Addresses get exchanged hundreds of times a day, whereas pictures in the translation thread get posted five a week. Addresses contain a lot more personal data directly linked to a person, whereas the written side of a postcard may just contain a postcard ID and a given name.
Please understand that it’s not about the exchange itself, but about the question whether the data can be easily located and deleted by the moderators.
They may discuss it here as they and others think it is relevant. You do not own this thread and are not a moderator. So, please stop telling people what is or is not in the scope of the discussion.
I think most of the participants on this thread have expressed their opinions and suggestions, so perhaps to avoid longer discussions which could derail the original topic, maybe we should wait untill there’s official respond to the thread
Great idea.
I’m still confused about the reasons you’ve given so let me paraphrase. The reason why I always refer to my OP is that I hope someone reads and follows my logic. If they don’t, I’ll try and see where our arguments part ways.
According to this comment.
In case you feel I intentionally left out this point. In private messages, if you’re the one who sends the postcard image, you can delete it yourself. If you’re the translator, you can remind the other person if he hasn’t done so. As you’ve said multiple times, we Postcrossers are a community. A certain level of trust is assumed here.
Therefore, I don’t see justification in your point above why such private exchanges must be published just for the sake of seeing it get deleted. That’s also why I brought up the issue of addresses.
Put in another way,
Hope you understand where I come from by calling some arguments invalid.
According to this earlier comment.
Postcard pictures may or may not contain personal information.
So what if a postcard does contain personal information? I sense you assume:
Referring back to my OP, I gather that you support
Even if the message may contain what the sender thinks is personal information, according to your presumption, all postcard messages are public. You maintain postcard messages can be straight away posted publicly. That means you think it’s impossible for a postcard message to contain any information that requires the same level of treatment as addresses.
Again, we don’t need to agree with each other. As I’ve emphatically repeated myself many times, the presumption of privacy is fundamental and is what makes Postcrossing special. In my opinion, it is Postcrossing’s niche and I guess many non-forum members think so too. When the presumption of privacy is broken, I can of course still exchange postcards, just that Postcrossing is no longer what I thought I signed up for. That’s why I’m building a case here.
I sincere believe this was only a benign oversight on Postcrossing’s part. If it were more thoroughly thought through, the translation thread wouldn’t have existed in its current form. So once again, I urge everyone, including those who disagree or are neutral, to revisit the parts and parcels of my argument and see if it can help you understand our differences. You may have your own logic and so far I’ve tried my best to identify the exact points that we disagree on (such as principles, pros and cons and even high-level assumptions). Through this effort I’m confident we can understand each other and find common ground.
Thank you for trying to compare the arguments. An important point is missing, so I’ll try to point it out better:
If two persons share their address, they both are willing to exchange their personal data, and of course it’s safer that they do this via private message. If I send my address to a stranger, I’m aware that I give it out of my hands, trusting this person and hoping that my address will be safe there. It’s an agreement of both parties to exchange their own personal data, and an unspoken agreement that they’ll both keep it safe.
I understood that what’s annoying you about the current situation is that the members whose postcards written backsides are shared in the translation topic don’t know about this and didn’t agree to it. That’s why you want to mention it in the terms and conditions.
But if the alternative to posting the picture in this topic should be sending it to a third member who can translate it, the sender of the card won’t know about this either and didn’t agree to this exposure of his data either!
You can’t demand that a member generally agrees to this kind of theoretically possible, but highly improbable exposure of his cards to unknown third parties in the terms and conditions, especially as the data would be completely out of reach of the responsible persons. I would never agree to this as a member.
In the topic, the picture will be visible for a lot more members, for a certain time. But the data will be deleted. If the rule for sharing the written side of a postcard demands that the ID and name & place of the sender must be blurred out in the picture, otherwise the entry will be deleted, the exposure risk is close to zero. Of course the content of the message will be visible, but not directly linkable to a person.
Via private message, the sender’s data will be shared with probably one third person. But the sender’s data could be exposed more because it’s only up to the member to create a “responsible” picture with blurred-out data. And the picture won’t be deleted in time by the moderators, again it’s up to the members. And the sender of the card didn’t agree to this!
So I’m sorry, but your translation idea via private message doesn’t seem feasible, because it also creates a violation of data protection. (And a bigger violation in my opinion, because the risks that sensible data is exposed permanently to a third party are higher. (If I was the responsible person for Postcrossing, I wouldn’t agree to your alternative for juridical reasons.)
As I wrote, if you’re annoyed that the written side of postcards is shared without the sender’s consent, you can’t suggest another version of “illegal” sharing.
For some it might be less dramatic to involve a third party via PM, for me it would be worse that my card is shared secretly, than stumbling over my card in the open, at the translation topic. The important thing is: This isn’t about feelings, but about the legal side.
If I follow through your argumentation, the only solution would be to close and delete the translation topic definitely, equally each topic which will be created for the same purpose. That’s what your case boils down to. And I’ve understood that you’re not concerned about where people will search help elsewhere, outside Postcrossing.
There were suggestions to make the translation topic safer, like showing it only to members and moderating it more closely, deleting pictures showing the ID, the place and name of the sender, and deleting the entries in due time. That would be the reasonable, sensible thing to do.
I think that the responsible persons are aware of the problem, but chose to tolerate it via juridical discretion and the translation topic, because the need for help is there, and will occur again. And I guess that the Postcrossing team tries to deal with it in their responsibility. Which I find reasonable and legally passable.
And a side comment @varn : I really don’t like the assumptions you’re making about my reasoning. You don’t know what I’m thinking. I don’t think this problem is trivial, I didn’t write this. So please don’t tell people what they’re thinking, but quote what they said and tell them what you’ve understood.
This is a wrong assumption too. Again, I didn’t write that. Now I feel forced to clarify…
Of course there can be personal data in the message! How can you imply I don’t know that?! It makes me angry to see my arguments twisted like that. Please stop it. 
But isn’t it still visible in the history?
Yes. You can’t delete a PM. You can only remove yourself from the conversation. So the other party would still have access to the content.
I thought it could be deleted because I remember a temporary address of mine more than one year ago @MarinaL. Now I cannot find it but my memory must’ve failed me (@paulo, it seems that it wouldn’t be hard to implement a delete feature in private messages?). So let’s see how this mistake of mine affect my proposal.
Let’s think about this counter-argument.
Similarly, let’s say the same thing with addresses.
However, we don’t post addresses in a public post where it can be deleted but instead exchange them in private messages. I do so because I think it is still safer in private messages even though they cannot be deleted. It is still better than to expose my address temporarily.
I propose a ban of public posting of postcard writings (without the sender’s consent). I’m not opposed to private sharing.
If I understand you correctly, your claim is that sensible data on postcard images face a higher risk in private messages (limited people forever) than in public posts (uncertain number of people for a limited time period). I disagree as I’ve mentioned above but of course it is open for discussion.
As I’ve edited in my OP, here’s my formulation of the argument for keeping the status quo. This helps me understand where exactly we disagree and hopefully to find some common ground. I feel the sticking point is the presumption for publicity.
Principles:
Pros:
Cons:
And am I sensing a potential consensus here? If private messages can be deleted, then you would support the proposed ban? @Cassisia @delenn_mir
No, I wouldn’t, because
you still have the problem of missing consent of the postcard’s sender whose data would be shared without their knowledge, and
it would be up to the members that the pictures get deleted, out of reach of the responsible people. I’m sorry, but here my trust in the Postcrossing team is higher.
Wasn’t the issue of missing consent what started this whole process?
I’m really confused that this doesn’t seem to bother you concerning the secret exposure via private message.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean the proposed ban cannot be considered. You may be pushing for a ban on permanent storage of personal data. Here I am proposing a ban of public posting of postcard images. These two do not necessarily contradict each other.
These technical details can be ironed out. There is a report feature in private messages. If you notice a postcard image is not deleted in time, you can alert the admin. If you insist the two parties may both be irresponsible, then posting it publicly will probably invite more irresponsible third parties.
I am still sensing a potential consensus here. If private messages can be deleted, then you would support the proposed ban? @Cassisia @delenn_mir @littlesthobo @MarinaL
Yes, they do. If you delete the translation topic, there isn’t a legally responsible alternative for the users as Postcrossing cannot suggest the private message alternative, because it also contains a violation of data protection, as I’ve pointed out already.
The missing consent of the sender isn’t a technical detail which could be ironed out! Again you’re ignoring my point completely, so I’ll ask again:
You don’t need to ask again if I support your suggestion; I don’t.
P. S.:
No, I’m not. Where did I write that? I wrote that your case and argumentation imply a complete ban of translation help.
No, I would not support the ban because IMO it will push people to seek help in other places, thus generating more exposure of postcard backsides without any control of the Postcrossing team. That has been my first and foremost concern.
People will seek the route of the least resistance so if they cannot simply post a picture with a few written sentences here and are instead forced to use private messages in a more convoluted way, they will make use of other channels/social media. I do not want that. I prefer some measure of control, even if tiny, than no control.
It’s like you have people do road races on public roads (posting on social media - bad things can happen to many people), racing on racing circuits (posting publicly on the forum - bad things can still happen but with much less probability and to a smaller number of people, and there is some control) and racing in secret in unknown places (posting in private messages - no idea what is happening, bad things can happen to an unknown number of people, no control).
I choose the road of the lesser evil here and I think the translation topic is that road.
Also, discussing if private messages can be deleted or not has no point because if I recall correctly it’s the forum’s software’s internal feature and cannot be changed unless the whole software is changed by Discourse. I doubt it will ever happen. If I am wrong, please correct me.
Seems that you are against permanent storage of personal data including addresses, images, etc. Do you have any suggestions how Postcrossing might improve this?
Yes, I raised the issue for the case of public posting. In the case of private sharing, I don’t think it is needed.
I’M NOT! STOP IMPLYING THINGS I DIDN’T WRITE!!
Thank you for clarifying! @delenn_mir
Actually I still feel I can simply insert the term “addresses” in your reasoning above and it is roughly the same as below. If you’re worried that your swap partner is not trustworthy and the inability to delete a private message is security concern, then it seems that it’d be safer to exchange addresses in a public post.
Thank you for clarifying. Then it means you are okay with the permanent storage of personal data in Postcrossing’s private messages.
I am not worried about the trustworthiness of my (theoretical) swap partner and never said that. Please do not make such assumptions.
I’m OK with it IF the data is shared CONSENSUALLY.