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I believe that my ideas and thoughts that I put down should stay under my management. I also think I should have the right to comment wherever I want (which is usually wherever the best best discussion is).
But at the same time, I accept that once my comments have been made,
to some extent they are out of my control.
They should be able to delete or retain it, and most importantly take it with them. I may be a little late coming into this discussion, but I've been following it for a bit.
We may put out a blog post on our stance regarding this matter.
things about Disqus -- that it lets you effectively aggregate (if not
actually control) your comments regardless of where they are. Any
chance you're working on something along those lines with FriendFeed?
I wanted to install the FriendFeed comment plugin for my blog, but it
doesn't play nice with Disqus.
What's the problem with installing the FF plugin w/ Disqus?
FriendFeed plugin next to the Disqus comments (and by "it" I mean my
blog's theme) but I may have screwed it up somehow. I'm planning to
try again.
it disappeared when I upgraded the FF comment plugin.
I do think the blogger should be able to delete unwanted comments, and if wants to delete the post and take the comments with him, that's fine too. I wouldn't expect a blogger to give me my WordPress or Blogger comments back. That's why I like Disqus, because to an extent, it gives me more control over my comments (I know that Disqus firmly states the comments belong to the blogger).
But if my comments are on a third-party site, that's a whole other ball game.
seemed to me that Robert's initial outrage at the deletion of the
comments, and the way he expressed that, made it clear that to some
extent he felt that he owned them.
So *I* did NOT delete any comments. I removed my feed(s) from the FF service. What they did about the "orphaned comments" at that point was not a decision I could a) control, or was b) made aware of.
Also - my blog has specifically stated my comment policy (http://lagesse.org/tou/) for a couple of years. Perhaps FF should do the same.
comments from FriendFeed founder Paul Buchheit, and from the sounds of
it they are looking at different ways of handling comments when
someone deletes their account.
On the flip side, just because you own it, doesn't mean you have control of it (unless you posted it on a Disqus-enabled blog). This means that, at any time, the owner of the site that you posted on can delete it or move it. You handed it to them.
This is the same as if you write something in any public place. The owner of that place has the write to remove your work. It may seem uncool, but it's a possibility you should expect.
This whole thing seems like a simple misunderstanding, though.
* Scoble just wants his words to be seen since he bothered to type them.
* La Gesse just wants the comments to stay on his blog and chose the best thing he knew to avoid just a problem in the future.
* FriendFeed made no provisions to try and display data that no longer has a user associated with it, which seems to be a very valid design choice given how new it is.
Here's the really annoying part. Am I supposed to leave a comment here, friendfeed, twitter, all of them.
I like to make time for social media - but I prefer it when new tools make it seamless, not add to my list of things to do.
everywhere. That's why it's handy to have integration like
FriendFreed with Twitter and Disqus with FriendFeed and both
integrated with Wordpress, etc.
I really do think that we are at a point where a lot of this stuff will end up being defined. When Louis Gray asked if I could delete comments, I didn't answer, because it's a loaded question. I don't own the one blog people associate me with. And no, most of our authors cannot delete comments. As an editor, I have rights to delete spam, but because it is not my blog, I neither delete nor edit anyone's comments other than my own. I simply mark anything as spam that is obvious, and anything questionable I leave there.
With WordPress, if users register, then they have the right to edit their own comments. If they don't, then the only one with control is a blog admin, but there is still no established owner. I think that the entire world of creatives is at a tipping point, but we have no idea where it will tip.
There is a concept of "fair use" being touted that has nothing whatsoever to do with actual fair use. I attempted to explain fair use to someone who had lifted an entire article to publish on their blog (because it was "interesting") and was instead vilified in the comments as mean, and nasty, and told that the author of the original content was "lucky" that someone had reposted it on their blog. Lucky!
The problem with the fractured conversation is the web's current reliance on ad revenue and pageviews as a measure of success. As long as people's income is reliant on ads, this conversation will continue to take place. Scoble has a corporate sponsor. Louis Gray blogs for fun. The rest of us are at the mercy of the market, and come at it from a much different angle.
as fair use is concerned, Cyndy -- and you're quite right that the
advertising model is part of the problem. The only reason I might be
concerned about someone taking my content is that they could use it to
generate advertising revenue and thereby deprive me of the same (and
some people, like Mike Masnick at Techdirt, don't worry about it even
in that case). I still think -- or maybe hope -- that we are coming
to a time when intellectual "property" means a lot less than it used
to. Ideas aren't something that can be owned, IMO.
delusional to say that ideas can be owned. They can't -- and the
screwed-up nature of the U.S. Patent Office when it comes to
conceptual patents is just one example of why.
The specific implementation of an idea can and should be ownable, and
that covers pharmaceuticals and all sorts of other inventions. And
I'm not saying copyright shouldn't exist; I just think there needs to
be a balance between the right of the content creator and the right of
everyone else to make fair use of that content in some way.
All the Web does is force us to confront those kinds of issues a lot
more directly than we have in the past.
He's changed service providers for his blog or his blog comments a couple of times over the years and made *no* effort to bring the old comments over during each transition, effectively throwing the comments away.
http://tinyurl.com/6qhso7