The way "Your rights online" is one of the busiest/. categories, the way half the stories have little or nothing to do with IT, and the way articles are almost always spun in terms of "What individual rights will be lost?" rather than "What might society as a whole gain?", for example?
These are all arguments that people tend to be liberal, not libertarian. The latter means far more than simply being liberal - it favours a small Government for economic purposes, too.
(Also although it's true that many articles focus on the issue of "rights", to be fair many people consider the issue of benefit or harm to society as a whole - these are not separate issues, indeed, one fear of losing rights is the harm it will do to society. I think it's misleading that authoritarians tend to frame their point of view in terms of "society" when they don't necessarily have anymore evidence of any good it will do for everyone.)
Probably more likely, but it'd still be an ACER Amiga, by definition. After all, when Apple ditched classic MacOS and have gradually moved towards industry standard components, they still kept the "Mac" brand. Indeed, I'd rather see a new Amiga that was a modern machine branded Amiga, than someone wheeling out a 15-year-old resurrected Amiga.
I agree that I'm not sure this tool will be a good thing, but:
If a true expert edits a page, but the masses don't agree with the edit, they will undo the expert's addition and give the expert a low reputation.
If a true expert isn't providing sources for his edits, then tough luck - it's reasonable they get reverted. (There is a potential problem where edits-with-sources get reverted by some idiot editor, and you can't be bothered to seek help from other editors - though that applies to everyone, not just "true experts".)
So, if there is a myth that a lot of people believe is true, then it will stay up there as it is not challenged.
You mean if it is not challenged. Wikipedia is quite clear on this: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Certainly I and other editors question, and even eventually remove material even if it may seem to be true, because there is no evidence for it and no way to verify it. Now yes, there is the problem that not all editors follow this, and there is the general problem with this algorithm that some articles have dodgy information that goes unnoticed a long time, thus they'd be marked as trustworthy. But the solution is not to have people voting on the whether it is true (that would be a horrendous idea) - the answer is to remove unverifiable material.
I call total bullshit on these statistics. 8% write their own blogs? Twenty million people?!? Impossible. No way, no how.
How many million people are on MySpace these days?
I think it's easily believable. "Blog" doesn't just mean a standalone website you maintain yourself and write about political stuff, it's any journalling site, which people usually use for personal stuff.
One problem is that having your edit edited out at some point in the future doesn't mean there was anything bad about your edit. Sometimes even though your edit was a clear improvement, an entire paragraph might be removed because it's deemed to be unsuitable/unnecessary, or someone rewrites the entire paragraph because they think they can make it better still.
On the other hand, if it specifically only penalises "undone" edits (which is seems to refer to in the article), i.e., your change and only your change is reverted, this would avoid the problem.
I wonder if it includes reverting vandalism as being an edit attributed to you? (Otherwise, you could vandalise an established piece of text under a sockpuppet/anonymous account, then revert it, gaining the credit for the text... hopefully they've taken such things into account.)
My cheapo Advent didn't come with recovery CDs - but on top of that, the "Make a recovery CD" option doesn't even work. I still have the wasted space on the hard disk, but the file's missing, and so I have no recovery ability either. I get what I pay for I guess.
But my parents' recent Toshiba came with recovery CDs.
Given that many people have blogs which span YEARS
All good points - also, I presume this applies to comments that people make in each others' blogs. It's at least a conceivable task, if very time consuming, for people to skim back over their blog history. But with thousands of comments made all over LiveJournal, and with no method of keeping track of them, it's an impossible task (and comments can't be edited either, only deleted).
This isn't about how Six Apart or LJ likes to interpret the TOS. It's about how LJ users want to interpret the TOS.
No, it's about how LJ have been interpretting the TOS. Yes, customers may disagree, and complain just like customers of every other company do.
Anyhow, I agree that the TOS can be interpretted to disallow links - I mean, it's broad enough to ban you for any reason.
Those who pay are a subset of those who have access for free.
So whine about the free users. And I hope you whine about every other story that complains about a company, where the users aren't paying customers, too.
A lot [1and1.com]of hosting services [bluehost.com] have this kind [myspace.com] of policy [facebook.com]. All hosting companies have a policy for objectionable material that is illegal.
The issue is how they act, and yes, whether they include a link in their definition of objectional content (which isn't something which is necessarily true). If those companies actively policed content and banned without warning for things which might be illegal, if they'd banned 500 accounts because a 3rd party group told them, and now they were saying that simply a link can get you banned for the content on the site you're linking to, then I bet there'd be a Slashdot story there too.
No, it wouldn't because it's... not... news. It's community whiny and spreading FUD for not understanding a TOS (if they even read it).
You're the one whining about Slashdot posting a story you don't like. I mean, Slashdot are a private entity, they can do what they right like? Go elsewhere if you don't like it, right?
Plenty of stories on Slashdot are about the TOS or small prints that companies have - unlike most stories which are based on hypotheticals of what a company might do, this story is based on a history where we know what LJ have done.
Yes, yes it is.
No, it's not. The concern here is obscenity, not child porn.
This seriously appears to be a non-issue and doesn't deserve/. attention. Though, anyone is free to try and counter-argue the significance of this story.
Then don't read it. How about we discuss the story, and not have some meta debate about whether you think it is worthy or not?
So you would rather that *they* take reponsibility and get shutdown
No one said that. The point is that no one should be responsible for linking (well, if it becomes a legal issue, sure it should be the user who is responsible, but the issue is LJ pre-emptively banning people for linking, even if law enforcement are not involved).
1) Plaintext the URLS; they're not linking to the site, they're simply providing a URL should somebody want to look into whatever they're jabbering on about (maybe this one wouldn't get around the ToS)
2) Use some kind of passthrough; something similar to tinyurl that monitors the site. Impractical, but so is LJ, really.
Assuming that they'll allow this - it seems such an obvious loophole, I doubt it.
3) Get a new blog site; it's not like there aren't a billion floating around or anything.
Indeed, and many people are doing that (though the problem of linking blogs together in the way that it works on LJ is not solved). But in order to do that, they need to be told about it.
I agree. Also it's perfectly reasonable to try complaining before moving to another service. That's what people do with every other business.
Also, LJ have made it clear they listen to groups (WFI) who aren't even customers. At that point, it's fair game to shout back and complain, since they've made it clear they are responding to what they think people want.
Yes, more sensational bullshit. I didn't see the LJ TOS [livejournal.com] specifically say that you are responsible for the content of another website.
If only that were true. Part of the problem is that recently Six Apart like to interpret the TOS in ways that aren't explicitly stated in the TOS. They have recently posted "clarifications" where they vaguely explain what the TOS is meant to say. They have explicitly stated that content you link to is subject to rules just the same as if it was posted on your journal.
Yes, the TOS doesn't say it (in fact, I believe it says that LJ isn't responsible for any external links, ironically...) but that's all the more reason the situation is rather silly and confusing.
But then again, I'd rather cough up $3 a month to have my own website/blog than use a social networking site.
Some people cough up money for LJ too. And if a hosting service had this policy too, I suspect the story would also be on Slashdot.
But I can tell you this, you'll still get banned by most hosts for linking to child p0rn even if it's your own site.
For those who find it a problem, they are free to seek other services.
And how do people (existing users or potential users) find out about a companies policies and actions? By telling people about it, of course.
This meta-strawman-debate of "LJ can do what it likes" "users can go elsewhere" is pointing out the bleeding obvious and applies to most company-related stories on Slashdot. Let's get to discussing the actual story.
Because we , for the most part, aren't LJ users (I am).
The same could be said for most Slashdot stories. Most of us aren't Apple users, Linux users, don't use MySpace or Facebook, some don't use Windows or Google applications. That doesn't stop us getting stories on these and more. I suspect that the proportion of LJ users is still higher than some of the niche stories that get posted.
a particular company that provides a service for friggin' free
Again, many of the companies criticised on Slashdot provide free services too, but you are incorrect anyway - LJ has paid (and even "permanent") accounts as well as free ones.
What is so special about LJ that it has so many people defending it with the strawman argument "it can do what it likes", when criticising every other company is fair game on Slashdot?
This is a rather pedantic point - a large number of stories in YRO are about actions of companies (e.g., recently we have "Microsoft Forces Shutdown of Autopatcher", and "Does Google Own Your Content?").
Sure, they have a "right" to do what they like. We know that - that's a strawman argument. We have a right to complain about it, and/or go elsewhere.
I'm not sure what's so special about LiveJournal that people seem to keep bringing this point up (even when no one claims they don't have a right to do this), when it's fair game to criticise every other company out there.
Cool, so all he has to do is bung some commentary in the YouTube page, and he'll be fine. Whilst he's at it, he can do the same when he uploads the latest movie. Obviously the MPAA will be fine with that, because it's fair use.
Yes, he can't copy a car, just like he can't copy software (that's covered by IP laws, not a "licence").
But he can sell his car - just like he ought to be able to sell his Windows CD, no matter what the EUL"A" says (and thankfully in most places, this is legally the case AFAIK).
While you may play it in your home, it's not legal for you to reproduce it (FBI warning), or broadcast it publicly. Example - A movie theater can't rent a video from the video store and then charge you admission to view it. When Star Wars Episode I came out there were several warnings telling people not to show the Original Star Wars in the parking lots. Usage restrictions are not new, and didn't start with software.
But those examples are part of copyright law, and not placed there by some "licence". It's nothing to do with an agreement - the law exists whether you agree or not, but the company can't make up new rules. There are laws that cover the sale of physical products too, but that doesn't mean you are licencing them, or have to agree to anything.
2. unless you think that people are getting a lot more intelligent in a couple of generations then you must assume that either (a) the exams are easier or (b) that students are being thought only how to pass exams (this is the view held by several teacher friends of mine)
Or it could be they're being taught better generally. But actually there's another possibility - the rates are only an average for all GCSEs, and one possibility is that people are switching to easier subjects. So it's not that any given exam is easier, but that some subjects are easier to get an A.
Obviously it's still bad if some subjects are easier than others, but it's wrong to assume that all subjects are getting easier, and in fact, science seems to be one of the hard subjects. So ironically, making science easier may help to address the problem.
(Though I do love the way that when exam grades in those subjects are falling, people assume it must be due to students getting stupider or teaching standards falling - why aren't all the moaners complaining that English, Maths and Science exams are getting harder?)
Windows has made great strides from the frequent BSOD era of 95.
Indeed, and I think it's sad that the XP/Vista line is assumed to crashed based on the experience of Windows 9x, which was a different OS altogether. If we applied the same logic to Apple, we should be judging OS X by the different platform that was classic MacOS, and boy, it's not hard to criticise that OS. But that would be silly and misleading.
Dual booting has its uses when you need to run two different platforms, but ideally people don't want to have to do this in the first place.
I don't want to reboot just to play a quick game (isn't the usual criticism of Windows that you have to reboot so often, when ideally you shouldn't ever need to?), and I don't want to have to shut down things like email/web/IM applications whilst I'm playing a long game. I'm genuinely confused why rebooting before/after every game and not running games/native apps together is promoted as a good solution like it's 1990 again.
Crashing, nope. My G4 has never... NEVER crashed in 3 years.
Yes, just like my Windows computers, which is what he said.
no spyware or viruses, low instance of system problems.
Slashdot Mirror
The way "Your rights online" is one of the busiest /. categories, the way half the stories have little or nothing to do with IT, and the way articles are almost always spun in terms of "What individual rights will be lost?" rather than "What might society as a whole gain?", for example?
These are all arguments that people tend to be liberal, not libertarian. The latter means far more than simply being liberal - it favours a small Government for economic purposes, too.
(Also although it's true that many articles focus on the issue of "rights", to be fair many people consider the issue of benefit or harm to society as a whole - these are not separate issues, indeed, one fear of losing rights is the harm it will do to society. I think it's misleading that authoritarians tend to frame their point of view in terms of "society" when they don't necessarily have anymore evidence of any good it will do for everyone.)
Probably more likely, but it'd still be an ACER Amiga, by definition. After all, when Apple ditched classic MacOS and have gradually moved towards industry standard components, they still kept the "Mac" brand. Indeed, I'd rather see a new Amiga that was a modern machine branded Amiga, than someone wheeling out a 15-year-old resurrected Amiga.
I agree that I'm not sure this tool will be a good thing, but:
If a true expert edits a page, but the masses don't agree with the edit, they will undo the expert's addition and give the expert a low reputation.
If a true expert isn't providing sources for his edits, then tough luck - it's reasonable they get reverted. (There is a potential problem where edits-with-sources get reverted by some idiot editor, and you can't be bothered to seek help from other editors - though that applies to everyone, not just "true experts".)
So, if there is a myth that a lot of people believe is true, then it will stay up there as it is not challenged.
You mean if it is not challenged. Wikipedia is quite clear on this: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Certainly I and other editors question, and even eventually remove material even if it may seem to be true, because there is no evidence for it and no way to verify it. Now yes, there is the problem that not all editors follow this, and there is the general problem with this algorithm that some articles have dodgy information that goes unnoticed a long time, thus they'd be marked as trustworthy. But the solution is not to have people voting on the whether it is true (that would be a horrendous idea) - the answer is to remove unverifiable material.
I call total bullshit on these statistics.
8% write their own blogs? Twenty million people?!? Impossible. No way, no how.
How many million people are on MySpace these days?
I think it's easily believable. "Blog" doesn't just mean a standalone website you maintain yourself and write about political stuff, it's any journalling site, which people usually use for personal stuff.
One problem is that having your edit edited out at some point in the future doesn't mean there was anything bad about your edit. Sometimes even though your edit was a clear improvement, an entire paragraph might be removed because it's deemed to be unsuitable/unnecessary, or someone rewrites the entire paragraph because they think they can make it better still.
... hopefully they've taken such things into account.)
On the other hand, if it specifically only penalises "undone" edits (which is seems to refer to in the article), i.e., your change and only your change is reverted, this would avoid the problem.
I wonder if it includes reverting vandalism as being an edit attributed to you? (Otherwise, you could vandalise an established piece of text under a sockpuppet/anonymous account, then revert it, gaining the credit for the text
My cheapo Advent didn't come with recovery CDs - but on top of that, the "Make a recovery CD" option doesn't even work. I still have the wasted space on the hard disk, but the file's missing, and so I have no recovery ability either. I get what I pay for I guess.
But my parents' recent Toshiba came with recovery CDs.
Given that many people have blogs which span YEARS
All good points - also, I presume this applies to comments that people make in each others' blogs. It's at least a conceivable task, if very time consuming, for people to skim back over their blog history. But with thousands of comments made all over LiveJournal, and with no method of keeping track of them, it's an impossible task (and comments can't be edited either, only deleted).
This isn't about how Six Apart or LJ likes to interpret the TOS. It's about how LJ users want to interpret the TOS.
/. attention. Though, anyone is free to try and counter-argue the significance of this story.
No, it's about how LJ have been interpretting the TOS. Yes, customers may disagree, and complain just like customers of every other company do.
Anyhow, I agree that the TOS can be interpretted to disallow links - I mean, it's broad enough to ban you for any reason.
Those who pay are a subset of those who have access for free.
So whine about the free users. And I hope you whine about every other story that complains about a company, where the users aren't paying customers, too.
A lot [1and1.com]of hosting services [bluehost.com] have this kind [myspace.com] of policy [facebook.com]. All hosting companies have a policy for objectionable material that is illegal.
The issue is how they act, and yes, whether they include a link in their definition of objectional content (which isn't something which is necessarily true). If those companies actively policed content and banned without warning for things which might be illegal, if they'd banned 500 accounts because a 3rd party group told them, and now they were saying that simply a link can get you banned for the content on the site you're linking to, then I bet there'd be a Slashdot story there too.
No, it wouldn't because it's... not... news. It's community whiny and spreading FUD for not understanding a TOS (if they even read it).
You're the one whining about Slashdot posting a story you don't like. I mean, Slashdot are a private entity, they can do what they right like? Go elsewhere if you don't like it, right?
Plenty of stories on Slashdot are about the TOS or small prints that companies have - unlike most stories which are based on hypotheticals of what a company might do, this story is based on a history where we know what LJ have done.
Yes, yes it is.
No, it's not. The concern here is obscenity, not child porn.
This seriously appears to be a non-issue and doesn't deserve
Then don't read it. How about we discuss the story, and not have some meta debate about whether you think it is worthy or not?
So you would rather that *they* take reponsibility and get shutdown
No one said that. The point is that no one should be responsible for linking (well, if it becomes a legal issue, sure it should be the user who is responsible, but the issue is LJ pre-emptively banning people for linking, even if law enforcement are not involved).
1) Plaintext the URLS; they're not linking to the site, they're simply providing a URL should somebody want to look into whatever they're jabbering on about (maybe this one wouldn't get around the ToS)
2) Use some kind of passthrough; something similar to tinyurl that monitors the site. Impractical, but so is LJ, really.
Assuming that they'll allow this - it seems such an obvious loophole, I doubt it.
3) Get a new blog site; it's not like there aren't a billion floating around or anything.
Indeed, and many people are doing that (though the problem of linking blogs together in the way that it works on LJ is not solved). But in order to do that, they need to be told about it.
I agree. Also it's perfectly reasonable to try complaining before moving to another service. That's what people do with every other business.
Also, LJ have made it clear they listen to groups (WFI) who aren't even customers. At that point, it's fair game to shout back and complain, since they've made it clear they are responding to what they think people want.
Yes, more sensational bullshit. I didn't see the LJ TOS [livejournal.com] specifically say that you are responsible for the content of another website.
If only that were true. Part of the problem is that recently Six Apart like to interpret the TOS in ways that aren't explicitly stated in the TOS. They have recently posted "clarifications" where they vaguely explain what the TOS is meant to say. They have explicitly stated that content you link to is subject to rules just the same as if it was posted on your journal.
Yes, the TOS doesn't say it (in fact, I believe it says that LJ isn't responsible for any external links, ironically...) but that's all the more reason the situation is rather silly and confusing.
But then again, I'd rather cough up $3 a month to have my own website/blog than use a social networking site.
Some people cough up money for LJ too. And if a hosting service had this policy too, I suspect the story would also be on Slashdot.
But I can tell you this, you'll still get banned by most hosts for linking to child p0rn even if it's your own site.
That's not what we're talking about.
For those who find it a problem, they are free to seek other services.
And how do people (existing users or potential users) find out about a companies policies and actions? By telling people about it, of course.
This meta-strawman-debate of "LJ can do what it likes" "users can go elsewhere" is pointing out the bleeding obvious and applies to most company-related stories on Slashdot. Let's get to discussing the actual story.
Because we , for the most part, aren't LJ users (I am).
The same could be said for most Slashdot stories. Most of us aren't Apple users, Linux users, don't use MySpace or Facebook, some don't use Windows or Google applications. That doesn't stop us getting stories on these and more. I suspect that the proportion of LJ users is still higher than some of the niche stories that get posted.
a particular company that provides a service for friggin' free
Again, many of the companies criticised on Slashdot provide free services too, but you are incorrect anyway - LJ has paid (and even "permanent") accounts as well as free ones.
What is so special about LJ that it has so many people defending it with the strawman argument "it can do what it likes", when criticising every other company is fair game on Slashdot?
This is a rather pedantic point - a large number of stories in YRO are about actions of companies (e.g., recently we have "Microsoft Forces Shutdown of Autopatcher", and "Does Google Own Your Content?").
Sure, they have a "right" to do what they like. We know that - that's a strawman argument. We have a right to complain about it, and/or go elsewhere.
I'm not sure what's so special about LiveJournal that people seem to keep bringing this point up (even when no one claims they don't have a right to do this), when it's fair game to criticise every other company out there.
So...if he doesn't own the copyright then he can't really tell Viacom what to do.
It's not that he wants to tell Viacom what to do; Viacom are telling him what to do.
Cool, so all he has to do is bung some commentary in the YouTube page, and he'll be fine. Whilst he's at it, he can do the same when he uploads the latest movie. Obviously the MPAA will be fine with that, because it's fair use.
Oh noes! Your public domain material will be in the public domain!
Yeah, just like if it's on a webpage, it's public domain so it must be okay for me to copy it!
(Try doing that with Google's content...)
If your content is worth money
Well there's more to copyright than being worth money (e.g., people not wanting their personal holiday snaps being used in an advertising campaign).
Yes, he can't copy a car, just like he can't copy software (that's covered by IP laws, not a "licence").
But he can sell his car - just like he ought to be able to sell his Windows CD, no matter what the EUL"A" says (and thankfully in most places, this is legally the case AFAIK).
While you may play it in your home, it's not legal for you to reproduce it (FBI warning), or broadcast it publicly. Example - A movie theater can't rent a video from the video store and then charge you admission to view it. When Star Wars Episode I came out there were several warnings telling people not to show the Original Star Wars in the parking lots. Usage restrictions are not new, and didn't start with software.
But those examples are part of copyright law, and not placed there by some "licence". It's nothing to do with an agreement - the law exists whether you agree or not, but the company can't make up new rules. There are laws that cover the sale of physical products too, but that doesn't mean you are licencing them, or have to agree to anything.
2. unless you think that people are getting a lot more intelligent in a couple of generations then you must assume that either (a) the exams are easier or (b) that students are being thought only how to pass exams (this is the view held by several teacher friends of mine)
Or it could be they're being taught better generally. But actually there's another possibility - the rates are only an average for all GCSEs, and one possibility is that people are switching to easier subjects. So it's not that any given exam is easier, but that some subjects are easier to get an A.
In fact, The proportion of students gaining five good (A*-C) GCSEs including English, maths, science and a language, has fallen from 61 per cent in 1996 to 44 per cent last year.
Obviously it's still bad if some subjects are easier than others, but it's wrong to assume that all subjects are getting easier, and in fact, science seems to be one of the hard subjects. So ironically, making science easier may help to address the problem.
(Though I do love the way that when exam grades in those subjects are falling, people assume it must be due to students getting stupider or teaching standards falling - why aren't all the moaners complaining that English, Maths and Science exams are getting harder?)
Windows has made great strides from the frequent BSOD era of 95.
Indeed, and I think it's sad that the XP/Vista line is assumed to crashed based on the experience of Windows 9x, which was a different OS altogether. If we applied the same logic to Apple, we should be judging OS X by the different platform that was classic MacOS, and boy, it's not hard to criticise that OS. But that would be silly and misleading.
Bootcamp for windows dual boots
Ouch.
Dual booting has its uses when you need to run two different platforms, but ideally people don't want to have to do this in the first place.
I don't want to reboot just to play a quick game (isn't the usual criticism of Windows that you have to reboot so often, when ideally you shouldn't ever need to?), and I don't want to have to shut down things like email/web/IM applications whilst I'm playing a long game. I'm genuinely confused why rebooting before/after every game and not running games/native apps together is promoted as a good solution like it's 1990 again.
Crashing, nope. My G4 has never... NEVER crashed in 3 years.
Yes, just like my Windows computers, which is what he said.
no spyware or viruses, low instance of system problems.
No problems here.