It's fantastic. And, silly me, I'll probably vote for the proposal and not opt in myself. So I'm glad for the double protection.

A couple of questions.

1) What do we do about quoted text? That is, if a non-opted-in user is responded to and quoted by an opted-in-user, will that text be stripped? Because since quotes tend not to be specifically attributed here, it could be really really difficult to do this.

2) Will all personally identifiable information be impersonalizated, or just user & person names? I'm thinking about locations, addresses, directions, companies, phone numbers, etc. I don't think we have too much of the latter few, but still.

I would say that quoted text should just be stripped out. It would be way too difficult to try to go back and attribute everything, and if it's from someone who opted in, then it would be there in the original post anyway.

Unfortunately, I don't think we can do much about quotes. We won't put the COMM thread in for ANC just for that reason, but in the other threads it might not be fixable. I can ask the ANC programmers. I think they're tagged as 'blockquote', but I'll have to test it.

As far as I know, all personally identifiable info is stripped. They've done it before for transcripts of phone conversations.

Can we start voting high noon, board time, Friday?

I think they're tagged as 'blockquote', but I'll have to test it.

Most quotes are tagged as blockquotes, but some users do it with a small font tag or somesuch. Conversely, blockquoted text could be used for other purposes.

I understand that all identifiable information will be stripped out, but will we still be individually anonymous (if that makes sense)? E.g., will all of my posts be attributed to "Poster 42" or whatever, or will they have no attribution beyond the board?

Personally, I would opt in and vote for the participation in the project. I feel that the archived posts from this board would be useful to the researchers of ANCC. The Buffistas are a particularly literate group and I can see how the content and flow of our threads would make a unique contribution. Hopefully we won't lightbulb the process to the extent that it would be more trouble than it is worth to contribute our posts.

Will they be using lightbulb and/or b'cy posts?

First of all, only currently closed threads will be eligible for the ANC. Which ones, yet, are not determined, but most likely Natter, Music, and the Show/Spoiler Threads. Bitches will not be one of the threads (too much personal info). Unamericans/Canadians will not be included, either (supposed to be for American English). FanFiction and San Sacre will not be included (too hard to separate fiction from nonfiction).

Doesn't sound like B'cracy would be included and we don't have a archived Light Bulbs thread.

Got it. Although it would be somewhat cool if the posts about using posts for the post project were used for the post project.

Maybe just to me.

I think erinaceous just wants to put us in a lab and do experiments on us.

Which, on the whole, I'm in favor of.