Re: [Ring] Import an account on Linux (re: redaction feature)

[bill-auger]

On 12/06/2017 08:23 AM, Anna Marei wrote:
> Would it be useful and/or difficult to implement?


this is a common feature request for new chat services - it is called
the "redact" feature and honestly i consider it to be a terrible feature
that discourages mindful communication and facilitates evasion of the
responsibility for one's words - the confusion it causes by rewriting
history over-shadows it's only defensible benefit of correcting harmless
typos

i can only think of one arguable use for such a feature and that would
be on a public forum where the message will be displayed permanently -
it makes no sense for spontaneous personal chats where the sequence of
events would be something of this sort:

1. alice type a message to bob with a typo: "hello boob"
2. bob receives the message from alice: "hello boob"
3. bob replies: "hello malice - how are you today"
4. alice starts redacting the previous typo
5. bob sees: "alice is redacting this message ... please wait"
6. while redacting, alice receives bob's reply: "hello malice - how are
you today"
7. alice continues changing "hello boob" to "hello bob" (although she
knows he already saw it)
8. bob sees "hello boob" change to "hello bob" and wonders why she did
not just type: "oh sorry bob - that was a typo"
9. alice replies "bob - you mis-spelled my name - this is unacceptable -
please go back and correct that"
10. bob wonders why alice is so concerned about chat typos

the point being that once you post a message to any chat service (or
mailing list), it is delivered immediately - messaging services such as
slack that popularized the idea of redaction only give the illusion that
you can "take it back" - but you can never take it back - what really
happens is that your peers read your regrettable message and then watch
you erase it - so redaction makes little sense as these ring
conversations are private and synchronous

not that it relates to ring, but i would also argue that the presence of
a redaction feature is even more problematic on a public forum where the
message will be displayed permanently - imagine this sequence of events:

1. alice posts on a public forum: "i hate kittens - and bob is a boob"
2. bob reads this and replies beneath: "stop being such a jerk alice -
you are an awful person who hates kittens"
3. alice CHANGES the previous message to instead read: "i love kittens -
and bob is a wonderful person"
4. alice adds below bob's message: "how dare you accuse me of hating
kittens? - i never said that!"
5. now to any reader in the future it appears that bob threw the first
insult and that alice was completely innocent and friendly

that is a contrived example of re-writing history but you can see how
such a feature could be abused when the messages are public and
permanent - that is why the more responsible forums include timestamps
and clearly mark any edited comments like: "this comment was edited at
such time and date" - so that future readers can compare the timestamps
for some indication that the conversation may not have happened exactly
as it currently appears

most practically speaking, the best solution to the redaction desire is
simply to think carefully before you press "send" or simply stop
worrying about the correctness of chat messages altogether - after all,
it's only chat - it is not a novel nor a letter to the queen -
grammatical correctness is not at all necessary or even desirable for
real-time chat because it usually impedes the flow of conversation

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