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50. Ace of Spades - 9/17/1999 8:40:42 PM
Errata post 48:
When two people are arguing, it may be the case that someone doesn't know when they've stepped over a subjective line of abusiveness or incivility, and in that case it may make sense to issue a warning (except in really serious cases, where immediate action may be taken).
51. Ace of Spades - 9/17/1999 9:03:06 PM
Jesus. I can talk a blue streak, can't I?
Earlier, Jay, you told me that if I wanted to protect my privacy, I just shouldn't ladel out private information about myself. Will that protect me?
In another debate, when we were debating pseudonyms versus real names, you told me that I shouldn't worry about my privacy, because anyone could get such information if they know how to do it and have the determination.
So which is it? Either one statement is true or the other statement is true; it can't be that one is true when you want it to be, and the other is true when you want that statement to be.
And if the latter statement is true-- which I suspect it is-- I really can't just guarantee my own privacy by "just not revealing information about myself," now can I? And in that case, I certainly need protection against other people outing sensitive information on-line, yes?
Let's consider who posts here (nobody takes any offense):
We have people who flirt with each other. Some of these people either have girlfriends or wives. Some people may do more than flirt.
We have people who are gay or have admitted to youthful homosexual experiences.
I'm glad that Jay, Dan, Pelle, etc., engage in no on-line behavior for which they would want anonymity, and have nothing whatsoever to hide from spouses, friends of spouses, girlfriends, parents, co-workers, and bosses. But some of us don't quite live up to that ideal. Some of us have secrets which we've only divulged on-line, under an alias.
And for that reason, some of us may prefer anonymity. And some of us, for those reasons or others, may have very good reasons for wanting to keep our identities private.
So please stop calling this all a "silly concern." If it's a silly concern for you, fine. But stop assuming that YOUR particular circumstance is the same circumstance shared by everyone else. 52. Ace of Spades - 9/17/1999 9:13:43 PM
Eeesh. Sorry about that ending. But I do get the feeling from various people that I "should just lighten up about it." Pelle, for one, said so almost explicitly.
I don't much want to "lighten up about it." No one knows my circumstance, no one knows if I'm having a wild homosexual affair with Niner. No one knows my reasons for preferring anonymity, and, quite frankly, they really shouldn't be demanding that I explain to them why I prefer anonymity. 53. JayAckroyd - 9/17/1999 9:39:57 PM The current language seems longer than what was posted earlier, and I don't see how you can regulate behavior outside of this environment. But I'm okay with the intent. I'd drop the note.
On the justification for this, I've tried really hard to take these concerns seriously.
On my "if you're really worried about privacy, don't tell people things" I stand by that. Yes, it's true, you don't have as much privacy as you may think, but why make it easy, if you're worried about it? Seems to me that folks who want to have relationships outside of the forum and are also trying to preserve their privacy inside the forum are trying to have it both ways. The folks you have outside-the-forum relationships with may have outside-the-forum relationships with other moties. The forum can't regulate those interactions.
That means you're still gonna have troubles with what is and is not public information about the individual. I do object to the harshness of the penalties, not because they're harsh, but because I expect most violations not to be clear violations. If you make the penalties too harsh, murky violations will be passed over, and you'll start muttering about insiders, cabals, and will try to start email campaigns.
Finally, I have to note that there would be no problem, with inappropriate monikers or outing pseudonymns, if we didn't allow handles. I reiterate my understanding that allowing handles is a consensus view. 54. AdamSelene - 9/17/1999 9:45:18 PM I think I like the way this is evolving.
1) Censoring should be based on civility and style, not content. (In addition to the 'outings' which should be aggressively banned, as we seem to be in agreement on except for the minor detail of appropriate punishment.) The 'abusive' standard is the right one for most censoring and can be painlessly handled by moving posts to a new thread like this one or to the Playpen. Nice set of solutions - who's not happy with it?
2) There HAS to be strong authority to do the censoring defined above - primarily, thread hosts. For backup and for times when a host's decision to leave something stand is appealed, a trio or so of meta-hosts is the right number and should be enough to cover the timezones. Note that I said a host's decision to leave something stand - a host's decision to delete or move something should be much harder to overturn. Posters can always find pleasant ways to restate their points if they don't like what's been censored. The only override here would be if a meta-host determined that ideas were being blocked instead of some abusive style or inappropriate outing.
It's been implied that lack of responses to a poster means that they're being ignored. I hope that's not true - I would like to think that everyone mostly just agrees with me and just doesn't have any improvement to make... ;-) Plus the fact that I tend not to address anyone in particular - I think of this more as a community of ideas than personalities (in general, but with lots of exceptions,) although I realize that I'm pretty unusual in this regard. Oh well. 55. JayAckroyd - 9/17/1999 9:46:10 PM Ace--
Nobody's demanded you explain why you want anonymity. But you just outed niner's gender, and implied something about his sexual preference. Was that public information? In context, I read that as sarcasm and parody. But if someone else commented on their supposed liaison with niner, wouldn't you object? And doesn't your message potentially violate the sexual history part of your rule in 41?
I like the language in 37 better, IAC.
56. Ace of Spades - 9/17/1999 9:47:05 PM
I have to note that there would be no problem, with inappropriate monikers or outing pseudonymns, if we didn't allow handles.
Yes, there would be. If everyone knows someone's name, they could STILL post home phone numbers, addresses, place of business, sexual history, HIV status, previous mental health problems, etc.
I don't want that shit on line. Even if you go by your own name, would you like it very much if I outed something I knew about you? Ever cheated on a wife? Ever have a gay experience? Would you like to see a child's school's name posted on-line?
It's possible someone could recognize the name "Jay Ackroyd" and post something nasty. A name is just one kind of information that shouldn't be published on-line. Since I take it you'd object to all the other bits of info being posted, why are you so adverse to letting me have ONE MORE little piece of information I'd like to keep private?
57. Ace of Spades - 9/17/1999 9:48:18 PM
But you just outed niner's gender, and implied something about his sexual preference. Was that public information?
It's a joke. He's straight (allegedly) and I make jokes like this. He's never objected before. He will not object now.
Don't drag this down onto a silly level. 58. AdamSelene - 9/17/1999 9:51:53 PM Acer,
I agree completely with your points justifying anonymity. I’ve revealed some things here that I wouldn’t have revealed to, say, my parents. I think that’s a valuable function of a community like this - it is virtual, you know.
On the other hand, I’ve been so proud of the usual high standards of this site (as carried over from the Fray) that I’ve invited several of my family here – so I might have to add an additional pseudonym if I keep that up…
59. Ace of Spades - 9/17/1999 9:52:45 PM
I do object to the harshness of the penalties, not because they're harsh, but because I expect most violations not to be clear violations. If you make the penalties too harsh, murky violations will be passed over, and you'll start muttering about insiders, cabals, and will try to start email campaigns.
This is a ridiculous complaint. I have NAMED the "most serious" offenses: Revelation of name. Address. Names of family members.
Those are the worst.
What punishment should I get for exposing someone's HIV positive status? I don't know. Let Wabbit decide.
But it's silly to say that, simply because not EVERY revelation is specified with a penatly, we cannot specify "permanant banning" for revealing an anonymous posters' name.
THAT'S specific. For that one violation, it's specified. You can't argue with it. Right there in the rules. Reveal the name or address of a Moter and you just committed a bannable offense.
Will other revelations also dictate banning? Probably. But just because we can't name them all doesn't mean we shouldn't name some. 60. JayAckroyd - 9/17/1999 9:55:16 PM Comrade Adam,
The problem will continue to be one of interpretation and boundaries. Since some of us do freely give away information publicly--my office phone number is 212-987-4680--and we will consort with each other in real life, and we will obtain personal information from different sources, what can we say and not say? If I mention something about you and airline capacity planning, have I overstepped a bound? If I make a false assertion about your relationship with your dog (mine's fine, btw), is that overstepping a bound?
I happen to think that Seguine overstepped a boundary on purpose, knowingly, in a misguided attempt to make a point. I happen to think that God is a perfectly reasonably moniker. I happen to think those things in the context of the purposely vague rules CalGal wrote into the ROE, and in the context of Ace's explicated rule. Other folks mileage is gonna vary, regardless of what rules you make.
What I liked about the profiles idea is that there is less ambiguity about what is or is not currently public. What's in the profile is public, period. What isn't, isn't. That leaves the real life interaction issue open, but I don't see any way to handle that other than to tell people to handle it in real life. That is, if someone posts something from RL you'd intended to be private, like your aphid problem, let them have it in real life.
--Comrade Bork 61. Ace of Spades - 9/17/1999 9:56:48 PM
I expect most violations not to be clear violations.
If they're not clear, they will result in a lesser penalty.
But if they are clear: Banned.
What's hard about that? Deliberate and malicious revelations of sensitive information are grounds for banning. If one of those elements is not established, it may result in a penalty less than banning. But if both elements are present, the punishment should be banning.
You're very inconsistent: When I want to get detailed, you tell me to simplify. When I simplify, you object that I haven't been detailed enough.
I can do one or the other, Jay. I can't do both. 62. JayAckroyd - 9/17/1999 9:57:41 PM msg 57
So now he's straight? Your posting his sexual history. By 41, you should be banned.
In context, as I said, this is silly. But that means the rules don't remove the ambiguity, because context matters, and people will disagree about context. 63. AdamSelene - 9/17/1999 9:58:21 PM Acer,
I tend to agree with your definition of high crimes and misdemeanors (blatant outings.) If you would allow a role for clemency based on unusual or mitigating circumstances and a proper break-in period where everyone learns the new rules, I could support it completely. 64. Ace of Spades - 9/17/1999 9:59:55 PM
Jay:
Niner has revealed his sexuality on numerous occasions. Hundreds. That is therefore NOT "private" information, as the rule states.
These quibbles are outright ludicrous. 65. JayAckroyd - 9/17/1999 10:01:05 PM "Deliberate and malicious revelations of sensitive information are grounds for banning. If one of those elements is not established, it may result in a penalty less than banning."
What's wrong with that? Add repeated to the first compound subject, and I think that's just fine. It leaves the judge to decide what is or isn't sensitive and what is or isn't deliberate, repeated or malicious. You're gonna need a judge no matter what. And this leaves room for the judge to deal with context and circumstance.
66. JayAckroyd - 9/17/1999 10:04:54 PM Niner's personal history is all news to me. The point I'm making here is that there's an implicit "unless already made public or clearly just a joke" clause in your rule. And then you're right back on the slippery slope of what's public, or interpreting the offense depending on who's saying it and the context. 67. Ace of Spades - 9/17/1999 10:05:06 PM
If you would allow a role for clemency based on unusual or mitigating circumstances and a proper break-in period where everyone learns the new rules, I could support it completely.
I have suggested that the PRESUMPTIVE penalty for a deliberate, malicious outing of sensitive private information should be banning for the most sensitive info (name, address, shit like that; I'll write a little list if Jay insists) and lesser penalties ranging from one month's to one year's suspension for other very sensitive pieces of information. (For lesser, trivial pieces of information, days or weeks, if someone squawks about it.) But that's PRESUMTIVE. If there are strongly mitigating circumstances, sure, give a lesser penalty.
I would allow NO TIME for people to "get used to the rule." It's right there in the RoE. It will be debated. And IT'S COMMON SENSE, anyway.
I am NOT talking about revelations like, "Oh, I had a wonderful lunch with Glenda last week." For god's sake, that's not what we're talking about here. It's absurd to bring that up, since no one's going to bitch about it.
68. AdamSelene - 9/17/1999 10:06:19 PM Jay,
The problem will continue to be one of interpretation and boundaries. Since some of us do freely give away information publicly--my office phone number is 212-987-4680--and we will consort with each other in real life, and we will obtain personal information from different sources, what can we say and not say?
I think it should be workable that if a poster reveals something in the Mote, others can use it and any reasonable inferences thereof. Fuzzy cases are fuzzy, and if a poster thinks a host is not being aggressive enough in banning unreasnable inferences, they can complain to the management trio. But such small scale stuff is barely worth a stern warning, certainly not a suspension.
If I mention something about you and airline capacity planning, have I overstepped a bound? If I make a false assertion about your relationship with your dog (mine's fine, btw), is that overstepping a bound?
Not if I’ve revealed it online or if it’s an obvious inference. But – if I reveal my line of work and it happens to be rare enough that you can put it together with a few other tidbits and figure out who I am (within –say- an 80% certainty), then I would hope you would ask my permission before outing me – and if you outed me without my permission, I would expect the host to censor it immediately. 69. Ace of Spades - 9/17/1999 10:06:41 PM
Jay:
NO. NO "REPEATED." If I get outed ONCE, deliberately and maliciously, WHY THE HELL SHOULD THE OFFENDER GET A SECOND CHANCE TO OUT SOMEBODY ELSE?
I feel very strongly about this (note the all caps). I redirect you to my post about warnings: There is no need for a warning. You are already warned.
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