Previous Threads

[Tucker]

A little while ago (  maybe a month or so) there was a thread about the future direction of animal rights and the next step forward.  I can't remember the title of the thread but it seems to have been deleted or maybe I just can't find it.  Can anyone let me know where it's gone or give me a link as I wanted to add to it.  Thanks.

[Tim Gier]

Hi Tucker, when a member leaves ARZone he can choose to remove most of the content he's produced on the site.  Unfortunately, a prominent and long-time member of the site chose to leave ARZone and he removed his content when he did.  It's a shame that much valuable information for and a great number of vital conversations between advocates for other animals was taken away from ARZone's members.  It appears as though the needs of these advocates weren't really considered.  

We are trying to determine whether there's a technical solution to this - the hosting service may be able to restore some of this content - but short of that, the more than 2600 members of ARZone are going to have to start over, in some respects, to build the site again, in the service of each other and of other animals.

[Tucker]

Hi Tim

Thanks for responding.  I think that's a very odd way of managing a forum as potentially a number of people could leave, have their posts removed and then the whole forum could in effect be sabotaged.  I've been on other forums in the past and have left but my posts remain as they are not my  property, intellectual or otherwise.  Surely if one decides to post on a forum those posts remain the property of the said forum. I don't mean to cause offense to any administrator of the site but potentially this practise could be very problematic to the forum.

Going back to the thread in question, as I remember you and I were the most prominent contributers to that thread and seeing as we are both still members shouldn't our contributions remain?

 

 

 

[Kath Worsfold]

If the thread was started by Roger Yates, it will have disappeared, along with all the other threads he started, and all the other replies he made on other peoples' posts.

When a person who has contributed substantially to discussions and initiated discussions, purposely deletes their profile in a Ning website, ALL their posts disappear. I actually feel quite devastated by this turn of events. The threads on all of ARZone will all be full of holes, becoming very hard to decipher. Imagine trying to understand a phone conversation when you can only hear one side of it. That's the equivalent of what has happened when Roger left. I wish he had thought about the consequences before removing his profile. He could have just gone away from the site and not logged on anymore, and we would still have had the benefit of all his insights and knowledge.

Carolyn, I find this an extremely SERIOUS fault in the place where the founders of ARZone have chosen to host this excellent and useful forum. Is there any way that you can change the defaults on the setup of the site, so that peoples' messages are not removed when they leave the forum? If not, and if I was running this forum, I would be moving it.

[Kath Worsfold]

I agree with you, Tucker. When we make a post, we have 15 minutes in which to edit it or delete it. After that time, I believe it should stay and not be able to be deleted. Almost all of the forum sites I know of are set up this way. I've only ever seen this destruction happen on Ning sites, and I have seen it several times on Nings.

[Tim Gier]

We have talked about moving ARZone, but haven't found any solutions yet that aren't without their own set of problems.  Of course, that was before this happened; none of us anticipated that one of the admins would do something so obviously damaging to the site and so obviously disrespectful of its members (not to mention how counterproductive it is with respect to do the real purpose of the site: working to achieve meaningful change in the lives of other animals).

[Carolyn Bailey]

Hi Kath, 

This has taken us all by surprise. It's a very disappointing situation we've found ourselves in, and, as Tim mentioned, one we had never anticipated. We've been working hard to recover as much of the deleted content as possible, and will definitely be speaking with Ning to ask for their help in recovering as much as we can over the next few days. 

I agree with both you and Tucker, and I apologise that this has happened. It's unacceptable to us to lose so much important content as well, and, as Tim also mentioned a great disrespect to our members and the site in general.