Having more people possessing editing ability just expands administration responsibility to more people.

The only people who have this editing ability are regular participants. When website content is revised the person's name making the revision is recorded in admin records.

Well, despite these suggestions and qualifications, I still think it's the wrong idea in principle. The natural, world-embracing karma of the people here is what this site is all about. Introducing the possibility to alter or obscure that karma artificially just seems wrong to me. I think we should each approach the website in the way we approach real-time relationships, which leave a permanent and irrevocable trace in the akashic record. There's no way to edit the akashic record so far as I know. When we take actions in the real world, they are for real. It should be the same here, only enhanced by a superb memory and retrieval system.

These questions aside, what is the benefit of this new editing power supposed to be? It's supposed to make us each "more responsible" for the administration of this site? How exactly is that supposed to work?

There are about 9 people who contribute semi-regular basis.  I don't feel comfortable with this.  Lori, I understand what you are saying and I'm  not thinking of specific situations in which Sebastian decides to go into my old posts and make slight adjustments.  I've recently been exposed to some bizzarre internet behavior; a friend had to call the police in New York because of a creep (a very smart and social one) who was trying to toy with her.  She had never had this sort of thing happen and could not have predicated the way it would unfold. 

I'm not understanding why my posts should be open to other people.  For some reason I consider it very different for the site manager to pick a few other people who can go in an clean up situations when  necessary, but all of a sudden I found out that everybody here can do this. I also found out that Tom will give this capacity to groups of people without consulting me. I'm not happy about how I was made aware of this. 

We have people here who believe powerful demonic forces are trying to destroy a Christian Earth.  Some will believe that language is a route that certain demons will use to destroy humanity. Some of these will think that certain posts are the embodiment of evil forces.  If I am about to get hit by a bus, I want Carl to act on his moral intuition to push me over.  I don't want anybody who believes that I (or anybody else) have posted things that simply should never have been uttered to have the power to go into my post.   That person definately should erase my posts if they think devils live inside them and they have the opportunity to save Earth a little bit.  But I don't want that. 

I have no idea what criteria Tom used to make his decison; it wasn't discussed. That feels creepy to me.  I don't understand Carl.  I like him on the level of casual conversation and I don't think he's possossed. But I've also read what he's written and I could not blame him for saving Earth a little bit through this website.  Hey, when the bus is about to hit somebody you just jump!!!

I have no reason to think Carl would act irresponsibly. In fact, I warms me to see that he was taken back by how this managorial decison came about.  I only mention him because he is somebody who has been honest enough to state how he sees the future of earth connected to language (he's shared the stakes) and he's been honest enough to express that certain of my posts should not have been written. 

People flow onto this site.  Some will come for days, some for weeks or longer.  It worries me that somebody who comes for a certain amount of time could be quietly granted (if they were active enough and respectful enough for enough time)the capacity to get into my posts. 

I have a job where people get very interested in who I am. Some of these people are not stable.  I try to not give too much away about myself, but lately I've shared probably too much; I should take out my daughter's real name and not mention my town.  But there are ways that I am now exposed that I simply wasn't before.  Obviously if somebody changes a post I JUST made, I'll notice and I'll take the time to go back and fix it and ask Tom to do something (is it still ok to consider you the "go to guy", Tom?)....But if I get the kind of guy that was bugging my friend recently, he'll go back to old posts and make relatively subtle changes that he will then put on other websites with my name on them. I might never find out or I might find out a long time from now.  

I don't want to over react but I also don't want my reaction to this to be based on mental pictures of how much I trust Lori and Sebastian. I think what I am needing right now is clear policy information. I need to know the actual criteria that will determiine who gets this power.  I need to know the actual procedure of how (or IF) the community gets informed when somebody else is granted this.  I need to know why it wouldn't be just that a few people have this capacity and can be contacted by others if they feel the need to go into posts....If we had 200 people on here writing each day I could imagine needing 12 responsible people acting as site managers.  I imagine it would be fine for somebody on this site to say, "I don't want my posts to be editable" and they would be respected or at least given policy reasons why that can't be a choice.

Like I said, my worry is coming from what I don't know as much as what I know at this point.  It will help to hear clear policy around this. 

thanks,

jeff

p.s. Carl, I don't have reason to think you are interested in editing people's posts.  I'm happy you are concerned about this.  I also wouldn't be surprised if you could creatively justify changing a post via some Platonic Ideal.  That stuff you wrote about Plato and how a state should be run really freaked me out. I had to decide that you were joking, but I actually don't think you were.  It's all too confusing for me to feel comfortable being exposed to strangers and future strangers.