Old posts deleted

[Nigel R]

I realise this might essentially be discussing a moderating tactic/approach, but I'm going to ask anyway.

Why are departing members allowed to delete all their old posts? Or perhaps, why do moderators do it for them?

I've never seen this done on any other forum.

I think this place is poorer because of it, too.

Lost of useful stuff has gone in some of the deleted posts.

[John Lee]

See here

[kc]

It's a great shame that so much has been deleted. It's worse than censorship! It seems rather like kids taking their ball home just because they are not winning. There are 2 people ( at least ) who contributed greatly to the forum recently and deleting their posts has made nonsense of certain threads. If this continues then people will start quoting others ( already an anoying time wasting thing ) just to ensure their own contributions make sense in future. Quotations don't seem to get deleted!

One can understand if there is some security reason that requires certain bits to be deleted or names changed, but this withdrawal of useful bits of information makes the forum of less use and must eventually contribute to a forums disuse if large portions of threads become unreadable.

[Nigel R]

Thanks for link John. Yes kc it does look odd.

I thought the right to erasure thing means their names (real names) must be scrubbed and account details removed.

I can't see how it means the content of posts has to be scrubbed. Perhaps I'm wrong, I am not legally qualified. But I would think that content on this forum which does not uniquely identify them does not fall under the regs?

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Posted by kc on 24/06/2020 15:49:13:

It's a great shame that so much has been deleted. It's worse than censorship! It seems rather like kids taking their ball home just because they are not winning.

...as you say kc.

We've found that GDPR has raised awareness of 'data' and whereas, in the past, some people left the forum but were happy for posts to remain, now they tend to request that everything is deleted; usually because of data fears they can't really explain.

Then there are some who leave having had three strikes (forum warnings). Sometimes these people are prolific posters and, usually, in a fit of pique (and threats) they ask for everything to be removed. Then there are those who once removed try to come back under a different user name/IP address. If we spot them then they'll be removed, but sometimes we'll go through the three strikes process again, which allows more posts to build up.

One particularly prolific poster had a third warning a few months ago and departed, came back under a different name and departed again. But the moderators have noticed that the community is a happier, less troubled place since.

David.

[Richard Clark 2]

Posted by Nigel R on 24/06/2020 14:22:44:

I realise this might essentially be discussing a moderating tactic/approach, but I'm going to ask anyway.

Why are departing members allowed to delete all their old posts? Or perhaps, why do moderators do it for them?

I've never seen this done on any other forum.

I think this place is poorer because of it, too.

Lost of useful stuff has gone in some of the deleted posts.

It is a shame but the amount of storage used has to be kept within reasonable bounds.

Additionally the more data there is the longer the computer server will take to find what you want.

[kc]

The people I referred to were not argumentative as far as I noticed but were

1 a very experienced modeller who gave excellent traditional advice

and

2 a person who experimented with alternative materials and construction methods and gave data for his results.

Both people are ( were! ) exactly what the forum needs for sound advice and progressive thinking. Both are missed.

[Bob Cotsford]

I'd have thought GDPR would cover personal data but not their written input unless they wish to claim IP rights on their posts. As kc said, a shame to lose some valuable knowledge and experience.

There again, knowing some of the limitations of this forum I wouldn't be surprised to learn that personal data deletion takes out all posts linked to that user.

[Jason-I]

Posted by Nigel R on 24/06/2020 14:22:44:

Lost of useful stuff has gone in some of the deleted posts.

Yeah, like this thread:

**LINK**

[kc]

Reading through that redacted thread you realise how sad this situation is - all that good info and chat about 'snakes' being fixed at both ends - gone forever. Or is it really gone forever - perhaps it's still there somewhere but not shown to us?

It would seem that if you find a really useful item on the forum that one should save it to your own computer just in case. Wish i had saved the thread about building with B&Q foam and 1/64th ply by the same person.

[Pete B]

Posted by Doc Marten on 24/06/2020 20:35:08:

I get what you say about 'taking the ball home' but that's something that now needs to be considered before banning, a risk if you like of over moderation or how a member perceives they are being treated by other/another member(s).

Just to be clear, the only posts a moderator would remove are those which would breach the Code of Conduct. I cannot think of any circumstances where we would arbitrarily delete a member's entire posting history - we know only too well how much it disrupts the flow of threads. Deletion of content is only ever at the specific request of the member - and, believe me, we always try to dissuade them....

Pete

[MattyB]

Posted by Bob Cotsford on 24/06/2020 18:37:26:

I'd have thought GDPR would cover personal data but not their written input unless they wish to claim IP rights on their posts. As kc said, a shame to lose some valuable knowledge and experience.

There again, knowing some of the limitations of this forum I wouldn't be surprised to learn that personal data deletion takes out all posts linked to that user.

Here is a reasonably digestable definition of what constitutes "Personal data" under GDPR...

"The term ‘personal data’ is the entryway to the application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Only if a processing of data concerns personal data, the General Data Protection Regulation applies. The term is defined in Art. 4 (1). Personal data are any information which are related to an identified or identifiable natural person.

The data subjects are identifiable if they can be directly or indirectly identified, especially by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or one of several special characteristics, which expresses the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, commercial, cultural or social identity of these natural persons. In practice, these also include all data which are or can be assigned to a person in any kind of way. For example, the telephone, credit card or personnel number of a person, account data, number plate, appearance, customer number or address are all personal data."

They also have some good material on the Right to be forgotten.

The above aligns with discussions I have had at work with members of our Legal and Privacy teams. I would say that (unless people start posting their names and phone numbers in posts) the only personal information on display is the forum ID, and even that is unlikely to allow identification in the real world. On that basis if any forum should be able to address this problem by stating at signup that no personal information should be posted in usernames or forum posts, and that if you wish to leave forum posts can be anonymised but not deleted unless they are explicitly found to contain personal information. Of course the forum owner must still comply with a request for erasure of any PI associated with the users account that was given at the point of sign-up (name, address, email address, phone number etc)  but is not on display to other users.

I can understand why owners may be nervous about saying no to people who want posts deleted. However, there has not been a high volume of cases yet despite the regs going through >2 years ago, so the risks to a forum like this are IMO very small - far more likely are the big cases against major institutions like BA, Marriott etc where big money fines are obtainable. YMMV.

Edited By MattyB on 25/06/2020 08:34:58

[Nigel R]

Mods, thanks for responding in the original spirit of the thread.

MattyB, that's what I understood from it too, very little of the actual post content would identify someone.

All pictures being removed, I can understand this. All names being redacted, that too.

Will GDPR apply at the end of the leaving EU transition period?