Policy Statement: Deletions of memberships, threads, and posts

[Wise Young]

We have been getting a large number of requests from people asking for their memberships, threads, or posts to be deleted. These requests are often frivolous because people have made indiscreet posts and have second thoughts about some information that have been posted or because they are upset or angry at people's responses to them. I therefore want to state the policy of the site concerning deletions of memberships, threads, or posts.

1. Posts belong to the site. We reserve the right to keep, display, or delete posts for any reason. Members are given 1000 hours to edit what they have posted. After that time, the material cannot be edited or changed.
   
2. Members cannot change their usernames. They can change their profile, password, email address, and all other information except for their username. We do not change usernames unless there is a very important reason.
   
3. We do not delete memberships of people who have posted and who have been responded to by other members. When memberships are deleted, posts by the member are changed to "guest". This makes nonsense of other people's posts and the posts cannot be tracked by username.
   
4. We do not delete threads that have been responded to by other members. Deleting threads is unfair to other members and it is generally not possible to delete individual posts without making a mess of the entire thread.

So, please, before you post anything on the site, please remember that it should be something that you intend for public. You have about 1000 hours to change your post. Please note that everything posted on public forums such as CareCure can be seen by anybody and is often archived elsewhere on internet. Also, please remember that even if we deleted a thread, post, or membership from this site, it will not eliminate the information from internet.

Thank you.

Wise.

[mimin]

Yikes! Big Brother!

[Wise Young]

Yikes! Big Brother!

Sorry, I just noticed some typographical errors and corrected them in my announcement.

CareCure is as non-intrusive a moderated site as any on internet. We generally do not interfere with what people write or their language, unless it is truly offending other members and giving rise to firefights between members. We don't charge anybody to be members. There are only three rules that we apply to members:

1. No attacks of other members
2. No spam
3. No commercial advertisements

I just want to remind people that they should not post on this site if they don't want the public to see what they have posted, that we generally will not remove posts if other people have responded to what they have posted, and that members cannot change their usernames.

Wise.

[mvandemar]

Hello all, new here.

Since I know that privacy is such a huge concern, and since many people might not be aware of this, I thought I might point something out about what Wise touched on:

I just want to remind people that they should not post on this site if they don't want the public to see what they have posted, that we generally will not remove posts if other people have responded to what they have posted

For those who don't know, even if the admins did agree to remove content, that would not necessarily remove it from the Internet. Many don't realize that the very nature of the Internet is data storage, and often times that means being stored in more than one location. In addition to all of the search engines storing copies of the pages they find for varying lengths of time, many times you will find more persistent copies on sites such as The Internet Archives as well:

http://web.archive.org/web/*//forum/

So don't be too hard on them, as it might not matter anyways, and this is a common practice on many of the forums out there.

Wise, I do want to ask you about this though:

and that members cannot change their usernames.

I am familiar with the vBulletin software (I am a programmer), and have considered writing a plugin for a while now that could potentially address this. If there were an extra field allowed to members that would give them the opportunity to have a "friendly name", one that was what was displayed in their posts, their profiles, and was editable, but the account name and login stayed the same (which would retain trackability), would that in your opinion address your issues with the usernames, and allow members to better hide their identities retroactively from unwanted snoopers? Do you think that would be a viable solution?

Thanks.

-Michael

[Wise Young]

Michael,

Thanks very much for your suggestions and information. I agree with you. Once posted on this site, at the least the public portions of it, the information may well be archived in many places all over internet, including government databases. So, if there is any information that you don't want strangers to know, please don't post it on the public forums in this site.

Regarding the username, our previous version of this website was hosted by Infopop and people were able to change their usernames. It seemed to work okay although it is disconcerting when people changed their names around and it was hard to figure out who was who. VBulletin does not allow this because the member accounts are based on the username.

I realize that it is possible to install a plugin that would allow users to change their usernames. I will discuss it with the moderators and find out what people think.

Wise.

Hello all, new here.

Since I know that privacy is such a huge concern, and since many people might not be aware of this, I thought I might point something out about what Wise touched on:



For those who don't know, even if the admins did agree to remove content, that would not necessarily remove it from the Internet. Many don't realize that the very nature of the Internet is data storage, and often times that means being stored in more than one location. In addition to all of the search engines storing copies of the pages they find for varying lengths of time, many times you will find more persistent copies on sites such as The Internet Archives as well:

http://web.archive.org/web/*//forum/

So don't be too hard on them, as it might not matter anyways, and this is a common practice on many of the forums out there.

Wise, I do want to ask you about this though:



I am familiar with the vBulletin software (I am a programmer), and have considered writing a plugin for a while now that could potentially address this. If there were an extra field allowed to members that would give them the opportunity to have a "friendly name", one that was what was displayed in their posts, their profiles, and was editable, but the account name and login stayed the same (which would retain trackability), would that in your opinion address your issues with the usernames, and allow members to better hide their identities retroactively from unwanted snoopers? Do you think that would be a viable solution?

Thanks.

-Michael

[Sugarcube]

Dr. Young,

What about posts that contain personal medical information? May we request that these posts be deleted? After some of the discussions on these boards, I regret posting mine as well as my pictures. I have already deleted my pictures, I am sorry if that was wrong. If necessary, I will repost them..

[SoFla]

Once information is posted on a public forum, it is there forever. You can delete, but it is still out there.

Aa administrator on another forum mistakenly deleted a vital thread. He was so very sorry, sick to his stomach, as this thread's contents unfolded over months and months, and vital to an on-going environmental project. He thought all the details were GONE. He was WRONG. Within a very few days, the entire thread was recovered.

Caution -- what you post on the internet is there for everyone to see forever. Think twice, or thrice, before posting personal info.

[Wise Young]

Dr. Young,

What about posts that contain personal medical information? May we request that these posts be deleted? After some of the discussions on these boards, I regret posting mine as well as my pictures. I have already deleted my pictures, I am sorry if that was wrong. If necessary, I will repost them..

Sugarcube,

Please understand that deleting posts on this CareCure will not eliminate the information from internet. People should be careful about posting personal information that they do not want the whole world to know on public forums. "Bots" from many sites crawl this site everyday and archive contents for their search engines. There are other sites that archive the publicly accessible parts of the web site.

Some of our forums are restricted to members only. Posts on these members restricted forums are not stored in archives or search engines.
• Relationships & Sex
• Members Only
• Member Pictures
• CareCure Chapters (the various states and countries).
• Caregivers Forum (caregivers only)

The information posted on these members only forum are more private but still accessible to members. The only exception is Caregivers, where only caregivers who have applied to be members of that forum can see and post. Many people come to our site every day as they look for information. If they are not registered, they cannot post or even see the forums that are restricted to members only.

We currently have as much or more information on spinal cord injury than any site on internet and it is more up-to-date. At any given time, we have 200-500 visitors browsing the public parts of our forum and only about 10% of whom are registered members.

Wise.

[Sugarcube]

Dr. Young,

I understand completely now. Thank you for explaining it so clearly. I will be more careful with my posts from now on.

BTW, this site is wonderful. I am not surprised that it is the #1 site for SCI information. When I first came here I was overwhelmed by all of the information I knew nothing about. At 21 years post injury, I should've known much more than I did and do know now. I am constantly learning though thanks to you, the nurses, and all who post. I am so grateful for that.

[mingo]

Points all taken seriously on my part. But I pose a question after the setup:

Sunday morning there was a post about a nude Sandra Bullock video (who doesn't want that!?!) Once clicking on the link the video wants to download some active X component.

I don't need to see this cool thing that bad and have further doubts since the colorful XP window pops up while I use the plain old "classic" theme.

I then posted a caution as first reply.

How soon will a moderator usually catch this?

I wanted to alert a mod. But did not see a way. The thread did disappear shortly afterwards.

Is there a way to alert the powers that be?

(its not 11:36 ... its 10:36) Standard time ya know....

[Steven Edwards]

As soon as we see it, Mingo. You can always click on the Exclamation mark under the profile pic to report a bad post.

I've already moved 9 so far today and I scan for them before I do anything else.

[mvandemar]

As soon as we see it, Mingo. You can always click on the Exclamation mark under the profile pic to report a bad post.

And since the dot is missing under the exclamation mark on this forum, he means this one:





-Michael

[mingo]

Exclamation mark!

... It all makes sense now.

Thanky kindly ...

[Wise Young]

Mingo, may I issue a plea? When you click on that notification, the emails come to me. In almost every case, the moderators will have remove the offending spam post within an hour. If it is there for more than a few hours, especially if it is in one of the out-of-the-way forums, please do notify us. However, give us a little time to get rid of the posts. Our moderators have been extremely vigilant in removing posts from the forums as quickly as possible. For example, in the past two weeks, I have not seen any notification where the spam post had not been removed already and usually within an hour after it has been posted. Thanks.

Wise.

Points all taken seriously on my part. But I pose a question after the setup:

Sunday morning there was a post about a nude Sandra Bullock video (who doesn't want that!?!) Once clicking on the link the video wants to download some active X component.

I don't need to see this cool thing that bad and have further doubts since the colorful XP window pops up while I use the plain old "classic" theme.

I then posted a caution as first reply.

How soon will a moderator usually catch this?

I wanted to alert a mod. But did not see a way. The thread did disappear shortly afterwards.

Is there a way to alert the powers that be?

(its not 11:36 ... its 10:36) Standard time ya know....

[rdf]

<snip>...Members cannot change their usernames. They can change their profile, password, email address, and all other information except for their username. We do not change usernames unless there is a very important reason...<snip>

What is considered a very important reason, Dr Wise? I've been pondering changing my username to an old nickname of mine, to reflect my regression into the sweet innocence of childhood once again .

Also, members have in the past emailed my work referencing my username here at CC, alerting my corporation's (large defense contractor) Ethics Officer that I was being a bad and unpatriotic boy because of some of my anti-Iraq-war, anti-Bush posts. In the words of Larry Craig, I was a 'naughty boy, a bad boy, a naughty nasty nasty naughty boy.'
But my Ethics Officer laughed at the emails that were sent to him from some CC member(s). It was years ago, I might add.

And what if people simply want a change, either out of boredom, or because they feel they've moved on from their initial username? I've been rdf at your websites for a decade or longer...and I'm not the same person who originally chose that moniker, by far.

Is this/these important enough reason(s)?

If it/they are, then let me continue pondering changing my username to my old nickname, and when I've decided whether to follow through, I'll alert you. This is supposing I'd be allowed to do so to begin with.

thanks