Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Leaving aside my cynicism about commercial sites for a moment: What about this site? Does the agreement you made to join these forums actually mean anything to you? Or is an adherence to the rules purely coincidental? If you don't believe you have agreed to anything in order to access these forums then does that mean you see those users that break the rules here are not actually doing anything wrong?
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That's a tricky question. I think forum behavior is probably governed by the same social conventions as face-to-face conversation (although people tend to speak more *ahem* freely than they might in actual personal interaction).
I can say I don't really think about having "promised" to behave when I clicked on the "I agree" link in order to be able to post. What restrains me from being a total biyatch is simple manners (just as those same manners keep me from being biyatch-ey in public).
For people who do cross the line and break the rules...well...I don't see them as dishonorable for breaking their word. If pressed to define it I might say they were dishonorable for being obnoxious
. Honor (or classiness or good breeding) isn't just about keeping your word. It's an entire collection of desirable behavior.
I do understand the original point you were making about breaking a promise and if I had promised something I would have to weigh my sense of personal "want" against the shame of breaking my word before stripping DRM. My response was that I _didn't_ make that promise. I gave Amazon money and they gave me the text to assorted ebooks with miserably small covers and (occasional) nice formatting.
Amazon claims I did make that promise, but only by burying it in legalese in a corner of their web site. It would be like if my teen son wrote "My mom will buy me a car for Christmas 2010. If she doesn't find and throw this letter out before that date, she agrees to the terms and conditions within" and then shoved it into a corner of his room. Even if he walked up to me and _told_ me he was doing this, it's not my job to rummage for the letter and tear it up before Christmas. I didn't make that deal (and I didn't make any silly "Only paying for a license" deal with Amazon) and I wouldn't dignify it with a response.
Heck, I'm not going to validate the original intent by putting effort into refuting the "only a license" statement (just like I wouldn't validate my son's fiendish plan to get a car). I will *here*
. It's fun here on Mobileread! It's part of each of us sharing our opinions. But, I wouldn't dignify Amazon's efforts by responding to their "only a license" claim.