Privacy and (free) speech are competing rights that will never be resolved by censorship. Doing so can only have pejorative consequences. Everyone should have the right of freedom of expression in this or any other forum. This right should include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by URL owners and their moderators. Over the past few decades, the struggle to define privacy has become more confused. Even the concept of privacy has become very difficult to define. Is it possible to judge whether what you write or say in a forum like this will cause emotional harm? How do you define what people cannot talk or write about? Should free expression be treated on a par with privacy in the first place?
Freedom of speech is the lifeblood of democracy.
Having free speech being censored in the name of privacy is absurd.
I read both the removed threads. I found nothing either harmful or litigious in either of them. I also found nothing that could have been hurtful to the persons mentioned. All I saw were descriptions of sad, homeless people living in the neighborhood. It was a lively discussion by local residents who were simply relating information via their opinions to other local residents. As a consequence, I personally find that the removal of these 2 threads were decided in an arbitrary manner.
If someone approached you and expressed their displeasure with these threads, then it would be incumbent on you to tell the posters on this forum what was said and that that was part of the reasoning behind this decision.
I somewhat understood the reasoning behind merm's thought process questioning whether or not to shut down the political threads on your sister forum, Astorians. There were some very nasty personal insults that truly needed to be moderated, although the the threads' posters seemed to be doing a rather good job of that themselves.
I grant that the privacy issue is an important one. But, I see no such issue with either of those threads.
No-one disclosed any secrets. No-one divulged anything that the community-at-large did not already know about. The people mentioned were also not harmed by the description of them and where they are usually found. No-one was provocative or disrespectful in either thread. If there were any inaccuracies they were quickly corrected by the posters themselves. It was a non-threatening, intelligent discussion among neighbors. As I recall, there was no defamation of any of the people discussed. There also were no derogatory comments about any one particular person. It also seems to me that people only expressed what they saw and that is information available to anyone in the neighborhood. It's not like someone used an illegal method to obtain that information!
I am also distressed that these threads were removed before any discussion about their potential removal. It would have been interesting to see how the JHL members felt about it. In general, it would be interesting to see how either forum would feel about being micromanaged to the point of making the forum no longer a viable part of the community.
We have grown concerned about the discussion and speculation about private individuals in this forum. Such discussion -- even if done without malicious intent -- can be very damaging to them, especially if it is done without their knowledge and they don't have an opportunity to respond.
I, for one, would very much like to know exactly how these discussions could even be perceived as damaging, even if done without the individuals' knowledge. Astorians has a homeless man who periodically finds a way to a computer and posts in the forum. He has said many times that he is encouraged by the discussions of Astoria's homeless. He tells us not to worry about certain persons that the community-at-large had preconceived notions about being dangerous. Many of Astoria's older residents know him personally and have frequent discussions about what we can do to help the homeless in our area. He always recommends keeping an open discussion so that the situation just doesn't disappear into a twilight zone. He knows that the majority of people really care, and by calling attention to those individuals, someone may seek them out and be able to provide some help.
After careful consideration, we have decided to establish a new rule prohibiting the discussion of the behavior or motivations of private individuals.
How absurd can you get. I guess that means that every elected official has the right to claim that they are also private individuals. So, let's stop calling those who do nothing in the interest of their constituents useless and try to get them replaced. If someone were to remark that XXX poster has a great sense of humor and is always trying to make people in the forum laugh—that too would fall under your new prohibition. How about if someone posted that the super at ##-## Street told them that he demanded 2 months rent for them to be approved for renting an apartment, how would that clash with your new rule?
Not only is the new rule vague, IMHO it is both not necessary and disrespectful of the intelligence of the members of this forum.
