Dovster

You can expunge any of your posts right now -- as long as they are not in a thread which was locked.

bdjohns1

Yep, because OMNI is all about honesty and accountability.

Come to it, OMNI is about !

Here's a point to consider. Reputable social networking sites (like Facebook) allow you to completely delete yourself from their service. Not only are you deleted from public view but (so they say) also completely wiped from their servers. I haven't researched, but I'd assume LinkedIn is similar.

As I noted in my post in ORP, sites like Facebook put you in control of what information you choose to make public or private. We don't even have that here. It's all or nothing, and Randy changed the rules in the middle of the game.

Honesty and accountability are a two way street, and Randy's made a unilateral decision that IMO is a material breach of trust with the community.

Lots of people made posts in OMNI thinking that they were not going to be publicly viewable (despite people (RP included) bringing up that OMNI used to be an open forum back in the day, it spent a long time closed, and until it re-opened a few months back, we had every indication Randy was going to stick to the 180/180 rule). Then we got a real kick in the teeth by him further opening OMNI up to Google. Again, as I mentioned over in ORP, people were more open in OMNI because it was a semi-private club. Maybe not quite the sanctity of a confessional, but people let their hair down a little when they're pretty sure the general public can't just wander by.

At the very least, members should be allowed a way to expunge OMNI posts from the roughly 5-year time frame when it was a semi-private forum. Further, there should be a simple way to do it, as opposed to manually expunging posts one-by-one.

Mary2e

FWIW - I have spent several hours searching and editing my posts with personal information in them. Not that it was that personal, but my body of posts when looked at together, could easily have painted a pretty good pic ture of my personal information.

I've also essentially stopped posting anywhere on FT. I'm waiting until Randy gives us the answer he promised back in Oct when he opened Omni to google searches.

Dovster

I have posted a lot of personal information about me -- including my full name and address -- not only on Omni but on some forums which were always open.

When there was something which I didn't care about the whole world knowing, I simply did not post it here or anywhere else. Hence, I would not be deleting any of my posts.

That said, I do think it is only right that if a member wants to delete any of his posts (or even his full body of posts) he should be allowed to do so.

LLM

deleted

Dovster

As I mentioned in the post before yours, I do think that any member should be allowed to have his full body of posts removed.

That said, I am intrigued by one thing: Why would you (or anyone else) post things on FlyerTalk that you wouldn't want the whole world to see? Even on a closed board, such as Omni was, you really don't know who the majority of posters are.

Someone posting under an anonymous user name can be anything from a latter day Mother Teresa to a new incarnation of Jack the Ripper.

studentff

There is a big difference between posting on a closed board like Omni was, vs. having your posts wide open not only to any reader but to google search.

A potential employer or client was unlikely to join FT, wait 180 days, and accumulate 180 posts, to see what someone posted to Omni. The same potential employer or client definitely might plug a name or some identifying information into google and see what comes up.

While FTers don't know most other FTers personally, if the potential employer or client was already a 180/180 member of FT, they are also part of the "club" and less likely to take posts out of context, so it's less likely to be an issue.

mikey1003

IMHO, that is a load of crap!

Nothing posted in the internet is private! I rarely post in OMNI, but who cares? I am sure that enough people reading FT can easily figure out who most of us are.

While I don't agree with Randy for opening OMNI...but for different reasons than some of the posters here expressed. I feel that OMNI is the cesspool of FT and gives FT a bad name. But, FT is Randy's sandbox and until IB changes their mind, he makes the rules and I respect that.

As I stated above, we all need accountability. If we post it we are responsible for it. So, I still think this proposal is a bad idea.

bdjohns1

Great, so you really have no vested interest in the decision since you don't play in the OMNI sandbox. I think everyone named mikey should have to post in Pig Latin.

And I don't agree that nothing posted on the internet is private. You probably wouldn't like it if your bank didn't follow its existing rules and decided to make your account info public one day, with no prior notice. Until this October, we were led to believe that the general public (and Google) wouldn't see our posts - Randy was very consistent that there was and would continue to be a post threshold for OMNI access. Randy betrayed that trust. Allowing posters to purge their OMNI history over that time period remedies that breach. Personal accountability has nothing to do with it, aside from Randy being held accountable to the userbase for his about-face.

Dovster

That's very true -- but at the same time a potential employer or client is also unlikely to know that you post under the name of "studentff", so a Google search wouldn't help him.

Cholula

Considering the current state of the economy, I'll save them the trouble:

Cholula's Bank Balance as of 12/11/08: $1.89

bdjohns1

Note to self: Help fellow FTer out by buying more hot sauce.

lin821

..and you don't have to make a special trip for it. I believe CVS now carries the special hot sauce. Just saw the sauce in my local CVS the other day.

lin821

I am not sure those who brought up the issue of accountability really get it.

What folks object is the "google-able" OMNI without informed "consent." Accountability is not at issue here.

ozstamps

I always wanted to be able double someone's wealth at a keystoke.

Now, what is my paypal password again? ;0

Heck, I'll even add a tip.

Glen
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