Re: Minutes of the Foundation Board, 22nd May

[Benjamin Berg <benjamin sipsolutions net>]

Hi,

On Fri, 2018-05-25 at 21:05 +0200, Carlos Soriano wrote:
> Benjamin, I couldn't do in the way you mention simply because that
> was not the request. The request was as described "account deletion
> in GitLab for a blocked user". The request was for complete deletion,
> including any activity.

This doesn't make any sense to me. The user has explicitly requested a
full deletion including all comments. You have solely decided that the
comments would not be removed, but there was no decision on whether the
comment text needs to stay as is.

As such, I would expect that you explicitly offer the user to replace
all text in relevant posts. Have you done so, if not, is there any
reason to not make this offer?

Benjamin

> Cheers
>
> On Fri., 25 May 2018, 20:30 Benjamin Berg, <benjamin sipsolutions net
> > wrote:
> > On Wed, 2018-05-23 at 12:29 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
> > >  * Request for account deletion in GitLab for a blocked user
> > (Carlos)
> > >   * Carlos sent an email to board-list with details of this
> > >   * Carlos is the only GitLab admin. He recently blocked a user
> > for
> > > inappropriate behaviour. This means that the user can no longer
> > log in
> > > to edit/delete their comments.
> > >   * The user has subsequently sent a mail demanding that their
> > posts
> > > be deleted. The user has made the case that this is their legal
> > right
> > > (under Canadian law) and has threatened legal action.
> > >   * Comments can only be deleted by an admin.
> > >   * We have a prescedent that we don't delete posts that are
> > stored on
> > > GNOME servers.
> >
> > There is a fundamental difference with Gitlab compared to other
> > services though. On Gitlab comments and bug reports can be
> > retrospectively modified by the submitter and even third parties in
> > the
> > case of bug descriptions. So the user could delete the relevant
> > text
> > even if they cannot delete the comment itself.
> >
> > It sounds like the request for deletion was completely refused
> > rather
> > than complying with it as much as possible by changing all text to
> > e.g.
> > "comment has been deleted". Is there a reason for not complying
> > with
> > the request in this way?
> >
> > >   * Allan - why don't we delete posts? Rosanna - data retention
> > > policies are part of our staff handbook, and are required for
> > > insurance purposes.
> > >   * Didier - on gnome-fr forums, they offer to anonymise posts
> > rather
> > > than deleting them (in order to preserve threads). Cosimo - isn't
> > that
> > > what happens when a user account is deleted? Yes.
> > >   * Cosimo - prefers that people can remove their account rather
> > than
> > > deleting posts. Didier agrees with this. Allan is personally in
> > favour
> > > but doesn't know what the legal requirements are.
> > >   * ACTION: Carlos to offer to delete the account and anonymise
> > the
> > > posts in the process.
> >
> > Benjamin_______________________________________________
> > foundation-list mailing list
> > foundation-list gnome org
> > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list

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