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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
That needs to be done sooner rather than later.
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I couldn't agree more. We haven't just started working on this, it's been developing for some time. As I said, part of it is the complexity, and deciding exactly where to draw that line, but part of it is also the Volunteer Workers thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
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!"
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Again, you'll get no argument on that point, in fact the taking down concern is a motivating factor.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
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.
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Nope, we're not interested in trying to be so inoffensive as to make the place bland and lifeless. We
are interested in keeping the community a respectful one, but that's not really the topic under discussion here.
As you point out, the fundamental question is where to draw the line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I'd draw it at banning any direct pointers to tools to break DRM, but I'd hesitate to ban discussion of such tools.
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That's the rule of thumb we've been operating under, thus far, but it's recently become clear that we need to create a stated set of guidelines/policies for some things. Trouble is, as clear as the need for a line is, it's hard to draw any sort of precise line that
means anything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
The question I ask is what threats the site sees? What is MR trying to prevent, and why?
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Well, we clearly want to avoid anything that will draw the ill-will of lawyer types, but we also are interested in complying with the law for it's own sake for a number of varied ethical and practical reasons. That's a difficult and complicated thing to do when the law is on copyrights, toss in the DMCA, and it gets beyond crazy real quick. The recent move to a Canadian server was aimed at simplifying some of these questions.
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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
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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We are indeed less notorious, however, we've also developed a fairly high profile in a more "respectable" way. We have been given reasons to believe that we're ... observed by various companies. Some of those reasons have ... clarified the need for a clear set of guidelines.
The difficulty is in coming up with something that sufficiently covers the bases, but which can also be lived with, and which we can grow with as situations change, and doing it all on an "as we have a few minutes" basis.