If you say something inn public, it will be there and people may remember it - you can't take back what you said.
So why is a mailing list different? it is just that we are typing instead of talking - it goes into the public and there it stays. Ever heard of the Streisand effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect? I am really tempted to scan the mailing lists to find out how many contributed three posts which fit the profile... So live with what you said. Post a mail where you distance yourself from the posts, but don't expect that the original ones will disappear. Cheers, Rainer Adan Leobardo Martinez Cruz <amart...@umd.edu> writes: > Dear all, > > I will express my opinion without knowing the details of the posts John would > like to be removed. > > In the current state, people posting on this and other servers have no clear > way to go when trying to remove their posts. > It is a likely event that the number of people attempting the removal of > their past posts will increase. Their reasons will vary and may or not may be > reasonable to us. > It seems that a discussion on how the R-server will handle this likely > situation is needed (including the possibility of keeping the current policy, > of course) > Once the decision has been taken, a warning note would be helpful for > newcomers (something in big, black letters saying that whatever we post will > not be removed or something like that). > > Best regards to all, > > adan > > > > ________________________________________ > From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [r-help-boun...@r-project.org] on behalf > of John Gonzalez [john.gonza...@gmx.fr] > Sent: Monday, September 16, 2013 5:14 PM > To: David Winsemius; Albin Blaschka; Duncan Murdoch; Jeff Newmiller; S > Ellison; Jim Lemon > Cc: r-help@r-project.org > Subject: [R] Re : Privacy rights of an old user of this list > > I would like to thank David for letting me publish this and discuss it > openly. I must acknowledge from the answers that I received to my post, that > the administrators of this list are doing what seems to be fair to me: what > most people demand or understand that is right. > However I don't share your views and I honestly think you are making a > mistake which may hurt you just as much as it is hurting me now) in the long > term. Let me develop my point. > First of all let me clarify for those who accuse me of being desinformed or > innocent about my request, I'm not asking for your collaboration to remove > what I published from the internet, its google records or any of the infinite > copies that may be lying around. I'm asking for a very simple thing: > There are 7 messages (sorry it wasn't 3...) written by me and hosted at the > server stat.ethz.ch > https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2009-March/190367.html which I would > like to have removed. > Now, Steve E makes a good point: "I am also of the opinion that the list > owner was not showing disrespect by describing the state of affairs you > agreed to on signing up, or by declining to act beyond the requirements of > the conditions applicable to the list. " Steve > Fair enough. But that doesn't mean that those conditions are right and should > never be modified. I'm probably something similar to an unhappy customer who > has bought a product with no money-back policy but with an important > distinction: I'm going to be wearing this product for the rest of my life. So > that makes me, if anything, a "very unhappy customer". > Now let me explain why in this world I'm spending time on requesting the > removal of these 7 messages in that server. > I have a MS in Computer Science and a 5 years long Telecommunications degree, > I know quite well how the internet works. This is not the first time that I > request this. I already requested it in another mailing list, where they were > kind enough to aprove it after I verified my identity and they checked that > they weren't removing anything critical. The result was that that piece > information was obviously not erased from the entire internet but was not > showing up in the first 12 pages of google when you would look up my name > (when it was on the first page previously). It took me 5 requests to > different servers but I managed. There is nothing impossible about it and it > made a difference in my life. > So why is this important for me (something like not showing up on the first > pages of google?). Well please understand that there is a difference between > publishing an article and writing an email to a list. An article goes through > several personal revisions and is examined by a professional reviewer before > it is published. It only takes a click to send an email. It is extremely easy > to make mistakes (particularly when you are young and you know little about > life). Actually, people make lots of mistakes and banks may use it to deny > you or give you credit, employers to give you an opportunity or not, a lover > to have more or less reasons to meet you etc etc etc. Removing this > information from servers that are more visited by the search bot crawlers > makes a difference: your banker will have to spend more time or resources to > refuse your credit request, your lover may be already calling you for a date, > your employer may be already calling your for an interview. > Now, if you have a lifetime job, if you never want to change your career, if > you will never need a credit, if you have a lovely, healthy and loyal wife, > what I just wrote may sound meaningless but if anything happens to your life, > you may end up remembering what I said and suffering like me. > Why? Because you it is not possible to remove 7 messages from a server? OK, > this is surely extra work that may be difficult to handle but have you > considered adding a small fee for those removal requests? I would be more > than happy to pay for it. > "There are a quite a few of my postings to newsgroups that I wouldn't mind > seeing disappear and even a few on the Rhelp archives. I just don't think > that my errors in judgment or > knowledge deserve to be ignored. My hope is that I am judged on the balance > of useful versus boneheaded." David > I hope that my point is clear by now. My original motivation was and > continues to be that my name was associated with a company that I don't want > to be associated with (may I keep my reasons private?). My knowledge or > professionality is not at stake for what I said. I can actually prove to you > that I abandonded my career in engineering and I'm working in things that > have nothing to do with it. > Looking forward to hearing your opinions again. > Best regards, > John > ----- Message d'origine ----- > De : John Gonzalez > Envoyés : 12.09.13 15:40 > À : r-help@r-project.org, r-help@r-project.org > Objet : [R] Privacy rights of an old user of this list > > Dear subscribers of r-help, I would like to know your opinion about a privacy > problem that I recently had after publishing to this list. Not a long time > ago, I requested to the administrators of this list that they removed 2 or 3 > old posts from mine. These posts were associating my name with an old company > for which I worked a few years ago when you would look up my real name at > google. I'm 100% aware that there are many mirrors of this list archive and > that this is a hard work, however my point was to move their google > references to later pages so that new people that look up my name would focus > first on more recent work that I see as more relevant for what I would like > to do in the future. This is the answer that I received from Mr. Winsemius: > << Such a service is not available. Almost immediately rhelp postings are > replicated in multiple websites around the world. The information that you > could have (and should have) read at the time of signing up is here: > https://stat.et! > hz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help ... and the relevant sentence is: "Posters > should be aware that the R lists are /public/ discussion lists and anything > you post will be *archived and accessible* via several websites for many > years." >> I followed up explaining that at that time I was too young to > understand the consequences of what I was doing and that, honestly, I didn't > pay attention to such a note. Mr. Winsemius didn't understand the reason of > my request and therefore decided to ignore it, even after asking a > representative from the company mentioned in my old posts to contact him to > request the removal of such posts. At this point I feel completely powerless > and disturbed that the administrators of the r-help list refuse to remove a > text that I decided a long time ago to publish here. I don't think that they > own the rights of what I wrote and I wonder what I have done wrong to be > disrespected in such a way. Best regards, John Gonzalez (pseudonym) > [[alternative HTML version! > deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-help@r-pro > > ject.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do > read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and > provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > <#secure method=pgpmime mode=sign> -- Rainer M. Krug email: RMKrug<at>gmail<dot>com ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
