Automatic timed change to a post's access level

[dragonfly]

Title:
Automatic timed change to a post's access level

Area:
posts

Summary:
Provide a setting that applies to all posts, changing their access level after some specified period of time.

Description:
I'd like to be able to set posts to change access level after a certain amount of time. That way they could, for instance, be public for a while but then automatically change to "access list" when the time is up.

There should probably be a place when posting that allows you to say "not this post, though," however.

Poll #8406 Automatic timed change to a post's access level

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 56

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
20 (35.7%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
7 (12.5%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
10 (17.9%)

(I have no opinion)
19 (33.9%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[denise]

This is similar to, but not exactly alike to, http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/302096.html which was rejected because of the arguments advanced against giving people false senses of security (with posts already being cached elsewhere, etc). I am perfectly OK with revisiting the discussion; please take the arguments made against the option earlier into account when discussing!

[kate_nepveu]

I think I'd want to know that as a commenter; other people's thoughts?

[kyrielle]

I don't really care about being notified either way, because anyone can edit anything I've commented on to take it private after I've done so (or change it to a different security group, or take it public with my comments attached, etc.). I'd have no problem with being warned "security scheduled to change in the future" or the like, though. You'd have to be careful about saying what it would change *to* if it was changing to a custom group, though, as that information about the custom group's existence might not be legitimately available to the person commenting.

[kyrielle]

If this were implemented, I'd like the opposite - the ability to do it on one post, but not on most.

A FAQ explaining that this is not a security feature might also be good if this is done.

But I can see it being useful for a couple of non-security things. For example, for a post you want to make available initially to a limited group, then open wider at a set time; or for a "contest entries" post that you want to stop accepting comments on at a set time (if it goes - possibly temporarily, as you may bring it back later - private at that moment, that will effectively stop comments!).

[lightgetsin]

I would use the hell out of something like this, since it's what I do manually anyway, for a number of reasons.

[deborah]

just last week I was talking with a friend of mine about how desperately we both want this feature. She hasn't moved over to dreamwidth yes for lack of spoons, but I think this would be the killer app for her.

From my perspective, This would make a huge difference in... Well, just how much I blog.

it really creeped me out about a month ago when I got an angry 'shipper jumping into a character analysis post I had made four years ago accusing me of character bashing (I wasn't, but that's totally not the point). I've gotten to the point where I've started to feel icky about any unlocked posts, and it's not that I have a security issue, if that after a certain amount of time I want to take the posts down.

[lightgetsin]

Yes plus a million. It's not about security for me, it's this entirely different psychological thing that *hand gestures*.

I want it. I want it bad.

[instantramen]

I like this version better, especially the FAQsplanation.

[sporky_rat]

This is my with changes.

[azurelunatic]

Ooo, autoclosing the poll in an entry.

[ninetydegrees]

My with changes: if you can choose the posts this can be applied to by time range, tag, etc.

[azurelunatic]

If implementing this, I would have a place where I could tweak the specified period of time that is default (like, after X days) and then when opening the update form to draft a specific entry, just as the "the time is now" freezes at the moment, I would have the "timed changes: security to X on DATE" freeze at the specific date that is X days from now. And then I could override it manually to be a different date or not at all.

There might even be an "autonag", default text placed in the entry reminding that the security transformation will take place, as a courtesy, which could be altered or removed at the journal owner's discretion.

Also usefully seen in the wild, auto-closing comments to an entry. (This is mostly useful for blogs with high-volume comments and who have been targeted by spam and harassment, and does chill conversation in small intimate groups of friends and also upon the journal owner's death.)

[arethinn]

Everyone seems to be envisioning a post becoming more restrictive after some time period is elapsed. I'm worried about it permitting and people doing the reverse - having things mostly friendslocked and then opening them later? Of course one can do this manually but I'd be worried as a commenter in some cases.

[deborah]

that's always a risk when commenting on locked posts, though. I've commented on locked posts which the original poster then manually switched to unlocked.

[kate_nepveu]

Yes, of course, but to me it changes the dynamic of a conversation if I know the poster's intent in this regard ahead of time.

[arethinn]

As I said: one can always do this manually. But that's rather different than automating the process. If I knew that anything I said in someone's otherwise f-locked journal would eventually become public, well, that's an odd atmosphere. I don't know if anyone would actually use this feature in this way, I was just a little bemused that the assumption seems to be "obviously" it would go the other way (public at first).

[azurelunatic]

It could be useful for final-draft creative projects, or long essays where the intent is to make sure that there are no last-minute problems with a known and trusted audience, and then (if none are pointed out in a reasonable timeframe) take it public.

But the existing use of routine security-change-later does mostly seem to be a wider audience narrowed.

[ninetydegrees]

As I said: one can always do this manually. But that's rather different than automating the process.

If this feature is implemented I don't know whether it'll be a paid-user only one (I would think so) but paid users can already use the mass privacy tool to change all their access-locked posts to public. It's not as automatic as this would be as you need to go there and request the change but it's a world away from manually changing the security of each of your entries.

[susanreads]

I'd rather have it as a per-post setting on the shiny new update page. It seems to me to have some relationship to scheduled posts; also, scheduled closing of comments.