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 thereâs official respond to the thread
Great idea.
Iâm still confused about the reasons youâve 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 donât, Iâll try and see where our arguments part ways.
According to this comment.
- Addresses contain a lot more personal data and require a safer way to exchange.
- Private messages are safer than public moderated posts.
- Therefore, private messages are preferred.
In case you feel I intentionally left out this point. In private messages, if youâre the one who sends the postcard image, you can delete it yourself. If youâre the translator, you can remind the other person if he hasnât done so. As youâve said multiple times, we Postcrossers are a community. A certain level of trust is assumed here.
Therefore, I donât see justification in your point above why such private exchanges must be published just for the sake of seeing it get deleted. Thatâs also why I brought up the issue of addresses.
- If you think addresses should be deleted regularly but are upset we canât, then following your position, itâs be better to publish our addresses in a public thread and let admin moderate.
- But you said we should not publish our addresses.
- Thatâs the contradiction in your argument.
Put in another way,
- If you think itâs safe and okay for our addresses to be stored permanently in private messages here, then it follows that itâs also safe and okay to store postcard images in private messages.
- You donât think itâs safe and okay to store postcard images in private messages.
- Therefore, you donât think itâs safe and okay for addresses. Again, contradiction.
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.
- If a postcard contains no personal information, it is better for it to be posted in a public moderated thread.
So what if a postcard does contain personal information? I sense you assume:
- Nothing else on a postcard except the address and name is personal information.
Referring back to my OP, I gather that you support
- Presumption of publicity
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 itâs impossible for a postcard message to contain any information that requires the same level of treatment as addresses.
- Presumption of publicity is the opposite of presumption of privacy. The community guidelines treat postcards as private. So I think itâs reasonable to request such a switch in fundamental position to be mentioned. This leads to âAlternative 1 Revise guidelinesâ.
- Youâre for âAlternative 2 Keep status quoâ and think this switch from presumption of privacy to presumption of publicity is trivial, or borrowing your words, lies in the juridical gray zone, so no need to mention.
- Iâm for a blanket ban because I think the presumption of privacy is fundamental to the concept of Postcrossing. Iâm fully aware of the risk of postcards being unknowingly published, but it is the integrity of the Postcrossing concept that I want see honored to the utmost. I guess that may be the reason why the forum is an option. It may be a technical constraint that the main site and the forum cannot be seamlessly integrated. But opt-in forum membership is obviously is a choice made by Postcrossing team. So would also love to hear @adminsâs official stance on this.
Again, we donât need to agree with each other. As Iâve emphatically repeated myself many times, the presumption of privacy is fundamental and is what makes Postcrossing special. In my opinion, it is Postcrossingâs 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. Thatâs why Iâm building a case here.
I sincere believe this was only a benign oversight on Postcrossingâs part. If it were more thoroughly thought through, the translation thread wouldnât 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 Iâve 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 Iâm confident we can understand each other and find common ground.
Thank you for trying to compare the arguments. An important point is missing, so Iâll try to point it out better:
If two persons share their address, they both are willing to exchange their personal data, and of course itâs safer that they do this via private message. If I send my address to a stranger, Iâm aware that I give it out of my hands, trusting this person and hoping that my address will be safe there. Itâs an agreement of both parties to exchange their own personal data, and an unspoken agreement that theyâll both keep it safe.
I understood that whatâs annoying you about the current situation is that the members whose postcards written backsides are shared in the translation topic donât know about this and didnât agree to it. Thatâs 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 wonât know about this either and didnât agree to this exposure of his data either!
You canât 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.
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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.
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Via private message, the senderâs data will be shared with probably one third person. But the senderâs data could be exposed more because itâs only up to the member to create a âresponsibleâ picture with blurred-out data. And the picture wonât be deleted in time by the moderators, again itâs up to the members. And the sender of the card didnât agree to this!
So Iâm sorry, but your translation idea via private message doesnât 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 wouldnât agree to your alternative for juridical reasons.)
As I wrote, if youâre annoyed that the written side of postcards is shared without the senderâs consent, you canât suggest another version of âillegalâ 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 isnât 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. Thatâs what your case boils down to. And Iâve understood that youâre 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 donât like the assumptions youâre making about my reasoning. You donât know what Iâm thinking. I donât think this problem is trivial, I didnât write this. So please donât tell people what theyâre thinking, but quote what they said and tell them what youâve understood.
This is a wrong assumption too. Again, I didnât write that. Now I feel forced to clarifyâŚ
Of course there can be personal data in the message! How can you imply I donât know that?! It makes me angry to see my arguments twisted like that. Please stop it.
But isnât it still visible in the history?
Yes. You canât 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 mustâve failed me (@paulo, it seems that it wouldnât be hard to implement a delete feature in private messages?). So letâs see how this mistake of mine affect my proposal.
Letâs think about this counter-argument.
- Private messages cannot be deleted while public posts can.
- It is safer for a post to be able to deleted than stored permanently in private messages.
- Postcard images need safe treatment. Therefore, it is safer to be posted in a public post.
Similarly, letâs say the same thing with addresses.
- Private messages cannot be deleted while public posts can.
- It is safer for a post to be able to deleted than stored permanently in private messages.
- Postcard images need safe treatment. Therefore, it is safer to be posted in a public post.
However, we donât 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 senderâs consent). Iâm 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 Iâve mentioned above but of course it is open for discussion.
As Iâve edited in my OP, hereâs 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.
Keep status quo
Principles:
- Recipients to be prioritized over senders
- Presumption of publicity
- Exceptions (at least some insignificant ones) to be kept implicit
Pros:
- Easy to get a translation/transcription
- Decrease questionable posts outside of Postcrossing
- Safer to publish postcard images temporarily in a public thread than to store them permanently in private messages
Cons:
- None
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 wouldnât, because
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you still have the problem of missing consent of the postcardâs sender whose data would be shared without their knowledge, and
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it would be up to the members that the pictures get deleted, out of reach of the responsible people. Iâm sorry, but here my trust in the Postcrossing team is higher.
Wasnât the issue of missing consent what started this whole process?
Iâm really confused that this doesnât seem to bother you concerning the secret exposure via private message.
Yes, but that doesnât 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 isnât 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 Iâve pointed out already.
The missing consent of the sender isnât a technical detail which could be ironed out! Again youâre ignoring my point completely, so Iâll ask again:
You donât need to ask again if I support your suggestion; I donât.
P. S.:
No, Iâm 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.
Itâs 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 itâs the forumâs softwareâs 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 donât think it is needed.
IâM NOT! STOP IMPLYING THINGS I DIDNâT WRITE!!
Thank you for clarifying! @delenn_mir
Actually I still feel I can simply insert the term âaddressesâ in your reasoning above and it is roughly the same as below. If youâre worried that your swap partner is not trustworthy and the inability to delete a private message is security concern, then it seems that itâd 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 Postcrossingâs private messages.
I am not worried about the trustworthiness of my (theoretical) swap partner and never said that. Please do not make such assumptions.
Iâm OK with it IF the data is shared CONSENSUALLY.
Since youâve said this, then I would assume you are not worried about the person with whom youâre sharing a postcard image in a private message either?
I totally agree with consensual data sharing! As youâve said this, why can we share postcard image before proper screening and without consent? This question is intended to guide you from âAlternative 2 Keep status quoâ to âAlternative 1 Revise guidelinesâ. Well, and you know Iâm still for the ban.