story needed input from six contributors to be complete. But somehow, I don't think he is coming back, or even cares what happens.

I've just now actually looked at my Istari discussion thread, and I am seriously pissed off. I think that dhspgt's actions are selfish and hurtful. I'll refrain from saying anything further because I certainly don't want to have to edit a post in this thread.

I'm sorry your thread is damaged Voronwe. Until this week, I didn't realize the scope of the demonstration was larger than this thread.

This is the kind of thing I was concerned about and I feel very strongly that we need to protect ourselves from this kind of behavior.

Since my suggestion got nowhere, I thought of archiving some threads I considered important, but I never take the time. Do we know if the date of the destruction is after the date of the backup Alatar was working with and if Alatar succeeded in restoring it? It might be possible to reconstruct, but in the absence of an opinion of the board on the disposition of threads and posts, it is murky territory.

I know that some suspected dhspgt and I shared more than agreement on some issues. I want to assure you that is not the case.

dhspgt made his/her last post in this thread on the 16th...not sure when the editing on the other thread was done...should say. Not sure when Alatar got the backup.

It is aggravating that he/she strung people along with stories in here...Jn and laureanna got into by writing their own stories...I think what was done is just plain wrong and kind of mean.

I don't quite follow what's happened here, but I have access to the backup, and if anyone can tell me specifically what threads and posts I should be looking for, I'll see what I can do.

It was all the way back on July 21 that dhspgt edited out his posts in the Istari thread, four weeks before he pulled his Mad Baggins. So no hope of recovering them, even if that were something that would be allowable (which I have my doubts about).

I'm not really sure what is going on here, but on reading this thread, I noticed that many of dhspgt's posts were edited on Sep. 3-- so he/she has been back.

Are you limiting yourself to 42 posts because of my random post in a different thread, dhspgt? I hardly know you! It's not fair to lay that kind of guilt trip on me.

On the other hand, your story is quite fascinating, and I intend to show it to my son A.S.A.P. He's very interested in space/time continuum stuff, and ought to get a kick out of your ideas.

I don't understand why I'm on the list, and if the inclusion of my name means I ought to contribute to the story or something..... well, I don't think I'm up to that, really. It would require re-activating parts of my brain long left dormant... and they were dormant for good reason!

But I like the story so far.

On July 21 and 22, dh deleted every post he had made on the board except for those in a thread that had been moved to the history forum.

Then he returned on Sept 3 (I think) and replaced his deleted posts in this thread with a slightly modified version of the original story.

I believe that I backed up both the Istari thread and this one and have the original posts, except perhaps for one. I'll check now and get back to you.

Jn

OK, I'm back. yes, I have all of dhspgt's posts in the Istari thread. I had done some back up work on July 12 for a different reason and it turns out to come in handy. I do not have all the original posts from this thread, though, because some were made after July 12 and then deleted and replaced.

Voronwe, I can restore the text to your thread if you wish. I don't think it would be appropriate for the Rangers to edit the post back in to its original space, but perhaps the Rangers could put a note with a link to a later post in each deleted space and I will paste the several texts into later posts.

It also grieved me that dhspgt chose that particular moment to leave. I guess he ran out of time waiting for the chair to be finished.

Jn

Which gets us back to my original point. Who owns the posts? It could be my faulty memory, but I don't recall anyone agreeing with me.

So we have a case of adverse possession? The poster wants the posts deleted, but we want to restore them, which we can do because we have them, although not by the anticipated mechanism of having quoted them.

In the absence of a definitive statement, I suppose we can chose anarchy and do what we please, but it saddens me to know that we are open for a repeat from which we might not be able to recover.

Are these the POTD? What will Iavas say?