Re: [Ring] redaction feature

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira]

Personally I like mailing lists because they integrate way better with
email system. It allows me to save the draft in the email client itself,
has notifications of messages in one convenient place (my email), email
clients allow filtering (to temporary showing-or-not) stuff --- so I can
tell my email client that I want to see only this mailing list's
messages ---, email clients allow me to score the messages based on
their content, they allow me to automatically split messages (put them
in folders/directories based on some criteria, or even score them based
on that).

Also for what is worth: I don't have to remember to keep connecting to
the website while I'm redacting the text in the same page (search for
how HTTP connections work, you will see that the standard is to drop
authentication information after some idle time).

I also like mailing lists because --- provided I'm using a email
client which is free/libre software, like GNOME Evolution, or for those
who want something more complete, Emacs Gnus --- I don't have to worry
about non-free software being forced upon me through JavaScript (which
is done in some major webmail interfaces, and in some forums not related
to free/libre software philosophy).

Finally, being able to edit stuff after it was published makes it a
little more complex and doubting for the reader to understand the
reasons. Besides, many of the post-publishing edit methods don't
implement detailed difference/diff reports, nor a history of the
edits. This of course is an exception when talking about pages using
some wiki software or version/revision control systems such as Git,
Subversion, and many others. But forums and mailing lists are not wikis
nor rolling projects per see, they are places of discussion. ;)

2017-12-07T10:01:35+0000 Julian Foad wrote:
> bill-auger wrote:
>> [...] a terrible feature that discourages mindful communication and
>> facilitates evasion of the responsibility for one's words
>> [...] think carefully before you press "send" or simply stop
>> worrying [...]
>
> I feel embarrassed when I make a mistake in front of all my correspondents.
>
> I want to correct my mistake.
>
> I have plenty of ways I can "speak" my correction, certainly:
>    "I meant 'Bob', of course."
>    "Sorry, that should be 'Bob'."
>    "s/boob/Bob/"
>    "*Bob"
>
> This is a modern computer system so why on earth can't it let me make
> my correction directly, like in a WYSIWYG word-processor? Why should I
> have to write another message in which I indirectly, fuzzily, refer to
> a mistake which my correspondents have to interpret as probably being
> in the last or one of the few last messages I wrote, or perhaps I was
> pointing out a mistake in someone else's recent message, when the
> computer could perfectly well enable me to point precisely at the
> place I mean and display a clear indication of what I want to change
> it to? Like when "show changes" is enabled on a word processor, and
> the computer shows the old text with strike-through and the new text
> with underlining and/or different colours.
>
> When I "speak" my correction, the other participants can judge whether
> I am behaving inappropriately or trying to pretend I didn't really
> mean something I said before. Similarly, if I use a computer-assisted
> correction mechanism, it should also enable the participants to see so
> they can judge me, and the social pressure of the group is what keeps
> the participants honest.
>
> Here is a real example of the "honesty" principle. I use and
> participate in the development of the Subversion version-control
> system, and one of its features is you can edit the log message of an
> old committed change. One could potentially misuse this to pretend
> that the change was made for a different reason, or by a different
> person, or had been tested when in fact it had not been tested. But
> the social conventions of a team mean that the feature is in practice
> not abused -- because if someone abused it then they would not be
> welcome to stay in the team.
>
> What I am trying to say is don't underestimate the importance of
> giving users a good way to achieve their basic need to be seen as a
> pleasant or careful correspondent, or whatever particular
> characteristic is important in their situation.
>
> This doesn't mean the system should allow arbitrary un-tracked editing
> of any and all messages, certainly not. A system that pretends it has
> absolutely finally redacted or replaced a message is lying, in
> principle, so that is a bad user interface, and just annotating the
> new version with "(edited)" is hardly any better if it does not let
> you see the old version. But then going the whole way the other way
> and showing a whole (branched?) version history is ridiculous too.
>
> But there are some lovely shades of grey in between black and white.
>
> - Julian
>
>

-- 
- https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno
- Palestrante e consultor sobre /software/ livre (não confundir com
  gratis).
- "WhatsApp"? Ele não é livre. Por favor, veja formas de se comunicar
  instantaneamente comigo no endereço abaixo.
- Contato: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno#vCard
- Arquivos comuns aceitos (apenas sem DRM): Corel Draw, Microsoft
  Office, MP3, MP4, WMA, WMV.
- Arquivos comuns aceitos e enviados: CSV, GNU Dia, GNU Emacs Org, GNU
  GIMP, Inkscape SVG, JPG, LibreOffice (padrão ODF), OGG, OPUS, PDF
  (apenas sem DRM), PNG, TXT, WEBM.