Voices from the Hellmouth Released in Paperback

A little blatant self promotion today:Jon Katz has completed co-authoring, along with many Slashdot readers, a paperback version of Voices from the Hellmouth. The book is based on both the Slashdot reader comments and Katz's original columns Voices from the Hellmouth, More stories from the Hellmouth and The Price of Being Different which were written last year following Columbine. It is $14.95 (and comes complete with a cover designed by my girlfriend). The proceeds are being donated to an as-yet-undetermined charity.Update: 04/20 06:40 by H :I've addressed issues of comment posting below - please read more.

Yes, comments from Slashdot are used. They are short, terse quotes that provide in /no/ way indentification. That would cross privacy boundaries I'm not wiling to cross. We choose to use them to try and express to the rest of the world who will read this book the sort of things that happen to real people.

I tried to contact some of the commenters originally, but ran into dismal success. As well, many people were posting anonymously. Obviously, they were impossible to reach.

So - summary: Yes, comments were used. They were posted in a public forum, which means that anyone can quote from them - but we've removed any sort of identifying marks, to protect people. This was down to impress upon those reading the gravity of the situation.

Comments

Re:Reader Contributions?

[Hemos]

You're correct. I corrected myself, but the comment has come up yet - it's only THINKGEEK not Amazon.

IMDUM

Re:Hey!

[Hemos]

We may eBook it eventually, but not for the time being - no good clients exist with broad support yet.

Re:Comments owned by poster...

[Hemos]

Anyone can do it. That's the nature of publishing comments into a public forum - legally, you are responsible for what you say, but people can pull them.

I lied my ass off

[jafac]

Sorry Jon, but all the stories I posted in those forums were fake. I had a totally normal High School life. Maybe I was just trying to fit in with the real geeks here (like you), or maybe I was trying to surf the wave of feedback, and add to it, just to magnify the collecive grief.

Or maybe I was just messing with you.

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".

The Real Victims.

[JonKatz]

I think it's very appropriate to remember the kids who were killed at Columbine..and you will see them remembered in every newspaper, magazine and TV show in America all week. But the killers were victims of a different sort, as are the many kids for whom school is a nightmarish experience. They include some geeks and goths but are by no means limited to them. There are way too many victims in American schools these days, certainly including the kids killed at Columbine. They would be foremost among them.

Re:The Real Victims.

[MillMan]

You sound like a pretty isolated person. Which doesn't suprise me, most geeks have a lot of that in them.

I rarely let people off the hook for what they've done, unless I know them extrememly well, which accounts for maybe 20 people in the whole world. However, you have to ask yourself, what made them the way they are? Genetics? Or did the world around them have an influence? It's the old nature vs. nurture debate.

Personally I think when you look at an entire population, you have to look at where they are coming from and what they've dealt with. Weak individuals or not, American society WILL continue to have problems like this as long as our culture stays the way it is. Blaming individuals and throwing them in jail does little to curb violence or any other social problems.

It has been this way for blacks in our country for a long time. There is little hope of escaping the ghetto, little chance for an education, and parental involvement is minimal. It's a nearly impossible cycle to break. When people are this hopeless, why even try? Join a gang, sell drugs, have a little bit of fun before your time is up, most likely at a young age. There is no way I'd be where I am now if I had to live in that environment.

Middle class whites tend to think that's the way black people are though, simply lazy and violent. Only when we start seeing violence in the suburbs do people think anything of it. The suburbs are supposed to be the perfect life. Well, perhaps they're not. Perhaps an environment that puts material things and vanity above people and personality helps create people like the columbine shooters.

Again we have the same old issue with American culture: don't find the root cause, simply apply a bandaid at the top level and just forget about it. Well, now we get to reap the rewards. Since the suburbs are such a perfect way of life, we simply have to go after "weird" people like these two, using stereotypes to weed them out. Yeah, sounds great to me.

So be upset and sad that these young people went off and killed many others. But you should be more upset at the culture that helped create them.

Re:The Real Victims.

[kevlar]

Katz, I think its fairly obvious to everyone that you are neither a geek, nor oppressed, and that you used this event for your own personal benefit.

I for one, do not agree with you, in any way whatsoever that the shooters are victims of anything but their own hatred and psychotic dissillusionment.

Yes, people get picked on, and yes it hurts. I've been picked on plenty, and I never had a supportive roll-model to explain to me the real issues of the abuse. I've also never killed anyone or wanted to kill anyone. Whats the difference between Klebold, Harris and me? I have a conscience, while they never did. For whatever reasons and influences that brought them to that cold uncaring state, they are still psychopathic killers who are on the scale of Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dalmer, etc., and I do not and never ever will care a fleeting fuck about their nurishment, their rights or their suffering which may have influenced their actions.

One of the fundamental properties which separates humans from animals is the fact that humans can determine right from wrong, good from bad. Klebold and Harris knew that what they were doing was wrong. They knew that what they were doing was killing. They knew that they were willing to spare nobody for their own self-gain and revenge. They are not victims; they're cold-blooded killers.

When you say "the killers were victims of a different sort", you're simply filling in the void of cause and justifying their actions. You're declaring victims like an accident attorney. Regardless of whether someone truely is a victim of some form of abuse, you never ever encourage vengence by justifying their violence. This is the primary reason why I hate your writing and have you filtered.

As for proceeds for this crap, I'd say donate it to the families of the half-dozen or so disabled kids from the Collumbine incident. Help put one of them through college.

Posts..

[JonKatz]

No, the book couldn't possibly include all of the posts. There were thousands posted to Slashdot, many thousands more posted to me over the year. Many are not in the archives, and I lost two computers which crashed during the volume of e-mail. There could only be a fraction chosen..
P.S. I don't use any moderating system. I consider it self-censorship.

Re:In Poor Taste - Remember the Real Victims

[Lord Kano]

The fact is this, no matter how warped these two were, no matter how many innocent people were hurt by these lunatics this will always be true, if schools didn't sit back and do nothing while certain kids were RELENTLESSLY persecuted by other kids and school faculty this wouldn't have happened.

LK

Zero Tolerance

[Robotech_Master]

I'm also doubtful of how tasteful it is to bring the book out on the anniversary...but on the other hand, if the book could do some good in getting the nonsensical "Zero Tolerance" policies of the world lifted, then perhaps it's a good thing that it gets wider publicity. Here's a good page discussing the problem.

Re:Indeed -- Gun Owners are the Real Victims

[rico23]

> It is legitimate law-abiding gun owners who have been harmed the most by Columbine.

How?

Have their guns been taken away? No.
Have they had to register guns that weren't registered? No.
Have they been banned from buying more guns? No.
Have any legitimate law-abiding gun owners been arrested and prosecuted? If so, please tell me the name & place.

One for the /. suggestion box

[jetpack]

We had considered tracking down people, but my inital test run of trying to track down people went so terribly, we gave up. You'd be amazed how many people change e-mail addresses in a year.

In case something like this ever comes up again, you might want to consider adding a new feature to slashdot. Instead of tracking people down by email, why not track them down using their user id? Write a "sysop message" facility; if you send a message to them, the next time they login to /. the message shows up at the top of the first page.

I'd offer to help by I hate perl ;)

If you feel exploited...

[RomulusNR]

I agree with you that geeks are exploited. Not just by JonKatz and his more egregious colleagues, but by the larger part of society. We're in demand to businesses and others for our domain over modern technology, without which they would be less wealthy and/or nowadays, less intellectual-chic. At the same time, we're constantly disposed of outside of the business world, treated as sub-human and unworthy. Maybe this is why some geeks sleep in their cubes -- at work, they're valuable, at the nightclub, they're trash. YMMV of course, but those whose mileage does vary aren't in the majority, and aren't the somehow the better among us for it.

But I tell ya, feeling exploited as you and I do, I can't help holding onto some feelings of disdain and even a little emotional distress over being treated this way. Every time I read a tech news story full of nonsense, mis-statements, doble talk, and derisions of the "deviant" dig-enerates of the world, I get pretty heated. I could read some other news outlet and pretend that those news outlets "don't matter", but I'd only be kidding myself. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read the Boston Herald article about the Geek Pride Festival early this month.)

So if JonKatz is going to publish a book decrying the mistreatment, ostracization, segregation, and prejudice brooding against geeks, nerds, freaks, and anyone who shows up to school wearing a black trenchcoat, I'm absolutely thrilled. And if Andover.Net wants to put out a press release about it, that makes me even happier, because I know more people will hear about this book -- not just the relatively tiny sub-set of the population that visits Slashdot. Seeing as you yourself can become so vocal when you feel exploited, I would think you would appreciate it, too.

If you don't like being understood by others, even just a little bit more, I can't help you, 'cause I definitely don't feel that way.

I gotta say, a little geek pride is a damn good thing to have. (To Tim McE.: Thanks.)
--

In Poor Taste - Remember the Real Victims

[IntelliTubbie]

Before the blood even dried at Columbine, Jon Katz has been trying to tell us that the real victims were the geeks, goths, oddballs, etc. who had to undergo a little bit of extra hassling by school administrators. No, Jon: the real victims were the ones who died there a year ago today, who were robbed of their lives by 2 madmen (not just geeks "acting out" against their "oppressers"). 364 days a year, feel free to capitalize on their deaths however you see fit. But not today, not on the anniversary of that tragedy. Today, we should remember the victims.

Re:In Poor Taste - Remember the Real Victims

[Aaron39]

you know what, of course its a tragedy, but you are missing the entire point, if anybody had it set in there mind, nobody could have stopped those kids from killing people, unless they themselves stopped themselves. But, Jon Katz is trying to show how the use of propaganda, etc... they prevention and zero tolerance because of such occurances is destroying the free-thinkers of now. It's common moral knowlege that we are aware of there deaths, but you my friend, are a perfect example of the pop-culture he discusses.


Dont let school get in the way of your education

Tangible medium -> not public domain!!!

[coyote-san]

Despite your naive beliefs, this is *not* a "public forum" and everything *written* on these pages is fully protected by copyright law. The key difference between slashdot and standing on a soapbox on the street corner is that *everything* you see has been reduced to tangible form. Copyright law can't apply to nontangible speech (since human memory is fallible and nobody can be absolutely sure what was said), but anything put down in tangible form (handwriting, books,... or little magnetic fields on a small disk) is born copyrighted.

A bit more broadly, it sounds like you're under the mistaken belief that the "public domain" is a vague catchall that everything we write falls into unless we explicitly declare our IP rights. That was arguably true many years ago, but part of the Bonn Convention(?) is that all works are born copyrighted and must be explicitly placed into the public domain (if desired, prior to the automatic conversion well after death). The only difference an explicit registration of the material makes is in the damages that can be rewarded if the IP rights are abused - without formal registration the owner can only sue to stop further publication. With registration, he can sue for puntative damages.

Finally, from what I understand about the book, it seems likely that all of the quotes are protected by the "fair use" clause of copyright law. They would have only required permission to quote articles in full.

Not identifying with killers

[Robert Link]

I don't think very many slashdotters identify with the killers at all. Who we do identify with are all the kids out there who have been tarred with the same brush as those killers simply for being a little different from the norm. Just because a kid dresses strangely or likes computers or otherwise doesn't conform doesn't make him a potential killer; however, there seems to be no shortage of teachers and administrators out there who think that it does. The persecution many geek-types suffer from their peers is bad enough; must we add persecution from adults too?

The real story of Columbine, at least from the slashdot point of view, has never been the killers or why they did their horrific deeds. In the end, as much as people dread to hear it, I don't think there was any reason behind their acts; I think they were just nuts, and there isn't a whole lot you can learn from a nutcase. No, the real story of Columbine is what came after; it's all the hysteria from baby-boomers who don't understand their progeny, and who fear them accordingly. The victims Katz speaks of were not Klebold and Harris; they were all the kids who got harassed, suspended from school, or worse in the aftermath of Columbine for the arch-crime of nonconformity. Those kids deserve an advocate, and that's what Katz is trying to be.

-rpl

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
--Henry David Thoreau

Re:We are remembering the real victims up in Canad

[Hard_Code]

"The real tragedy of Columbine is that it was entirely avoidable and some of the victims must share a little responsibility for what happend to them (though, to be clear, not as much as the two killers - NOBODY deserves the the treatment they got but NOBODY deserves to die because of it)."

Perhaps I'm more vitriolic than the rest but my opinion can be summed up by the Malcom X quote:

"The chickens have come home to roost. Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad."

You reap what you sow.

I don't see what everyone's problem is

[LiNT_]

Sometime I don't understand you people. You freely post your comments to a public forum. Then someone comes along and tries to assemble the jist of the discussion in an easily comprehendible book and you run around screaming willy-nilly? CmdrTaco and Jon already explained that _no one_ was going to be making money on this. All profits will be going to charity. Yet a year after the fact you think your comments are suddenly worth something and wish to be compensated. Get a life. If you were that protective over your comments you shouldn't have posted them in the first place. On an off note, I think it would be nice to give the charity money to an organization that in some way relates to the topic at hand. LiNT

It's better than a damn TV movie, (I hope.)

[Evil Poot Cat]

Now those are exploitive. I guess the main determinant would be the presence or non-presence of an agenda. One thousand "I was [kicked | beaten | shut out] stories don't make an agenda, however.

I was wondering when these stories were going to be printed. I hope there wasn't much editing of individual comments, and that moderation totals and a url to the archived stories were included. I'll also be mildly dissapointed if grits are not included. ;)

A few miscellaneous notes:

-- Andover's PR release (and the book) will keep the anti-intelligence issues on the radar screen.
It is always fun to show craniorectalists where their heads are. This, at risk of seeing more of those same masses in this forum.

-- As far as being "behind a glass window", that's a little better than being in a black box, but only a little.

-- I hope Jon's not "trying to make a difference," because it probably won't, although it will probably turn out better than that trip to Charlotte (except for the sweet tea, that's always a good thing).

-- What the hell is the deal with all the copy-patent-wannabe arguments? Sounds like egos going bump in the night.

-- By providing some of our opinions in a form accessible by the non-internet community, Slashdot provides an antidote to the designation of of Slashdot as some 'net version of Los (Mos?) Isley, by the conventional media outlets.

And, in case you filter out .sigs, The computer network is the most important invention since the printing press, but they are most powerful when combined.

Re:Reader Contributions?

[gargle]

I see nothing in there that supports Slashdot. In fact, it even says this about anthologies:

The second sentence of section 201(c), in conjunction with the provisions of section 404 dealing with copyright notice, will preserve the author's copyright in a contribution even if the contribution does not bear a separate notice in the author's name ,and without requiring any unqualified transfer of rights to the owner of the collective work. This is coupled with a presumption that, unless there has been an express transfer of more, the owner of the collective work acquires, 'only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series.

...

Under the language of this clause a publishing company could reprint a contribution from one issue in a later issue of its magazine, and could reprint an article from a 1980 edition of an encyclopedia in a 1990 revision of it; the publisher could not revise the contribution itself or include it in a new anthology or an entirely different magazine or other collective work.

====

QUestions

[BWS]

I have a few questions and thoughts, if you will will bare with me...

1. Can he just take our comments and publish them? Doesn't he have to give credit or get permission from the writers of the origional comments? I mean even if he para-phrases them, he still have to ...

2. Since the origional source is from /., I think /. should get to decide where some of the profits go [I say EFF]

3. Is it gonna be summerized or is anything gonna be cut?

Re:QUestions

[vitaflo]

2. Since the origional source is from /., I think /. should get to decide where some of the profits go [I say EFF]

Simple...Slashdot Poll!!! Have Rob, Hemos, et al, select the top 7 charities, and then let us all decide where we want the money to go. Everyone wins then.

Re:Text released online?

[jbarnett]

No crap, have a sixteen volume "paper back" of all the slashdot post on the hell-whatever serious. Have 2000 pages of exciting reading, like:

"HOT GRITS IN YOUR PANTS"

and others like

"Mmmm portman... droool"

I think a rain forest can die for this :)

I do like Joh Katz's writing, but I am glad they aren't going to put in ALL of the slash posts. Nice to get a "filtered" version of the serious in paper book format.

Much heat, no light in this column

[tagishsimon]

Kudos to Katz for the ffort he put into this thing.

Shame on the squabblers who are more interested in discussing the copyright of their idle scribbling; there is a serious issue here, and that it ameliorating the hellmouth.

Two suggestions:

• First, that there should be an online version of the book - hellmouth.com would be apt - maybe the squatters will give it up. The three archives on /. are too confusing for the computer illiterate (e.g. schoolteachers, school heads) - they need a predigested site.
• • The profits from the book might usefully be used to fund the sending of free copies to school principals, who are exactly the people who need to read and understand this stuff.

Re:Reader Contributions?

[Hemos]

Well, we're *not* making money on this, so I'm not sure about cashing in. I've spent a huge number of hours over the last two months trying to do something that I thought would help people.

*sigh*

I'm an idiot - NOT through Amazon

[Hemos]

We're trying to avoid Amazon - it's only through ThinkGeek. My fault - and I'm sorry for the confusion that I may have caused.

Re:Respones

[Tony Shepps]

I don't think this is the case here. When I post on Slashdot, I'm giving permission to Slashdot to publish my post on Slashdot, in the particular forum where I submitted my post to, and nowhere else. Would it be alright if I took your Slashdot articles, bound them into a book, and sold them? I don't think so.

Slashdot. Where we hate intellectual property laws, but when someone takes ONE SENTENCE of our stuff, we scream bloody murder.

Format suitable for intended audience

[ch-chuck]

The misguided millions who understand little about computers, gaming, networking, and other intellectual persuits, and who consider it a breeding ground for pathological criminals are the one's in need of enlightenment - hopefully they can turn off the sleeze-TV long enough to even read.

As a kid I used to stay in the library to dodge bullies, jocks and other wild animals - they didn't fit in there.

Re:HELLO???????????!!!!!!!!???!???????????????

[finkployd]

That's true about the Columbine killers, but the fact that they were origionaly painted as 'geeks' caused a national 'scare' or sorts and led to the presecution of profiling of anyone who matched the defination of 'geek'

So even though Harris and Klebold were not in that group you speak of, that group has taken a lot of abuse because of the precieved connection.

Finkployd

Re:Reader Contributions?

[j_d]

If any of my comments are featured in that book of yours, then I'll definitly sue.

uh-huh. What are you going to sue for? Not Getting A Piece Of The Action?

I suggest you and all your pointy headed allies take a look at http://www.etext.org/Politics/Conspiracy/AJTeel/US C/17usc.txt. Specifically, the section under

HOUSE REPORT NO. 94-1476

for more information. You can, of course, start looking elsewhere (online, even) to see what actual rights you have, rather than relying on your weak "Wah, wah, I've been victimized and I have no coping skills and despite the fact that I don't know the law from the flaming baby Jesus I'm going to sue" logic.

Someone needs a lesson in fair use...

[Signail11]

This comment may NOT be published or otherwise redistributed except as part of the Slashdot web page. This comment is NOT released to the public domain and is copyrighted by the poster.

"Comments were used. They were posted in a public forum, which means that anyone can quote from them - but we've removed any sort of identifying marks, to protect people. This was down to impress upon those reading the gravity of the situation."

Although I must confess that the last sentence of the above quote seems incoherent to me, it seems that Jon Katz's understanding of fair use law is flawed and incomplete. Asserting that the publishing of a copyrighted work into a public forum nullifies the right of the copyright owner to restrict distribution and benefit from the publishing of the work is utterly ludicrious and goes against centries of precedent for the reasons that I will summarize briefly. I don't have the inclination or time to put together a detailed point by point rebuttal of the arguments put forward by Katz and Hemos (given their faulty interpretation of copyright law, my comment could be reused in a context different than that which permission for use is granted), but what I say should be materially accurate. Now, I must preface my comment with the note that the information presented here is only general information. If you want true legal advice, you must obtain this from an attorney-client relationship with a specific understanding of all the facts in a particular situation. This information should not be relied on as a substitute for obtaining legal advice.

First, some definitions
"Willful infringement":the party distributing copyrighted material was aware of infringment and went on despite this
"Good faith fair use defense": Ignorance of the law is not normally exculpatory, however, demonstrating that one reasonably believed that what one did was fair use may be cause for a court to refuse to award damages.

What is considered to be copyrighted?: The presence or absence of an explicit copyright notice means essentially nothing after 1989. Posters do not place their comments into the public domain unless they give explicit notification that they do so; the notice at the bottom of every Slashdot page "All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster" lends additional credence to this concept.

When does copyright law come into effect?: If someone other than the copyright owner wants to exercise rights that exclusively belong to the owner (including reproduction, redistribution, creation of derivative works, performance, archival, or display). Some uses are, however, exempt from liability from infringement (including fair use, libraries, and certain educational purposes).

What constitutes fair use?: Traditionally, a four pronged test has applied to determine whether a specific usage falls under fair use or not. These are:

1) The nature and character of the use: nonprofit, educational, artistic, and personal uses tend to be looked upon more kindly than for-profit or commercial uses. Closer on the continium to preserving the rights of the copyright owner include criticism, newsreporting, and commentary. Note that receiving profits from the sale of a derivative work and than donating these profits to a charity does NOT fall under the category of nonprofit use; the user of the copyrighted material gains a benefit from the sell of the derivative work.

2) The nature of the copyrighted work that is being used: Works that are published and factual in character may be used more freely than creative or imaginative works. Judging from most Slashdot comments, it would appear as if many posters reflect on how incidents have affected their personal lives and emotional state. This is not neccesarily of a factual nature.

3) Amount of work used: needless to say, taking a copyrighted work in its entirety would severely diminish any plausible claim of fair use. I don't know how much of each comment Katz reproduces in his book.

4) Effect of use on status of original work: The situation in this case leans against fair use for the following four reasons.
-The original comments are still available and can be accessed freely.
-The copyright owner/s is/are identifiable, but, by Hemos' own admission no substantial effort was made to locate them beyond a token effort and then a comment to the effect that it was too difficult.
-Avoids payment for permission in an established market, where the owner of the comment has the reasonable expectation of being compensated for the use of his or her work (witness Janes' effort to locate the people quoted in their article)

-It is the specific intention of Katz and Hemos to delete all identifying information such that no credit is given to the owner of the copyrighted work, an enormous no-no in copyright law.


Considering these facts, especially the fourth prong of the test (interpreted via Princeton University Press vs. Michigan Document Services wherein the concept that the potential for economic damage caused by use of a copyrighted work negates fair use, even without regard to the first three prongs of the test), it seems beyond question that Jon Katz has made a severe mistake in publishing what is essentially a derivative work blatantly drawing on the creative works of others, with a deliberate effort to suppress the identities of those who contributed materially to it.


This comment may NOT be published or otherwise redistributed except as part of the Slashdot web page. This comment is NOT released to the public domain and is copyrighted by the poster.

Re:Reader Contributions?

[DemiGodez]

I find the comments to this story to be for the most part hypocritical.

Amazon.com patents are bad - they shouldn't be able to protect their ideas...but...Slashdot readers' post's copyrights are good - they should be able to protect every word.

Open Source / Open access to info is good - access to software and information should be free...but...Taking public posts and putting them into a book is bad - Slashdot posters should be paid for their comments.

This is the problem I have with the anti-patent / open source everything mentality - it only is supported when you are on the getting end, not the giving end.

How about instead we talk about the actual book and the potential good it might do for kids dealing with the shit in it?

I resent this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I see an article from Jon Katz, I am filled with resentment. I feel like we, the so-called geek community (I am even ashamed to call it that) are placed behind glass and shown off to the rest of the world by him. Like a zoo, with Katz as the zoo tour guide. He pretends to be "one of us" but he's an outsider, incapable of understanding what this culture is about. This latest book only underscores my dislike for him since he's effectively going out and selling tickets to come gawk at us!

"Look! Look!" he says, pointing to us, the geeks, in our glass cages. "Observe the things they eat, their mating habits..."

Doesn't he realize that we're human beings too? And maybe, just maybe, we just want to be left alone to do our thing?
--
(PS: Moderators: Please, moderate this up. This is not a troll. I am speaking truly from the bottom of my heart here. I am genuinely offended by the way Jon Katz treats us as objects to be exploited.)

Re:Reader Contributions?

[Hemos]

1. No. They are not identified in a way that allows for any sort of indentification of them.

2. For those who posted in a public forum, they were not consulted. We had considered tracking down people, but my inital test run of trying to track down people went so terribly, we gave up. You'd be amazed how many people change e-mail addresses in a year.

3. Fair amount of new material, but a lot of is edited material that draws all the columns together. The text, when printed, should be about 200, I think, although we don't have the final number back yet. We tried to go cheaper for the book, but the cost of paper is /really/ high, and the cover is expensive. At some point, we will probably do a cheaper version, but not for at least six months.

4. The reality, in terms, of paying people is that the book wouldn't happen at that point. The amount of time that would have added to things would have made the book impossible. Besides, the amount of actual quoting from people, once the rest is considered is /very tiny/ on a person person basis.

5. We tried to deal with the Amazon thing, but you can't stop them from ordering for a resaler. Once something has entered the ISBN system, anyone can order it. However, at this time, we're only selling it through Amazon. As far as funds collected at this time, Katz is not taking money, I'm not taking any - we have to pay for the cost of making the book and the editor, but besides that, nada.

A question...

[Millennium]

Will the book include all of the posts? I ask this because not all of the posts are in the Slashdot archive. For example, two posts in the original Hellmouth piece which were modded to -1, and everything in reply to them , are not in the archive. This is bad, since some of the best posts were in reply to those (some had even been modded to 5), and are now gone. I only realized this recently, when I had to do a speech for a Persuasion class and was looking through those archives for research (yes, the speech was against geek profiling).

Frankly, that's enough that I can now say I have a grievance with the moderation system. And as an ardent believer in the system otherwise that's no small feat. But post archives should be complete archives, even if that means including the trolls. Otherwise, too many "good" posts (as defined even by moderation) are cut out.

And to the trolls reading this: don't think this means I'm joining your immature ranks anytime soon. I have better things to do then meet in the big UCTAM treehouse for milk and cookies. But I do agree with you on one small and easily-fixed aspect of the moderation system now.

Respones

[JonKatz]

This book isn't being published by me, so I'm not taking anybody's comments and publishing them. It's being published by Andover. I didn't select the postings in it.
But as a matter of law, comments posting in public for public dissemination can be reprinted, since they were posted for public discussion. The comments in this book are excerpts from among the many thousands of e-mails, and people are not identified by e-mail or name, so their privacy is protected. It's also a non-profit book, so there is no question of anybody's getting money. Nothing is paraphrased, though, as I understand it.
There were thousands of pots, both to /. and to me -- two computers of mine crashed -- so the only way all the posts could be printed is in a 10,000 page book. These are excerpted, but not by me.

Re:Respones

[gargle]

But as a matter of law, comments posting in public for public dissemination can be reprinted, since they were posted for public discussion.

I don't think this is the case here. When I post on Slashdot, I'm giving permission to Slashdot to publish my post on Slashdot, in the particular forum where I submitted my post to, and nowhere else. Would it be alright if I took your Slashdot articles, bound them into a book, and sold them? I don't think so.

Furthermore, Slashdot clearly indicates that "comments are owned by the poster" -- this clearly implies that in posting to Slashdot, I understand, and Slashdot understands, that I retain all rights to my post.

Posters take note, the bottomline is this: Slashdot will republish and resell your posts without asking for your permission.

people are not identified by e-mail or name, so their privacy is protected

Have you considered that some posters will want to be credited for what they wrote? I certainly would.

non-profit book, so there is no question of anybody's getting money.

The fact that it's non-profit is irrelevant. I can't take someone else's work and republish it, even if I don't make anything from it.



====

Re:Reader Contributions?

[HunterD]

Hello?

Public forum - anything said in a public forum can be quoted by ANYBODY without ANY permission.

You own the comments, but that doesn't give you some magical right to roll back 200 years of law.

The fact that they even tried is admirable, considering that they have absolutly NO legal obligation to do so.

HELLO???????????!!!!!!!!???!???????????????

[grappler]

Hey everyone, did we all just forget that these guys turned out not to be the "Geeks" Slashdot wanted them to be? Has that little detail been conveniently forgotten?

Sure, there's no reason we can't talk about the horrible treatment of Geeks (and others) in today
s high schools, but you know what? I don't see any justification for linking that debate with Columbine.

The Columbine killers were just crazy. Remember the Trench Coat Mafia? That group of outsiders that had an ongoing feud with the jocks, and talked about getting picked on constantly, and about how high school was hell for them? Yeah, well, Harris and Klebold were not in that group.

Harris and Klebold turned out to be, well... crazy. Two guys who just had it in for everyone else for no particular reason at all. Hard as it may be for you to believe, that is what a thorough investigation of their diary and videotaped rants has concluded.

There it is.

--
grappler

We are remembering the real victims up in Canada

[JohnnyCannuk]

Yes, because today a 17 year-old girl is being sentenced to life in prison for the beating death of another teenaged girl named Reena Virk.

Reena was a 14 year old of Indian decent (that's from India not aboriginal) who was a little overwieght and a visible minority. Three years or so ago she was kicked to death and then thrown in a river and drowned by a group of teenagers who thought she was a 'goof' and 'weird'. They were the 'cool' kids and she was the outsider. Another group of teens has already been sentenced to jail in the case.

Reena's case is the extreme but it demonstrates that there is more than just 'a little bit of extra hassling by school administrators' and peers going on. How many other children take their own lives after the cruel harassment and torture of their so-called friends has become too much - what number is bigger, the number of school death by shooting or the number of teen suicides?

We can pay homage to the 15 (yes 15) vicims of Columbine not by stiffling discussion about the issues surrounding the tragedy but by shouting it from the roof tops so every kid will hear. We will never stop the Columbine's of the world from happening if we pretend they were madmen about which we could have done nothing. On the contrary, maybe this tragedy could have been avoided if only one teacher or one other student had spoken out against the kind of treatment the two killers (and many others) recieved on a daily basis, some time in the past before the two snapped.

I'm willing to bet some of the victim's families wish someone had.

The real tragedy of Columbine is that it was entirely avoidable and some of the victims must share a little responsibility for what happend to them (though, to be clear, not as much as the two killers - NOBODY deserves the the treatment they got but NOBODY deserves to die because of it).

You want to remember the victims? Teach you children tolerance, manners and respect for others so there are never any other victims to remember.

Don't poke your head in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong.

Re:Comments and Posters

[Kaa]

I have seen both Hemos and Katz respond to selective questions yet neither of them has responded to the most obvious, the ones about OUR comments. This disturbs me highly.

Lest you get disturbed, I'll clarify some points for you about YOUR comments.

All comments posted to Slashdot are copyright of the poster. Posting them essentially constitutes publishing. Now, by fair use provisions anybody, even Jon Katz, can take excepts from these posts and use them -- this is called quoting. Nobody needs any permission to quote any published material. Nothing happens to copyright -- it still resides with the original poster.

If quotes from your comments being used in Katz's book disturbes you highly, I'd recommend to try and get a life. I understand this is a hard problem, but I've heard it's fun...

Kaa

Looking out for Numero Uno

[Toothgnip]

You people sicken me. You, the people who are posting and patting yourselves on the back for being so intelligent for pointing out a possible conflict of interests on Slashdot's part or a question of copyright law... as if any of the sound and fury you pour into these posts signifies anything at all.

A book has been compiled to reflect your opinions regarding Columbine and its aftermath. It'll be something in hard copy. Something at a bookstore that your average Joe can pick up and think about. Maybe Joe is an alcoholic who beats his kid, and the book will make him think twice about the consequences. Or maybe Joe is the leader of a local PTA who thinks that her son's school "would be just fine if it weren't for those few creepy kids who dress in black all the time and spend all their time on that Internet-thing."

Being in print legitimizes what you have to say--far more than many of you realize. The countless posts you've poured your hearts and souls into here don't amount to a hill of dingo's kidneys while they're just sitting on Slashdot's servers, because 99.999% of the world is *never* going to hear what you have to say. But getting it in print, getting those words an ISBN and a place on a bookstore shelf--*that* act can drop that percentage of people who aren't hearing you.

BUT... what is the overwhelming response to this chance for the message to be heard? A great Wave of whining idiots who are more concerned with looking out for number one. "What about crediting ME for MY words?" "How could Slashdot have the gall to snip a couple dozen words from MY post and violate MY rights guaranteed by God and the Internet and the message at the bottom of this page?" "Exactly who is getting rich off of the sweat of MY brow?"

Andover is *actually doing something* about the bad rap that geeks and others have been receiving from the mainstream media for years--they're doing something more than just typing little words into a little box on a little website--and you want to jump all over their backs because your little words might actually have an impact beyond the Slashdot community, and you don't have full creative control over it.

"And, for Pete's sake, make sure they don't sell it on Amazon.com!" Sure... God forbid that the book be sold somewhere prominent where people who *aren't* geeks might find out about it. Let's make sure we're only preaching to the choir, here.

The message in the book is a powerful one, and it *has* power because so many individuals have something to say. Not one person--thousands of people--make this book important. Your one little post didn't mean anything until there were another hundred posts just like it, so quit puffing yourself up with self-importance and righteous indignation.

Will some people make money from this book? Yes. UPS will probably make a killing on shipping charges, if it turns out this book is a success. Andover will make money--but then, it's their money that they're putting on the line to get this thing published and out to everyone. Booksellers will make some money, too. But the money that CmdrTaco and Hemos and company make--the only money that they really have control over--will go to causes that they hope this community believes in.

The message is bigger than you are. Have the decency to be big enough, yourselves, to let it be heard.
-----------------------------------------------

In other news

[DonkPunch]

For the upcoming anniversary of Slashdot, I will be releasing the paperback version of "Voices From The Trolls."

Table of Contents:
Chapter I:
"First Post!"

Chapter II:
"The Glorious MEEPT -- Early Slashdot"

Chapter III;
"Futility -- GPL vs. BSD, KDE vs. GNOME, Emacs vs. vi"

Chapter IV:
"Nudity and Petrification -- From Segfault to Slashdot"

Chapter V:
"Hot Grits -- Not Just For Breakfast Anymore"

Chapter VI:
"The Final Option -- CmdrTaco/Hemos/CowboyNeal Sucks"

Reader Contributions?

[SMN]

I just want to clarify something that seemed ambiguous in both Taco's post and the Think Geek page - are comments posted on slashdot by us, its audience, posted in this book?

If so, a few questions:

1.) Are the posters of those comments listed by name and/or handle?

2.) Have they been consulted about have their comments published?

3.) How much "new material" is in this book? How many pages is the text? $15 for a paperback seems like a bit much.

4.) As noted at the disclaimer on the bottom of each page of slashdot, "Comments are owned by the Poster." I think that giving the proceeds to charity is a worthy cause, but what if someone desired a cut of the profits for the portion of the content they provided? I sure hope no one here would be so selfish and arrogant, but it does happen. . .

5.) Has anyone at slashdot made an effort to keep this from going on Amazon? Put your money where your mouth is and support that boycott - and I'm sure that someone is making money through the sale from Think Geek, which is, of course, owned by the same people who are donating the rest of the proceeds - is it just the slashdot staffs' portion of the proceeds that go to charity, or everything andover and its employees get from this?

Re:Reader Contributions?

[gargle]

Posts in a public forum can be quoted - and consider how little is quoted per quote, it falls under acceptable use.

If that's the case, I agree, it's alright if it's just quoting. I was under the impression that some posts were quoted wholesale. So no comments had substantial amounts reproduced?

I'd also like to find out, why didn't Slashdot post an article earlier telling us that Slashdot intended to publish a book containing substantial amounts of reader comments? If there was any interest consulting the readership and obtaining author permission, this would have been the obvious step to take.

As it is, the whole thing seems to have been kept under wraps until the last moment, where it would be too late to make any changes.


====

The Columbine Murderers...

[ronfar]

..do not exist, they were bit players in an event which was orchastrated and encouraged by the media. Yes, there were two killers, but they do not resemble the image that the media pushes at us.

The impression we get of them from the media are not real, they are cardboard cut outs meant to represent "the teenaged menace" and allow for a crackdown the like of which America has never seen.

Jon Katz Hellmouth stories weren't about two sociopaths who went on a killing spree, they were about people who were victimized in its aftermath. They aren't about a town Littleton or a school called Columbine, they are about media generated illusions designed to push a repressive political agenda.

It is irrelevant that today is the anniversary of Columbine save to those directly affected by the tragedy. Did anyone notice the anniversary of Jonesborough, Arkansas or Paducah, Kentuky? Not in the mainstream media, at any rate, they've decided the most useful instrument for their statist agenda is the illusion they created around Columbine.

Perhaps Jon Katz is not the best person to write a book and expose this agenda, but at least he is doing something. I've seen very few people elsewhere tackling the spectre created by the media who used the victims of the Columbine tragedy for their own ends. I have watched the TeeVee news this week, and you know what I hear, "This just in, the anniversary of the Columbine Tragedy (a trademark of Time/Warner Inc.) is set to come up, are your children safe. We now go to a drill being conducted by the Lutz PD, in case a similar event happens here." (Cut to scenes of kids being walked out of a school with their hands over their heads, looking like criminals. I'm not sure it was actually Lutz, but it was one of the schools around here. Oh, and of course I satirically paraphrased the newsreader's words, but that was the gist of them.)

It shouldn't shock me that so many people posting to Slashdot these days are completely duped by the media, or hate Jon Katz so much, that they'll go on and on about how this announcement is "poor taste" but I doubt have written to their local News stations to express the same sentiments. However, it is important that these people are not the only voices heard or posts read.

Someday, maybe soon, I'm going to have kids. I do not want them thrust into some Orwellian nightmare just because a bunch of people are whining about "poor taste." If you want to whine about poor taste, why not try the conventional media? MSNBCVs Article on the Anniversary I'm sure they'll really care about your complaints, and store them in a strong metal container... a trash can.

Re:Actually no...

[ronfar]

I just want to make a point here about this kind of stuff. Recently, the Dragon Magazine archive was released on CD-Rom. In it, is a letter I wrote to Dragon Magazine back in the 80's or early 90's about the Sally Jesse Raphael's persecution of gamers. It never even occured to me to complain that I wasn't compensated by Wizards of the Coast for them publishing my letter in their archive, or to complain to Dragon magazine that they didn't compensate me for publishing the letter in their forum in the first place. I should point out that in those days Dragon magazine's forum section was almost identical to Slashdot, except it was edited for content... but there were even running gags, etc. It was a chance for people to share their opinions with the world, and I am glad that these opinions were preserved in the archive.

Another thing all the Katz-flamers and general malcontents should consider is the right to fair use. These comments were all made in response to articles Jon Katz wrote, and he has a right to respond to them or otherwise use them in his book. After all, without his articles, the comments wouldn't have existed in the first place. Free speech would be utterly impossible if a person didn't have the right to respond to things being said about him without compensating the people who were saying those things.

Do radio talk shows compensate the people who call in? Does the New York Times compensate people who write them letters which they publish? No.

If you hate Jon Katz, don't respond to his columns, because your comments are derivative works based on what he wrote. (This is one of the irritating things I notice about some kids on the Web, they'll draw a picture of a video game character and then claim to own that picture. Nope, whoever came up with the character in the first place owns the character and has rights to the drawing. Oh, and if you are a person who doesn't believe in intellectual property, I understand your point, but then you can't claim that someone is stealing something that you don't own.)

I really wish some people would learn how to block Jon Katz author if they don't want to see, and feel "compelled" to respond to his work.

Kudos to Katz and Andover

[asymptote7]

I've read several comments from anti-Katz posters. Personally, I don't have a problem with them having their own thoughts and feelings on what Katz does or what he doesn't. However, one post said something to the effect that he was feeling exploited by Katz's "geek" focus, and that it was wrong for Katz to make a name for himself by treating "geeks" as some sort of zoo exhibit, while he leads the rest of the world on a tour.

The rest of the world NEEDS a tour guide to geeks. This is what many of us seem to miss completely. We can't understand why the rest of the world can't understand us, but it comes from a fundamental lack of understanding on the part of the outside world, so to speak. The mass media has turned the word "geek" into one of two things - a revered, nearly god-like individual who controls technology and can make the world fall to peices with the very click of his mouse, or a dangerous antisocialite who is a threat to everyone, both digitally or physically.

These people are the ones that look at the words "computer gaming" and think "doom is a killing simulator". This does not bode well for many of us, who enjoy a FPS once in a while. (Note : This applies to most gaming genres. Tell someone that Civ II is a "world building" game and they'll give you the 'look'). So, what's the solution to bridging this gap that exists?

People like Katz. He might not be a geek, and he might not fully understand geeks, but he's actually got a grasp on many important issues. For the most part, he gets his information somewhat right. And a book like this is, in my opinion, VERY important. Who else to present the facts "from the other side of the fence" than someone who is riding the rails? Hopefully, this won't just be a one-time thing. Perhaps we need to get a "Geek Lifestyle 101" written as an open source project from slashdot comments or something, heh.

and that's my $0.02