Quote:
Originally Posted by NatCh
Part of what's going on here is that we're trying to work out some sort of cohesive policy on this, and several other matters, which can then be posted in a publicly accessible place. It's taking some time because there's a lot going on with the site, and it's a complicated situation.  |
That needs to be done sooner rather than later.
The cop on the beat can't just say "You can't do that, because I'm a cop and I say so!" He is charged with enforcing a written law, and that law must exist in writing and be able to be cited if a question about the legitimacy of the enforcement arises. So it is with MR moderators. You really need a stated policy you can point at. It doesn't need to be a set of hard and fast rules, because as HarryT commented, you can't cover all contingencies. There
does need to be something that presents guidelines, and explains
why some things are disallowed like "Talking bout X and providing pointers to it could result in the board being taken down!"
On a practical level, the issue is what is the purpose of the policy? The only valid purpose I see is protecting MR itself, by trying to prevent stuff that might result in something like a DMCA complaint. But laws and standards differ considerably around the world, so I don't think you can simply ban
any discussion of the issues, and I don't think you should adopt a "least common denominator" approach that attempts to stop anything
anyone might find offensive. Try to do that and you might as well shut down the site.
The question is exactly where you draw the line. I'd draw it at banning any direct pointers to tools to break DRM, but I'd hesitate to ban discussion
of such tools. The question I ask is what threats the site sees? What is MR trying to prevent, and why? There isn't a publishing equivalent of the RIAA or MPIA, so I'm not as concerned about people taking action against the site as I would be about the fate of, say, noted torrent haven The Pirate Bay.
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Dennis