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 Administrative / General / 7391
7390  |  7392
Subject: 
Re: Pruning not good for the trees
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.admin.general
Date: 
Wed, 9 Aug 2000 01:50:47 GMT
Viewed: 
259 times
  
In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
In lugnet.admin.general, Larry Pieniazek writes:
[...]
SINCE Lugnet does exercise editorial control, it has to act swiftly to • excise
this info once discovered, or else its liability is drastically increased.
[...]

I object to that statement -- it's wording.  My opinion is that LUGNET does
not exercise editorial control but will, when required, forcibly remove
information from its server when it has been notified that the information
must be removed on legal grounds of it violating someone's IP rights.

To me, editorial control implies consideration and decision.  Although it is
certainly a conscious decision to agree to honor TLC legal requests to remove
things quickly rather than wait for a lawsuit to occur, it is certainly not a
conscious decision to go ahead and exercise control over what ever gets
deleted.  Messages containing sensitive imformation were deleted upon request.
I have made no agreement (nor plan to) remove future information of a similar
nature without first being requested in a similar or more formal legal • fashion.

In other words, I consider what I have done in my role as admin yesterday as
having been a drone and having complied with a specific one-time legal
request.  I do not pass judgment on the request nor do I consider it a
reasonable option to have refused.  I only needed to verify that it was a
true legal request from someone I have met -- and trust to be honest and
acting in good faith -- at LEGO.

Any "real" editorial control that may happen is voluntary.  LUGNET's Terms of
Use Agreement requires people to voluntarily exercise editorial control over
themselves.  If someone violates the agreement, they choose to cancel their
post but it would not be focibly removed unless there were a legal • requirement.

I hope this clarifies things.

It doesn't.

Enforcing the T&Cs is exercising editorial control. I've said this a bunch of
times, I think almost all of us want you to do it, so it's not about whether
you should do so or not, it's about clarity of purpose.

There are different mechanisms to exercise that control. The mechanism you
choose to use is voluntary requests followed by suspension of posting
priviledges. That's a good mechanism. It's friendly and gentle. There are
others available to you which you thankfully do not choose to use, but which
particular mechanism is used does not lessen the fact that you exercise
editorial control.

Further, even when you "act as a drone" in your words, you're still exercising
editorial control, because you have chosen to act in a certain way. (instead
of ignoring all items completely, which is the only way not to exercise
control) I think the sooner that you internalise this, the better, as it will
help you better understand some of the issues. IMHO. This was a hard
conceptual struggle for Compuserve and Prodigy to get through 15 years ago and
it's still hard now.  But caselaw supports my view, I feel.

You either let everything pass through unimpeded by all who appear here, no
matter what they do or say, or you're exercising editorial control. There
aren't any other choices, legally. The mechanism is not relevant.

(note that suspending someone's posting priviledges does imply "consideration
and decision" on your part, and thus passes the test you pose for what
editorial control is... Clarifying/amplifying, you have set the editorial
policy that there shall be no auction flogs to non auction groups, and you
have exercised editorial control by, after consideration and decision,
suspending the posting priviledges of those who will not abide by that
editorial policy decision)

I strongly prefer that you continue to do what you do (in the way that you do
it, your chosen mechanisms are friendly and effective) rather than let things
through unimpeded. We tried that, it's called RTL.

++Lar



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Pruning not good for the trees
 
(...) That is in fact what happens here. Everything passes through unimpeded. However, if, after the fact, something has to be removed for legal reasons, how is that considered having exercised editorial control? (That is a facetious question.) (...) (24 years ago, 9-Aug-00, to lugnet.admin.general)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Pruning not good for the trees
 
(...) I object to that statement -- it's wording. My opinion is that LUGNET does not exercise editorial control but will, when required, forcibly remove information from its server when it has been notified that the information must be removed on (...) (24 years ago, 8-Aug-00, to lugnet.admin.general)

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