Group Deletion

Tim, Abby, et.al.

Something happened recently which I had no idea could happen. The event was that a group was started, attended to, and then deleted. Who knew?

But, as a consequence, I would like to suggest that when a group reaches a certain number of members, and/or posts, that one person not be allowed to close it down.

My thoughts are that it's not very democratic. The other members might want to continue on, and Good Heavens!!! think about the potential loss of resources in the way of book lists and what-not.

I don't know how others feel, but I had no idea that someone could arbitrarily fold-up the shop and go home and it makes me wonder if I shouldn't be making copies of information that I might want to reference in the future.

Is there an LT policy? Should there be?

I think this was a group I was a part of! I thought it had just fallen a bit silent or I'd missed posts after a few busy days... but now I see that it's no longer on my groups list, nor can I find it anywhere.

That is very sad. I was enjoying it immensely.

As of right now the group creator has the ability to delete any group they create. But I tend to agree, after a group hits a certain mass, deleting it should be more difficult, maybe pass the responsibility to another group member or something.

I wonder why a group's creator would choose to delete a group if there was interest in it.

I don't understand it but I've seen similar things happen before - like threads that get out of control and people try to delete them (or, on other sites, do delete them) instead of just letting everyone else talk. Maybe it's a control thing.

>5 bluesalamanders:
And in that there are group creators who are less skilled than others at managing the diminished control attendant group expansion, perhaps there ought to be a way to protect enthusiastic and contributing members from the arbitrary indiscretion of such individuals.

#4> Cal8769... they deleted the one group and started another private one.

I have no problem with wanting to be exclusive, that's cool, but in regards to the original group I think the better choice would have been to leave it alone to totter on to success or failure.

=============
edited for clarification and to correct a typu

oh, I wish I hadn't read this thread

Think of a big group going *poof* ... even by accident not intent

Once some threshold is reached, I think only LT staff should be able to delete a group -- which they should do with some amount of notice to members. There's a high respect for data on this site -- some of which is in the threads not just the libraries.

>8 detailmuse:
Yes, that's what it was like, and all those posts, book recommendations, relationships were eradicated without notice in an instant. It felt like a form of murder.

Fortunately some of the relationships could be reestablished, but this kind of violation should not be possible.

Just saw this.

The issue here was indeed very disturbing. Control of the discussion was the heart of it and the group was taken down and re-born private in order to lock out a handful of members whose opinions were apparently seen as heretical. I didn't know this could occur on LT and I found it chilling, especially because it seemed others might view the now excluded members as "troublemakers." Worse still, threads these members started were carried over to the new group but these members were blocked from participating in the discussion or accessing the book lists spawned by the thread.

Life goes on. LT is an outrageously cool community and there are tons of groups so we shouldn't dwell on it, I suppose, but I agree with Pam that perhaps there should be something guarding against this occurring again. If people are abusive or violating terms of service they should by rights be disciplined or excluded. But even in the worst case it does not seem right that whole groups of people could just get shut out of an active public group on a whim.

IMHO

Can someone PM me with the group name?

I also would like to know the groups name.

"History: the Writing of It and the Learning from it". It was a big group, most members were personally invited by the group's creator. Many made contributions but, as Garp83 reported, “control of the discussion was the heart of it”. Suddenly it disappeared, some members reported being kicked out just before that. After that there was a new round of invitations by the creator for a new group called “History: The Study of Historiography”. This group was made private.

In my opinion this group creator acted as if this (first) group, filled with thoughts and opinions of other people, was his personal property. The way he acted goes against civility, ethics and (also) the heart of the practice of history which was our subject in that group.

It is an ethical thing, but it is also a technical thing: apparently a “computer smart” guy can fool people like this.

Whoa, whoa. Lets step away from the pitchforks

To be perfectly honest the group was really new and maybe the "owner" realized that open conversation wasn't what was wanted. In my opinion, it doesn't imply anything negative socially to have a large library, but the point here is that maybe the ownership/deletion rule needs to be reconsidered.

14 ThePam

Nobody's going for the pitchforks, but I think it's wrong to say "open conversation wasn't what was wanted". Open conversation may not have been what the person who started the group wanted, but as we have clear evidence here, it was wanted by other members of the group.

Tim has been firm about not wanting any sort of "mod" thing going on, but the ability to delete an active group without consulting any of the members is way beyond most everyday mod functions.

I wonder whether it would still be possible for LT staff to restore the deleted group?

I was invited, but didn't join, because historiography isn't my thing. I do think that once a group gets to a certain size, it probably shouldn't be arbitrarily deleted.

If the originator didn't like how it was going, he was free to start another private group, and perhaps delete his posts in the original, but not wipe everything out from other people.

There has to be some responsibility required of those who create successful groups, because others join and post with the expectation that what they say and post is valued, and part of the community. Pass the group off to someone else in the group if it becomes something that you no longer want to be part of.

I do not think anyone should be able to delete a group except The Powers That Be.

15: I also joined for a short time after being invited, but then left because it was spawning too many threads (most of which didn't interest me) and making it hard to find anything in talk. I got invited to the private group but ignored it.

Is there any way to hand off ownership of a group you started to someone else, like on yahoo?

By asking Tim or someone to do it. There's no way to do it yourself, but they'll do it for you if they get permission of all parties involved.

I don't understand why the creator just didn't start a private group and just stop participating in the original group. Sounds kind of- it's my ball-kind of thing.

There are ways to transfer ownership of a group. The Name That Book group did it recently. Abby took care of it for us. Our creator was M.I.A. for a long time and didn't respond to PM's so a member volunteered to take over the group and Abby made it happen.

> 14

I wasn't aware there was an "ownership/deletion rule". How can you "own" things others write (and delete them....). Where can I find the "ownership/deletion" rule? - I looked already at FAQ.

If you create a group you are the owner and you can delete it. It makes sense on paper, and you probably want people that create ridiculous groups that get no participation to be able to change their minds and delete them, but in practice it probably shouldn't be allowed when it means deleting other people's words.

ETA: And Tim can probably restore the group as long as they haven't done garbage collection on the database recently. Has anyone tried to e-mall Tim directly?

Forgive me for being stupid, but is this a fact? How do you do this deleting as owner (technically)?
Can you also tell me were I can read these rules? Sofar the only thing I saw was an intriguing :

“12/11/06. Added "Participating in Talk and Groups". Removed "Intellectual Property and Reverse Engineering" clause”

(leftside "Privace Policy/Terms of use" page).

>25 marieke54: If you go to "edit this group", there's the option to delete. I've never seen any discussion of the rules, it's just an option that exists.

I just saw it Zoe: what you can do in a moment of anger or not thinking!, sometimes people should be protected against themselves. If I were Tim I would make electric fencing around it.
---------

Edit: I don’t think it a good idea that the initiator of a group, who is in no way the owner of that group, can delete it. I should want to ask Tim to take this possibility away from us, so that the initiator at least has to ask the moderator of LT.

I saw the possiblilty when Abby made me the 'owner' of 'Name this book'. I came very close to... no, no, not deleting the group, but to asking if everyone who had been so eager to have me take over realized that I now had that power, as well as the ability to change the things the group wanted changed.

It also seems to me that since I had to ask Abby to delete a couple of test libraries I had started, maybe asking to have a group deleted should also go through channels.

That's a good point. You have to get TPTB to remove an LT account, which affects only one person. A group that has a lot of posters affects a lot more than just one person, so the argument for needing intervention from on high for deletion is even stronger.

Except that the reason for having to get the mgmt to remove an account is just technical. It wasn't a policy that user's should not be able to do it.

I understand that, but my point still holds, I think.

Oh, ick.

I am not liking this thread.

The group creator(s) should be the ones deciding if the group lives or dies. Joining a group implies a risk: the owner may be a jerk.

I could never imagine clamairy or I shutting down The Green Dragon, but I also don't want that capability taken away from us; that would say to us that we aren't trusted, and it would erode the sense of 'ownership' of the group.

Imagine this real-world setting: Gee! Mr. Johnson lets us play baseball in his vacant lot! Wow! We sure are playing lots of baseball here! We should get the city to take over the vacant lot with the power of eminent domain, because we don't want this vacant lot ever taken from us!

That's kinda how this thread sounds*... :S

* Yes, the analogy breaks down, because the group is on a site owned by Tim, not clamairy and I. Tim can shut us down whenever he wants, that is his right, he pays the bills, and I can't argue, but even though the Dragon is on his site, the group belongs to Clam and I - just like our lists of books we put in the system are 'ours' - claiming ownership of a group created by a user would be sorta like claiming ownership of my list of books - not allowing me to delete my account because I have too many friends who like to look at my books or some such...

I know what you're saying. But I never thought that a moderator of a public group "owned" that group. It's like a public forum. Sure there should be rules. And sure the mod needs to have some authority to prevent chaos, but to simply pack up the group and move to a different lot because you didn't want "certain" kids to play with you anymore? Whether or not you had the authority does not make the act any less odious. IMHO

I'm not seeing why eroding the sense of "ownership" of the group is a problem. In fact, I think it would be a good thing. I'd rather have groups belonging to their members than to their creator.

Your baseball analogy fails because the players haven't actually created anything in the vacant lot. If Mr. Johnson were letting artists use the walls of his abandoned building to create beautiful murals, I think it would be reasonable for the city to take action in order to ensure that they were preserved. Governments regularly designate buildings as heritage sites that can't be destroyed. That's approximately what people are asking for here; sure, new groups with few members and posts can be deleted, but established groups with lots of members and posts should be preserved.

Or imagine if things had started out differently. There had never been a delete button. Occasionally the creator decided that a group was redundant or whatever and emailed Abby to get rid of it.

Then, there was a suggestion in RSI from a group creator: the creators should be able to delete their groups at any time, not because they really wanted to, but in order to increase their sense of power. Any guesses on how Tim would respond?

Governments regularly designate buildings as heritage sites that can't be destroyed.

Actually, at least in the US, federally, and in many states, that's not truly the case. Check this out. Often, contrary to popular belief, the owner of a property (unless receiving federal/state funding) can do with it what they will. What the whole protection affords are things like a local city cannot force an owner to tear down a landmark to build a shopping mall... but the owner of the landmark can destroy it...

Understand that there are two different things I am saying:

1) A creator who destroys a popular group is a jerk.
2) I would not want to take away the terms and conditions of already existing groups. That smack of 'our great mother, government' making sure we don't do anything mean and nasty.

Overall, the best response is not to prevent a jerk from acting like a jerk in one particular way, but to rather have the community not support people who act like jerks. For example, if Clam or I were to destroy the Dragon, someone else could create a group called "The Green Dragon" - taking the ownership out of our hands, and yes, the old posts are lost, but who reads posts more than a couple of weeks old, anyway? In a few days, it would be running much like it always was...

In other words - the natural behavior of the community will punish the offending person, and not much will be lost.

I am surprised nobody has decided to create a replacement group for the thing deleted by this guy...

I'm all for having redundant, unused, and otherwise content-free groups easily deleted. If someone made a group that never caught on, or created one and immediately had someone point out that it was a duplicate, they should be able to delete it without bothering the staff.

But like most others here I absolutely think established groups -- probably those that meet some threshold of number of members / number of posts -- shouldn't be so easily deleted. What if drneutron decided to delete "75 book challenge for 2009" -- currently more active even than the usual suspects of "Hogwarts Express" and "The Green Dragon" -- on 31 December? Should that be okay?

In the political groups here (e.g., Pro & Con) there is a huge archive of interesting discussion of lots of issues. These issues do not have a short half-life, as I am given to understand Green Dragon does.

E.g., environmental policy is not going to be obsolete two years from now. Nor will the prospects of turning Iran into a stable democracy. There is every reason to keep this stuff around.

More to the point, I think the whole conception of "I'm the host; you're all playing here in my living room" is not a good way to think about it.

JPB -- there is a new similar group and it is thriving. But what about all of our threads, all of our posts, all of our book lists on the old group?

I respect the points you are making but I do not believe you should unilaterally have the authority to close your group, even if you started it -- if it is a public group! A private group --a group that was launched private with that intention -- has every right. But public means public the way I see it.

> 36 'who reads posts more than a couple of weeks old, anyway?"

Um, I do.
My opinion is that the collection of posts within a group is not only useful information but is what helped 'make' the group. It's a real shame if all those memories and conversations are erased at the click of one button

Stopping new posts to the group (while still letting the old ones be read) is one thing. But having everyone's posts just evaporate? Whoa! That's like a publisher being able to push a button and have every book they ever published just evaporate. Helloooo? What about the authors? What about their readers?

I don’t think "Well, it's my printing press that that was printed on” cuts it. (And anyway, it's Tim's printing press.) The author can say, “Well, it’s my brain the novel came out of!”

I think the thing that’s bugging me here is the word “ownership.” A group creator doesn’t own my posts to that group.

So it boils down (in my view) to these two views:

(1) You’re all playing in my living room.

(2) You don’t own what I wrote.

To me (2) is obviously right. And it’s not the group creator’s living room.

I think the Green Dragon is unusual in that many of its threads have no content, so there's less concern about losing them. But even there, I'd be very disappointed if the book discussions that authors had participated in suddenly disappeared.

It seems clear from this discussion that there are a lot of people who do care about the old threads. That's sort of the whole point. Given that, do you still think that avoiding any semblance of government intervention is the most important issue?

#41 That's like a publisher being able to push a button and have every book they ever published just evaporate. Helloooo? What about the authors? What about their readers?

Actually, no. It's like a web-site owner closing down a web site. They have the right to do that, and all the pages on their site is technically the only copy of that book. In a sense, a website like this is an open 'guest book' at the front door of the website owner's house. You can write comments in it, other people can read them, but the website owner can take the book and destroy it.

The whole point that is odd to me here, from many points expressed in this thread, is that all of your arguments could equally apply to taking away Tim's right to close this site if he so chooses!

Consider (my emphasis) below:

From post 1: I would like to suggest that when a group reaches a certain number of members, and/or posts, that one person not be allowed to close it down. My thoughts are that it's not very democratic. The other members might want to continue on...

From post 9: this kind of violation should not be possible

From post 10: it does not seem right that whole groups of people could just get shut out of an active public group on a whim.

From post 24: in practice it probably shouldn't be allowed when it means deleting other people's words.

From post 27: I don’t think it a good idea that the initiator of a group, who is in no way the owner of that group, can delete it. I should want to ask Tim to take this possibility away from us, so that the initiator at least has to ask the moderator of LT.

From post 34: I'd rather have groups belonging to their members than to their creator.

From post 39: I do not believe you should unilaterally have the authority to close your group, even if you started it -- if it is a public group

All of these points would argue that Tim doesn't have the right to close his site down - because there is so much material here that was produced by others - that he somehow loses the right of manipulation of the material contained on his own disk drives.

Is that what you really want to let your arguments and passions lead to? That Tim can't close the site without a feeling of guilt? Because I don't see anything in the points made above that would - along a line of ethical, not legal, consideration - preserve his right to shut down the site and still feel good about himself. I just don't feel I have the right to place that burden on Tim. I feel that he should be left to feel free to do with this site as he will - without the burden of satisfying the desires of those (like me) who gain far more benefit from this site than their $25/life membership reasonably allows them to expect to get.

Now, it can be argued that I am deflecting from the point, that really people were talking about other members, not the staff.. as in the following posts:

From post 8: Once some threshold is reached, I think only LT staff should be able to delete a group

From post 19: I do not think anyone should be able to delete a group except The Powers That Be.

But... I argue here: Why in the world can't we trust the behavior of others - why do we need to have power restricted to the government?

For example: with clamairy, I have worked my butt off to make the Green Dragon an inviting place to visit and stay. So have many, many members - and some members have done more than me. Other signs I care about the place is the creation of the "GreenDragon" account that owns the group (instead of me or Clam) so if one or both of us don't want to play in the group, it is easy to pass onto another, and the support of a chatroom for live communication between members of the group, the encouragement of annual in-person get-togethers, etc. Clamairy shows her support through thread creation on weekends, maintaining the home page, on greeting and supporting everyone new, on encouraging everyone in thousands of ways, starting threads when it is slow, inviting new posters to join, etc. etc..

I'd like to believe that people know from evidence that the Dragon is 'here to stay' - that it has people watching over it who care about the place.

I'd like to be trusted as the result of that work. The group will never, to the degree I can control it, be deleted, but the only thought of taking away the group delete button to me that comes in my mind is "Sheesh - after all this - I can't be trusted with that which I've given 100s of hours to support?"

I guess, at the heart of it, I would like to believe that, unlike in real life, we could try the ideals of a Libertarian government here on the Internet: Where the innate rules of good behavior and decency drive most of us, and restrictions and 'cops' are not needed. In fact, one reason I love LibraryThing so much is that Tim has not created moderators. This forces the group to be watched over by all its members, and as a result, creates an environment where groups don't need moderation.

Well, in the case in point, the threads weren't old, they were just firing up. But I think that's besides the point.

The question is almost one of censorship: who has the right to delete the posts of others who are not in violation of LT rules.

JPB -- I can't think of too many things more chilling than a Libertarian government, but that's a whole 'nother essay . . .

The problem is that in the group in question "the innate rules of good behavior and decency" did not drive the person who pulled the group down.

#42 I think the Green Dragon is unusual in that many of its threads have no content, so there's less concern about losing them.

My gosh - that sure sounds like a smarmy attitude, so I hope I am misreading what you are writing. The fact that the Green Dragon is meant as primarily a relaxation, humor, and comfort group, and not a deep debate group does not make its posts less important! A thread that consoles someone whose mother is sick, may be, to the child of that mother, the most personally important thread they have read on this site.

My point isn't that it's okay to lose old threads. That's missing the heart of what I am trying to talk about here.

My point is that, Tim put down a small set of powers and rules for creators of groups. They don't get moderator ability, but they get group home page editing, and group deletion, and group private/public setting. That balance seems pretty cool, and seems to work - and the fact one person acted like a jerk should not cause us to leap to change the rules that govern groups, or the site.

* Edited to fix grammatical error.

>43 JPB:
I agree with JPB. The arguments presented do support that Tim would be well within the expectable range of human reaction were he to shut the site and feel bad about it. He has the means to do it, and technically the legal right to do so (though I lack the necessary background to assess whether the issue of refunding the lifetime membership fee might need to be addressed).

But after creating this incredible site and fostering all the connections, investment and stake so many have in it, such a closing would pose significant moral and ethical problems. I suspect Tim would feel that, as everything I know of him suggests he is a person of high ethical standards and sensibilities.

#47 "lifetime membership" usually means the lifetime of the person or the business, whichever expires first. Although one has to be very careful when offering such things, typically the courts 'get' that lifetime can end with a business closing.

And my point is that I don't think it's fair of us to have the 'always here' expectation for our posts. From what I can see on the site, Tim's a great guy, but there's a difference between trusting Tim to do the right thing with the groups (I'm all for that) vs. expecting him to do so.

I know I'm splitting hairs here, but I always worry when I see trust replaced with a request for additional constraints on behavior.

>43 JPB: I'm not sure what kind of behaviour you think would be better. Should we all avoid new groups, or those created by members we don't already know? Personally, I don't want to stick to groups that I know from evidence are here to stay. I'd like to throw myself wholeheartedly into new groups as well, without worrying about whether they'll suddenly disappear.

The fact that the Green Dragon is meant as primarily a relaxation, humor, and comfort group, and not a deep debate group does not make its posts less important!

I was trying to think of some explanation for your statements: the old posts are lost, but who reads posts more than a couple of weeks old, anyway? and not much will be lost. I think it's because the Green Dragon is generally about the community rather than the content. The Green Dragon members could probably chat just as happily in a new Green Dragon if the current one were deleted.

It doesn't matter that the loss of old threads isn't at the heart of what you're trying to talk about here. It's at the heart of what everyone else is trying to talk about here, so you can't just dismiss it. It isn't enough to argue your side in isolation; you have to convince us that the issue you're concerned about is more important than the issue we're concerned about, that the cost outweighs the benefit. It's easy to point out the cost. It's not as easy to explain why the cost isn't worth it.

Is that what you really want to let your arguments and passions lead to? That Tim can't close the site without a feeling of guilt?

I certainly think Tim would feel guilty if he closed the site, and I think he would be right to do so. I don't see what the problem is: if you cause a significant decrease in the happiness of a large group of people, you feel guilty about it. That's life.

#49 I'd like to throw myself wholeheartedly into new groups as well, without worrying about whether they'll suddenly disappear.

There's the heart of the difference. I too like to throw myself into new groups; but I love the fact I am doing that in LibraryThing out of a sense of trust, not provided safety. It's the same way with the lack of group moderation. I feel happy to post here, trusting that the standards of the community, and its support, will push out boorish behavior, as opposed to relying upon a set of moderators.

To me, the whole nature of trust inherent in LibraryThing is amazing, wonderful, to be cherished. That's why I hate so much the 'sock puppet' accounts, where people create them to make a nasty post. It violates the trust model I love here so much.

You bring up a very fair point about the worry of old threads being lost. I acknowledge the fact that the permanence of what is said here is important to many people far more than it is to me.

I think that, technically, Tim could address this without a policy change. Without needing database repopulating, group deletion could be a two stage thing, where a deleted group was no longer 'visible' but still there - and only upon a type of purge command by Tim or Abby, would the whole group be deleted. (And they could automate the purge process, to automatically delete groups with fewer than some pre-determined number of posts, and manually review the ones with more). That way, stupid ephemeral, 'mistake' groups could still be deleted by users without adding overhead to the LT staff.

But even having said that, the reason I think the cost isn't worth it is because of this: I think - universally - that any risk that is mitigated by restrictions on behavior, instead of addressing the underlying issues that cause the risk - ultimately leads to the creation of net greater risk. Since I am arguing about a principle, I cannot do an apples-to-apples comparison.

I will only ask this: how many people think LibraryThing is a better place to be than most other places on the Internet? If you believe that, why do you think that is?

I've been to other places on the net filled with bright people. So it's not that, which makes the difference, to me. But I've never been to a large web site with groups that don't have moderators. The lack of moderation is, to me, the difference. And I didn't believe that at first - it took me a while to be convinced of that. But now, I think it causes our little society to behave more maturely, because all of us are responsible for moderating the groups - we can't pass the job off to the moderators. In other words: Tim trusts us, so we act trustworthy. Taking away 'group delete' would be a sign of less trust from Tim. So, I worry we become less trustworthy, even though our groups are now safe from bursts of anger from the creators of the group.

I can turn a question back to the others in this thread: Why do you believe that a SINGLE act of group deletion over the course of 2+ years of LT groups, justifies the changing of policy? Since you are the ones advocating a change, you have to convince me that the current policy requires a change. To me, arguing for group-delete-permission removal after one bad incident is like telling people they no longer should be able to drive because 1 person in town purposely drove onto a sidewalk, and into a pedestrian. "Those cars are dangerous! We should get them off the roads - I have to feel safe to walk on the sidewalks!"

JPB -- I respect you and we are just going to have to agree to disagree. But I do, very much, disagree.

It's interesting that you bring up the moderator issue. To me, any extra power that the group creator has is just bringing LT closer to a moderator model. I think LT's model works because all the users are equal; there aren't some with extra power. So, any power than can be removed from individuals would make make LT more like itself and less like the other websites.

No time for a longer response now, sorry.

I understand JPB's issues with trust. And I hope that atmosphere continues. But the question has come up precisely because someone broke that trust. People aren't always trustworthy. The question is how can we exist in an atmosphere of trust, and yet protect ourselves from those who are not trustworthy? I don't know.

I know how society at large deals with it. With rules. I have never cheated on my taxes. I have never killed anyone. I think I can be trusted not to ever do these things. But some people do, so the rules exist - not for me, but for those who can't be trusted.

What's the answer? I don't know.

#51 - Fair enough! :D

#52 - You do bring up the weakest part of my position, one I recognized when typing it - I am arguing for preservation of single user (group creator) control while simultaneously arguing that all people being equal is what makes LibraryThing better. But there's just something that rubs me the wrong way about a group creator not being able to 'take back' their creation. So, I create arguments to support my emotional response. I also have trouble with the essence of the converse argument: taking away ownership of a group from its creator - in essence, to remove the ownership implicit in creation, just because a group becomes popular - just feels odd to me.

At the heart of this is the question of what are the rights of the originator of a shared creation? If I write a piece of software, 1000 lines long, then others contribute to make it 100,00 lines long, do I still retain the rights of ownership, to take it from the world?

Part of me says "yes" - but I can fully sympathize with the position that says "no" - my act of putting it in the public space is an act of ownership-transferral, that cannot be taken back.

Well, I'm just going to say that I was on the deleted group, and it sure would have been nice to at least had time to copy some of the info I wanted to use before it all disappeared. There were alot of book recommendations I wanted to take advantage of. Maybe it would be the best way if, when an owner deletes a group, the members get an email giving them a week to "clear out their stuff" and copy the threads to their computers before it disappears?

>55 Collectorator:
One person's subjective point of view:

There were multiple threads about a variety of topics. The whole affair sounds ridiculous when described. At the time of the deletion, the group seemed to be thriving.

One individual ("A") was perceived to be making provocative posts of various kinds, one example being the claim that people who read a lot or have large libraries are not well-rounded. You can imagine that on a site of book lovers, this was not well received. Some of the posts were slightly more subtle, but had a mildly offensive tone to them in the opinion of some others. Members firmly responded to the social discord thus induced, addressing the content and the process. There was conflict, but by no means did it ever devolve into any kind of major rudeness or Flame War. It seemed that the members were collectively working at addressing A's behavior. Simultaneously conversations about history and historiography were taking place with apparent enthusiasm. There was no worrisome sense of a group in trouble; if anything there was a sense of excitement about the group enterprise.

The individual who started the group appeared alone in the perception that others were not giving A a fair shake, and defended that position. Shortly thereafter, and without warning, he disbanded the group.

He indicated he felt that people were "hijacking" the group, and so he “had to take it down”.

Stellar, perhaps it is because I 'read and own too many books' that my unrounded and malformed self prefers an egalitarian approach to group ownership. And why it never occurred to me that these discussion groups were "owned".

"Own thoughts?!?"

I really wish Tim would chime in here.

Has anyone left Tim a comment asking him to weigh in?

JPB > you know your argument to keep full delete authority comes across as a power trip right? I know that isn't you but arguing "I want to have the ability to delete my group, even thought I won't use it" smacks of at least liking the idea the you could. I think, if it's something you won't ever use, why would you miss it?

But I also wonder, this has happened once, where people really care, so is it important enough yet for Tim to bother with? I think IF it becomes a problem, then any group with a certain mass should be given the opportunity to change owners for someone else to take over, the problem of course is that an owner doing this is not likely going to want the group to continue, which would force them to really consider their actions.

#59 You didn't realize groups had owners? But, wasn't it clear that one account could edit the group's 'home page', and not others? Given that, what did you think the relationship was of that person to the group? "Creator" is the title used on the group page - but the concept is no different - everything said on this thread, I think would be the same, if one replaced the word "owner" with "creator" -

The deepest question on the table, that I see, is - what are the continued rights of the original creator to something that has gained quite a bit of value beyond their original contribution? What if that person didn't just initiate it, but nurtured the project along for years? Do their rights as a creator change?

I think the tension (for me) is that part of me wants to preserve the fundamental right of the originator of a society-contributed project to destroy their creation at any time - but I also can see why those who contributed a lot to it would want to see, at some point, that rights of the originator to be taken away, as that which exists, after community contribution, is now something that has gone far beyond the originator - it is no longer 'just theirs'.

>59 ThePam:
Ah Pam, so you think perhaps the poster was on to something?!

#61 you know your argument to keep full delete authority comes across as a power trip right? I know that isn't you but arguing "I want to have the ability to delete my group, even thought I won't use it" smacks of at least liking the idea the you could. I think, if it's something you won't ever use, why would you miss it?

That's completely missing the emotion I feel behind this.

I don't "like the idea I can delete the group" - because it's something I never contemplated. In fact, quite the opposite. I hate and fear that section of the group profile edit page, because I fear that one wrong click on that page will make the group "POOF" :( So I always double scan the group home page to make sure that stupid little button is NOT clicked.

What I emotionally like is the idea that I am trusted to never do it. Let me explain:

I remember an incident as a child - my dad let me use all the power tools in the garage I wanted to - he trusted me because I didn't use the ones that were unfamiliar to me, or not safe for me to use as a kid (like the radial arm saw). I was always super careful. Then a kid in the neighborhood really hurt himself badly by a misuse of a tool. So, my Dad says "That's it - I never should have let you use these" and he forbade me to use the power tools without him around.

Man, that was annoying to me. I was hyper careful. I was diligent in proper use. And I had that trust taken away from me, because of the immaturity of someone else. My own ability to show discretion didn't matter - rather, because someone else was a fool - I had trust taken away from me. I never was going to use the dangerous tools like that radial arm saw - at the time I couldn't even REACH it... but I was no longer trusted, because of the actions of someone else.

That's the emotion behind my arguments.

Now, working beyond the emotion, I ask the question of the 'rights of the originator of a group creation vs. the rights of others to not see their contributions disappear' because I think that's the debatable issue - but my passion about this probably comes not from that debate point, but from the hate of the loss of trust.

This is the internet age. Things are ephemeral.

If it's important to you write it down (maybe in a book you can then list on LT). Copy and paste threads save the files. and print them. Hard drives die. Servers die. Tim claims 5 independant back-up copies of all files, but mistakes, format incompatabilities, floods and fires happen. If it's not worth the effort then it probably isn't worth saving anyway.

I'm with JPB and (on this issue only) the original creator. It is their group, to delete if they want.

Normal rules of politeness would indicate letting people know, and if your trust has been broken you place more care in trusting again. However it's quite clear on the group page that it is owned by person X.

64 > I understand where you're coming from, never meant to imply otherwise, just pointing out how you could be taken. I also don't think anything needs to be done YET. I don't think a single indecent necessitates restrictions.

I do believe many groups grow beyond the creators and become property of the community, If JPB and Clam both left the GD, it would be a terrible blow, and some time to recover but, Hogwarts Express could easily continue with out any one or 2 members (not to belittle any in HE but it is more of a committee), many other groups are like that as well. There are many groups where no one even knows who the Owner/Creator is, what if they came back and decided they didn't like where things went and just killed it?

Most of the standing groups where originally created by members, RSI, Bug Collectors etc.

So what I am saying is after a certain point the group/community should be involved on any permanent decisions that affect everyone IN THAT group. The GD even does this on policies, should it be any different for it's actual existence?

Dear all:

1. I have read about 50% of the words here. I'd have read more, but I'm quite pressed for time.

2. My own opinion is that the deletion-and-privating was regretable. I don't think that sort of thing usually works out to anyone's benefit. I know that I would love to talk about historiography—a real interest of mine—but have no interest in a private group, particularly one that arose in this way. That, however, is me. I recognize that others want private groups of this sort, and that's fine with me.

3. It's an interesting question whether there should be some "other" method here. One way would be to allow a group to have a charter of sorts, setting out additional rules that must be followed on it. Others have suggested that people—or person—be able to throw users out. I'd rather not do the latter, but the former has some appeal.

4. I agree that some technical measure should be in place to prevent large public groups from being deleted. If a group is invite-only, I'm okay with it being deleted no matter the size. But a public group with lots of members is more of a common than a private possession. I propose something like 50 members. But I certainly want to hear arguments.

5. The feature was the feature. If the system allows group members to delete a group, it's not up to me to tell them they can't, or to restore it without their permission. I therefore suggest that we ask the former group owner's permission to restore the group, and relinquish ownership of it. If not, and if there is still sufficient interest, let's start another one. Incidentally, I'm not positive we can get it all back, but I think we can.

All ears!

I have a quick question for you peeps. Like JPB I live in fear of accidentally hitting the delete group button every time I make a change to the Green Dragon group page. So, is there a screen that pops up and asks "ARE YOU SURE YOU REALLY WANT TO DELETE THIS?" just in case of accidental clickage?

Also, I would be fine with there being some sort of review process for the deletion of a group.

I have no idea who deleted the group under discussion, but it sounds like an incredibly childish knee-jerk reaction to me.

Stellar... well, yes, don't you? I mean consider that there are people who... like, um, read serially. You know, like every day. Day after day. It's obviously a perverse behavior and those of us who own more than 200 books ought to hide our heads in shame.

#65 > ReadingFox: If it's important to you write it down (maybe in a book you can then list on LT). Copy and paste threads save the files. and print them.

Great idea. I'm going to start condensing reading suggestions for the history groups I belong to and post them on my blog.

=====================

#67 > Tim>

No reason to bring back the first group, imo. A Historiography group was a good idea and someone started another one.

50 people sounds like a good breaking point for public groups to me.

Trusting in the kindness of strangers is all very well, but there should be a back up for when that option fails.

Pam, I don't think its the group people want at this point, but the lists of books that they would like to get a chance to copy

>67 timspalding: A group charter sounds like more trouble than it's worth. I don't really want to get into the issues of some members teaming together to kick out others.

No deletion of groups with more than 50 members would be nice. I'd actually be happy not to have group deletion at all; like Clam, I'm afraid of the deletion button. Do you have any stats on how many groups are deleted?

72>

Really?

So if someone creates a group by accident, or realizes ten minutes later that it's a duplication of a well-established group, you don't think they should be able to delete a group that no other members have joined?

Or that Tim et al. shouldn't even be able to delete spam groups?

My own two cents, and I think this was touched on above, is that it would be nice for groups, especially those with enough members, to get some kind of warning period. Like "this group will no longer exist in x amount of days": giving people time to copy whatever info they wanted from the threads. Also, with the "are you sure you want to delete" question Clam suggested, perhaps a "would you like to pass this group to another member?" or something.

>73 lorax: Oh, I think LT staff should be able to delete spam groups. I was assuming that they would always be able to delete groups when necessary, and that the number of accidentally-created groups is negligible compared to the number of spam groups, so it wouldn't be any more effort for them to delete those as well. Is accidental group creation really so common? I don't know, but that's why I asked Tim for statistics.

#67

If you implement (4) - which is the removal of the ability of someone to delete a group, then give the opportunity of a group 'creator' to pass on the group to another person - or to 'abandon' it at least - to give its ownership to some system-owned account.

If the creator of something cannot delete it, please give them the ability to disassociate from it.

The ownership can be passed on to someone else. Abby can do the change.

>43 JPB:
“That's like a publisher being able to push a button and have every book they ever published just evaporate.”
“Actually, no. It's like a web-site owner closing down a web site... all of your arguments could equally apply to taking away Tim's right to close this site.”

This is the crux. It seems to me that vaporizing a group is acting like it’s your living room when it’s actually Tim’s. Indeed, I think the point about Tim’s ownership of this web site undercuts the point being made in #43. Since the website is Tim’s, the case for the group creator having ownership rights to shut it down is, at least, seriously weakened.
IMHO.

I would also like to echo Garp83 and say I respect you and we are just going to have to agree to disagree.

Really I have nothing more to say than this:

I loved the fact that it seemed to me that Tim was trusting group creators to be responsible and loving to their groups, and that trust was made tangible by the group creator's ability to make a group private, and to delete it, as well as edit the home page. That trust is one factor that keeps me supporting the Dragon so much. Here was a web site - LibraryThing - that trusted its users to set up their own communities - it was a big trust in the user base, to not only participate in the site, but to even create pockets of it that they 'sub-managed' in minor ways. Again, I believe people are motivated to be trustworthy mostly when they are trusted. So, that 'willingness to trust others to run their little corners cleanly' is a key value of LibraryThing to me.

Now it appears that Tim is considering removing the delete ability from the creators of large groups... that's his right. And I'll still be around if he does it. But I will be sad if he does.

To me that's conveying the following message: "I trust you to manage the group properly, to grow and nurture it, and even kill it if needed - until it gets successful. When it does, the needs of the many to not lose that community portal, or lose what they have written, exceeds the need of the LT staff to trust you in your actions. So the trust I have in you not to press the delete-group option goes away once you do your job really well."

To me, the group-deletion button is symbolic: it is there - never to be used - but the fact it is there at all is amazing - such trust given by a web-site owner, at such a deep level. It makes me want to love the group and site even more.

The way it works in Second Life (for those who are even remotely interested lol) is, a resident can start a group and is the Owner, but there have to be two members at least before it is considered a functioning group.

To wind up a group, one of the owners must expel all other members leaving themselves as the sole member, at which point the group is regarded as a 'non functioning' group.

(Wake UP at the back there!)

But once in existence, a group is never completely removed, simply non–functioning, so its resources would still nominally be available for inspection.

#79 - I understand your point, JPB, I do. To be honest I don't think Tim realized just how big the groups/message board part of LT was going to get when he added that feature. As of now there are about 5,000 groups, although I am sure many of them aren't very active. My point is that he didn't realize just how many people he'd be entrusting with the power to create (and then possible delete) all these groups. The more people using the feature the greater the odds that someone is going to violate what you call 'trust.'

I know I am rambling here, but I'm guessing there wasn't a huge amount of forethought going into the 'creators can delete their groups' option when the place was set up.

Awhile after I got to LibraryThing I thought it might be important to some people to be able to talk about books they have read regarding recovery in 12 step programs. Because 12 step programs are typically, perhaps universally, anonymous, I made it a private group but admitted anyone who asked.

Not many asked. A couple dropped out, which I didn't quite understand. It could have been devastating if the group had grown to eight or ten people and I had deleted it. When it turned out that the interest was not there I started reckoning on deleting the group. I thought that I should get the permission of all the members to delete it. When I was ready to do it, everybody but a fellow, whom I talk to personally and is no longer busy on LibraryThing, and I were members. I deleted the group and will mention it to him the next time I see him.

Nevertheless, I saw myself as the creator, and despite my control of admissions, not the owner. Keeping redesign of the group page in the hands of the creator I think is fair to the creator and prevents vandalism. I would have been happy to have had to petition the powers that be to delete the group. I could articulate the reasons for deletion.

I think it would not hurt for any private group to have a delete button until there was more than one member. Public groups could have one member and a thousand watchers, so possibly they should never have a delete button; deletion would always be handled by the authorities.

I would like still to be reading Urquhart's original history group, and I had not noticed the antipathy that apparently was there.

Robert

I'm glad that Tim weighed in on this and I think based upon his post he sees the implications of both sides of the issue.

JPB, your metaphors are wonderful but this is just not power tools in your Dad's garage. We are talking about our collective intellectual soul here, in some ways, and the libertarian approach is not enough. (I always say Libertarians give you the right to starve to death in front of their homes.) But again, I mean no disrespect and I understand where you are coming from, even if I disagree. You are obviously a nice guy and you would never consider anything but a benign use of the authority you possess. But others are not like you.

I have a small business with only a handful of employees, but like Tim's LT project I have very few rules, only enough to keep the clients happy and ensure that we run as efficiently and profitably as possible. I stress common sense a lot. I like to tell new employees -- and I do say this during the hire process -- that if I have to make a rule because of you I'd rather just fire you and hire someone else who has enough common sense to do the right thing without a rule. But the reality is that sometimes I have to introduce new policies, because you can have bad clients and bad employees and you have to protect yourself against this eventuality. That is the reality.

I love the freewheeling nature of LT and its "Wild West" communities and I don't want to see it change. But I would like to see a "new" group owner going forward required to post a notice saying "I am going to close this group in 30 days. If anyone would like to take over, please contact me." I think it might to be fair to grandfather in existing groups so it won't affect JPB, although we know that he's a good guy and it would never occur to him to crash his group for no good reason.

Hey, I was part of that group that was closed and then moved private and I have to admit I was angry about it and though I have joined a new group that is in many ways even better, I am still a bit bitter. There are threads I started in that group that contain many of my posts and book recommendations that I can't even access, never mind comment upon. I thought what was done was mean, petty, vindictive, self-serving (I know, don’t hold back!) and totally uncalled for. The group owner just wanted to control the dialog and when he discovered “moderating” didn’t permit that he became furious and shut the door. That is the issue.

Pam's original post in this thread goes right to the heart of it: "Something happened recently which I had no idea could happen . . .” We were all dumbfounded. We never expected that anyone here on LT could behave in a mean-spirited manner. Why is that? Because we were naive, of course. We thought everyone, even those we debated and disagreed with like JPB in this thread, were good guys who would never hurt us. We were wrong.

So I'm not sure we need a charter or a ton of new rules or anything to make more work for Tim or Abby. And I'll still be a happy camper if everything stays the same, because honestly how much can you bitch about in a great community like LT? Like the rest of you guys, I absolutely love LT and -- until now -- I couldn't think of anything I'd change about it. But I would weigh in favor of some kind of minor, non-obtrusive site-deletion rule as noted above that would not trample on anyone's rights but would prevent something like this ever happening again.

>36 JPB:: who reads posts more than a couple of weeks old, anyway?

Don't you ever click the "Conversations" link on a work page? Sometimes it's even more illuminating than the reviews. And there's no time limit on which threads are shown there - even dormant threads are shown.

On the topic of not trusting people, I think you need to take the limit case—groups like the librarians group, or the Harry Potter one. We can't have whoever started such a group suddenly delete it, together with everything ever said!

Maybe the answer to this, is to say that those who start a group don't "own" it, they are simply the originator? I.e. they have certain privileges, but deleting the group isn't one of them unless ALL the group agree?

Y'know... thinking about this on the way home today...

.....I do get the point of protecting the effort everyone made with all of their posts to a group. And I do know that once hurt, people are shy to trust again.

Not that I am arrogant enough to believe that my opinion weighs in any big way with Tim, but as far as it's worth, upon reflection, - I'd rather lose the 'trust' symbolized with the ability to delete my own groups, than have lots of people on LibraryThing worry that they are under the cloud of a potentially rogue group creator, whoever that is, who could go off and delete the groups they post to.

>87 JPB: Thank you for saying this.

>86 Tid:

There's no perfect system. "All" users would be hard when many LT users don't stick around—as with all sites. Basically, i want to set a level above which it needs to be preserved, or deleted by LT employees.

>87 JPB: JPB, wow. Cool.

1. No need IMO to restart the original group as the new public one seems to be serving the needs of the previous constituency (I hope!). As the originator of the new one, it would be nice to have access to the membership list of the first one, as I would like to make sure I have made welcome everyone in the earlier group by issuing specific invitations to them. I have done this thus far by (imperfect) recall only.

2. I haven't heard any convincing objection to a number above which a group cannot be unilaterally deleted by the originator. In general, it seems a good idea to have an option for the originator to pass the group to someone else and/or to dissociate him/herself from it.

>89 timspalding:

Well, one possible "level" could be that groups with active threads can't be deleted except by staff. That would at least allow easy cleanup of unused and abandoned groups.

I also like the idea of a 30-day warning before deletion - posted in a thread, not on the group page (I'm sure I'm not the only one who only checks My Posts and My Groups).

So, does anyone else want the group brought back? Are we asking for that?

I think so. Not for posting in it, for that we have a new group (History at 30,000 feet), but for all the booktalk and -suggestions, and for stellar the members she wants to invite for the new group, all so suddenly lost. Yes, that would be fantastic.
Is a temporary "only read" group a possibility?

#94. I was a member of this group too and found it very interesting. Yes, I would love to see it brought back, if only to note down a number of book suggestions that had appeared there. I don't know the politics behind this - obviously there are some! - but was surprised to see such a recently created and dynamic group just shut down and become inaccessible without warning. I think it's something one would want to avoid - it's certainly made me chairy about investing any time in contributing to new groups (including the two "replacement groups"). Thank you Tim!

I'm also for bringing it back, at least as a 'read only' group, at least long enough to copy the info I want to have!
Yay! and thanks!

>95 marieke54:

I would suggest that groups have simple names. Clever names make it hard to pick them out from a list. If it's about historiography, say it?

Whom am I asking to bring it back?

Tim, The owner's name is Urquhart

> 98 Tim

Yes, but the groups do already have their names. Or do you mean those should be changed to simpler ones?

The name of the deleted group is: "History: the Writing of It and the Learning from it". A simple name for it brought back might be: "History W&L, the afterlife".

The name of the new private group that replaces it is: “History: The Study of Historiography”

The name of the new public group that replaces it is “History at 30,000 feet: The Big Picture”. So far this group is above all about the joy of history, and includes historiography.

Could you provide a link to the new public group. I'm trying to search for it based on the name but I'm getting a ton of other groups instead.

History at 30,000 feet: The Big Picture

And what a charming and erudite group it is, too. I never would have looked at it but for this thread. Now I might have to join :-)

103: I also added it to my watch list (found it yesterday via stellarexplorer's profile). Don't (yet) know enough to participate.

I love the new group Stellar started: "History at 30,000 feet: The Big Picture" so at this point I don't care much about the old group. But I am glad that we're talking about preventing this kind of sudden capricious shutdown occuring again in another group. However the limits or levels or other rules shake out, I think having something in place to prevent this is better than nothing.

Okay, the previous group-creator does not want the group brought back, and I'll respect the rules then-existing and not force it to come back.

Going forward, the 50-member rule is now in place for public groups--you can't unilaterally shut down a group with 50 members—and if you do, I'll take it over and bring it back. I'll code it in software when I have some free time.

Thank you Tim!
This reaction from the group-creator was to be expected, he is angry I think, and not capable of looking at his own contribution to this polarization. To my surprise I saw a thread of the old group brought back, the one named "Bias in Historical Writing".
A message from Starship Historiography in outer space?

"Hello there, mr. Urquhart, what you did was not nice at all!"

Has anyone tried google searching for things in the old group, and clicking the "Cached" link on the results? Some of the threads may still be in google's cache. Try a search like this:

"site:librarything.com inurl:topic history writing learning your username or other search terms"

E.g. site:librarything.com inurl:topic history writing learning "Bias in Historical Writing". I get back one result, and the Cached link leads to this.

That's the thing about the internet ... once it's out there, it's out there. Information wants to be free.

Thank you, rorrison! Within 2 minutes I found these:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/59419
http://www.librarything.com/topic/59873
http://www.librarything.com/topic/57923
http://www.librarything.com/topic/60528

We can find everything back with "urquhart" as search term.

Going forward, the 50-member rule is now in place for public groups--you can't unilaterally shut down a group with 50 members—and if you do, I'll take it over and bring it back.

Thank you, Tim.

#109, Marieke me buddy. Can you copy these links over to the new group, please. Maybe under a heading like "Valuable links/lists from the Old group"

There were some nice book suggestions.

Thank you, Tim. Very reasonable approach, as usual.

Salve, O Amici!

I like this solution very much.

Tim -- I salute the fair and balanced solution!

To those looking for these old threads: if you go into any thread, then click on "Your Posts" in the very top left hand column, you will see displayed every thread you've ever posted to. There are many of the old threads from the deleted group there, which occasionally become active because these were carried over to the replacement private group and new posts may appear within that rubric. FYI

> 111 Pam

I think I fished quite a few from the www. They are on "History at 30,000 feet: The Big Picture" now, in thread "Valuable links/lists from the Old group".

>115 marieke54:

Please be aware that the links to Google cache pages will not last forever. Cache pages expire. If anyone wants continued access to those pages, they need to save them to their hard drive.

Msg #109 has links to individual threads within LT, but I'm not sure how long those will survive when the group they belong to has been deleted. In fact, I just tried all four links and all I got were blank pages.

>117 jjwilson61:

They work for me. (Perhaps because I was a member of the group????)

>116 timepiece: Do Google cache pages go to the Wayback Machine? (serious question)
If so, that could help.

I don't think so. And the Wayback machine operates on a 6-month-delay, besides.

OK - I was thinking that 6 months would run after Google cache pages expired. If Google cache is not in Wayback then no. Ah well

ETA: spelling

I've been thinking about this, and sorry to chime in to the debate so late, but this is just plain wrong. The Group Creator does not own the group in the slightest! They may lay some claim to the name of the group and they can certainly claim all their own posts, but that's it. I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter what the number of members in the group is, be it 1 extra, 50 members or the entire rest of the population, the creator simply should not have the right to arbitrarily reduce the sum of everyone else's contributions to nought.

If the originator of the group no longer wishes to participate they should be able to delete all their posts and hand over the running of the group to someone else. The rest of the group members should be allowed to continue their debate/discussion as they wish.

#106: Tim said "Okay, the previous group-creator does not want the group brought back, and I'll respect the rules then-existing and not force it to come back."
Unless the rules specifically stated that a deleted group won't be reinstated then you would be well within your rights to resurrect it, rename it, and let the rest of us pick up where we left off, regardless of the petty mindedness of the Group-creator.

Frankly, the situation as it stands is just censorship by an individual! Something I find surprising on this site given the usual tolerant attitude of most people on this site.

I was not a frequent contributor to the previous group, so I have lost much of my investment, but I did enjoy reading the threads immensely. But Tim, I implore you to reinstate the old group for all of the contributors that have lost that portion of their time and effort and thoughts.

>106 timspalding:
Thanks Tim. That will help prevent future similar incidents.

>122 bernsad:

I 100% agree - the person who deleted the group didn't just delete their own contributions, they deleted the intellectual property of everyone else who had posted there, and that's just - as you say - wrong.

People make posts, formulate arguments, talk to others, with an expectation that what they and others wrote will persist. A server crash is one thing, and unavoidable, but the capricious whim of another person, that's not. And if ANYONE is the owner of a group (or thread), it's the site owner.

I'd happily vote for the non-deletion of groups - only that individuals can delete their own posts, which is fair (and is more generous here than in many sites, where you only get the right to "Edit" for a short while after posting, or until someone else posts below yours).

#124 - "the person who deleted the group didn't just delete their own contributions, they deleted the intellectual property of everyone else who had posted there"

This calls to mind the image of a child in a playgroup having a tantrum and not only taking his own toys and going home, but taking all the other children's toys as well. ;o)

>125 clamairy:
Yes! And if I was that person, my ears would be burning red hot by now.

Yes, I do wonder if he's been venting about this thread over in his private group.