Slashdot Mirror
Update On "Voices From The Hellmouth"
The voices of many people who were hurt by this tragedy were heard loudly and clearly on Slashdot. We decided to use their comments in the construction of the story. As often happens though, good intentious can cloud things: in our haste to create the most powerful story possible, we neglected to get the permission of all of the writers. At this time, we've contacted a large number of the posters, and all the responses so far have been affirmative.
Legally speaking, we've been told that what we intended to do was just fine, provided we gave credit. We would be publishing words from a public forum: this 'fair use' thing is one of the basic principles that makes journalism possible.
This point is kinda irrelevant, though. We've decided that publishing this book without asking for permission wouldn't be the right thing to do. Instead we've decided to run the story as a serial on Slashdot: since these comments were already posted here, this will still allow the message to be sent to those who want to hear it, but without taking copyrighted materials off the place they were intended to be seen.
We've got permission from many of these people to publish their comments anywhere we like. But putting this on Slashdot will give people the ability to see if they are quoted. I've had hundreds of people e-mail to say that they have no problem with us using their content ... only one person actually e-mailed me to say that he would not allow his comment to be published: and he hadn't even posted in any of the Hellmouth stories.
If one of your comments is posted, we'll have an e-mail address that you can use to either give us permission to use it, or explicitly refuse it. At the conclusion of the series, we'll re-evaluate if this book will ever be published. What this means is that over the next couple of months, the serial presentation will allow you to help us determine the book's future -- linking to the original comments as quoted, allowing people to comment on and evaluate the text. And, if you are in there, and want to be removed, you'll be able to e-mail hemos.
We should have done this the first time around, but we're only human. We make mistakes, and we apologize for them. We hope that this is the right thing to do.
"What this means is that over the next couple of months, the serial presentation will allow you to help us determine the book's future"
What this means is that a bunch of selfish whiners are keeping a much need book from being published. A book that could actually do some good in the world.
"You can't quote me! That post is my property"
You guys are just as bad as the RIAA amd the MPAA.
First, any such preference ought to be loaded with all the legal disclaimers you can think of. Things like "only /. editors are obliged to honor this preference" and "the Fair Use doctrine still exists and /. will NOT enforce YOUR copyrights with outside media" (like if the NY Times decides to quote someone).
/. and I understand that the Fair Use doctrine may allow republication of my comments".
/. for what this guy said" (and even then, it didn't seem to work).
/. liable for enforcing such un-enforcable preferences.
/. adds this preference: ZDnet or someone will publish an "unreproducable" comment and we'll have to go through this whole damn controversy again.
To discourage this generally anti-social discussion behavior, I think users should also have a preference to NOT see posts that the owners feel are so proprietory that they aren't meant to leave slashdot.
I don't think AC's should have this right. In fact, I think the AC submission button should declare that the submission is Public Domain. If you can't prove that you even own a post, how do you intend to enforce your copyright of it?
You could also just change the text of the "Submit" button to "I authorize this post to be posted on
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad that you guys are reconsidering/clarifying your policy. I don't think all of the complaints were just "whining". But I think the most valid objection was that it says "comments owned by the poster," which is a kind of vague thing that somehow left others feeling that they could continue to control redistribution. My assumption is that the intention of the disclaimer was "don't sue
I do think it's "cricket" of you to ask people permission to reprint, but as your lawyers have already told you, you have no legal obligation. Adding preferences, I fear, will simply give the users more confidence that they can control their posts (which they can't), and possibly even make
My prediction for the future if
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
I ask, because I never received an email asking if publishing my post would be okay. I realize that you haven't contacted everyone, and I hope that's the case in my situation, rather than because my post wasn't set for publication.
I'm just a bit concerned, and I think with good reason, that the whole project is going to be a one-sided pity party along the lines of "those kind of guys picked on me when I was in school, so I don't blame Dylan and (whoever) for murdering 20+ people." I really hope that you aren't leaving out posts from those of us out in the real world familiar with both sides of the coin. For instance, NPR contacted me to add a counterpoint to the common sentiment around here. I hope Katz/Slashdot are planning to do the same thing instead of only giving one side of the story. And no, I don't mean by me necessarily, but by anyone who disagrees with the Slashdot mainstream on this subject.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Copyright law, it originally appeared, did not come out on the side of the publishers. So what? Since when does being law mean anything? Laws can be wrong -- slashdotters almost always hold that copyright law is wrong at least to some extent. Well what is the moral (not legal) justification for keeping this book out of stores?? For what moral reason should anyone ever have to ask permission to print publically available information, sell the printed copy, and give the profits to charity!??
Those of you who have objected to publication, ask yourself this: if public outcry was sufficient to stop this book from being published, would the world be better off? Would anyone's post actually be secret (rather than just obscure)? Would anyone receive more payment for the authorship of the post? The answer, I'm sure we all must agree, is no.
Moderators: Please chuck a point or so of "Insightful" at this guy. (He also makes the sensible point about the ACs, period.)
(Hopefully Mr. TheCarp will find it in his heart not to sue me for quoting him without permission! ;-)
Rule of thumb: "fair use" is exactly what it sounds like.
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
> those I never want reprinted
/. preference to really keep your post from showing up on the front page of the NY Times.
/.'s not going to go around and sue others on your behalf, and Fair Use will still apply giving others a perfectly legal right to quote at least a portion of your comments. The *only* one that I would really expect this to apply to would be /. itself. They can promise that they won't reprint your comment, but they can't make a promise for anyone else.
Simple. Don't post. Seriously. If you really mean "never", don't rely on some
> those I would only want reprinted in certain situations or publications
Same answer.
> those I don't care what happens to them
These are really the only things you should post. If you "care" what happens, you'd best realize that you don't have control...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
> This is the part of this whole thing I don't
> understand. What are the lessons we've learned?
> A couple of unstable wackos went bonkers and did
> something really terrible. But what did this
> teach us?
That, in and of itself, has nothing to teach us.
Unstable people will do nasty things. People can
be hurt. We knew that.
The real lesson is in what happend AFTER columbine
which is what the articles were really about. The
lesson is that we can't just easily "Explain away"
bad things that happen. The lesson is that it is
wrong to punish anyone who is "different" because
they "scare us".
The worst atrocities happend not at columbine,
but all over the country. It was the reactonary
measures to "Protect the children" where innocent
kids were punished to satisfy some parents, and
educators need to "feel safe".
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Remember when news used to be reported instead of created?
I think this one little slip is the scariest thing I've seen so far related to the whole "hellmouth" incident.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
As one of those who was outspokenly critical of Slashdot in this matter, let me be one of the first say that I think Hemos, Katz, and company are doing the right thing here. In particular I'm happy to see that they weren't concerned so much with the nuts-and-bolts legality of publishing the book, as with the larger question of whether it was the right thing for them to do. If they had wanted nothing more than to keep the lawyers happy, they could have published anyway but that would have alienated many of the Slashdot faithful and would have been contrary to the spirit of the "little guy" that Slashdot so often seeks to defend.
I know this decision can't have been easy for Slashdot. In e-mail exchanges with Hemos and Jon Katz following my "Slashmouth" editorial, I came to appreciate the deep commitment they have to the people that Hellmouth is by and about. I know that they wanted the Hellmouth stories to reach as many people as possible, and I recognize that a book would probably have reached more people than a serialization will. But they also care about doing the right thing, and in this compromise I think they have done that.
It still remains for Slashdot to clarify, for the future, what their exact stance is on copyright issues. Who posts here, and what does "ownership" refer to? I have faith that they will answer these questions too, and that most Slashdot users will be happy with their answers.
Carry on, guys.
--Jim
I read every posting in it. Then I read the next story in the series. And then the final one. And I could feel what the posters had felt. Because I'd experienced much of the same myself.
I was kinda haunted by the Hellmouth series. I remember watching the newsclips on TV (I was in a hotel in New York, for some training for work). I saw the fear and the confusion on the faces that appeared before me on the screen. I knew that things must have been horrible there, and I thanked God that that never happened at my school.
But I didn't think about the "other" angle until I read the Hellmouth trilogy. I had no idea that that sort of witchhunt was going on in schools around the country. I just turned 22 last month, so I was only a couple years out of high school when the whole thing happened. And I can't help but be haunted by the thought that were I still in school, my life might've been made a living hell.
<ficticious possibility>
Random school teacher/administrator: So how does everyone feel about the tragedy at Columbine?
Me: I think it's terrible. I feel badly for the victims. But I can also understand how the shooters must've been feeling, because I've heard that they were teased constantly.
</fictitious possibility>
This needs to be heard. The story is begging to be told. Don't confine it to our own little intellectually-inbred mentally-masturbating clique. We already know this stuff; it's the rest of the world that must hear this. To confine this to Slashdot is to effectively silence the very Voices that are screaming to be heard.
Rob, Jeff, and the rest of you:
Please don't silence the Voices.
--
--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
Also, the idea that we, as geeks, or outcasts, or the formerly societally abused should use the shootings as a sounding point to 'stand up' for other people who don't 'fit in' is WAY wrong. It's sick.
Blue--
What you say would be true--should be true--had not a good number of skittish administrators started looking for the Dylans and the Erics among their own kind.
Guess who they found.
Go read the Hellmouth stories. Dylan and Eric didn't just traumatize kids in their own school; the backlash from their actions engulfed unquestionably innocent geeks for no cause that could ever be considered as fair. Consider the rather intriguing fact that Dylan and Eric weren't even *part* of the "Trenchcoat Mafia"--did you know that, Blue? Did you realize that was all a media invention because, well, they wore Trenchcoats, and, like, so did this other group that *hated these kids too*?
I don't think a single one of those kids from the Trenchcoat Mafia was allowed back into that school. It was apparently believed that their mere presence would be traumatic to the survivors, regardless of their total lack of involvement.
At its most extreme, that was probably what the entire Hellmouth rage was about--
1) Something must be done!
2) This is something.
Therefore,
3) This must be done.
Those kids over there looked like The Killers. Get 'em out! That group over there, we don't understand him. Get 'em out! That clique has a tradition of verbally harassing people? Ah. They're kids. And they're cheerleaders/football players/"boys will be boys".
Blue, people were SUSPENDED FOR THEIR BELIEFS. People were feared for no other reason than the games they played! Go read the Hellmouth responses--it was never really about people complaining about how they'd been victimized for all these years ad nauseum. It was how schools across the country started looking inward to find the secret "Most Likely to Kill Us All" award winners, and the slots kept on ringing up, "Isolated Computer Geek", "Dungeons and Dragons Player", and "That Guy Who Sits Alone In Lunch And Hates PE."
No administrator wanted to be liable for letting the school get shot up. So a veritable Lord Of The Flies environment sprouted up in schools across the country. Geeks still in school reported the harassment they were subject to, and stood back in awe as Slashdot spit back hundreds of similar stories from everywhere and anywhere inbetween. Geeks out of school shuddered--they(and *I*) knew deep down that we got out just in time, but there were those we left behind.
Would you have survived the Purge from Columbine? Would I? How many were harassed to make the popular feel safe? How many were exiled?
I honestly believe the greatest thing to come out of the Hellmouth series was that it was *so* quick to come out and *so* topical that it *had* to amount of something of a defense infrastructure for those being considered for extreme punishment.
I don't know this for sure, but I can hope: The Hellmouth series had the direct effect of making it much more expensive for administrators to eliminate subversive though entirely innocent elements from schools across the country. It made kids bolder in defending themselves, it gave parents a window into something they could only vaguely remember, and it made administrators know there'd be a heavy PR price for eliminating the "inconvenient" rather than the truly dangerous. That's why I want this book published, incidentally: For all the non-geek exposure this series got, it was most likely limited to short emails read for short periods of time by the people who could and should Make That Difference.
The publication of this book needs to happen--the bottom line is that there's a *reason* it's legal to quote, and Slashdot should not feel guilty about doing so--especially when most readers enthusiastically support the printing of this material! The people who would be quoted overwhelmingly support such a printing--they wrote what they wrote to be *read*, *understood*, and *acted upon*. Hemos, Taco, and even you, Katz, you've *done* that.
Do the authors proud! Release this book.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Really, I don't see why. What are the differences between web-based text and print media?
--Web-based is dynamic within certain limits, print much less so.
--Web-based is available only with certain equipment (computers, web access, etc.). Print is accessible to anyone that can read the language it's printed in.
These are the basic differences. There may be some legal differences, but this is more an artifact of our legal system having failed to catch up to new technology.
Why is the change of media important?
And, perhaps what my real question is, why do these people care? People wrote in with their own stories of abuse at the hands of their peers; they wrote in with opinions, diatribes, and sometimes incoherent or off-topic rambling. They did this in a semi-public forum that is commonly frequented by others of their kind, an informal kind of clubhouse for the technically proficient. Preaching to the choir, you might say.
However, the instant that there is some possibility that a wider audience (perhaps less-technically inclined, perhaps less sympathetic) can see these remarks, then people come out of the woodwork crying about intellectual property and "my permission wasn't asked!"
The point I am trying (somewhat disjointedly) to make is this: The people who could benefit most from reading these remarks (i.e. anyone who cares to pick up the book) are being denied that insight by the people who have the information (i.e. the Slashdot posters--some of them, anyway). It is as if a repressed minority lashes out against a largely ignorant majority with "You don't understand us! You are oppressing us!" and then refuses to give that majority the insight that would prevent oppression from ignorance.
This is a step towards social suicide.
www.alarmist.org
> Not just a user preference. This doesn't help
> people that post anonymously. Make it an option
> on the form, and (very important)
Thats simple to solve. Post anonymously...you
don't get to specify...it should be assumed that
quoting is ok...
afterall, you have dissassociated your name from
the comment, that act, to me, disavows any
connection to the comment, you shouldn't care
if it is quoted elsewhere.
But seriously....Slashdot is a public forum. If
you don't want people to quote you, then don't
say it in public.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Well if they are quoting you...then you can't
really call them guilty of slander (unless
perhaps they purposfully distorted your words)
Aftrall, its a quote, you said it, not them.
You can't exactly blame someone for spreading
lies about you, when you are the one that told
them the lie to begin with.
Now private documents, or things said in private
may be different. However, if you say it in public
you sure can be quoted.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
And it isn't about whether or not money is going to be made on a magazine article or book. /. isn't a charity (even though it is a .org). It's a business. If it wasn't, it wouldn't have sold for the money that it sold for. Those banner ads up at the top are the reason the site is allowed to exist. They pay for the bandwidth and the boxes.
If you don't want people to associate you with what you've said, post as an AC. If you don't trust the journalists that run the site, don't post at all.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
When you post anonymously, you are giving up all rights to what you've said. You don't want to be associated with those words, or you would have logged in. (or you hate cookies.. or whatever). The point is, if you post via AC, it's not attached to you, so all reprinting rights are up to /. at that point. If you care, log in.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I suggest that there be added to the per-user preferences an option specifying whether you want Slashdot (or other people) to feel free to use your posts (with attribution) in books or other works.
I think this re-thinking of attitudes on behalf of the editors is a good thing. In the future. tje editors may want to consider this idea:
Give users a chance to be quoted on the "Post Comment" screen. Two checkboxes saying "this can" or "this can NOT" be quoted in a different medium. Have the boxes unchecked by default. Allow the users to decide AS they are posting; not before or after. For registered users, this may even be set to a default.
If neither is selected, the editors may make some sort of announcement that such a republication of ideas is being considered, and remind people that they can opt in or out when they post.
And Slashdot should have an EDITORIAL POLICY as to the disposition of those comments that have neither of those selections made.
This is all hindsight, of course, but mistakes like this are good if people learn from them. If you want to retain copyright, there is a simple method. And if you don't care if your comments are posted, you can either give explicit permission or not select either choice.
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
those I never want reprinted
those I would only want reprinted in certain situations or publications
those I don't care what happens to them
I suppose we could have a check box form to fill out every time we post... but I think that's going a bit far. In the second situation, how could I really specify where I wouldn't mind my comment being reprinted? If taken out of context, an innocent seeming conmment could be made to say something you never intended. I think it makes more sense to have the interested parties contact the posters concerned and allow them to make up their mind when actually confronted with the possibility.
Disclaimer: Yes, this is just an opinion, I could always check the "Don't reprint this" box, and just ignore it. But maybe if the right party approached me, I might want my comment reprinted.
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
We've gone over why posting on Slashdot just isn't as effective in this instance:
you/Jon Katz/whoever would just be preaching to the converted. Yes, Slashdot is a very popular electronic magazine. No, the people who really need to see these stories probably don't visit us here!
IMHO, Andover / Slashdot would do more good than bad overall by going ahead and publishing the book. Sure, a few people might not be credited with their brilliant musings, but the people who really NEED to read this book, will be more likely to read it if it's on paper!
You also weaken your own point, by telling us that the only person who'd emailed you negatively so far is someone who didn't even post on that series of stories! Considering that publishing the book would be a legally sound action, and your (admittedly non-scientific) report above of a 100:1 positive to negative reaction ratio, it would seem that Slashdot readers are giving you a thumbs up on whether publishing the book would be ethical.
So why not publish?
(that will teach me to preview before posting... bleh. sorry about the duplicate.)
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
I think that you and I remember the Hellmouth story (and its replies) very differently. There were a lot of voices, so maybe we're each being rather selective. But if you think it was about deifying the shooters, then maybe one or both of us should go back and reread it.
I did not see it as a call-to-arms of "This is what happens if you keep screwing us." There was some of that, but I saw something in the Hellmouth story that was a hell of a lot scarier. And it makes the shooting very relevant and directly-related. I refer to the witch hunts that followed.
I'm talking about kids who were suddenly mistrusted, treated as potential criminals, and in some cases directly interfered with, because of the types of clothes they wore, the type of music they listened to, or the types of games that they played. These aren't stories about someone getting their lunch money stolen when they were six. These are stories about things that happened after the shootings and as a direct consequence.
When some kid says that he's not allowed to wear a trenchcoat at school anymore because of the Columbine shootings, then I certainly don't think it's "WAY wrong" or "sick" for him to evoke the word "Columbine" as his explanation. It was other parties who chose to use the shootings to assist their agendas and prejudices, not the kids who griped about it.
You're right that it sucks that people have exploited the shootings. But the Hellmouth story was, in part, about the victims of that exploitation. The shooting survivers can try to put things behind them and get on with life, but the indirect victims, who are persecuted because of the shootings, have no relief in sight. I see nothing wrong with drawing public attention to their problem.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.