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Grex > Coop11 > #188: A policy response to Joe Saul's legal threat to Grex | |
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| 25 new of 88 responses total. |
jmsaul
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response 15 of 88:
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Jul 10 04:09 UTC 2000 |
You aren't a common carrier.
Yes, you could cover yourself if you were making a "reasonable effort" to
allow users to remove their text. You aren't now, and this policy probably
wouldn't cut it either.
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steve
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response 16 of 88:
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Jul 10 04:52 UTC 2000 |
I don't like Russ's idea either--it's too complicated. Either we
let people zap their entries, or not. Right now it seems that more
people prefer things the way they are. Joe, can you send me email
about the laws that deal with copyright in terms of entries here?
This is something I have never thought about before, and would like
to see your analysis of it.
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aruba
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response 17 of 88:
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Jul 10 05:48 UTC 2000 |
I think Russ's idea is OK, in principle, though I don't think it's a good
idea to ask that people pay money. Grex is not an ISP, so we don't charge
users for services rendered; I think this would come under that heading.
I don't think we need the stuff about users licensing their text to Grex.
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janc
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response 18 of 88:
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Jul 10 07:04 UTC 2000 |
I think for Russ's proposal to have a frogs chance in the Sahara of
being passed, you'd have to cut out requirements 3 and 4 (the notorized
letter and the charge for deleting responses). Possibly you could keep
the written request but drop the notarizaton. I'd also delete the
licensing. I wouldn't back this proposal with those in there.
Without those it would be at least vaguely plausible. I could easily
write a program that would let staff delete stuff from the censored log
easily.
Of course, anyone could back up copies of the censored log, thus
capturing responses likely to be erased soon. But what else is new. I
believe Russ typically reads conferences by downloading them in bulk and
reading them off-line. It would be trivial for him to keep copies of
the whole conferences. It would be only slightly less trivial for
anyone else to do the same (when you read a conference, all the text is
sent to your computer - how hard can it be to keep it). So if there is
anyone who really doesn't want people erasing their responses, that
person could easily archive everything they read. So there is a degree
of futility to censoring your own responses, no matter what policy we
have. I still think offering people even a futile version of that power
is the correct thing to do.
I like the original proposal better than this one. But we do need an
alternative proposal.
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aruba
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response 19 of 88:
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Jul 10 14:47 UTC 2000 |
Right, this is a compromise between the current policy and the one which
was voted down. I agree with Jan about cutting out notorization; that
sounds a bit vindictive, Russ. I agree that an appropriate compromise is
to put a few hurdles in the way of someone wanting to erase text, but we
should negotiate over the hurdles. It's my experience that sending a
written letter is a pretty big hurdle for most Grexers. (Not because it's
difficult, I think, but because it's weird to use a different medium to
contact the same people.)
I kind of agree with Joe that this is a strange compromise, and it would
look weird to new users. But compromise is what we should do at this
point, I think. It's better than rehashing the same argument over and
over again, when the vote's already been made.
We might want to designate one person as the "deletion czar", so requests
don't have to be seen by the whole staff. I really don't expect this to
happen very often at all, if we put in some simple hurdles.
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jp2
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response 20 of 88:
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Jul 10 15:10 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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stacie
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response 21 of 88:
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Jul 10 17:31 UTC 2000 |
Re #18 Jan, I don't want to upset you but there are frogs that live
just fine in the Sahara. Observe the African shovel-nose frogs
(comprised of 11 species in the Hemisus genus). Heh.
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jp2
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response 22 of 88:
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Jul 10 20:23 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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russ
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response 23 of 88:
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Jul 11 01:45 UTC 2000 |
Joe Saul AND slynne sputtering. Now there's a sight worth seeing. Makes it
worth every minute I spent keying it in, after musing about it on the walk.
And yes, I think Grex should clarify its legal position with regard to
licenses to publish material. What I don't think Grex should do is
turn itself into M-Net. This especially means that Grex should keep
the publicly-auditable logs and only mess with them under extraordinary
circumstances.
The processing fee is intended as a "sin tax". People could make a
habit of spouting and regretting, but it would be easier to reform.
(Until they did, they'd help support Grex whether they were members
or not.) Maybe self-control is a foreign concept to M-Netters?
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jp2
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response 24 of 88:
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Jul 11 02:22 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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jmsaul
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response 25 of 88:
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Jul 11 04:27 UTC 2000 |
Hippy.
;-)
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janc
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response 26 of 88:
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Jul 11 06:12 UTC 2000 |
Who you calling a conservative? Them's fighting words.
Frogs in the Sahara? Damn, another fine line ruined by the facts.
There's an implied license when someone posts something here. It gives
Grex all the obvious rights and not a whit more. Which is exactly what
I think we should require. The only reason for writing a license would
be to try to take more than the minimum rights over a user's postings,
which I think would be wrong. The implied license gives us exactly what
I think we should have, and doesn't cost us any attorney's fees to get
written to the exacting standard such a thing would have to be written to.
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jp2
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response 27 of 88:
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Jul 11 12:14 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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jmsaul
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response 28 of 88:
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Jul 11 13:38 UTC 2000 |
Re #26: The limitation of an implied license is that an express disavowal
revokes it. Which is why you can't continue to publish something
on Grex after the poster asks you not to. (And I liked the frogs
line, too.)
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janc
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response 29 of 88:
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Jul 12 06:16 UTC 2000 |
Right, but I consider that a feature.
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jmsaul
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response 30 of 88:
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Jul 12 15:17 UTC 2000 |
I do too. Take care, and come visit me on M-Net, Jan.
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prp
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response 31 of 88:
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Jul 12 16:08 UTC 2000 |
This whole thing is silly. Grex does not continue to publish things,
you publish them once, and then Grex keeps archives.
You can not write a letter to the editor, have it published in the
newspaper, and then go to the library and have it removed from the
back issues collection.
It would be nice if one could edit a response, but that is a whole
different issue.
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pfv
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response 32 of 88:
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Jul 12 17:08 UTC 2000 |
This ain't a Library, nor a newspaper: more spastic examples..
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scott
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response 33 of 88:
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Jul 12 20:34 UTC 2000 |
OK, it *isn't* a Library or a newspaper.
So what? There are still basic principles here.
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pfv
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response 34 of 88:
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Jul 13 03:31 UTC 2000 |
There are? Which principles? Whose Principles? Are these
Principles published somewhere? Somewhere everyone sees?
All the time?
On the one hand it's a "community" and on the other, a Regime.
(I don't EVEN wanna' think of what's on the Gripping Hand..)
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gull
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response 35 of 88:
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Jul 13 03:35 UTC 2000 |
I think the idea of requiring a letter is to prevent staff from being
overrun by spurious, trivial requests. You need *some* kind of energy
barrier if you make it a manual process.
I don't see the legal issue as a major problem, since in the unlikely event
it ever comes up, there's nothing stopping staff from removing the person's
posts if they feel strongly enough to threaten a lawsuit. While I would
have preferred to see the log depermitted, as things are right now we can
cross that particular bridge in the unlikely event we ever come to it.
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russ
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response 36 of 88:
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Jul 13 04:17 UTC 2000 |
It's exactly the (possible, and arguable) limitations of the implied
license, which some litigious people are threatening to argue at
Grex's expense, which call for Grex to demand an explicit license that
can't be terminated at whim and cause us all kinds of problems. This
removes the issue from the courts to our own milieu, where we can
settle things at our own pace and on our own terms.
Fairness certainly comes into it. People should absolutely have the
capability (as they do now) to remove things from the normal flow of
discussion. /bbs/censored is certainly outside that flow, and I
assume it's emptied every so often so it eventually loses even that
bit of visibility. But to try to purge something from existence -
once someone has read it, it's likely impossible. Why on earth should
we let anyone pretend otherwise, especially at the cost of the mischief
which has already resulted from the attempt?
"Your lack of preparation does not constitute our emergency." That's
what Grex should tell everyone who posts here. I'm more than willing
to discuss things with people, and try to do what's fair for everyone
(including the readers, who shouldn't be faced with sudden holes in
the context of what they're seeing). What we should do RIGHT NOW is
remove the handle by which Grex can be bullied, and get that license.
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gelinas
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response 37 of 88:
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Jul 13 04:23 UTC 2000 |
Russ, you aren't going to get the license.
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dpc
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response 38 of 88:
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Jul 13 15:55 UTC 2000 |
Is the Secretary of State willing to issue the license? Would
"drunk conferencing" be a reason to revoke the license?
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void
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response 39 of 88:
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Jul 13 17:39 UTC 2000 |
right now grex has no irrevocable license to force me to continue
publishing my text. it has no irrevocable license to force anyone to
continue publishing their text. no such license is implied. however,
the way the scribble command currently works is dishonest.
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