Reform the "Right to Vanish" policy

So I was going to be making this thread anyway at some point, but seeing as Govind posted the big thread in announcements yesterday, it seemed adequate to make it today.

Regarding the right to vanish

This thread is essentially to highlight a big flaw I have noticed in this policy, along with arguments as to why users SHOULD be able to have certain content removed from the site (depending on the circumstance and their situation) and finally a solution that could benefit both parties. Other people are free to chime in their thoughts.

Let's look at some examples (these examples are genuinely honest scenarios):

- User posted their e-mail on here long ago that and an employer may have that same e-mail on record and perhaps that user posted content that they may not want their employer to see (silly content in the Spam Forum for example). There have been plenty of occurrences online of people being linked to random websites and their employer has flagged them up and they've got in trouble for it.

- User has joined another community online and has the same user-name or e-mail and may have links to content they don't want that community to know about. While you can change your username on here now, your OLD user-name / email being quoted in a post or mentioned in a locked thread is still going to be an issue. Plus all someone has to do is make a thread saying "X user is Y user but they changed their name" rendering the entire username change pointless.

- There could just be general content a user made when they were less "mature" and would prefer it just gets removed for the sake of embarrassment. (Hell, fuck knows how much shit I posted on here when I first joined that I would never post now). I would imagine EVERYONE has posted something years ago they would never post now.

I would say a lot of users are mainly concerned with people finding their content from OFF-SITE, not so much ON-SITE. So you probably wouldn't care if someone in the spam forum found something and giggled at it, but you might care a lot if an employer or another community you are a part of came across it.

One big flaw I have noticed in this policy is staff themselves can actually go and remove their old content from the past on their own or even for their friends, so why can't we? Now of course the admins will say "well, this policy applies to staff too." But what is actually stopping any staff member from editing and deleting their old posts on here? This is not intended as a jab at the staff, but it is true - if someone became a staff member then that's essentially all they need to just start clearing out anyone's old posts or whatnot from before.

Long story short: Staff can quietly take down their old posts + content without anybody knowing, I highly doubt an admin is going through each and every moderator action that is made to check for any odd actions. Given how we still have threads going from 2007, the amount of threads is quite large and there's simply no way to detect when something is quietly taken down. Yes Google likes to save caches, but they refresh every few days (and you can even write to Google to clear a cache sooner). No one is actively watching the moderator actions (unless they are suspicious or a situation arises when they have to review something if a dispute has risen).


One big argument the staff will have for removing content is "If you wanted something taken down, you shouldn't have posted it in the first place." This is very true, except no one can predict the future and like I said earlier - we've all posted stuff from when we were younger and we may have just been oblivious or just not really thought about we are posting online. We were all young and stupid once, saying "well you should have known better when you were a child" is not a sensible argument at all.

We are in the digital age now where an insane amount of information on the Internet is public information and search engines like Google have made all this possible. Go look at your Facebook profile 5 years ago and see what sort of stuff you posted, I bet you all anything there is stuff there you would never post today.

In addition, I've found that most websites out there do have some sort of policy in place that will allow you to remove info you've posted and delete your account and so on. Reddit being one of these places (although discussions that you have started won't be deleted, but your user-name won't be attached to it anymore, so in theory there is no way to link it to you).

This is a general process list of how this would work:

1. User creates private case (for content removal) and it goes to Staff Lounge (or higher, depending on which rank of staff is deemed appropriate to decide on this).

2. Staff review it and discuss if the content is worth anything and if it could pose any risk or harm if it was soft hidden.

3. Staff come to a decision on what to do with the content and carry out the necessary action.

Outcome A - If successful, the user that requested is PM'ed on the outcome and the content is hidden.

Outcome B - If not successful, the user is PM'ed the outcome (including the reason why) and the content stays.



If the "only viewable to users logged in" feature is implemented - To be able to view content made only viewable to logged in users with the privacy issues - you would need something like at least 50 posts, maybe 14 / 28 days registered on the site. This would prevent things like employers or other communities simply making an account just to see if there is any additional hidden info about a user on here. (These limits would have to be not publicly mentioned, so it is just something that appears when you reach the criteria. Given the small amount of content that would end up being made viewable to only be viewable to users logged in, this would not be a problem or noticed at all).

One last point: If you are perm banned for scamming, malicious acts or even if it done off-site and it has been brought to light here. You are NOT eligible to have ANY information (personal or otherwise) removed while banned. Also, if you have had any content hidden away but you later scam or end up perm banned for something quite bad (including off-site activity of the same nature) - staff will make your hidden information public once more as punishment. Perhaps a record could be kept of all removed content just so upper staff would always have it to hand in the user does pull anything funny. This makes perfect sense because a genuine user who wants their info hidden is not going to go off and commit serious offences here or off-site if they know their info will just be "made public" again.

To sum it up: Do staff HAVE to or are legally obligated to remove content we make? No, but I feel we should be offered the chance to have content we made private if we can make a good case and if the user is not banned or is marked as suspicious.

Staff can remove content they've made without any real way to track it or keep an eye on it, so why shouldn't the users?

UPDATE:

Staff have confirmed since this thread was made that they will in most cases delete threads a user has made in the personal support section.

Furthermore, Richard (@Sythe) has confirmed that "removing content" would certainly be up for consideration under GDPR (whether this only applies to users in Europe I don't know). More information is needed on this, what exactly is removed and how much a "trace" of you is left upon your account being removed (for example if people who have quoted a post you made once is retained or deleted / your name edited out).

 

I'm all for soft deleting personal information that a user no longer has permissions for editing out. Not sure why they are being so brazen about it.

 

I've no idea how much they get hassled about users wanting their stuff removed (it's a lot apparently). But they've basically had enough of removing user's content and that user turns out to be malicious and has managed to cover up some of their history online.

It's annoying because the malicious users have now screwed things up for the genuine users who may just want some of their content removed.

 

Haven't really thought about that. Even with prerequisites it would still probably be a bother to regulate. Sucks when the unemployed kids gotta ruin it for others eh? Rip.

 

Think it just comes down to some people ruining it for all others :/

 

I think everyone should just be careful of where they post their contact info and what they're posting in general.

 

I'll post here what I did on the original thread, as I do feel it relates to some of the issues pointed out by Laptop65.

 

Case-by-case basis does not work.
Whether or not your intentions are good, the same could be used for harm. What if you're asking for your old RS username to be deleted because it was associated with a scam report? That's our only link to that name.

It's fairly simple. If you don't want something online, don't put it there.
This, frankly, makes every counterpoint invalid.

 

I understand the policy, but I still think that staff should have the ability to exercise their own discretion, as opposed to being required to follow a rigid rule in circumstances where flexibility ought to be afforded. Is every single circumstance and situation involving a request for deletion always a threat? I wouldn't think so.

 

Then again, at the time of posting, there was no such policy and therefore nothing to stand in the way of having it deleted later.

At the time I (we) did not need to worry about it therefore I believe your logic is flawed. The rules have always been fair, but to suddenly decide "What you have posted until this point and from this point onward is permanent" without any prior warning or even public notification until months later is nothing but unreasonable and should be reconsidered in general, or at least on a case-by-case basis.

 

I agree its a shitty policy for a variety of reasons, and I've posted my thoughts on the original thread.

But basically tl;dr there are plenty on valid reasons to have a post removed. A lot of times not getting in the way of any evidence/seo. And although the staff doesn't have to help you, they should be able to.

 

It's always been a policy, this is the first time it's been released to the public.

 

Yup, it sucks.

Did you even read all of my thread?

Yes, I've no idea when this policy was actually put into place. I recall years ago you were able to get something removed with no questions asked.

Seeing as most websites have options or policies in place to allow you to remove old content, this site is making itself pretty unique on this policy for no real reason at all other than being difficult.

Also like I said, there's a lot of things that 5 years ago we wouldn't have said or posted online today. The mind matures overtime as we grow up.

^

Agreed.

I've only started hearing about it recently. It's annoying to hell for the genuine users. I recall years ago you could get something taken down or deleted with no questions asked.

 

I'm sorry for the short reply, but that's simply not true and I have no idea where you got that idea from.

 

Around 2.5 yrs old, not that I necessarily agree with it

 

I would much prefer this be on a case by case. An old post with somebody's old rsn isn't exactly anything beyond circumstantial anyway.

 

Coming from you, this is a big surprise. You thinking there's nothing wrong with reading a private conversation between a certain someone and I, and here you are defending how people should be able to delete content they posted publicly. I'll say that I was surprised such a policy even existed. You can always change your email and/or username when using it for work or joining a different community. Or can someone give me a realistic scenario where this wouldn't help? You can also delete most of the content yourself, I believe SF threads rarely gets archived.

 

I skimmed the OP and didn't read the other posts, mainly because I don't see the point. This is a small forum, with usernames, no way directly connected to your real life. I see no point to put an additional strain on staff members because you're too lazy to go delete/edit your own posts, or because you want to use [email protected] when you apply for a job.

"Oh I used an email on a runescape forum? I guess I'll use the same email on my resumes!" - Make a new email, I doubt your Sythe email was all that professional

It's a forum who cares if you posted stupid stuff in the past. If anything it's laughable. No one cares to go back and look at Laptop's posts from 2012.

Use a different username on another forum if you don't want people to know you're linked (for whatever reason?)


Basically, there's no all-that-valid of a reason. It would be different if this were a case in which someone searched your actual name and incriminating (I can't think of the word right now, but it's not incriminating, more along the lines of making you look bad) posts/pictures/whatever came up in said search. No one that would be searching "full name here" will be directed to Sythe for any reason.

 

I've used personal emails where I wasn't supposed to. It may not cross your mind whether or not you've used the email on unfavorable sites before. A bit of an over exaggeration on the wording for emails there.

 

So 2.5 years old and the public is only officially made aware of it now? Seems fair...

Mhmm.

Go troll in the SF dude, I already told you via PM I'm not wasting my time with trolls anymore on here.

If you read the OP again, you will see I highlighted that most users would be concerned with parties off-site rather an on-site finding their information on here.

Yes you can use a different e-mail for employers, but not everyone has done this. Plus even if you told your employer you had a new e-mail, some employers might get a little smart and try and find out exactly why you have requested an e-mail change (HR departments in particular are good at rooting these sort of things out).

As for different usernames, well what if you've already made one with the same username? Or you just don't want to use a different name?

And like I said just now, I wouldn't care if someone on here was looking at my posts from the past, but someone off-site might be a different story (this is just an example of course).

Finally, I think you misunderstood me a little. When I said Googling and linking things up, I didn't mean by full name, I meant things such as e-mails and usernames you can find someone out with.

Just because you don't care or don't have anything that "makes you look bad" on the site, doesn't mean it's the same case for everyone also.

^