Then the storm broke, with a violent flash of lightning and an appalling crash of thunder.

[reddragdiva]

Hmm. Someone has just deleted all their comments from my most recent cri de coeur concerning Windows as plague pit, under merciless questioning from damerell.

(Let me state here that David Damerell is a fine fellow with a proper appreciation of real ale and is jolly nice in person. I'm sure his modem balls are a feature rather than a bug.)

These comments were to a public post, they were up in public for a week before deletion, and I have them in my LJ Replies mail folder.

[Poll #186322]

I shall, of course, reserve my personal opinion, so as not to bias your selection.

Never say anything online you don't want around for years.

(I did keep my original response to "You are being grossly half-smart.")

Update: To switch off animation of GIFs in Mozilla or Firebird, enter about:config in the address bar, enter anim in the filter and it will bring up image.animation_mode - set to 'none' for no animation, 'once' for a single run-through, 'normal' to loop forever.

Comments

[ali-in-london.livejournal.com]

Directing people to the google cache of the page, however....

[reddragdiva]

I'm surprised you think anything online ever really disappears ...

Unfortunately...

[grumpy-sysadmin.livejournal.com]

The last cached copy google has is this (http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:vJlQlFFC24wJ:www.livejournal.com/users/reddragdiva/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8), from 11 September. The thread in question is from 21 September.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Why should cancels work any better in LJ comments than they do in USENET?

[zenmonkeykstop.livejournal.com]

Actually...did you add me to your friends list coz I recently posted a similar diatribe? I was a bit confused about that, and half-thought it was because of mutual dislike of P***do.

[reddragdiva]

No, it was your hyoooge n*tg*th schlong ;-)

[reddragdiva]

I just read your post. By crikey, they really do scream like junkies in danger of being cut off, don't they? I think science should investigate whether Windows is an addictive narcotic.

You can send them over to my rants if you like. This one as well. I'm sure they'll be well pleased.

"I'm sorry I ran over all those people, but it's not like I can be expected to know how to drive! I'm not a mechanic, you know!"

redirecting good rewriting bad

[(Anonymous)]

if the comments still exist *somewhere* then it's ok to point this out.

but if you re-post them yourself this is like copying them out yourself, and even f**wits should have their "copyright" respected. It's not cut and dried -- I can think of arguments that counter what I've written above (too lazy to write them down but). So I guess I'm saying that *personally*, I would feel comfortable pointing to the spot where the comments still exist, but would not feel comfortable re-posting them myself.

Re: redirecting good rewriting bad

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

*shrug* Writing things is a paper trail, even in a paperless office. Only a fool thinks that deleting comments works or unencrypted email is private. Encrypted email *may* stay private but is also unrepudiatable. If someone wants to tell me something that they want kept secret, it better be in person or by phone.

[kraant.livejournal.com]

I'd say that being able to delete your own posts, and that you can delete your account, implies a fairly transitory nature to anything said on here.

You can of course post whatever you want. Including things that have been deleted.

You can also pick your nose in public.

People probably aren't going to applaud when you do either tho'.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's much more entertaining _without_ the inane posts in the middle. This way, you just get pure, unsullied damerell postings.

OH...

[lazrus-armagedn.livejournal.com]

I think you SHOULD!

After all...they were my comments!

But don't think I'll feel any differently...I told you why I deleted them

But don't wory about it...I don't expect any more of either of you...In fact, this is just the kind of infantile behaviour I expected.

So, go right ahead...I stand behind everything I said

Re: OH...

[grumpy-sysadmin.livejournal.com]

Dude, you are so in need of a glass of V8.

Re: OH...

[blarglefiend.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. What's with the excessive use of italics?

Re: OH...

[reddragdiva]

My own opinion was "Yes, the realisation is enough; they know in their own heart the rubbish they spoke." Actually gathering up the comments for reposting would resemble effort.

If you stood by the comments, then you wouldn't have deleted them.

Assuming you were actually the original poster and aren't just grandstanding here.

Re: OH...

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

UN-modified REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED.

?

[jinxvamp.livejournal.com]

HOW old are you?

[artifx.livejournal.com]

i don't think it's unethical to repost them, but he(?) looks like such a twit if you leave them deleted. i mean. really. reposting strikes me as pretty much unnecessary at this point.

[lnr]

This is more or less where I come down too. It's not unethical to reprint them, but to withhold from reprinting them when you *could* gives you something of a smugness high ground. And you've succeeded in taking the piss out of them royally anyway and they know who they are.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I don't think removing your comments from a thread is anything an intelligent person does lightly - it's confusing to the readers and smacks somewhat of 'taking the ball and going home'. I can only imagine that whoever did it was getting upset by the turn the thread was taking, and acted emotionally.

Not so much...

[lazrus-armagedn.livejournal.com]

...taking the ball home as I decided I no longer wished to play the game and, as it's not my LJ, I chose to remove comments that others had found offensive*


*Regardless of whether I agree with them or not, it's the least i can do, given that I'm not gonna agree with them...By the end I was being outright offensive on purpose...and that's not a legacy I wish to leave on someone else's LJ for all-and-sundry to see

What happened to...

[lazrus-armagedn.livejournal.com]

...option 6: "No...you should just get a life" ???

Re: What happened to...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

eargh, my eyes!

[glensc.livejournal.com]

Given the nature of reply and response I think they should ask if someone wants them removed before doing so.

It's far better to add a second comment staring that it was wrong and withdrawing it rather then just deleting, if the offended person agrees then remove. But some people never want to admit they ever did anything wrong.

I've seen situations where one person has said something, it's created a response in another LJ and then they've deleted the original without discussing it, ( and banning further comments ) leaving things looking like it was started by the second person.

As for whether it's right to publish the material, well probably best top avoid quoting but it would be reasonable to give the gist of the deleted post that caused the offence and also allow the person to resonpond to that.

I guess I take option 7 - Other ;)

tuppence

[sheridanwilde.livejournal.com]

I think this would probably have been the best response - the guilty party in this claims to have removed the comments because they were offensive, though as the offense has already been caused it doesn't entirely stand up (not for the early comments anyway). Reading into the replies it does seem that they don't know how to argue very effectively.

Something similar happened to me a while ago - my attention was brought to a none-too-complimentary post about me, I wrote a considered reply, genuinely trying to get to the bottom of whatever problem the person in qustion had with me (which she has never made any attempt to do). Her response was to reply to my comment with a 'you're childish' and then delete what I had written (presumably so that her friends wouldn't see that I was willing to be reasonable, and that any problems she had were her problems).

np: Type O Negative - My Girlfriend's Girlfriend / Christian Woman

[kitty-goth.livejournal.com]

No, fuck it. Repost them. I find Mr D's responses most amusing, and I'd like to see what provoked them.

Better yet, post the salient part of the thread to mock_the_stupid

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I don't think you should repost them, and that doing so would be, if not unethical, certainly impolite. However, in cases like this, i would let people know that i have the deleted posts in my mailbox and that if anyone really needs to know what they were, i'd forward them along. Is this sufficiently weaselly?