Aretechnica claims their values haven’t changed so let them put their money where their mouth is and allow us to delete our accounts.
ArsTechnica claims privacy rights are importante but we can’t delete our accounts.
- Thread starter Ars Owned by Oligarchs
- Start date
You can delete your account. You can also anonymise your posting history. You cannot delete old posts, which I think is completely within reason.
Here 16 years with fewer than 150 posts. Just request to have your account deleted.
Except they don’t. actually delete your account. That’s the point. For a website that claims to care about consumer rights and privacy they are one of the very few websites to not allow deletion of your own account and data. I wonder if it’s a technical limitation or a decision to just not care?
They delete what little information they have on you, namely your email and IP address. In addition, they remove any connection between your account and the posts you made. How is that not an account deletion? I've been on forums since the early 2000s and I can't remember a single one of them would delete your entire posting history when you deleted your account.
I picture Aurich approving this name change request while munching popcorn.
This sucks. I have to get on the clock, and here's a thread I'd follow in real time.
They're pissed off and got kicked out of the Help and Feedback threads. So yay, they're here to shit everything up.
Thank-you to the person who brought this thread to my attention; I have raised it for discussion in the Sooper Sekrit #mods channel on Discord.
In the meantime, while we wait for a mod consensus to be reached on what, if anything, needs to be done:
In the meantime, while we wait for a mod consensus to be reached on what, if anything, needs to be done:
Moonsharks watching intently:
It is a pony thread. Ponies are only allowed in limited, approved circumstances. (You have to be after page 10 on the front page, and you have to be in an approved thread in the Lounge, or it has to be topical post in a 
in the Soap Box.) Post ponies anywhere else and you are not guaranteed a friendly reception from mods, at all.
in the Soap Box.) Post ponies anywhere else and you are not guaranteed a friendly reception from mods, at all.
Got it in one.
I have a how to video for this situation.
View: https://youtu.be/8lB8FakhbDs?feature=shared
I am so intrigued by all the pony posts on this forum. Is there an overwhelmingly big crossover between tech nerds and pony aficionados, to the point that everyone kind of take it for granted on here? I've seen the perpetual 1400+ thread(s?) and it's fabulous.
Perhaps there's an old thread somewhere digging into what should perhaps be a case study on internet culture? Either way, I'm all for it, haha.
Perhaps there's an old thread somewhere digging into what should perhaps be a case study on internet culture? Either way, I'm all for it, haha.
The ponies used to be real big on the Interwebs about a dozen years ago. We kinda started posting pony memes in response to trollish posts.
Ponying the trolls? I like it.
Although, that B-52 Pony is the stuff of nightmares. I'm suddenly afraid of the dark again. I need an adult.
Although, that B-52 Pony is the stuff of nightmares. I'm suddenly afraid of the dark again. I need an adult.
If anyone is in the Seattle area.. today (Aug 25, 2024) is the last day for a Little Pony convention called "Ever Free NW"
https://everfreenw.com/
(their website kind of feels odd though.. but it might be because I've got sooo many tabs open)
(also I just learned about this convention just a few minutes ago because my friends just shared pictures of their cosplays they were in at the convention yesterday)
= topic wise = I get the not deleting ones posts in established threads.. but also how things change...for example what if say in the near future Conde Nast sold ArsTechnica to Musk. How would we all be feeling then? (probably the same / with adjustments in our profiles)
https://everfreenw.com/
(their website kind of feels odd though.. but it might be because I've got sooo many tabs open)
(also I just learned about this convention just a few minutes ago because my friends just shared pictures of their cosplays they were in at the convention yesterday)
= topic wise = I get the not deleting ones posts in established threads.. but also how things change...for example what if say in the near future Conde Nast sold ArsTechnica to Musk. How would we all be feeling then? (probably the same / with adjustments in our profiles)
We all agreed to the rules when we signed up. No deleting has been there forever.
From a practical standpoint it doesn't remove the posts from the internet (archive.org, etc...) it just messes up the community. Which means the only point of deletion is community vandalism on the way out the door. That ain't ok in my book for any provocation.
Apparently Germany just had a con about a month ago. With an animated introduction and everything.
I am failing to see what has fundamentally changed.
Someone suggested that CN was being paid for their work. But that's always been the case. Ad dollars... and subscriptions. You pay for the privilege of posting here. I don't see what has changed.
But there is no such thing as privacy on the internet. Never has been. You choose to write things down, to record things, to create images and then post them to the internet. Whether it's a text, a dm on social media, a web site with private member areas as well as public areas, or forums or newsgroups or BBS's, once it's out there, it is out of your control. You make a choice when you post online. What you post becomes available for public consumption and capture. Doesn't matter if it was meant for one person or ten or everyone. It's out there. That has been true from the earliest days of the internet, even before that with any document you wrote and put your name to.
I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to tell people that the internet is not private. Doesn't matter what tools you try to put in place. You made a choice to write it down and hit send/post/upload.
Fundamentally nothing has changed with this deal. I don't like the deal. I think that company lacks an ethical standard. But what are you going to do? Disassociate yourself from the world entirely? Nothing has really changed.
I do not think it is fair to rail against the folks at Ars who have been blindsided and are trying to figure out how to approach this issue. Tech site or not, this came out of the blue and they need to figure out what they can do, if anything.
Someone suggested that CN was being paid for their work. But that's always been the case. Ad dollars... and subscriptions. You pay for the privilege of posting here. I don't see what has changed.
But there is no such thing as privacy on the internet. Never has been. You choose to write things down, to record things, to create images and then post them to the internet. Whether it's a text, a dm on social media, a web site with private member areas as well as public areas, or forums or newsgroups or BBS's, once it's out there, it is out of your control. You make a choice when you post online. What you post becomes available for public consumption and capture. Doesn't matter if it was meant for one person or ten or everyone. It's out there. That has been true from the earliest days of the internet, even before that with any document you wrote and put your name to.
I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to tell people that the internet is not private. Doesn't matter what tools you try to put in place. You made a choice to write it down and hit send/post/upload.
Fundamentally nothing has changed with this deal. I don't like the deal. I think that company lacks an ethical standard. But what are you going to do? Disassociate yourself from the world entirely? Nothing has really changed.
I do not think it is fair to rail against the folks at Ars who have been blindsided and are trying to figure out how to approach this issue. Tech site or not, this came out of the blue and they need to figure out what they can do, if anything.
It would be interesting to know how effective "account deletion" is with modern deanonymization tools being used on forum posts. Are all forum users just a little bit of software away from full doxing, and it is it any different for people whose name has been changed to deleted_member_#?????.
I kind of assume that if anybody really wants to know more about that person that posted this, how much trouble it would be to get enough PII to fool a bank, or the government.
I kind of assume that if anybody really wants to know more about that person that posted this, how much trouble it would be to get enough PII to fool a bank, or the government.
This is about where I am. It sucks. But it sucks for everyone except OpenAI and Conde Nast proper. Everyone below that level here is trying to figure out "what now?"
Think of it this way: some Web3 company has been scraping Ars and turning quotes of all your activity here into NFTs and selling them on the blockchain.
It was paused while Ars' parent company asserted that the Web3 company didn't have the rights to monetize our activities.
Now enough money has changed hands between the Web3 hucksters and Ars' parent company that they said "Okay, scrape away!"
It's a scummy company doing scummy things and they've been given the okay by the larger corp. that asserts non-exclusive rights to what we've posted and done here in our community.
What has fundamentally changed is that it used to be: "we're running a forum on a best efforts basis, but some unscrupulous, skeevy fucks might be ripping off your data for their own profit"; whereas now it is "we decided to get in bed with the unscrupulous, skeevy fucks and take their tainted money, thanks for all the free content".
...and now they are double dipping by monetising the content that you paid for the privilege of posting.
See above.
Yep, that's mostly it, right there.
Yea, you could argue that Ars staff should be given a bit more time given that this seems to have come out of left field for them too and, who knows, they might be able to fix this mess. However, no one is obliged to give them that time and, ultimately it falls on their heads as they are the ones who keep saying "our forum, our rules", even though this is patently not true any more. They are also the ones who decided to get in bed with Condé Nast in the first place. How did they expect that to play out long-term?
One more observation: this is only the beginning, the deal will be altered further and that's what I find so off-putting.
It is a pony thread. Ponies are only allowed in limited, approved circumstances. (You have to be after page 10 on the front page, and you have to be in an approved thread in the Lounge, or it has to be topical post in a
Aye aye, Captain!
I'm irked that I missed my 25,000 post. I'd've done something special, like a fan dance, or started a cult or something.
Fundamentally this is 100% true. I think people can have feelings about this deal, but the accusations of "double dipping" or "getting paid off our content" feel pretty silly. This is, and has always been, a for-profit business.
I mean, that's what this ad is doing right now:
Generating whatever fraction of a cent off of people's content. It is, in fact, more money right there in that single ad than anything we see from Open AI. But that doesn't seem to bother people.
So I think honestly we should just stick to the "it feels icky" part, and not the "omg they're making money off our posts" part. Because the latter isn't actually even true in regards to this deal, but has been true since this forum was first founded.
We just remove the ads for all y'all, random folk still see them.
Care to point out where, exactly? Because I've just reread them all, and couldn't find it.
Is the closest I see (bolding mine). Specifically saying one may not delete in order to evade moderation seems to imply other reasons for deleting or editing are acceptable.
Request to have your account deleted, stop frequenting this website, and move on with your life. The options being offered are fair. Each of us knows this is a public forum, and we post knowing that our content is freely available on the open internet. The policy that individual posts cannot be deleted has also not changed.
I wonder how the writers feel. It's more their oxes being slaughtered and sold to make dog food than ours.
My major issue with this AI deal is that CN gets all the money from the deal and the Ars team sees nothing. Parent company made a major deal to allow all content to be scraped, and yet the Ars writers get to see their hard work fed into the grist of the AI mill without any additional compensation.
Having my posts get tossed into the mill as well just annoyed me. I will gladly keep supporting Ars, but I fear CN will just continue to milk this until they cut Ars loose when the value disappears.
Having my posts get tossed into the mill as well just annoyed me. I will gladly keep supporting Ars, but I fear CN will just continue to milk this until they cut Ars loose when the value disappears.
IMO, there are two issues here.
The first one, I've been aware of for some time now. The posts here are eternal and there is no deleting them even if one's account is deactivated. As long as the deactivated user name ends up being a random "deleted user #######" then that's a good enough solution. This makes the whole Ars forums a very good social experiment.
The second one, is the whole AI enshitification with all the "training" and "learning." Given the events of the last few years, this was inevitable unfortunately, and shouldn't have come to a surprise. This is because CN is holding all the cards here and the Ars team just has to go along and get the blame for it. I do hope that civis is allowed to not be AI fodder. Even so, there is no guarantee that some other AI company isn't going to come for it, if they haven't already done so (more likely).
Anyhow, there's probably worse influence for AI than the lounge.
The first one, I've been aware of for some time now. The posts here are eternal and there is no deleting them even if one's account is deactivated. As long as the deactivated user name ends up being a random "deleted user #######" then that's a good enough solution. This makes the whole Ars forums a very good social experiment.
The second one, is the whole AI enshitification with all the "training" and "learning." Given the events of the last few years, this was inevitable unfortunately, and shouldn't have come to a surprise. This is because CN is holding all the cards here and the Ars team just has to go along and get the blame for it. I do hope that civis is allowed to not be AI fodder. Even so, there is no guarantee that some other AI company isn't going to come for it, if they haven't already done so (more likely).
Anyhow, there's probably worse influence for AI than the lounge.
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