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There is no way (as far as I know) to delete old entries, and I think this is good because with gossip mechanics we cannot lie to ourselves: there is no way of stopping that information from spreading.

What's possible, on the other hand, is to make a message type "ignore the previous" which client apps would interpret to hide them, but obviously a client app can be configured to not hide them.

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Yes I suppose I'm targetting the protocol a little too much when I should think about what features clients can implement.

I'm certainly happy with the "gossip" approach; I just see it as challenging for some people to adopt when they are coddled with the idea that they can censor their past.

Another very important point with no-deletes is: you can't deny history. You can't, in real-life, take back something you said. The mechanics of digital deletion in centralized systems is a big problem for History. I remember Julian Assange describing a corruption scandal that was essentially erased from History because a digital article by a large media company was deleted, and not replicated fast enough.

Usenet is, once again, a lesson here. Remember cancel messages. Then remember forged cancels. Then remember the people who decided to stop respecting cancel messages. Then remember the discussions about signed cancel messages. And so on. (-:

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