# Fairytale of New York warning
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [December 26, 2017, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301 "2017-12-26T06:10:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/1 "2017-12-26T06:10:25Z")
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20685510&postcount=25](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20685510&postcount=25)
Originally Posted by Chronos
> [@](#):
>
> [Moderating]
>
> Yes, Mr Shine, this was a pointless thread, and hence I’m closing it. But no, that is not your decision to make. You should have just reported it. That’s Strike One, for threadshitting. Strike Two is for the manner in which you did so, by violating copyright, which is after all what made the thread problematic to begin with. Strike Three is editing a quote of Happy Lendervedder’s post in order to change the meaning, which is prohibited here, and Strike Four is that the meaning you changed it to is a personal insult, which is also prohibited. We will be discussing your further posting privileges, and in the meantime, this is an official Warning.
I’d just like to argue a couple of things here:
Strike 1: no objection, I saw an irritatingly pointless thread, and ended it in an antagonistic manner, I expected some flak.
Strike 2, posting lyrics to a 20 year old song that everybody knows is a very low bar for copyright infringement, especially since it was being done already.
Strike 3 I took the “posted by” off the quote and never implied it was really posted by someone, I thought that was acceptable?
Strike 4 was not a personal insult, unless you think a thread is a person as all it was saying was the thread was pointless and shit.
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### Author:  [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/2 "2017-12-26T08:20:34Z")
Mr Shine, him diamond.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/3 "2017-12-26T08:39:35Z")
#2 depends on how much of the song you quoted. Nobody else was quoting more than a line or two. If you originally posted more than a couple of lines, then yes, that’s against the rules. Since **Chronos** edited it down to a couple of lines, only a mod can tell us how much you actually quoted.
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### Author:  [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/4 "2017-12-26T09:28:41Z")
Chronos said “Yes, Mr Shine, this was a pointless thread, and hence I’m closing it. But no, that is not your decision to make. You should have just reported it.”
But a key point is the thread was started at 7:21 pm and Mr. Shine made his comments the next morning at 10:08 am–a gap of of almost 15 hours (these are CST). And Chronos not making his moderation comment until 8:45 pm–a gap of more than 25 hours. So why would it have done any good to report the thread? This would only be true if Chronos is admitting there are day long gaps when there aren’t any Cafe Society moderators around.
Should perhaps the issue to be discussed is whether or not there should be more Cafe Society moderators.
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### Author:  [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/5 "2017-12-26T09:52:49Z")
It’s been said time and again that moderators don’t read every thread looking for violations. Reporting a post is the best solution. You ensure that someone will check it out instead of hoping they stumble across something.
Keep in mind that this is also the holiday season. Mods do have a life, too (well, maybe). And that sometimes means being away from the boards for extended periods of time.
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### Author:  [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/6 "2017-12-26T10:14:23Z")
For #2, **Chronos** said that the copyright infringement was already one of the problems with the thread, and you posting the entire thing from then on didn’t help with that.
I don’t really see your defence for #3, you altered someone else quote, which doesn’t seem to ever ok.
#4 I assume that **Chronos** assumed that rather than saying “This thread is pointless and shit.”, it was saying, “This is thread is pointless, you shit.”.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/7 "2017-12-26T11:37:13Z")
> [@Mr\_Shine](#):
>
> Strike 3 I took the “posted by” off the quote and never implied it was really posted by someone, I thought that was acceptable?
You altered the punctuation, and this substantially changed the meaning. That is worth a warning all by itself.
Moderators, I don’t think he should be banned for it.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/8 "2017-12-26T13:03:10Z")
> [@cochrane](#):
>
> #2 depends on how much of the song you quoted. Nobody else was quoting more than a line or two. If you originally posted more than a couple of lines, then yes, that’s against the rules. Since **Chronos** edited it down to a couple of lines, only a mod can tell us how much you actually quoted.
I’ll just point out that we have 2 song lyrics threads in the Thread Games forum which regularly quote 4-8 lines of lyrics, if not more.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/9 "2017-12-26T13:36:50Z")
> [@Mr\_Shine](#):
>
> [snip] … Strike 3 I took the “posted by” off the quote and never implied it was really posted by someone, I thought that was acceptable? … [snap]
You’ll need to be more explicit, “That an interesting position, Mr Shine, but what happens if we change that quote a little … blah blah blah” … I think this is acceptable, at least I’ve never been called on it before … and I would never use the quote tags in these situations …
Just the way the moderators have been cracking down on this, it’s obviously coming down from higher-ups in the organization …
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/10 "2017-12-26T13:59:56Z")
On Point 2, I fail to see the relevance of the song being 20 years old or widely known. 1997 is still a long time after 1923, which is the only relevant date for copyright. A work being old and widely known might be a defense to a charge of spoilers, but that’s not what the offense was here.
On Point 3, you stated that your quote was just punctuating what was said by **Happy Lendervedder** , the post immediately before you. That’s pretty clearly attributing it to him.
On Point 4, I interpreted it as you calling **Happy Lendervedder** , or possibly the OP **Lucky 13** , shit. I will grant that this interpretation is not strictly grammatical, but the grammatical alternative interpretation was that you were saying that **Happy** was calling you shit, which seemed to make even less sense.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/11 "2017-12-26T14:00:26Z")
> [@Mr\_Shine](#):
>
> [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20685510&postcount=25](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20685510&postcount=25)
>
> I’d just like to argue a couple of things here:
>
> Strike 1: no objection, I saw an irritatingly pointless thread, and ended it in an antagonistic manner, I expected some flak.
> …
It’s weird to me that you get so worked up about a (non-political) thread that you intentionally threadshit to get it closed, that seems more about you than the Board.
But whatever the case, I agree the mod reaction seems to be more about the copyright, which feels different from past treatment. If it were just about the thread being pointless, well, we have a forum for that.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/12 "2017-12-26T14:09:46Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#):
>
> But whatever the case, I agree the mod reaction seems to be more about the copyright, which feels different from past treatment.
It seems to \*me \*that the mod reaction is more about altering the quote. [Very much against the rules.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7697048#post7697048)
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/13 "2017-12-26T14:15:14Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#):
>
> It seems to \*me \*that the mod reaction is more about altering the quote. [Very much against the rules.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7697048#post7697048)
Then why shut down the thread?
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### Author:  [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/14 "2017-12-26T14:20:12Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#):
>
> Then why shut down the thread?
Because it was pointless. Way too pointless for CS, still too pointless for M **P** SIMS despite what the P stands for and could just barely be acceptable in the ghetto of Thread Games.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/15 "2017-12-26T14:24:53Z")
The thread was closed because it was, in its entirety, nothing but a copyright violation. Nobody else was warned for that copyright violation because everyone else was posting only one or two lines each, which (individually) would fall under Fair Use as “brief excerpts”. **Mr Shine** posted, not a brief excerpt, but the entire rest of the lyrics, which does not fall under Fair Use. The copyright violation was one of his four rules violations, and the one I chose to use as the listed official reason for the warning, because the official reason is only one line, there’s another space to go into more detail, and it was the most unambiguous violation. But the other rules violations were also there, which is why I called them out in my post, and in the behind-the-scenes documentation that goes into a warning.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/16 "2017-12-26T14:28:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> The thread was closed because it was, in its entirety, nothing but a copyright violation. Nobody else was warned for that copyright violation because everyone else was posting only one or two lines each, which (individually) would fall under Fair Use as “brief excerpts”. **Mr Shine** posted, not a brief excerpt, but the entire rest of the lyrics, which does not fall under Fair Use. The copyright violation was one of his four rules violations, and the one I chose to use as the listed official reason for the warning, because the official reason is only one line, there’s another space to go into more detail, and it was the most unambiguous violation. But the other rules violations were also there, which is why I called them out in my post, and in the behind-the-scenes documentation that goes into a warning.
Thank you for the clear explanation.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/17 "2017-12-26T14:39:03Z")
While the moderators discuss this matter amongst themselves, so then shall the members.
A representative from each group will publish our decisions before the passing of a fortnight.
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### Author:  [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/18 "2017-12-26T14:45:00Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#):
>
> I’ll just point out that we have 2 song lyrics threads in the Thread Games forum which regularly quote 4-8 lines of lyrics, if not more.
I saw the thread and thought, [oh](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=676692)they’re [posting](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=711292)lyrics from that [song](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=779074) [again](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=744471).
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### Author:  [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/19 "2017-12-26T15:11:09Z")
> [@Mr\_Shine](#):
>
> Strike 1: no objection, I saw an irritatingly pointless thread, and ended it in an antagonistic manner, I expected some flak.
>
> Strike 2, posting lyrics to a 20 year old song that everybody knows is a very low bar for copyright infringement, especially since it was being done already.
>
> Strike 3 I took the “posted by” off the quote and never implied it was really posted by someone, I thought that was acceptable?
>
> Strike 4 was not a personal insult, unless you think a thread is a person as all it was saying was the thread was pointless and shit.
All I wanna say is, receiving FOUR warnings for a single-sentence post has got to be some kind of record.
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### Author:  [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301/20 "2017-12-26T15:24:09Z")
> [@Omega\_Glory](#):
>
> I saw the thread and thought, [oh](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=676692)they’re [posting](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=711292)lyrics from that [song](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=779074) [again](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=744471).
Yeah, I thought it was something of an SDMB tradition for Christmas Eve. Didn’t think of the copyright was an issue it’s been done numerous times before. The jerkishness was my issue with what happened. You don’t like a thread? Don’t open it.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fairytale-of-new-york-warning/805301.md?page=2)