Problems associated with *erasure* ...

Problems associated with *erasure* ...

Now that we have started "erasing" messages, it has become obvious that the idea is not always the good one.
The main problems are:

• erasure tends to make some threads meaningless
• erasure destroys the value of some good messages down the same thread, even some messages marked with R or RN

People asking me to erase them don't care how erasure of their messages is going to affect messages written by people who replied to their original questions, questions erased.  In many cases, replies loose most of the meaning, cause person replying did not repeat original question in his reply.  Without the original question, answer, which was considered important and good, (sometimes even marked with R/RN) often becomes meaningless.  For example, take a look at messages posted by "Hidden Username" further down on this page or on the previous page.  Replies to those messages make no sense.

Some of the people asking me to erase their messages were asking questions across many boards, and in many cases, they received answers from some of the more knowledgeable people on CureZone.  When a knowledgeable person donates hours of his time to answer your question, and then you choose to erase that question,  that is a kind of disrespect to his work, cause erasure of your question makes most of his work  meaningless.

If you take a look at "All Messages by Hits" you will see  that some older messages on CureZone have been read by 10,000 people or even more.  Usually, valuable messages.  Sometimes, erasure may render those great messages meaningless.  That is the real problem.  While everyone needs to protect their privacy, it should not have a negative effect on messages written by other users.  

Now, we have to work together on finding the solution for this problem.

The main reason why people ask for their messages to be removed is to protect their privacy.

There are several scenarios:

• A1:  person's username on curezone is his/her real name or his/her nick name- name he/she is known between his friends, or a username he/she used on many different web sites across the web.
  
• A2:  another similar problem is that person used the same usernames on different curezone forums, including forums like relationship, sex, abortion, abuse, religion, politics ... and today, when we are able to find all the messages by a same username across many forums, a person is afraid that his/her privacy or even his/her safety is compromised by information that he/she disclosed inside those messages. 
  
• B1: Person disclosed some possibly personally identifiable information inside the message body.
  
• B2:  Person expressed opinions inside the message body, opinions he/she would like to be removed cause he/she changed his opinion.

There are several possible ways how to solve problems A1 and A2 before we actually choose to completely remove those messages:

1. Lowest Level Anonymization: Search Disabled: Search by username or by any other item disabled. It is possible to disable CureZone Search on all messages written by a single poster. That way, nobody can easily find all of your messages.  But, your messages still have your username associated with them, and Google search can be used to find some of them.  For most people, just disabling search option on their messages is usually more then enough.
   
2. Low Level Anonymization + Search Disabled:  I can replace person's username with his anonymous #13466 number on all of his/her messages, and disable search on all messages.
   
3. Medium Level Anonymization + Search Disabled:  I can replace person's username with a new username on all of his/her messages.  Example: I replace  "Randezvous" with "JaneD23" and make sure nobody can find all the messages by JaneD23 or by Randezvous.
   
4. High Level Anonymization + Search Disabled: I can replace person's username with "Username Hidden" or with "#68716"on all of his/her messages. + Search Disabled 
   

For 99.9% of all people requesting their messages to be erased,  those 4 levels of Anonymization should be more then enough to protect their privacy.  And, in the same time, original message body is stil there, and anyone can read it, and threads are not compromised.

Solving the problems B1 and B2:

If a person disclosed some personally identifiable information inside some of his/her messages (name, address, date of birth, ...) , he/she can try to locate those messages and edit them alone.  If edit function is not available, he/she can contact me or other moderators, and we can remove messages.  
It should be not too difficult today when we have different search options.  Just locate all messages by your username inside a specific forum, and in a short time you should be able to find what you are searching for.

Another way to find your messages is by running CureZone search on something specific inside your message.
For example, if you disclosed your date of birth, you may run the seach on your date of birth. If you discolsed your address, try running the seach on your address or a part of it. 

All levels of erasure are reversable.... in other words, if you are not satisfied with one level, you can try another level.
If you choose to edit your messages manually, Edit function is not  reversable. 

So, if you still believe that it is important for you to have all of your messages Anonymized or Erased,  more important then the integrity of the threads you participated in,  before you request Erasure, please explain the main reasons why you want it, so that we can together find what the lowest level of Anonymization  would satisfy your privacy or other needs. You cam emial me in private.

For most people, just disabling search option on their messages is usually more then enough.  It is the search, and "All messages by username" that created potential privacy related problems for some users.

Webmaster