SoylentNews

As I promised in my previous journal, a new privacy policy town hall is due today. Here are the previous town halls on the privacy policy:
#1: Creating a new SoylentNews privacy policy
#2: Community governance

Please review the rules from the town hall on community governance. They are in effect here, though I am not going to repeat them. The only change is that it is acceptable to link to or to clearly and accurately quote content as an example of things that you believe should or should not be permitted, provided that it is done for the purpose of creating new policy. However, this should not be done with the intent of calling out the author of said content, nor for the purpose of debating the actual linked or quoted content. Comments that do either of those things should be moderated off-topic.

I'll post another journal next Sunday about the next topic on my list of privacy issues. Again, please see the journal on community governance. Then on July 16, I intend to discuss when it's permitted to share potentially private or sensitive data, including an AC's proposal to disclose the identity of the moderators for comments.

Code of Conduct: Recently, a couple of discussions took place in my journal about the possibility of implementing a code of conduct for SN: thread #1 and thread #2. These discussions included the following proposal for things that should run afoul of the CoC:

1) Moderate as spam or remove any comments with language promoting bigotry.
2) Remove any comments which attempt to dox anyone.
3) Remove any comments which call for murder or violence.

These are things which, I think, most people would agree are good policy.

I believe that if there is going to be a CoC, there shouldn't be much uncertainty as to what is and is not permitted. Consider the example of the spam moderation. Here is the official guidance. However, there are at least two situations where the spam moderation is widely used, but is not clearly stated in the guidelines: spam modding racist trolls and spam modding a banned user. Let me ask the following question: is it permitted to spam mod a comment that contains a litany of ethnic slurs for the purpose of expressing bigotry? The lack of clarity on matters like this leads to uncertainty on when the spam moderation can be used, leading to more disagreement. Whatever the outcome is, there needs to be clarity about what is and is not acceptable.

This isn't to say that there is no room for reasonable judgment. We probably don't want to give trolls and spammers a road map about how to post malicious content that manages to avoid violating the letter of the law. There needs to be reasonable flexibility to rare situations when a a content violates the spirit but not the letter of the rules. But these should be infrequent instead of frequently relying on de facto policies instead of written policies.

I also want to point out that content removal is not as simple as merely complying with state and local laws. SN is currently hosted by Linode, and their acceptable use policy restricts the type of content on sites they host. In my estimation, Linode probably isn't going to do anything about the occasional hateful comment, but I believe it's probably a good idea for SN to avoid becoming a haven for offensive content.

When should SN delete or edit content? When should users be allowed to spam mod content? If there is a community CoC, what should it say? When should users be suspended or permanently banned?

Transparency: When content is removed, there must be some trust that the content actually ran afoul of rules or reasonable standards. There's no point in deleting content only to reproduce it elsewhere to provide that it really broke the rules. At least a few users appear to distrust the staff to follow stated policies and to do so in a consistent manner. I encourage you to read some prior discussion of this issue from the community governance town hall. The purpose of transparency is so that users trust that the actions of the staff are reasonably consistent with what's written in the site's policies. I think this can be summarized in two questions:

Question 1: What evidence would be satisfactory to show that the staff are abiding by the site policies?

Question 2: Who do users of this site trust to make the determination about whether the staff are abiding by the site policies?

You can expect another journal about more privacy policy issues next Sunday, and at least one more around July 16. I anticipate there may be a few more journals after this, depending on the needs and wishes of the community.

There have been a lot of off-topic discussions about privacy-related issues in other places such as other people's journals and in polls. For the purpose of creating site policy, I will only review opinions on privacy issues when they posted in places where they are on-topic. If you want your opinions to be heard about these issues, you should post your comments here.

I'll post another privacy policy journal this weekend, probably on Sunday. Right now, I want to discuss the illegitimacy of the Supreme Court. This is what happens when we give this much power to a court that isn't concerned with little details like ethics or being politically independent, and where it's acceptable for judges to accept bribes from their friends.

The judicial system exists to interpret laws, but that isn't an excuse to grab power. The "major questions doctrine" that the John Roberts court keeps invoking is exactly that, a massive power grab. When Congress didn't place clear limits on powers it grants to the executive branch, the Supreme Court is using this doctrine to arbitrarily oppose limits. It's an absolutely terrible approach to interpreting the law.

Congress can easily limit the scope of laws they pass. All they have to do is include text to the effect of ______ powers shall only be used for ______. For example, if Congress only intended that the HEROES Act was intended to provide student loan relief to military families, they could have explicitly said so. It is very simple for Congress to narrow how powers can be used. If they choose not to do so, the Supreme Court should not be trying to infer what they think Congress intended, or what they wanted Congress' intent to be. If Congress has to clearly state that they intend for a power to be granted broadly, such as in situations that they may not be able to envision when the law was passed? Congress can easily narrow the scope of any power, but there doesn't seem to be a way for them to clearly intend for powers to have a very broad scope and still satisfy the "major questions doctrine."

Applying the "major questions doctrine" amounts to the Supreme Court adding restrictions to existing laws that weren't specified by Congress. There's another term for this. It's legislating from the bench. It's absolutely unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the Roberts court is very fond of legislating from the bench when it fits their political objectives.

Congressional Democrats who helped to write the HEROES Act say that Biden's actions were within the scope of the law. Meanwhile, Republicans who were involved with authoring the law say otherwise. The Supreme Court cannot reasonably infer the intent of Congress when it's unclear. The only thing that is clear is the exact text of the law, and the text does not restrict enacting large scale cancellation of student loans, nor does it restrict whose loans can be cancelled. Despite this, the Supreme Court decided that they could infer what Congress intended, even though Congress doesn't agree on what they intended. More accurately, this interpretation fits the political views of the six judges who wrote the majority opinion.

This decision is also problematic because it is highly inconsistent with United States v. Texas (06/23/2023) and ignored key facts of the case. In order to sue, a plaintiff must establish that they have standing, meaning that they must clearly demonstrate injury from the action they are suing over. That's a huge problem for two reasons. In United States v. Texas, under very similar circumstances involving standing, the court ruled that Texas and Louisiana lacked the standing to sue the Biden administration over how they prioritize which unauthorized immigrants to arrest and deport. The court must be consistent in determining when states have standing to sue.

There's another problem here, which is that Missouri argued they were harmed because cancelling student loans would prevent MOHELA from making payments to the state's capital improvement fund. The problem is that MOHELA hasn't made payments to this fund for over a decade, but it doesn't appear that the state has actually suffered harm from this. That makes it very difficult to argue that cancelling student loans would have actually resulted in injury for Missouri. That's a serious problem with establishing that Missouri had standing to sue.

If you still don't believe me that the "major questions doctrine" is asinine, consider what would happen if we applied the same standard to the Constitution. One could argue that freedom of speech doesn't extend to expression, because the authors of the first amendment didn't clearly state this. One could argue that the fourteenth amendment doesn't clearly indicate what rights cannot be removed without due process, opening the door to interpret it in a very narrow manner. What if this standard was applied to the second amendment? It's unlikely that the authors of the second amendment envisioned the capabilities of modern firearms. What if the court determined that the second amendment only applies to weapons that were available when the Bill of Rights was written, and if the authors wanted it to apply to weapons with the capabilities of modern firearms, they needed to clearly indicate this? There are plenty of other absurd rulings that would occur if we applied the "major questions doctrine" to the Constitution. It's a truly dangerous standard, and it's also one that's absolutely inconsistent with the Constitution.

I am not arguing that the executive branch should have unlimited powers. I am saying that it is up to Congress to clearly place limits on the scope of laws they pass, whether it's about student loans or authorizing the use of military force. Congress hasn't done its job, but that's no excuse for the Supreme Court to usurp power and invent restrictions on laws passed by Congress. This is absolutely an awful ruling, both in terms of who has standing to sue, and in seizing power from the legislative and executive branches. When the Supreme Court does not respect the boundaries set by the Constitution, and when it is clearly issuing rulings based on the political preferences of judges instead of the actual laws, it cannot be considered legitimate. There is a remedy in the Constitution for a Supreme Court that does not respect the rule of law. That remedy is impeachment, and it is time for Congress to take this remedy seriously.

A few weeks ago, I posted an initial journal about a new privacy policy for this site. It received over 100 comments, but the discussion went awry after a little while. It's time to resume these discussions again.

Regarding the interview with Kolie, I believe he is planning to solicit questions, and they will be addressed in a board meeting very soon. This makes an interview redundant, and I believe it's more worthwhile to focus the discussion on site policy. I'm going to deviate from my plans for the order of journals, and I intend to post a new journal roughly every week for at least the next 2-3 weeks.

First things first, I'm checking the "willing to moderate" box again this afternoon, meaning that I'll get mod points in just a few hours. I will moderate in my journal according to established SN policies. That includes moderating things off-topic when they're off-topic in my journal. I won't disclose how I moderate, but I do intend to keep these discussions on track.

Here are my plans for upcoming journals:

This journal: We need to talk about community governance of the site. I'm going to focus the discussion on the process of enacting a policy, but also about enforcement. Does the board of directors vote on policy, is it put to a vote of the users, or what is the process? I'll ask about transparency about how data are collected and used, how the accuracy of this is verified, the recourse users have if they believe their privacy is violated, and appropriate actions when the privacy policy is violated. I'll also open up discussion about who serves on the board, because I believe two board members should represent the stakeholders and three should represent the community.

Next week's journal: We need to talk about content editing and deletion, as well as the banning of accounts. When should content be edited or deleted? What sort of policy should exist, if any, for addressing illegal content as well as toxic and harmful content? What is the policy for deleting repetitive off-topic spam? How is transparency provided? What should the policies be for temporarily or permanently restricting or banning accounts? Can edited or deleted content be appealed? Can sanctions against users be appealed? If so, who hears those appeals, and what is the process?

Two weeks from now: We need to talk about users' rights with respect to their personal information. Can users see everything that is stored about them in a database? When does information expire, such as IP hashes? What rights do users have to get data stored about them in a database removed? What rights do users have when information is posted about them against their will? What is the appropriate policy when someone appears to or actually does post someone's personal information without their consent? How is this enforced?

There may be additional journals beyond this as well. These are the topics I intend to address right now.

There are a ground rules for this discussion:

1) If you're giving examples of specific privacy concerns, please don't include actual user names or people. Please use hypothetical terms, or use generic names like "person A" and "person B." This is not a forum to complain about other people, whether they're staff, other users, or former members of this site. This not the place to demand apologies from people, either. This is about policy, not people.

2) The new privacy policy is forward looking, meaning that the discussion should focus on how we can be better in the future, and not on holding people responsible for past mistakes or how the existing code is written. It is reasonable to raise current issues, provided it doesn't involve calling people out, and the focus is on future policy. This is not the place to complain about existing issues unless you are either soliciting ideas about how to address the issue or proposing your own solutions.

3) Please keep the discussion civil and welcoming. Everyone deserves a chance to participate in this discussion and to be heard. Please keep the discussion constructive and refrain from posting personal attacks. Privacy is for everyone, and that means everyone deserves to be heard. I ask that you please don't try to dominate the discussion or shout other people down, and instead let everyone make their opinions known.

4) Please keep the discussion on-topic. Any privacy-related matters are on-topic, but issues like story selection are beyond the scope of this policy. Let's keep issues like politics out of this discussion, too. If you want to discuss story selection or politics, start your own journal and discuss whatever you like. This journal isn't the place for such things.

5) Please don't moderate people down unless they're off-topic, trying to dominate the discussion, shouting people down, or posting personal attacks. Even if you disagree with someone else, please don't moderate them down unless they're violating the ground rules for this discussion. I want everyone to be heard.

I can and will actively work to keep these discussions moving in a useful direction. That means the intent of a comment must be to propose future policy, not to call people out for the mistakes of the past. This is the guideline I will be using for determining what is off-topic.

Here are the topics of discussion for this journal:

Community governance: Right now, the community has exactly zero representation on the board of directors, which ultimately determines the direction for this site. There are two members of the board, both of whom are shareholders. I believe this needs to be balanced out by the community, meaning that there should be at least one more representative for the community than there is for the shareholders. If there are two shareholders, this means there should be three community members on the board. Do you have different ideas about the board? Who elects board members on behalf of the community? Do all members of the community who have accounts and are in good standing get to vote? What is the process?

Ratifying policy: What is the process for ratifying new policies for the site? Do new policies get ratified by the board, or is the process different? Do all members of the community who have accounts and are on good standing vote on these? Are they voted on by committees? What is the process for creating policy drafts?

Oversight: For any policy to be successful, people need to actively ensure that the site and its members are in compliance. This means that someone needs to oversee how data are being handled by the software powering this site and by people who have privileged access. It means there must be transparency about data use, both in terms of policy and also what is done practically on a day to day basis. How often does reporting on privacy issues occur? Who gets to see these reports? What information is shared publicly, and what is not?

Compliance: It is not simply enough to trust that privacy is being respected. We also need to verify that this trust is not misplaced. This means that someone needs sufficient privileges to see how data are being handled and privacy is implemented. Whoever does this should be both independent and trustworthy. Who is responsible for verifying that the privacy policy matches the practices that are actually being followed?

Recourse: If a user believes their privacy has been violated, what recourse do they have to address their concerns? Who do they contact, and who hears these appeals? How do we ensure that this is not abused with frivolous complains to avoid overwhelming whoever has this responsibility?

Enforcement: Any policy is worthless if there are no consequences when it is violated. If a user or staff member has violated another person's privacy, how is this enforced? What are the appropriate sanctions when a community member violates another user's privacy? What happens when a staff member violates another user's privacy? Who determines these sanctions? Is there a process to appeal any sanctions?

Within these topics, we must also be mindful of practical concerns. SN is required to comply with the laws in relevant jurisdictions such as the United States and the state of Delaware. Any solutions have to be practical, given the limited financial and human resources. Working within those constraints, SN policy should go above and beyond what is merely required by law, and to maximize the privacy of the members of the community.

One week from now, I will post my next journal, but this one will remain open for comments. Like I said, I intend to focus this discussion on future policy, so I'm not interested in discussing specific individuals or grievances about the past. Let's keep this discussion on-topic and focused in the right direction.

I'd planned to post a journal about the privacy policy today, but I think that's going to be postponed one more time, probably to the middle of next week. You've probably seen a lot of discussion about the future of the site in meta discussions, various journals, and in IRC logs. SoylentNews was originally going to shut down on the 30th of this month, but a member of the site who uses the name Kolie on IRC approached NCommander about keeping the site open. Since then, Kolie and NCommander have worked on changes to the hardware and software that run this site. There have also been discussions about other changes to how the site operates in the future, and you can see some of these in previous stories and journals posted by NCommander.

I had not heard of Kolie until a couple of weeks ago. You've probably seen a lot of different perspectives on the future of the site from my journals, janrinok's journals and meta discussions, NCommander's journals and meta discussions, and the recent journals posted by Kolie (replic8tor). I suspect all of these different perspectives and ideas can be somewhat confusing. I'd like to give the community a better idea of who Kolie is, the changes happening to SN right now, and the future plans for this site.

Kolie has agreed for me to interview him, and I anticipate we'll do so via IRC roughly a week from now. I'm not planning to make it available to watch the interview live, but rather to share a log of the conversation with the community. I'd like for this to be a Slashdot-style interview, in which the community can submit questions. Unlike Slashdot, I don't intend to limit this to 10 questions, but I do want to focus on highly-rated questions. That means your moderation matters as well in helping me determine what questions to ask. I intend to focus the interview on at least the following topics:

• Kolie's thoughts on how to repair the relationship between the board and the staff.
• What Kolie thinks the biggest concerns are facing SN right now.
• How Kolie would plan to address those concerns.
• Kolie's thoughts on community governance, and giving users who aren't staff a greater role in the direction of the site
• Kolie's plans for your his involvement with the site in a year or a few years from now
• The idea of paid staff has been raised -- would Kolie support this? If so, what the paid staff would do and where the money would come from?
• Kolie's plans for either updating or replacing Rehash, and about a commitment to keeping the software that powers the site open source.
• What Kolie believes should be done to improve user privacy, both from a software standpoint and policy for the site.
• How SN policy will be decided in the future, whether it's a privacy policy, editorial standards, or anything like that -- who makes the decisions and what changes Kolie would like to see.
• What lessons can be learned from the current situation, and how to prevent similar situations from arising in the future.
• The community doesn't get to see the interactions between Kolie and the SN board, so I'll ask Kolie to describe how that works, and to give some insight into the process... in particular, how the community's questions/concerns are discussed and addressed.
• An update on what's going on from a standpoint of both the hardware and software.
• I also plan to ask Kolie to introduce himself, his background, his involvement with the community in the past, his experience in technology and computing, and to give the community a much better idea who he is.

I'd like to give the community a lot more insight into the changes that are taking place, the process that's involved, and why these changes are taking place. For example, you've probably heard about changes to where SN is going to be hosted, so I'd like the community to have a better picture of what changes are being done, and why this is happening.

I want to open this up to the community and solicit your questions for Kolie, whether they're part of any of the topics I've listed or something else that you think I should ask him. I plan to conduct the interview via IRC about a week from now. Your questions and suggestions over the next week will determine what I ask Kolie in the interview.

Please submit your questions and suggestions in this journal. If you agree with a question or suggestion that someone else has posted, please mod it up so that I know this is something that the community wants me to address.

Also, Kolie has provided an update on the progress of the work being done on the site in a recent journal that's no longer visible on the front page: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=55996&cid=1311491.

I will post the next journal about the privacy policy on Thursday, but this is relevant to privacy. I invite comments from anyone, AC or otherwise, to discuss this as well as janrinok's recent journal. I am calling an audible because of janrinok's journal and what is contained within.

To the Board of Directors for the SoylentNews Public Benefit Corporation:

When I registered for SoylentNews, I did not have to indicate agreement to any terms of service. Instead, access to this site appears to be governed by policies and various texts throughout SoylentNews. This includes text such as the following about journals and comments, respectively:

The Fine Print: The following are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Although this text is intended to indemnify SoylentNews from damage caused by content posted here, it has a secondary effect. Nowhere have I granted any sort of license to use content I submitted for any length of time, let alone in perpetuity, nor have I waived any sort of royalties associated with it. Because of this, I retain full ownership and full control of my data and content, including how it can be used and where it can be stored. Instead, community members like me share our data and content with SoylentNews as part of a good faith but implied agreement that SoylentNews will act responsibly, in the interests of the community, and be good stewards of our copyrighted work that we share with this site.

Janrinok's recent journal raises especially troubling questions about how this data will be used and potentially monetized. I am deeply concerned that this trust is about to be violated. The silence about these plans and apparent non-disclosure agreement are particularly alarming. If this is merely an effort to address the technical debt and make this sustainable, why is secrecy required? Why are the long-term plans for this site not being discussed openly but instead in private with three people: yourself, Matt, and kolie?

Moreover, the database contains hashed IP addresses that go back to the very beginning of this site. Because I interact with SoylentNews in good faith, I do not make an effort to use a VPN, Tor, or other anonymizing services when connecting to this site. Although my IP address is dynamic and occasionally changes, these hashed IP addresses have the potential to link together information that I have shared across multiple comments with the intent that my anonymity be respected. If one were to piece together the various comments that I have posted anonymously and from my account, it is conceivable that they could gain a far greater insight into my identity and my life. As recently as Saturday, June 10, 2023, a comment was posted on this site calling for the murder of another user. Because of the malicious behavior of at least one member of this site, any and all users of this site are justified if they are concerned for their safety and well-being if their data is not kept safe. It is greatly troubling that no details have yet been publicized about how my private data will be stored and protected.

Because I own the copyrights to the work that I have shared with SoylentNews, I am not required to idly sit by and simply trust that my data will be used in good faith. Neither am I required to continue allowing SoylentNews to use or disseminate my copyrighted work. I own all the content I have submitted to SoylentNews and I reserve all rights pertaining to it. I am under no legal obligation to allow SoylentNews to continue using my copyrighted works. The use of my work and data on this site is part of an implied good faith agreement. Recent developments raise serious questions about whether SoylentNews intends to honor its part of this implied agreement. To my knowledge, no members of this community have waived our ownership and copyrights to the content we graciously share, and that is essential for this site to exist in anything resembling its current form.

I do not pretend that I speak for all users or even many users of this site. But I caution you that users of this site tend to have a greater understanding and concern about their privacy and their rights than typical internet users.

I am calling on the board of SoylentNews to promptly explain how it intends to store and use the copyrighted and private data going forward that community members have graciously shared with this site over the past 9+ years. I look forward to your prompt and detailed response to these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Dalek

My next journal about SN's privacy policy will be posted on June 13. As with before, the first journal is available at https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=55711, and I encourage further discussion there. Despite what you might have read, I haven't buried that journal. In fact, the comments in that journal will inform the topics I discuss in my third privacy policy journal, which will be posted around June 27. The June 13 journal will address community governance and how to create the policy. The June 27 journal will discuss possible solutions for the issues you've raised in my first journal. In the interim, I'd like to refer you to a journal by separatrix about community governance and SN's board of directors, and also to a comment by janrinok asking questions about potential privacy concerns.

Let me begin this journal by asking a question: Where does the Constitution protect your right to use encryption?

You might say the right arises from the Fourth Amendment, which seems to be an obvious choice. But here's what the amendment actually says:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This is a restriction on how and when the government can enter your property, search your possessions, and seize your belongings. It unquestionably places limits on government power and how police can access data, but those restrictions apply regardless of whether your data is encrypted. I have the right to lock my front door, but that right isn't derived from the Fourth Amendment, and the primary purpose of the lock is to keep criminals out, not the police. The right to encryption seems somewhat tangential to the Fourth Amendment.

There is an implied right to privacy, but this is an unenumerated right that is not explicitly written in the Constitution. Because this is an implied right, there is no specific text that defines the scope of the right. For that reason, it's not clear to what extent the right to privacy protects different measures people can take to maintain their privacy. It seems like encryption should be protected, but it relies on the interpretation of a right that already isn't explicitly defined.

I believe there are much stronger protections in the Constitution, specifically the following text:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

One important historical application of encryption was the ciphers used for military communication during wartime. During the Cold War, encryption was classified as a munition, and its export was restricted. Although the export restrictions changed and were largely dropped due to an executive order issued by Bill Clinton, some hardware used for military encryption is still subject to export controls. The Second Amendment gives individuals the right to keep and bear arms, and there is ample precedent that it protects the right of individuals to self defense. Just as I could use a gun to protect myself or my property from criminals, encryption is a self defense mechanism that protects my data from criminals. If encryption is a munition, and it has applications to self defense, then it certainly should be a right guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

Law enforcement frequently argues that we need to restrict encryption or add backdoors to make sure that police can access data during criminal investigations. This is, of course, a terrible idea because if police can circumvent encryption, so can criminals. Any such law restricting encryption would appear to violate the Second Amendment, and therefore it should be overturned in court. I suspect that any attempts to restrict or outlaw encryption would be met with nearly unanimous opposition on this site, and for many excellent reasons.

Here's the dilemma. I would like to keep guns out of the hands of mass shooters and other violent criminals. In principle, I strongly support gun control because I'm sick and tired of hearing about one mass shooting after another. Enacting more extensive gun control almost certainly means interpreting the Second Amendment in a narrower way. The problem is that reducing the protections to own and carry guns also weakens the same part of the Constitution that provides the strongest protections for encryption.

I'm no lawyer, so it's entirely possible that my understanding of the law is flawed. I don't intend for this journal to revisit the same old and tired arguments about gun control that devolve into incivility. I am interested in discussing the legal issues that seem to link encryption and gun control.

Again, in three days, I'll be posting another journal about SN's privacy policy. When that happens, I'm not burying this one. I just want to discuss additional topics that interest me along with the privacy policy.

Most of the discussion of actual privacy issues in my previous journal appears to have concluded. You can still find and post in that journal at https://soylentnews.org/~dalek/journal/14662. I have plans to post three initial journals. The next one will be around June 12 or 13, and it will focus on the process for creating the new privacy policy and community governance. Sometime toward the end of June, I'm going to create a list of all the potential privacy problems you've identified and write a third journal to focus on potential solutions. If you have additional thoughts on privacy issues that should be addressed, I'll refer you to https://soylentnews.org/~dalek/journal/14662.

Just because I'm using my journals to discuss privacy issues doesn't mean that I've forgotten about motorsports. It's just a few minutes until it's lights out and away we go for Formula 1 from Barcelona. Later today, the NASCAR Cup series is at Gateway (Worldwide Technology Raceway in St. Louis).

There seem to be a lot of European circuits that pretty much everyone seems to love, whether it's Spa, Silverstone, Monza, or the Red Bull Ring. Even though F1 hasn't been there in a few years, it seemed like Hockenheimring was a favorite. Nobody seems to like Barcelona, but I thought the racing was actually pretty good there last year. The track has changed this year, removing the final chicane. I think this is an improvement, because sector 3 now has a much more flowing series of turns, and the speeds are higher. Overall, this knocked about six seconds off the lap times in qualifying from last year. The change is also expected to increase the wear of the front left tire, possibly leading to an extra pit stop. That's a good thing if you want race strategy to be important.

Perez and Russell will start outside the top 10 and Leclerc will start from the pit lane. Those are all fast cars that will want to get through the field quickly. With the changes (improvements, in my opinion) to the circuit, strategy perhaps having a bigger role, and the starting grid a bit jumbled up, it should be a fun race. I'm looking forward to the race.

Although I live deep in the heart of Cubs territory (Go Cardinals!) and well to the north of Gateway, if fans have home tracks, I'd consider Gateway my home track. Sorry Chicagoland Speedway and the Chicago Street Race. Gateway is a unique track, kind of like a bigger and faster Martinsville. The Nextgen car probably isn't set up to run especially well at Gateway, and the Gen 6 cars would probably run better there, but last year's race still had some very entertaining drama between Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain. Here's a recap of what happened a year ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4WvG9jSRY8. Chastain also had some issues with Chase Elliott, but Elliott is (rightly) suspended for this race because he intentionally wrecked Denny Hamlin last week at Charlotte.

Gateway is shaped a bit like Martinsville, with two really long straights and fairly low-banked turns at both ends with very tight radii. It's a bit unusual because the track is egg-shaped (like Darlington), meaning the two ends of the track have different radii and banking. The preferred line is around the bottom of the turns, though drivers were able to run well one lane up in last year's Cup race. It's not a single groove track, but passing is still a challenge. Speeds are slow enough in the turns that it's possible to move cars out of the way with the bumper. Despite the challenges with overtaking, I really like Gateway. I am somewhat biased, though. :-)

Gateway is new to the Cup series schedule, but it's a fairly old facility, and the truck series have run there for a long time. It's one of the few tracks on the schedule that isn't owned by either NASCAR or SMI. It had been owned by Dover Motorsports (which SMI purchased a couple of years ago), and they closed Gateway back in 2010. Fortunately, the track was sold to Curtis Francois, who is a former Indy Lights driver. Gateway is one of the few independent tracks left on NASCAR's schedule. The track is locally owned by a former driver who really seems to care about having a good product. A lot of money has been put into improving the facility to bring it up to Cup series standards and provide a better experience for fans. There's a lot of work to be done, but I appreciate that the owner actually cares about the facility. I'm glad it's independently owned instead of being one of many tracks that SMI owns.

As for the race, tire wear shouldn't be too much of an issue. When IndyCar returned to Gateway a few years ago, tests were done on the very old and worn surface, and there were serious issues with cut tires. For that reason, Gateway was repaved, and tire wear won't be high on the relatively new surface. Passing should be challenging, but I still expect it to be a two groove track. It should be a fun race, and like Martinsville, Gateway seems to produce a lot of frustrated drivers.

Gateway has a lot of characteristics of short tracks, and the racing hasn't been great with the Nextgen car at tracks like Martinsville. Gateway is a fairly low-banked 1.25 mile track, but it's large enough that NASCAR isn't going to use the low downforce package that it runs at tracks like Martinsville, Richmond, Phoenix, and New Hampshire. One of the big issues with the Nextgen car at Gateway is probably that the brakes are much larger and more powerful than with the Gen 6 cars. The ends of both straights are hard braking zones, and entering the turns would be more difficult with the smaller brakes. The low downforce package would probably help, as would finding a way to reduce shifting. I'm up for discussing the issue more in the comments, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me why NASCAR isn't also using the short track package at Gateway.

Still, it should be a fun race. We're a few minutes away from the formation lap at Barcelona, so I'm going to post this journal and watch F1.

I've been approached about working on a new privacy policy for SoylentNews and have agreed to do so. This journal is the first step in that process.

SN currently runs on Rehash, which is written in Perl and dates back to Slash 2.0. Many privacy-related considerations in Rehash are dictated by decisions made by the Slashdot admins nearly 25 years ago when they wrote the original code. The age of this code and its dependencies on tools like mod_perl make it nearly unmaintainable, meaning that SN may implement a new code base sooner rather than later. This is a pivotal time to discuss a new privacy policy for SN, an the decisions made now will likely influence the implementation of whichever new code base powers SN in the future.

SN has three primary stakeholders, which are 1) the ownership, 2) the staff, and 3) the community. To be successful, any site policy needs the support of all three of these stakeholders. That means the community needs to be actively engaged in the process.

My first steps will be to solicit input from the SN community and to spend most of my time listening. There are three important questions to discuss:

1) Problems: What privacy-related considerations are important to you, the members of the SN community? What are your concerns? As long as the issues are reasonably relevant to privacy, anything should be on the table here. This includes things like what user data gets stored, how long it is retained, who has access to it, the right to be forgotten, anonymous commenting, and anything that can reasonably be construed as a privacy issue.

2) Process: All three stakeholders must be supportive of any privacy policy for it to be effective. Therefore, once a privacy policy is drafted, we need a process for all three stakeholders to approve this. I anticipate the biggest questions here will be how you, the members of the SN community, get to voice your support or to request amendments to the policy. What process would the community like us to follow for enacting policy? Do all logged-in users get to vote? Does the community elect representatives?

3) Potential Solutions: Once you, the members of the SN community, make your privacy concerns heard, we need potential solutions for those concerns. These solutions will be limited by a few constraints. To allow for robust discussions and make SN a welcoming community, we need the ability to track abuse of the site (e.g., spam comments, sock puppet account creation, gaming the moderation system, etc...) to prevent disruption of the discussions. SN is required to comply with the laws in relevant jurisdictions such as the United States and the state of Delaware. Any solutions have to be practical, given the limited financial and human resources. Working within those constraints, SN policy should go above and beyond what is merely required by law, and to maximize the privacy of the members of the community.

I'll start by posting three journals at least 7-10 days apart to discuss each of these issues. For this journal, I want to focus on the first point, which is what privacy concerns you have, What is important to you, as members of the SN community, and what do we need to address in the new privacy policy? While any discussion of privacy matters is on-topic in this journal, I'd like to try to keep the discussion focused as much as possible on privacy-related problems that we need to address.

There are a few ground rules in this discussion:

1) If you're giving examples of specific privacy concerns, please don't include actual user names or people. Please use hypothetical terms, or use generic names like "person A" and "person B."

2) The new privacy policy is forward looking, meaning that the discussion should focus on how we can be better in the future, and not on holding people responsible for past mistakes or how the existing code is written.

3) Please keep the discussion civil and welcoming. Everyone deserves a chance to participate in this discussion and to be heard. Please keep the discussion constructive and refrain from posting personal attacks. Privacy is for everyone, and that means everyone deserves to be heard. I ask that you please don't try to dominate the discussion or shout other people down, and instead let everyone make their opinions known.

4) Please keep the discussion on-topic. Any privacy-related matters are on-topic, but issues like story selection are beyond the scope of this policy. Let's keep issues like politics out of this discussion, too.

5) Please don't moderate people down unless they're off-topic, trying to dominate the discussion, shouting people down, or posting personal attacks. Even if you disagree with someone else, please don't moderate them down unless they're violating the ground rules for this discussion. I want everyone to be heard.

I pledge that I'll read every comment that you post. My direct input to this discussion will be minimal, and I probably won't post at all except maybe to answer questions or ask for more detail if appropriate. I'm not here to debate with people. I just want to listen to your concerns. Anonymous Cowards are welcome in this discussion, but all comments that I post will be from the dalek account. I have unchecked the "willing to moderate" box in my user preferences, which means that I am not moderating any comments in this discussion. I am just here to listen.

I want to make these discussions as inclusive as possible. That means I intend to allow Anonymous Coward input to all of these journals. In exchange for keeping these discussions open, I ask that you please keep these discussions on track. I will post future journals, but for now, I want to know what your privacy concerns are, and what topics we need to address in the new privacy policy.

Happy greatest day in motorsports! :-)

In just a couple of hours, the lights will go out (and away we'll go) at Monaco. It's a very old street race run mostly through the streets of Monte Carlo in quite possibly the most spectacular setting in all of motorsports (apologies to Singapore). Many of you probably associate me mostly with NASCAR, but the first race I ever watched was an old Monaco Grand Prix.

Monaco almost wasn't on the Formula 1 schedule this year because of a dispute with the Automobile Club of Monaco about negotiating a new contract for the race. I can't imagine an F1 schedule without Monaco on the schedule, a race that predates F1 and was first run in 1929.

This is a race that's not the most entertaining for fans because the race cars have become wider over time, and overtaking is extremely difficult in the narrow streets. For the drivers, it's a very fun track because the close proximity of the barriers around the track makes it a very technical circuit. Racing at Monaco is usually best in the rain, where it's much easier to overtake at several points around the circuit. You know that it's a classic circuit when all of the turns have unique names like Sainte Devote, Beau Rivage, Massenet, and many others. Sainte Devote is named for a small chapel near the first turn named for Saint Devota, the patron saint of Monaco. Many of the other turns have interesting stories to them, too.

By the way, for anyone who says Monaco is boring, that means you missed the qualifying session on Saturday. I can't think of a track in motorsports where qualifying is more important, and Q3 was as good as it gets.

A couple of hours after Monaco is the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500. It's run on a 2.5 mile "oval" that's really a rectangle with rounded corners and used to be covered entirely with bricks. Despite being known as the brickyard, almost none of the original bricks remain, with the exception of the start/finish line. Although F1 doesn't run on ovals in the present day, the Indy 500 was an F1 points race from 1950 to 1960.

Many modern NASCAR ovals have turns 1-4 even though there are really only two distinct turns, one at each end of the track. Indianapolis Motor Speedway is partly to blame for this, and it really does have four distinct turns. Darlington Raceway was built a few decades later and wanted to be the Indianapolis of the South, including copying the terminology of turns 1-4. Darlington is more of a typical NASCAR oval with two distinct turns, one at each end, but after copying Indy, the use of turns 1-4 became standard throughout NASCAR.

The Indy 500 is one of two races that calls itself the Great American Race, the other being the Daytona 500. It's a classic race, even older than Monaco, changing over the decades as the bricks were paved over and the cars became much faster. It's a test of drivers' endurance, with 200 laps run at incredibly high speeds. Ever wonder why the cars snake all over the backstretch and frontstretch? The draft is powerful at Indy, so the cars swerve through the straights to try to break the draft for the cars behind them. Not only do the drivers have to negotiate the track, but they have to pay careful attention to any cars behind them that might be in their slipstream. At the end of the 200 laps, the winner gets their face added to the Borg-Warner Trophy and receives a bottle of milk.

In the evening, the Coca-Cola 600 is NASCAR's longest race, run on the 1.5 mile oval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. There's rain in the forecast for most of the Carolinas today, so there's a pretty good chance this race will be postponed to Monday afternoon and evening. It's a test of endurance, with 400 laps around the oval, starting late in the afternoon and finishing up well into the night. The changing track conditions present quite a challenge, because cars that run well when the track is hot may not be the best cars as the track cools during the evening. It might look like any other 1.5 mile oval, but the rough surface of the track and the bumps make this track quite challenging for the drivers. Last year's race was a true test of endurance with many cautions due to tire issues and a couple of big wrecks.

I'm not betting on the Coca-Cola 600 running today because there's an extratropical low spinning along the coast of the Carolinas and producing quite a lot of rain across much of North Carolina. I remain hopeful that the weather will clear long enough to dry the track and get in 400 laps of racing this evening, but I sure wouldn't bet on it. More likely than not, the Xfinity series race will be run Monday afternoon and the Coca-Cola 600 will be Monday evening. If only we could send the rain from Charlotte to Monaco, it would be perfect.

Anyway, there's a lot more I could say about these three classic races, but I'd never get it finsihed before the lights go out at Monaco. If you're going to watch all three races like I am, I'll just strongly encourage you to... reach up there and pull those belts tight one more time!

At the start of the pandemic, I submitted a story as an AC about abandoned North Wilkesboro Speedway being scanned for iRacing. As NASCAR shut down along with other professional sports, a series of virtual races were run, and North Wilkesboro was the final virtual race in 2020.

NASCAR last raced at North Wilkesboro in 1996. It's a very unique short track in the mountains of western North Carolina. The distance is 0.625 miles, and the track is built on an incline. The two ends of the track race differently because the front stretch is downhill and the backstretch is uphill, with an elevation difference of 18 feet. There were limited updates to the track in the 1980s and 1990s, meaning that the track had significantly fewer amenities than other tracks of that era. After the track's owner died, it was sold, and North Wilkesboro's two races were moved to Texas and New Hampshire.

At the time, many people assumed that as NASCAR added more races, they would eventually return to North Wilkesboro. Unfortunately, that never happened, and no other series raced there, either. Aside from a brief attempt to reopen the track in 2010, the track was completely abandoned. The buildings and grandstands around the track started crumbling, and plants were growing through cracks in the track surface.

Before the pandemic hit, Dale Earnhardt Jr. gathered a group of people to visit the track to remove the plants from the track and clean it so it could be scanned by iRacing. Even then, I don't think anyone expected the track to ever reopen. However, the virtual NASCAR event drew attention to the abandoned track. When the North Carolina government had a surplus of money, the governor's budget allocated funds for three tracks in the state: Charlotte Motor Speedway, Rockingham Speedway, and North Wilkesboro Speedway. With the funding from the state, track owner SMI decided it was financially viable to rebuild the grandstands and buildings around the track.

Last year, SMI started rebuilding the facilities around the track. A few smaller races were held at the track late last year and early this year. Originally, NASCAR's all-star race was scheduled to return to Texas Motor Speedway this year. However, the racing at Texas has not been good, and fans were generally not pleased with this. SMI backtracked and later announced that the all-star race would take place at North Wilkesboro. The track is still being renovated, but the facility is once again in good condition.

SMI has not repaved the track, meaning that cars will run on the same surface as they did in 1996. Having been last repaved in 1981, this is by far the oldest track surface that NASCAR will run at this year. This means that grip will be low and tire wear will be very high, which could very well produce good racing. The truck series race starts in just a few minutes, and this is a points race. The cup series race is not a points race. Qualifying will continue this evening, and then the all-star open and race will take place tomorrow evening. There were a lot of fans in the stands yesterday for truck and cup series practice, which is unusual. The stands are packed today for the truck series, which is also unusual.

In 1996, Texas Motor Speedway took away one of North Wilkesboro's race dates. And now, 27 years later, this has been fixed and North Wilkesboro took that race date back from Texas.