Deletion discussion

[anthriel]

I think I would actually be more afraid of googling "clothed hippo pictures".

Do NOT give ax anything else to google. Please.

The man is a writer, and we need to be careful to not introduce certain images into his head. Think about it.





Nin, see what your post here did? It encouraged an excellent (but lurk-prone) poster to post a new excellent post, inspired by her investigation of and discovery of your previous excellent posts in another thread.

That's a lot of excellence discovered and new excellence generated by one short post.

Just sayin'.

[axordil]

Did you have the safeties off?

Google has a safety? What fun is that?

Well, ax, you know how Google relies on your search history....

Little-known facts--Nine Inch Nail's album "The Downward Spiral" was the result of a prophetic dream Trent Reznor had in the early 90s about what happens when you chain-Google.

Do NOT give ax anything else to google. Please.

The man is a writer, and we need to be careful to not introduce certain images into his head. Think about it.

Close! You all need to be careful to introduce those images to the images already there. If they bump into each other by accident things happen. Like the SF short I'm working on now.

Sex.
Murder.
AI.
Power tools.
Asteroid mining.

If I could work hippos in there I'd win a Hugo.

[SirDennis]

Sex.
Murder.
AI.
Power tools.
Asteroid mining.

If I could work hippos in there I'd win a Hugo.

Challenge accepted: A story featuring a sexy hippo who mines asteroids with AI driven power tools, develops a taste for murder.

ETA: annnnd killed another one

[Frelga]

Just a quick note - I am mostly offline for a couple days, and can't respond to anthy or anyone else who replied to my post. My apologies.

[Pearly Di]

Picking up Jewel's comments on complacency and comfort as it relates to posting behaviour, some questions come to mind: Have you ever noticed that some people never or hardly ever reply to some other people's posts, even if their post refers (or is in reply) to something the person said?

If somebody mentions my post in their post, I try to acknowledge that, since it's only polite.

Usually, though, I find it's not possible to respond to absolutely everyone on the thread. Time issues, mainly.

Messageboard conversations, for me, are akin to wandering around a room at a party engaging with various people. Some people you engage with more than others. Other people you never get to talk to. It's certainly not because you don't like the look of them or because you have some kind of antipathy to them. It's just the way things pan out.

Also, being an introvert, I am sometimes inclined to sit in a corner of the room and make random comments. If anyone passing by overhears my comments and responds, that's nice of them.

Please note: I am perfectly happy sitting in my corner of the room. You don't have to drag me out.

[Alatar]

I'm not an introvert, but I rarely post unless I have something to say. I do like sharing amusing stuff I found on Youtube or FB though.

We have a new regular over on B77 actually, and it made me think a bit more about all this. Dwyn posts fairly often, and recently she gained access to TOE. This was weird for a number of reasons. Firstly, she bumped a lot of old threads which I then read again. But those people are mostly gone from B77, and many no longer post anywhere I do. Of course, many deleted their posts before leaving as well, so the entire Forum is a microcosm of the issues we're discussing here.

Obviously, nearly everything in there was "personal" by definition, so nobody can be blamed for not wanting it left there. Also, the conversations were very much related to that time, and the real or imagined sense of camaraderie and "us against them" in the community. As such, when we had a new poster, it felt almost voyeuristic. But also, the deleted posts gave a sense of finality. Like those posters had not just left B77, but were almost wiping the dust off their feet on the way out. As one of the very few who participated in that thread at the beginning, and who is still on B77 it feels very... lonely? Almost like walking round a favourite childhood location where everything has been bulldozed and high rise flats installed.

This is all a bit random, and I apologise for not making a more coherent point, but this experience really hit home.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Actually, I thought that was one of the best posts in the thread.

[yovargas]

The time where TOE was alive and thriving were the best times in my decade+ of board-dom. That many chunks of those funnysadsillypoignant conversations were ultimately deleted is still very saddening to me even though it is and was very understandable.

[axordil]

As someone who did his share of bulldozing on the way out of ToE I sympathize with Alatar's sense of loss. It really fell into the category of "unhappily necessary" for me. But I get the feeling he describes when I visit any number of former online haunts.

[Maria]

Like I said, I cleaned up TOE when my mom started posting and I thought she might eventually get access. (She didn't.) I tried to leave the sense of the what I'd said, and just took out some of the details of which I thought would be TMI for a parent.

That wasn't really a lot since I don't go over "R" rated anyway... but I found a few things I wouldn't be comfortable with her reading.

I understand, though, why some people would want to clean up completely. I've always understood that anything we post is *public*. It just is, no matter what forum we post in. That's probably why I'm a bit picky about my word choice and try really hard to get my spelling and punctuation right. Some of my relatives are published authors and I wouldn't want my words to embarrass me if any of them should take it into their heads to cyberstalk me. I don't want to look like a redneck.

*********
Narya's post: http://thehalloffire.net/forum/viewtopi ... 872#260872

Wow, that was great!



Really.

[SirDennis]

IAWV.

[Erunáme]

I think most of the time we all don't have issues sharing things or offering opinions, but with message boards, what you say is quite final unless you delete it. I'm sure we've all had a spoken conversation where we wished maybe we wouldn't have said something. No we can't take it back, but neither is it etched in stone for someone to go back and review in its absolute entirety. Yet that's precisely what happens on a message board. I think that's part of the reason why deletion happens. One can't try to let something they said be as forgotten I suppose. A deletion can mimic a real conversation just a bit more closely in some ways.

[Erunáme]

Aaaaaand everyone stopped replying. Is this a delete test?

[Impenitent]

Eru, I'm here!

! I came, I read, I wished there was a Like button, but am bearding the lion and replying. In writing. And won't delete.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I liked your post, too, Eru, but I didn't really have anything to say in reply.

[WampusCat]

I think that was very insightful, Eru.

[axordil]

That's the flip side of the memorial quality of online text (about which I agree). What if you build it and they don't come? If you're having a conversation at a party with someone, and they're interrupted and have to excuse themselves, you see it happen, and you can move on, get a drink, and edge into another conversation. Online, conversations often...stop. There's no way to differentiate between someone being pulled away by work, someone getting upset and someone subject to something like this:

[Dave_LF]

Unless they break off in the middle of a

[yovargas]

Yeah, Eru...that was one of those "silently nods" kinda posts that can unfortunately kill a conversation by being too agreeable and well-put.

[Dave_LF]

Donut be alarmed, fellow Earthlings. I, the davelf, are fine. Please to resume going about you're businesses.