I’m more than a little creeped out that you have my website too.
I’m sorry you deleted the original text of your response, as I would have liked to engage with it. Unfortunately I did not save a copy before you deleted and replaced it.
I did however get a copy of this comment you made prior to changing your forum username, where you linked to us all to your website.
Strangely you seem to have deleted this comment now and completely forgotten about having written it. It is very ironic that, in the context of a discussion about the frequency of false accusations, that you would attempt to alter the digital record and then falsely imply I am a creep.
Perhaps this was an accident. It is easy to forget what exactly we have said, especially if we regret it later. If so I hope you take this lesson to heart about how easy it is for even people with the best of intentions to accidentally make a false accusation.
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Screenshot of the above comment in case of further edits:
I’m not sure I understand the rationale for removing information that was supplied by the very same person who now says they want it removed, especially when this information was supplied merely a week ago, on the EA Forum, and in this same thread. The policy that this decision seems to exemplify appears to effectively give anyone the right to censor any information about themselves in posts or comments made by others, regardless of how that information was obtained or how public it is.
Note that the case for disclosing the information in this particular instance was pretty strong: J_J implied that temp_ was a creep for knowing J_J’s website, but it turns out that J_J had included a prominent link to their website in a comment posted just one day earlier. I do not want the Forum to be a place where people can make unfair accusations about others and retain a right to suppress evidence establishing the unfairness of those accusations.
The policy that this decision seems to exemplify appears to effectively give anyone the right to censor any information about themselves in posts or comments made by others, regardless of how that information was obtained or how public it is.
As mentioned in the policy, we do think that there are cases when some personal information is important to share, and we don’t think everyone should have the right to censor any information about themselves. We do consider how public the information is and “when information is easily accessible elsewhere, we will err on the side of keeping it”, but we also strongly consider how relevant the information is to EA. In this case, I felt that the name and website of the user are not relevant enough for effective altruism to justify keeping the information in the comment against the user’s wishes.
Note that the case for disclosing the information in this particular instance was pretty strong: J_J implied that temp_ was a creep for knowing J_J’s website, but it turns out that J_J had included a prominent link to their website in a comment posted just one day earlier. I do not want the Forum to be a place where people can make unfair accusations about others and retain a right to suppress evidence establishing the unfairness of those accusations.
I agree, but I think that in the edited comment it’s still clear that J_J had included a prominent link to their website in a comment posted just one day earlier. If that’s not the case I should have edited it differently (possibly writing [user’s website] in the black box). Do you think it should be clarified?
Thanks for the reply. I think the crux of our disagreement may be that I don’t regard “being relevant to EA” as a necessary condition for declining a request to remove personal information, unless that phrase is given a very broad interpretation that includes things like “keeping the EA Forum a place where people can’t make unfair accusations about others”.[1] Separately, if a user voluntarily discloses a piece of personal information, I think this should be beyond the scope of mod action, unless something happened in the intervening period that clearly justifies removing or encoding the information. People can still ask others not to share this info, but I think it should be up to each person to honor those requests, rather than being something enforceable by the admin team.
In this case, as you note, it was possible to remove the personal information while preserving the relevant evidence publicly, although I think the removal made it somewhat more difficult to appreciate what was really going on. But one can imagine other situations in which this cannot be done.
What she said is that she felt creeped out. The implication that the person who’s actions she was creeped out by was a creep is an implication you are adding to her statement, and not one I did personally. It is very much possible to feel creeped out by someone who isn’t a creep.
Reading it as an underhanded way to make an unfair allegation seems very uncharitable to me in light of all her comments.
I don’t understand what rule you think I broke. This was a link to a public website that she herself shared on the thread; it does not fall into any of the categories in the linked website. This is someone who is making serious allegations about EA, and looking to be paid for it—she should not be able to demand others users delete any record of what she has done.
The closest reference I can see in the rules is this:
If information was accessible at the time of posting but isn’t anymore, we might encode it
But then you should have encoded it, not deleted it and edited my screenshots.
I’m sorry you deleted the original text of your response, as I would have liked to engage with it. Unfortunately I did not save a copy before you deleted and replaced it.
I did however get a copy of this comment you made prior to changing your forum username, where you linked to us all to your website.
Strangely you seem to have deleted this comment now and completely forgotten about having written it. It is very ironic that, in the context of a discussion about the frequency of false accusations, that you would attempt to alter the digital record and then falsely imply I am a creep.
Perhaps this was an accident. It is easy to forget what exactly we have said, especially if we regret it later. If so I hope you take this lesson to heart about how easy it is for even people with the best of intentions to accidentally make a false accusation.
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Screenshot of the above comment in case of further edits:
I’ve removed the name and website of a user from the above comment after a request to the mod team, in light of our new policies on revealing personal information on the Forum
I’m not sure I understand the rationale for removing information that was supplied by the very same person who now says they want it removed, especially when this information was supplied merely a week ago, on the EA Forum, and in this same thread. The policy that this decision seems to exemplify appears to effectively give anyone the right to censor any information about themselves in posts or comments made by others, regardless of how that information was obtained or how public it is.
Note that the case for disclosing the information in this particular instance was pretty strong: J_J implied that temp_ was a creep for knowing J_J’s website, but it turns out that J_J had included a prominent link to their website in a comment posted just one day earlier. I do not want the Forum to be a place where people can make unfair accusations about others and retain a right to suppress evidence establishing the unfairness of those accusations.
Thank you for the feedback,
As mentioned in the policy, we do think that there are cases when some personal information is important to share, and we don’t think everyone should have the right to censor any information about themselves.
We do consider how public the information is and “when information is easily accessible elsewhere, we will err on the side of keeping it”, but we also strongly consider how relevant the information is to EA.
In this case, I felt that the name and website of the user are not relevant enough for effective altruism to justify keeping the information in the comment against the user’s wishes.
I agree, but I think that in the edited comment it’s still clear that J_J had included a prominent link to their website in a comment posted just one day earlier. If that’s not the case I should have edited it differently (possibly writing [user’s website] in the black box). Do you think it should be clarified?
Thanks for the reply. I think the crux of our disagreement may be that I don’t regard “being relevant to EA” as a necessary condition for declining a request to remove personal information, unless that phrase is given a very broad interpretation that includes things like “keeping the EA Forum a place where people can’t make unfair accusations about others”.[1] Separately, if a user voluntarily discloses a piece of personal information, I think this should be beyond the scope of mod action, unless something happened in the intervening period that clearly justifies removing or encoding the information. People can still ask others not to share this info, but I think it should be up to each person to honor those requests, rather than being something enforceable by the admin team.
In this case, as you note, it was possible to remove the personal information while preserving the relevant evidence publicly, although I think the removal made it somewhat more difficult to appreciate what was really going on. But one can imagine other situations in which this cannot be done.
J_J did not accuse temp_ of being a creep. J_J said she was creeped out. There is a subtle but important difference between these two statements.
As I wrote, “J_J implied that temp_ was a creep”, and implying that someone is a creep is a way of making an accusation, in this case an unfair one.
What she said is that she felt creeped out. The implication that the person who’s actions she was creeped out by was a creep is an implication you are adding to her statement, and not one I did personally. It is very much possible to feel creeped out by someone who isn’t a creep.
Reading it as an underhanded way to make an unfair allegation seems very uncharitable to me in light of all her comments.
I don’t understand what rule you think I broke. This was a link to a public website that she herself shared on the thread; it does not fall into any of the categories in the linked website. This is someone who is making serious allegations about EA, and looking to be paid for it—she should not be able to demand others users delete any record of what she has done.
The closest reference I can see in the rules is this:
But then you should have encoded it, not deleted it and edited my screenshots.