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Scared of Your Own Words?
RedCedar writes "James Rutt, the CEO of Network Solutions has deleted all of his postings from the Well, apparently for fear of having some of them used against him in news stories. The Washington Post has this story on it. " Regardless of who it is, this is an interesting trend, I think perpuated by The Media in general of focusing on the person. Do you think this will become a more regular occurence? Am I going to have to wipe my own comments? *grin*
Check out the front page of today's (Oct 7, 1999) USA Today. There's a story about Disappearing Inc., a San Francisco start-up that offers an e-mail time-out service. Add their software to your e-mail program and you've got e-mail that becomes unreadable after a certain date. The article talks about the software as a lawsuit defense system.
See http://www.disappearing.com.
They are mainly focusing on my website but in discovery they also pointed to some postings that I made to yahoo and Prairielaw.
Even after they filed their countersuit, I have not stopped! What I have posted is either true or opinions that any reasonable person would agree with based on the facts. The underlying facts are posted on the site.
I would say these things to their face (and did to under oath in depositions). I have had to provide them with more than 200 pages of emails related to the site.
Injured employee wins against Mattel"
I'm also the one who won't pee in a jar for anyone. I'm the one who won't give out my social security number to get a driver's license. I'm the one who won't work for a racist boss, even if it benefits me.
I'm not saying these things to be self-righteous. I'm saying these things because I hope everyone will come to their senses. Who wants to live a life of cowardice? Who wants guaranteed safety? What will you have gained by living such a life?
When the tanks roll through the square, I'll be under one, not in one. If enough of you join me, we won't have anything to worry about. They won't put our names in the history books, but we will be the true heroes of our time.
Yes, and you will get those jobs over me, without a doubt. And then you will be the one stuck in these ridiculous organizations that don't give a damn about you. The day I put my life back in the hands of HR is the day I decide my life isn't worth much.
Maybe you're young, and maybe some day you will apply to a really different job 20 years from now. These things may come back to haunt you at that point, and you may not want it if you have kids and a wife and mortgage payments.
I'm there already. It took a wife and mortgage payments to make me realize some of what is important in life. Safety and security is over-rated, and worry is a contributor to almost all major health problems.
Having a public personality should not be too difficult, unless greed is the only useful skill. The trick is to make one's self valuable to society. There is a saying in small towns that the worst thing that can happen to a person is if nobody knows them. Granted, there will be rough times and the downward spiral or two, but this builds character.
People like Jenni have developed unique positions for themselves and that is part of their personality. It may be difficult to throw away a personality and a disadvantage to do so. Its interesting to watch the reaction of those who are famous and those who react to them. It would be silly to think I would know a polition or anyone else on a personal level, just because they (and the families) would be in the news so often.
I have been posting on usenet news for several years and have found much, but not all have been archived. My floppies may have not lasted over the years, but many of my posts have. Many were good posts and then there were the ones that made me feel like I was looking at my own ass. But one thing is for sure, I have never regretted using my identity.
There were times when being anonymous was important, but usually, I like to have a name, not a number.
Granted, I've said a lot of stupid things in the past, said a lot of them in public forums, and plan to continue doing so in the future... but anything I post publicly I intend to be read publically, damn it, and I hope to be able to either stand behind or apologize for any of it if it's ever brought up in the future.
Ironically, my problem is that there aren't *enough* archives to suit me. I wrote a lot in #politics, #religion, and a few other MajorNet/FidoNet forums back when I was 12/13, and I'd love to go rooting through it all now and see how my views/writing have changed. Unfortunately there's only a couple weeks of posts that didn't get deleted from my HDD, and I've never found any public archives. Anyone know of anything?
Right now, there's a generation of people who "understand" that you really have no privacy left in this society, and most of them are under 35 (they came of age during the PC era), give or take a few years. People growing up today don't really expect privacy, they're used to targeted junk mail, credit reports, demographic data being pulled up on them, and leaving a trail on the web. As these younger generations move into control over society gradually, the public attitudes that lead people like Rutt to delete as much of themselves as possible will change. Since everyone is transparent themselves, they won't be as inclined to look at a 10 year-old posting and cry "gotcha!" (the old "people in glass houses" thing, in the future, everyone will live in a glass house).
Today, though, I understand Rutt's impulse. I refuse on principle to delete my words from places - I try to think about what I say with the knowledge that it is permanent being a factor. I keep as much of my private self private as I can, and don't sweat the details. My drivers' license has a random number, I deliberately give wacky answers when required to give demographic info, fake phone numbers when possible, etc. I also vary my middle initial a lot to see who's renting my name out to other companies. Anybody who really wants to can find out anything they want to know about me, but I like throwing monkey wrenches in "the system" when I can just for fun...
So it's a shame that he deleted his postings, but understandable in this not-yet-enlightened era.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Places like DejaNews, while great resources, also have some privacy implications. Who is this person? What else is he interested in? How long has he been on the 'net? What sorts of things does he buy and sell? What software packages does he use? Is he involved in pornography? Etc... Many of these questions can be answered in part by using the archive search features on DejaNews. Sure, when you post to Usenet, you are giving up a lot of privacy. But when you consider that the archive goes back for *years* the implications are bigger than you might think at first glace.
It's only a matter of time until a presidential candidate bows out of the race when someone dregs up a past Usenet post that makes him/her look bad...
At least, that's what I was told.
--
Everything I know in life I learnt from
If we all go around trying to alter or delete past words for fear of the reprocussions, we make ourselves a part of the Big Brother tyranny.
Historians are already worried that the increasing migration of cultural records into electronic form may make it difficult to preserve for future generations. How much worse is the problem to become if all of us are actively seeking to cover up our own past? It brings to mind images of Cancer Man and the Syndicate, who laborously concoct schemes to keep the world from knowing their evils.
What exactly do we have to hide? The admissions of criminal acts? The fact that we may have ingested substances which the state, in all its divine wisdom, has declared unfit for mankind, hence illegal? Or is it something as innocuous as expressing a dislike for a governments, corperations, or individuals whom we view as unsavory?
Being a creature of the net that I am, I have said some things online, in my own web pages, that I am not entirely pround of. However, I don't delete them and pretend as if they had never been said. If people can't handle the fact that I am a human being and may say/write things on the spur of the moment, I'd rather not associate with them anyway. I guess that's why I'll never be a politician.
I would hope that society is more mature than to reject people on something so petty as speaking their mind. Let's practice the 1st Amendment in spirit, as well as following the letter.
I support The Party. I have always supported The Party. I will forever support The Party.
Is there anything you've ever said that, taken out of context, would make you look bad?
Certainly, and you raise a very good point. The media does a wonderful job of taking things out of context, if only for ratings and yellow journalism. However, if you are a generally honest person, something that has been taken out of context can usually be rebutted.
The point I was trying to make was that even if the media was after me, and were taking everything I said out of context, *I* would know that I was being honest, and doing the right thing, and to me, that's all that matters. I'd rather go to the grave with a little honor and dignity for myself and have the rest of the world hate me, than trying to cover all my tracks and being a liar just so everyone will love me.
I guess I feel that if someone is deleting things they've said, for fear that they may be cast in a bad light, then they probably shouldn't have said them in the first place. This is why I don't mind if people were to find out what I posted or sent to someone, because frankly, I have nothing to hide. If he deleted them for security reasons that's one thing, but to do it to cover your tracks and look innocent on something is a bit shady. Plus, I'd probably respect the guy more if he was upfront and honest.
This is a very interesting ethical question which is going to become more and more important as time goes by. As we become more involved in online communities and the power of the Internet as a search tool becomes stronger, we will see more occurrences of this sort.
;-) I feel this is much the same issue - who cares if you've posted viewpoints on the web advocating bull spanking, as long as that is divorced from what you do in the office, it shouldn't be anyone else's business.
How will it be though for people like Jenni (Jennicam) who live their lives completely openly. Judging from her diary, I gather that there is some evidence to say that her life has already been affected hugely to the extent where she finds it very difficult to find employment - despite having shown that she is one of the most marketing savvy people on the net.
Will our online words become something we guard closely, afraid of repercussions in later life, or will society's views change, so that people's private lives and work lives become more divorced from each other.
In Sweden where I live, it's common (relatively) to sauna in mixed groups. The trick is to sit and NOT stare at someone else's private parts. (I'm British, so it's a learnt trait
Wishful thinking I'm afraid, but an extremely interesting ethical question in any case.
A little planning goes a long way...
Words uttered at 18 in the middle of a flame war don't have any real correlation to the actual physical person, maybe two decades later. A lot of people might get tarnished unfairly.
Thats why it's important for people to get more perspectives and gain a better look. American culture is finally gaining an understanding that everyone does stupid stuff. We've been fooling ourselves for a long time, but we're growing up. The U.S. is a teenager internationally and acts like it, but recent events and folks like Ventura just might break through the illusions of expectations we've created,....and make the silly posts you made when you were young, looks like the single tiny bits of the big picture they are.;^P
+&x
William Gibson described the Sprawl in Neuromancer as "a sick sociological experiment with somebody's finger permanently on the fast-forward button" (approximate quote; I don't have the text with me). One neat thing about the Internet is that it speeds up human interaction. Like biologists use fast-reproducing animals like insects to learn about genetics, we can use the Internet to learn about sociology.
The lesson learned here, as I have seen it: It is easier and better to do the Right Thing in the first place, rather than figure out where to hide the bodies later.
As people, we would often rather be crafty and sneaky than do the simple (and hard) Right Thing. It burns you in code. It burns you in life.
--The basis of all love is respect
Yes, imagine the intersection of McCarthyism and the Internet. Frankly, I think that the Internet would have killed McCarthyism a lot faster than it was killed in real life.
Paranoia and authoritarianism is fueled by centralized control of the media. Whenever you see a highly centralized, oppressive government, you always see two things: state-controlled mass media and its opposition, guerilla media/pirate radio.
The Internet is guerilla media in ways that pirate radio can't dream of. Knowledge is power, and nobody should know that better than IT crew. The Internet diversifies the balance of power, making it hard for any one entity to take command.
Can the majority use the Internet to find and persecute the minority? Yes. If Microsoft wants to compile an enemies list, for example, it could do little better than get the active roster of Slashdot users. But on the other hand, the minority can use the Internet to band together. Divide-and-conquer tactics tend to fail against a wired population.
--The basis of all love is respect
Hm that piece about that sticker which he supposedly taped under his monitor (...Now, under his computer screen he has taped a warning: Do you want to see this on MSNBC?...) sure does sound a lot like the message on WWII German communications equipment. They used microphones with the message "Feind Hört Mit" (the enemy is listening!) written on them. So now the ubiquitous message archives on the 'Net have become virtual playgrounds for potential enemies.
Hmm, I'd say `as long as you are nothing but yourself, on- or off-line, who is going to hurt you' but then I am an incorrigble optimist...
--frank[at]unternet.org
One of them is "me", and has a fairly typical geekish profile, including USENET postings.
One of me is on Slashdot. You're reading from him now.
The interesting identity is an old version of me who used to hang out with a group of folks who [censored] which, while trendy now, may at some time in the future become unfashionable.
I no longer associate with that last group - not so much because there's anything wrong with [censored], or because I'm no longer interested in [censored], but because I'm hedging my bets against catastrophe. I miss 'em. They were good people, and I made some good friends.
But if you believe - as I do - that the war for privacy and individual rights will ultimately be lost, it was a necessary sacrifice.
My [censored] was pretty mild by today's standards. But it doesn't matter if my [censored] was politics (communism? fascism? democracy?), guns (of any form), sex (of any form that involves pleasure, judging from the religious right), drugs (hey, there are folks advocating prohibition of tobacco and alcohol too!), or rock 'n' roll (industrial music post-Columbine anyone?). If we end up with living in a surveillance state, and folks into [censored] become the scapegoat-du-jour, I could have been targeted for surveillance in a random sweep.
Remember the corollary of the "they came for the foos and I didn't speak up" quotation is that "sooner or later, they'll come for you".
By cutting off that association now, as opposed to "the day the Bad Guys Take Over", I gave myself - and my friends, who may have more integrity and courage than myself - some protection. "Yeah, Mr. Thought Policeman, I used to think [censored] was cool, but I'm better now. I don't know any of my former associates, ain't heard from 'em in years, and your records'll back me up on that. Sorry I can't help you track them down for treatment/reeducation/extermination, as is my civic duty under Neomegalopolis Penal Code Section XVIII.4 Sub-Paragraph (b)."
Yeah, that's spineless cowardice. I sincerely admire the courage of the /. poster who said he'd "rather be under the tanks than riding in them", but when it comes right down to it, how many of us, when push comes to shove, are willing to make that commitment? And how many of us are willing to make that decision on behalf of our families and loved ones well as ourselves?
Frankly, I kinda enjoyed my [censored] days. But I also enjoy my job and my geeky toys. And when I concluded that the halcyon days of a "free world" were almost over, I was forced to ask myself whether I wanted my job and my toys more than I wanted my [censored]. I concluded that there were other forms of fun that I enjoyed more than [censored], and walked away from it.
If I'm wrong about the future, I'll have given up a small part of my life in exchange for more time to spend on other things that I enjoy just as much. A fair trade. But if I'm right, ten years from now, I'll be thanking my lucky stars that I chickened out now and got some experience in living under authoritarianism before it became an essential skill. I'm still not that great at it, but I'm learning and adapting.
It sucks to live in the twilight era of freedom, but there you have it.
"Oh, I know I'm a louse, but I'm a live louse!"
- Daffy Duck
There are some scary issues involved in having an easily accessible archive of someone's posting history. One is that someone may be, um, "less intelligent" at a younger age and regret things later. Routinely someone gets into Usenet for the first time and becomes a flaming idiot for a few months, disappears for a while, then returns as a much lower key citizen. I've done deja seaches on job applicants and run into more than one person who used to be a rampant software pirate at one point in his life. Maybe they got over it. But, man, does it look really bad.
Another issue is that a search can turn up personal opinions and interests that you don't necessarily want to know about, but can end up biasing your views. I did a search for postings by a programmer I respected and found all sorts of apparently serious discussion in a bestialty group. Ugh. I didn't want to know that. Or what if you find that a job applicant strongly holds views that you disagree with on abortion, gun control, government, the death penalty, or legalization of drugs? How could that not bias your opinion of that person? Yes, it *shouldn't* affect anything, but let's be realistic.
You can try and hide if you want to, but you will be found out eventually. Check out that loser big-wig tech guy who got caught by the FBI trying to hook up with a 13 year old girl. He did his damnedest to remain anonymous to no avail. Accountability for your actions isn't such a bad thing. It's called being a respsonible person.
Can you imagine what would have happened if the internet had been around during the Revolutionary War? We would have had a bunch of Anonymous Cowards ranting about some Declaration of Independence in a forum somewhere only to be dismissed. Sometimes you have to put yourself on the front line if you want to be taken seriously.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Yes, people should realize that comments in forums like this are effectively permanent. But that isn't the real problem. Even being careful about what you say may not suffice if what you say is controversial relative to the mores of the time, which are always changing.
Imagine if the net had existed during the McCarthy era in the U.S. A lot of the people making leftist comments about software development could be in for investigation. And having *lots* of trouble getting work.
Another fairly easy thing to imagine is a period of political religious conservatism making life difficult for pagans and atheists.
Or how about political correctness metering?
Thanks to the net, if you're honest, you can no longer hide what you believe. The net makes it easier to persecute you, but it also makes it harder to ignore you, and gives you a voice to protest such persecution. Can you imagine the furor if they started arresting the GNU-lefties?
The real danger here is the quiet stuff personnel departments and insurance companies do before hiring/insuring someone. Even though it is illegal, some may perform a credit check. Even though it is illegal, they may try to obtain medical records. Even though it *should* be illegal they may try to determine your political or religious beliefs thru net postings. I can't say how widespread these practices are, but I've heard a great deal of anecdotal evidence about them.
As our lives become more transparent to the powers-that-be it is essential we demand equal transparency in return from those with the potential to misuse the information.
I'm impressed that you illustrate my point without meaning to. The subject practically hammers it in, and even adds a touch of brilliant irony.
L.
Tony,
There is no battle. The reason it's not a good idea to add your name to everything you post is because you may not even know who is looking it up. I know for a fact that many employers search names before considering an interview. And they don't tell you if they don't call you.
No matter what your *own* views are about the bravery of saying that you "won't pee in a jar", the reality is that such language will result in you not even being considered for a job. Many of these decisions are made by human resource personnel who have no clue about your viewpoint, and nor do they give a damn.
Maybe you're young, and maybe some day you will apply to a really different job 20 years from now. These things may come back to haunt you at that point, and you may not want it if you have kids and a wife and mortgage payments.
Personally, I'm not in that situation, but I'm not fond of HR people and their narrow perspective either. We can't predict the future, and I don't trust having my heat-of-the-moment views littered all over the place for misinterpretation.
Basically, my views stand on their own - I don't gain anything by having my real name attached to them. But I have a lot to lose if those views can be misinterpreted or prove embarrassing years or decades from now. You need to think about it. That's all.
L.
Very few people in high power high profile positions today have a background that includes online time. However, think about how bad this will be in 20 years? What if Rob goes onto to a respectable life in corporate America, or God forbid, politics ;) Can you imagine the furor that could erupt over things he may have said on Slashdot 20 years previous? I hope that by then this technology is so pervasive that it won't be that big a deal. However, I suspect our societies values and attitudes will change much slower than the technolgy and resulting lifestyle. I can see it now...I'm running for President in 2030 and my opponent digs up an archived copy of my Pamela Anderson in the nude home page from college :)
:)
Note - that was just an example - I never posted a Pamela Anderson page of any kind....as far as you know
http://metalab.unc.edu/Dave/ Dr-Fun/df9601/df960124.jpg.
If our society ever grows up, this will cease to be a problem; it's impossible to sell scandal sheets when nobody is scandalized. Unfortunately, we seem to be going in the opposite direction these days.
--
Deja Moo: The feeling that
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
The best rule of thumb is to be prepared for everything you say and write to be used against you. It's not right that that's the case, but there are many cases where your employer could accidentally bump into you (or your writing) that could put you in a very uncomfortable position.
You'll never see me giving away and information or speaking badly about that big computer company based out of Round Rock for that reason.
never never... my words are my words... if people want to misrepresent me through a misinterpretation of my words, then so be it..
(err, how do I unpost something?)
This seems like yet another outgrowth of the Microsoft Trial. Here at work (not MS) we have been ordered to delete all email older than six months, and I imagine many other companies have enacted similar rules in the last few years. The use of email and other electronic correspondence in ligitation is definately a bad thing in the long term.
Not that this is all that new, even when everything was kept on dead trees it could be subpoenaed and used in evidence. The difference? You had to know it was there, or else you had to go through files and archive boxes by hand. An expensive and difficult process.
Now you can just GREP a hard drive or use Dejanews or Altavista or search a MS Exchange PST file. It is neither difficult nor expensive. An interesting example of why the paperless office may not improve on the old way of doing things. This bothers me a lot, because I am a believer in the digital age.
But the thought of removing personal correspondence from electronic databases bothers me even more. There was a time when people wrote letters the way we now write email; as a method of remaining in constant communication with others. They didn't have telephone, or even telegraph, so they had no other way to carry on conversations over great distances. And many of these people took great care to preserve their letters for posterity, correctly seeing these missives as a legacy of thought and person.
Without this preservation we would not have the access we possess today to the minds of men like Jefferson, Madison and others. Generations later these letters represent important historical documents. Could you imagine if they had decided to purge their files so that the expression of some youthful lack of sense could not be taken out of context or to avoid seeing the letters show up in court?
I repeat, this is a bad thing. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to never say anything, in email or otherwise, that we would be ashamed of. Personally I don't think that is entirely possible -- but I will keep it in mind from now on...
Jack
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
I don't think I want to be in a position of authority if it means giving up my right to free speech. If my opinions offend the stockholders, let them hire somebody else. (Not that I'll ever have the opportunity to worry about that :-) )
I guess some people think it's worth it, though. But do we really want people in control (whether it's corporations or the government) that will so readily back down from their opinions in order to keep their power?
As for the media focusing on individuals, I don't think you can blame the media for that. People in general like to have a real person they can rally around. It's hard to like or dislike an organization. It's easier if you can put a face on it. How much do you think Bill Gates is actually involved in writing code for Win2K? My guess: none. But when we are using it (and, unfortunately, we will) and we get the blue screen of death (and, unfortunately, we will), who's name will we curse?
human://billy.j.mabray/
human://billy.j.mabray/
"Every good system has a backup." -- Dale Hanchey
People just need to realize the net isn't their living room, it's a lot closer to a crowded mall where anyone can here you.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
However, on the other hand is the point that people should think before the speak. Quite often that is the core of the problems.
Quite the opposite. The core of the problems is that society has stopped giving the benefit of the doubt to anybody under any circumstance.
The problem is not that people don't think before they speak -- people will always do that because they're human. The problem is that people refuse to say "hey you probably didn't think before you said that, forgive and forget."
As others have said, the core of the problem is with the media, who takes every little thing every preson says and blows it out of proportions. The solution is to come down hard on members of the media who resort to such tactics. Make the media think twice before using every silly word anybody says and ruining people's lives, just to make an extra buck.
Oh come off it, Harry Bowles, we all know who you are and you're not fooling anyone.
</joke>
jsm
Example: Jesse Ventura. That wacky governor of Minnesota has gotten into way too much trouble trying to be funny. Remember how he said he wanted to be reincarnated as a 36DD Bra? How he thinks religion is for weak minded people? He's had to backtrack for the entire time he's in office over some of the stuff he's said.
Being as I am here in Minnesota, I can reflect on Mr. Ventura a bit.
It was frightening to me that as the election returns were being announced, the person Jesse spoke of being his greatest inspiration was "Rocky." Rocky! Someone who isn't even a real person, just a film creation.
Jesse is a flake. The kind of antics he practices in the media would set off "flamebait" and "troll" alarms all over the 'net if he dared express them there.
Last night, I found out my brother-in-law, an all-out Jesse supporter during the election (who worked in Ventura's organization) has pulled the bumper stickers off his truck.
I first met Mr. Ventura at a "Twin Cities Stop-The-Draft Committee" meeting in about 1979. He showed up out-of-the-blue to express his support for the "Don't Register" campaign we were organizing. He's a former Navy Seal. That move made me respect him, but everything he's done since then has been downhill in my opinion. As a Minnesotan (Minneostans are still the only people he represents, but watch out...)
Hi--it's John Schwartz, the Washington Post reporter who wrote the story, delurking. Just wanted to say that some of the people commenting on the story don't seem to have read it. "Rabid?" Me? My story? Please take a look: this isn't "gotcha!" journalism. Instead, it's an attempt to show somebody who is afraid that the gotcha squad may come after him some day, and taking action. The story raises a lot of the questions that are being discussed here at slashdot--should people post anonymously? Shouldn't they understand that posting in online discussions is more like publication than conversation? Most important, if society could become more accustomed to the notion that people say strong things in unguarded moments, could that somehow lead to a little more honesty and a little less hypocricy? I can't speak for Jim Rutt, but I can tell you that he participated in the story because he thought the issues are important, and because he'd been thinking about them himself. With some reservations, since the stuff I was going to quote could get him into trouble, he talked to me. The story is better because of it.
"speaking only for myself since 1957"
I agree entirely: access to anonymous forms of communication seems to me an essential freedom of a democratic society. Ideally, of course, people should be able to speak in their own name without fear of State comeback, but if that freedom is threatened you might need anonymity to know about it.
However, anonymity is not about having no identity: it is about having more than one identity. Superman is anonymous because no-one knows he's also Clark Kent, but it's clear that the guy who rescued the school bus yesterday is the same guy who stopped the nuclear terrorists last week; it's just not known that he's the same guy as wrote the story about the kitten hospital on Tuesday. That's why I don't respect AC's: it's not that they don't give their real names, but that they don't give any name at all: every comment is a "hit and run" comment, and there's no point in responding because even if you hear from them again you won't know about it. I think Slashdot should abolish ACs in favour of special anonymous accounts that don't need a valid email address to be enabled, for the best of both worlds.
For my part, I use my real, legal name. I now wish I hadn't - I'd rather not be *quite* as out as I am about, for example, SM - but I'm known by this name online now and I'm not inclined to change it. But I'd certainly encourage anyone who's started using online public forums recently to come up with a pseudonym (not a silly one, a straightforward one you can live with for a long time) and use it as a matter of course. Who the hell needs to know your real name anyway?
--
Xenu loves you!
Such NONSENSE!!!!!!!!!
I have had an online presense since the 1980s, and have always known that things that I say or that I have said could or would be archived and still around years and even decades later. You never know who might be archiving a USENET newsgroup, or even just messages from you.
I comport my life in that I tend to say what I mean, and mean what I say (and Humpty Dumpty points out that these aren't always the same things!). My opinions may change over the years, but I have rarely said things in public forums that I am sorry for having said... if my views have changed over time, then it's documentation of a learning process!
In the unlikely event that somebody would find such a change in my personal opinions, and would take the effort to try to use my own words against me, my response would be to point out that EVEN *I* CAN MANAGE TO CHANGE MY MIND AND (get this!) evolve better opinions!
For those people who may find themselves ashamed for things that they may have said a few years ago, my feeling is "well... it's your own fault if you said such things in a public forum."
Speaking on USENET, on a "community bulletin board," on Slashdot, or in any other public online forum, is the same as talking to a reporter for a newspaper. Whatever you say will be still be around years later... even after you die (there are newspaper "morgues" that go back many decades!).
The moral is: think before you speak. And most important: Think about the legacy you are leaving behind! I think I am proud of my legacy... even the things that I have done in the past that turned out to be incorrect. After all, everything has contributed in my being the person that is me right now.
But then again, maybe I won't feel this way in a year or so. If not, in the words of Emily Litella, "Never mind!"
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
I'm the co-host of the News conference on the Well, where Jim's mass-scribble was discussed and John Schwartz picked up on it and wrote the WPost article. I've known Jim since he started on the Well a decade ago, and think it's perfectly fine for him to do this, and said so at the time. At my request and others, though he was under no obligation to do so, he briefly mentioned his viewpoint on this. Frankly, it's his own damn business as it should be for anyone on the Well. That's the way it has to be if you really "own your own words."
bandy, booter, blair and now jimrutt are not the only ones to do this over the years, and the reasons and context have been discussed extensively. My guess is that many Well members are uneasy about cases like this but support the right of anyone to do so. On the other side, a few have been vehement about the damage to the flow of discussion (and by inference, to the sense of community) that wholesale removal of postings causes, particularly in topics where the person has been quite active. But my feeling has always been, if you can scribble one posting for whatever reason (and nobody I know of questions that feature), then why shouldn't you be able to do that to all of your postings if you so desire?
jef deserves credit for providing a tool that both makes this more convenient to the user and diminishes the impact on other users.
As for jimrutt, alert Slashdot readers know that I have been quite critical of NSI both before and since he came on board. We've tangled over a number of issues over the years on the Well, but once you look at how he thinks and acts and presents his views (modulo the obvious shit-disturbing comments!), he has genuine integrity. I was not happy with the tripartite agreements announced last week between NSI, ICANN and the Department of Commerce: I think Commerce gave away the store to NSI. But I can't fault Jim for reaching an agreement that is as favorable as he could get for his company. When he first took the job I urged him to focus on dropping the whois database intellectual property claims, and instead get with fixing NSI's obviously broken customer service. To a large degree he is doing that; I'm still not happy with NSI but we have what we have. If the ongoing NSI/ICANN/open registry system can sustain Jon Postel's vision of the net as a resource freely and fairly available to all people, then Jim's professional activities will be vindicated.
But regardless of that, he had the perfect right to scribble his stuff on the Well. Or not.
If y'all are interested in checking out the rather unique place known as the Well, please come check it out. There are both graphical (Engaged) and command-line (picospan) user interfaces, and a lot of ferment in our conferences, and though it's not quite the hotbed of whatever that we used to be, it's still something of a lab of social online interaction.
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Bill Gates Is My Evil Twin.
You say one thing sarcastically or in jest and the media is all over you. They will misquote you and argue over your words till the day hell freezes over. Everyone will get up in arms and then you'll have to backtrack on everything you said.
Example: The new biography of Ronald Reagan is out, and in it the biographer called him an "apparent airhead". For the last two weeks all I've seen interviews was "OOh! You called him an airhead!" "You called him an airhead!". Reagan's whole family has denounced the biography over just that one word.
Example: Just in the paper today there was a short article on Eric Idle and Monty Python. He was quoted as saying "I have discovered I really don't mind doing Monty Python, providing none of the others are around", and at the end of the article they had to mention one of Idle's spokespeople saying he was really just trying to be funny.
Example: Jesse Ventura. That wacky governor of Minnesota has gotten into way too much trouble trying to be funny. Remember how he said he wanted to be reincarnated as a 36DD Bra? How he thinks religion is for weak minded people? He's had to backtrack for the entire time he's in office over some of the stuff he's said.
Nobody has a sense of humor, and frankly, I'd be afraid to have any of my old messages show up if I became a public figure. Geek humor is very strange, and very difficult to understand, and waay too easy to take seriously. I like to tell dead baby jokes, call people idiots, and be an all around misanthrope/misogynist. I would be dead meat if some of my old messages popped up and the media got it's hands on them.
First I have a work email and a home email, admittedly a weak subterfuge.
Then, if someone corners me about an old post, I'll look it over, with a puzzled expression on my face, and finally say.
"Dude, I wrote that? I must have been blitzed on some serious 'cid at the time, whoa!"
George
However, on the other hand is the point that people should think before the speak. Quite often that is the core of the problems. Especially when you are a figure of power, high standing, or just well-known, it is important to be careful with what you say or write, because of course people will interpret things, and quote you on what you say. If you have thoughts you wish to express, but you don't want them to be thrown back at you as in 'You said
So if people would take a bit more accountability into consideration when writing things, or when giving interviews or speeches, etc... And if the media could perhaps stick a bit more to reporting rather than scandal and headline hunting, things would look alot better.
Sounds like the hopes of a dreamer, right?
As far the "Media" focusing on individuals is concerned, I think that this is something that we all do. It is easier for us as individuals to focus on specific individuals. In regard to bands, for instance, people tend to focus their attention on the vocalist as an individual, even if the band is truly a collective effort.
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
<optimism>
This does make me wonder: how long will it be before someone turns the openness of their opinions into an asset? If the media try to spin some comment out of context it could easily backfire if that entire context is available for the asking; the publication or reporter who tried this might wind up zeroing their own credibility. And imagine what might happen if the public starts using the Net as a way to check on the views of candidates. Who's going to be more "real" to a discerning electorate: someone who's been on the record for years, or someone whose carefully-tailored platform appeared ex nihilo on their campaign web site last week?
</optimism><normal_cynicism>
"Discerning electorate"? What was I thinking. Never mind!
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Deja Moo: The feeling that
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Mass scribbling on the WELL is a peculiar institution. It started years ago when Bandy and his then wife Booter were being harassed by one of the WELL's mad dogs. Bandy wrote a somewhat baroque C program to find all their posts, emit scribble commands, and execute them. Then they made an unexpected discovery - due to a bug in the conferencing software, each topic where they had scribbled a post would show up as "new" for all readers, even though there were no actual new responses. That morning, every reader in every conference was having to hit return hundreds of times to make their way through a whole lot of nothing. There was an outcry, of course. I believe that the WELL's prejudice against mass scribbling is really due to this stupid bug, not to any lofty considerations of conversational integrity. Blair Newman's mass scribble followed shortly after Bandy and Booter's. I'm pretty sure he did it just for fun, to try out a new techno toy, and it was not related to his suicide a few weeks later. However, those who were still pissed at Bandy & Booter naturally seized upon the suicide as an opportunity to paint mass scribbling as evil or something. The WELL is like that sometimes. The peculiar thing was that in order to make this rhetorical connection, Blair had to be retroactively sanctified. So, a lot of the folks who harassed him while he was alive - including the same person who was harassing Bandy and Booter - were now praising Blair. Very strange to see. In the years since then, the original motive - protection from a harasser - has been the most common reason for mass scribbling. Jim's use for pre-emptive political protection is a first. By the way, Jim didn't use Bandy's original mass scribble program, he used a later simpler shell script written by me.
Simply because no matter how clever and wise you think your thoughts are today, they may be regrettable in 20 years. Your views and employers may have changed, but your ASCII scribbles would still be on the wall.
Who knows, maybe the ideology or F word may be out of fashion and make you look like an idiot. Or maybe your writings were never very sombre to start with.
Another good reason is that you don't want to land up in a collected database. Information is always collected. Just check up your name on whowhere.com or similar engines - you may be in for a shock.