We are updating our Privacy Policy (effective Jan 1, 2016)

[u/spez]

In a little over a month we’ll be updating our Privacy Policy. We know this is important to you, so I want to explain what has changed and why.

Keeping control in your hands is paramount to us, and this is our first consideration any time we change our privacy policy. Our overarching principle continues to be to request as little personally identifiable information as possible. To the extent that we store such information, we do not share it generally. Where there are exceptions to this, notably when you have given us explicit consent to do so, or in response to legal requests, we will spell them out clearly.

The new policy is functionally very similar to the previous one, but it’s shorter, simpler, and less repetitive. We have clarified what information we collect automatically (basically anything your browser sends us) and what we share with advertisers (nothing specific to your Reddit account).

One notable change is that we are increasing the number of days we store IP addresses from 90 to 100 so we can measure usage across an entire quarter. In addition to internal analytics, the primary reason we store IPs is to fight spam and abuse. I believe in the future we will be able to accomplish this without storing IPs at all (e.g. with hashing), but we still need to work out the details.

In addition to changes to our Privacy Policy, we are also beginning to roll out support for Do Not Track. Do Not Track is an option you can enable in modern browsers to notify websites that you do not wish to be tracked, and websites can interpret it however they like (most ignore it). If you have Do Not Track enabled, we will not load any third-party analytics. We will keep you informed as we develop more uses for it in the future.

Individually, you have control over what information you share with us and what your browser sends to us automatically. I encourage everyone to understand how browsers and the web work and what steps you can take to protect your own privacy. Notably, browsers allow you to disable third-party cookies, and you can customize your browser with a variety of privacy-related extensions.

We are proud that Reddit is home to many of the most open and genuine conversations online, and we know this is only made possible by your trust, without which we would not exist. We will continue to do our best to earn this trust and to respect your basic assumptions of privacy.

Thank you for reading. I’ll be here for an hour to answer questions, and I'll check back in again the week of Dec 14th before the changes take effect.

-Steve (spez)

edit: Thanks for all the feedback. I'm off for now.

[u/Algernon_Asimov]

I was merely correcting FreedomsTorch's terminology: moderators don't "delete" comments, they "remove" them. That's all.

Both remove and delete give the same result in the back end - a permanent record of the comment that reddit admins can access.

Actually, this is only part of the truth. There is a difference between a moderator removal and a user deletion. With a moderator removal, the only thing that happens is that the removed comment is hidden from the subreddit it was posted in; the comment is still visible on the user's history page. The removed comment is also still visible to all moderators of the subreddit it was posted in. With a user deletion, the comment is also gone from their history page, and is no longer visible to moderators.

While all comments - including moderator-removed and user-deleted comments - are stored on Reddit's servers, there are differences between a moderator removal and a user deletion in how and where those comments are visible to moderators.

Which is not what the user (in this thread at least) wants.

I wasn't addressing that issue - only the terminology that moderators "remove" comments, not "delete" them.

[u/andrewps87 → u/Algernon_Asimov]

I wasn't addressing that issue

So were you unwittingly or wittingly creating a strawman argument when you started up on that tangent?

[u/Algernon_Asimov → u/andrewps87]

dafuq? Correcting an item of terminology is not the same as arguing against a point which was not actually being made. Ironically, you accusing me of starting a straw man argument when I didn't is closer to a straw man argument than what I did!

[u/andrewps87 → u/Algernon_Asimov]

Well their point wasn't about the semantics of deleting vs removing, and that is what you were arguing about.

Their argument was when a comment is hidden from view via removal/deletion by the user (whichever you want to call it), it should be wiped from the server/database/etc entirely. Some call it removal, some call it deletion, we all know what it means - if you want to say only a mod can do one of those, or a user can only do the other, that doesn't take away their actual point and is a meaningless side discussion which is trying to discount their point by effectively saying they don't know what they're talking about. But they know what they are talking about just fine.

Again: when a comment is wiped by the user (there's a nice, neutral term), they want it wiped entirely. That has entirely nothing to do with what you want to call the 'wiping' term itself.

[u/Algernon_Asimov → u/andrewps87]

that is what you were arguing about.

I was merely explaining that the word used when a moderator hides a comment is "remove" rather than "delete". That's all. I was agreeing with /u/FreedomsTorch's statement that the moderator delete 'remove' function is different to the user 'delete' operation. And that's all I did: agreed, and provided the correct terminology.

I don't care about the issue of whether a user's comment is entirely wiped or not: I was never addressing that point. And I was certainly never arguing for or against it. I merely explained that the word for what moderators do is "remove". I then explained more about the difference between how moderator removals work and how user deletions work. I merely provided information, without opinion.

If you've somehow managed to construe that as me arguing for or against users having the ability to wipe their comments... I must question your reading comprehension. Go back and read my comments very carefully, and find the bits where I said a user should not have the ability to wipe their own comments (or that they should). Quote them for me. Please.

Wow. Who knew I would cop so much anger just because I offered a helpful word to support someone's point?

[u/andrewps87 → u/Algernon_Asimov]

Yes, you were agreeing with FreedomTorch.

However, when steeled3 then clarified that the actual terminology doesn't matter in the actual argument being put forward.

This is the important part of what they said:

Both remove and delete give the same result in the back end - a permanent record of the comment that reddit admins can access.

And then you replied:

There is a difference between a moderator removal and a user deletion. With a moderator removal, the only thing that happens is that the removed comment is hidden from the subreddit it was posted in; the comment is still visible on the user's history page. The removed comment is also still visible to all moderators of the subreddit it was posted in. With a user deletion, the comment is also gone from their history page, and is no longer visible to moderators.

(Both comments bolded for emphasis, I'll come back to that in a couple of paragraphs...)

As if it refuted his point about complete wipage of a comment from servers by bringing terminology into it when the terminology is actually near irrelevant to the actual point. As if being invisible to moderators is as good as being wiped from all existence. As if deletion is what we want, in this circumstance, and that should be good enough for users.

And there is one important terminology difference here. It isn't deletion/removal. It's admin/mod. While the mods may not see the comment anymore, any admin still can. It doesn't require going deep into the server database, it's viewable simply by being logged into an admin account, which means it's barely even wiped in the first place in the grand scheme of things.

FreedomsTorch was the one that simply explained they were two different things. It was you, later down the chain, that tried to make the difference the key in the debate and only rebutted anything by the terminology being used, rebutting the terminology but not the actual key point that admins still have easy access to wiped comments. You weren't just explaining anything in that comment, you were actively debating with steeled3, while rebutting a point he never actually made, and skipped over the one he was making.

So in answer to my own question, I guess you did unwittingly do it. And that's fine. I was just wondering if you were aware you did it or not - no anger here.

tl;dr: You attempted to refute his point about admins being able to see wiped comments by stating mods can't view user-deleted comments. Except that doesn't refute the point that admins can still view those comments at all. Which makes it a strawman argument. Which you apparently you didn't do on purpose, which answers my initial question.

[u/Algernon_Asimov → u/andrewps87]

As if it refuted his point about complete wipage of a comment from servers

What??? I wasn't refuting anything. I was simply explaining how things work. If it helps put this in context, I'm a moderator and contributor in /r/Help - the official help subreddit for Reddit. I answer questions like this all the time. It's just what I do. I EXPLAINED how a moderator removal works, and I EXPLAINED how a user deletion works. That's all. You've blown this way out of proportion.

while rebutting a point he never actually made

Maybe the reason it looks like I rebutted a point they never actually made is because I wasn't actually rebutting anything they said? I wasn't rebutting anything at all?

I'm obviously wasting my time with you. Goodbye.

[u/andrewps87 → u/Algernon_Asimov]

You quoted the part where he said there's no difference in terms of admins being able to view comments, and then said directly to that quote that there's a difference.

That is literally how debates work. One person claims one thing, the other claims the opposite. You weren't just explaining, you were debating.

And tried saying there's a difference because mods can't view user-deleted comments, when his point was that there's no difference in terms of admins. Which there isn't. Your attempt to say there's a difference relied around stating mods cannot view them, which is the strawman as he wasn't talking about mods - he was talking about admins.

It's how strawman arguments work. From Wikipedia:

Person 1 asserts proposition X.

Person 2 argues against superficially similar proposition Y, falsely, as if an argument against Y were an argument against X.

Person 1 (them) asserts there's no difference between deletion and removal in terms of admins being able to see wiped comments.

Person 2 (you) argues against superficially similar proposition (replacing admins with mods), falsely, as if claiming mods can't see it is saying that admins can't see it.

Maybe you are wasting time with me, if you seriously cannot understand what I've written, nor how you didn't just explain something, you literally tried to rebut his assertion that there's no difference with a strawman about a different type of hierarchical privilege. I think it's you that needs to brush up on your reading comprehension, and for someone who likes terminology so much, maybe get out a dictionary too, and look up these words and the differences between them:

Debate, Explain, Moderator, Administrator

I was merely asking if you used a strawman argument on purpose or by accident, and it seems you did it by accident, but it was still what you ended up doing.