That’s it. I want all mods to admit that the rules are arbitrary and indefensible.
In this thread I asked about the legal actions the RIAA was taking and against whom. It wasn’t the most eloquent OP, but I wasn’t asking for info on breaking any laws.
In this thread I called out a mod for closing the thread when I made no clear mention of wanting link to, nor ways to, get files that are copyrighted. I can figure that out, “Google is your friend” helped that matter.
Within that thread I noticed this post. Specifically,
Then I head on into GQ and post to a thread that basically is an admission of current illegal activity. OP The part of law-breaking? Right.
Yet** samclem** sees nothing wrong with the thread and responds to it rather than shutting it down.
So use of a controlled substance that will land you a felony prison convivtion is OK, but a simple P2P legal question earns a lock-down if not worded in a certain way? Don’t ever give us shit about legal matters being the reason for a thread being closed. We can talk about actively committing felonies, but not the use of a widely available web service? I’m resigning myself to knowing I will never understand the rules here.
Can we just get a list of who has to follow the rules? Preferably one that is updated by the quarter hour as they are changed. For fuck’s sake. We can discuss the use of controlled substances with mod input, but fuck off if you want to mention file sharing in any specific form.
Here’s the way I read it, complete with lame analogies for the sake of comparing apples to apples.
“Can I get a list of all the McDonalds who are being investigated for selling drugs through their drive thru?”
Effectively generates a list of places where people could go to do this, whether that’s the intent of the OP or not. Probably closed.
“My friend went to a McDonald’s Drive Thru and bought some of their “Special Sauce”. What’s the deal with this stuff? Why would she even want it? And is it gonna fuck her up?”
Asking for basic information about the nature of something: what is this substance, and what does it do, and should I be worried about her? Probably not closed.
“My friend went to a McDonald’s Drive Thru and now she’s totally addicted to their Special Sauce. what can she take to counteract its effects? Or, how can she cheat her drug test so the, uh, poppy seeds from the buns don’t throw off the results?” Probably closed.
And in your last link, the OP says nothing to indicate that they’re committing the illegal activity, and in fact makes it pretty clear that it’s not one of those ubiquitous “[del]I[/del] My friend…” situations.
Certainly. I’m happy to help out with any questions you might have.
The following members are expected to follow all forum rules, on penalty of thread closure, warning, banning, or the supergluing of said member’s member to said member’s leg:
Dude, calm down. This is the third pitting of the mods you’ve posted in the last two days. Go take a walk. Or a nap. Maybe a bong hit. Just chill, man.
Sorry to hijack, but I’m going to laugh my ass off if this thread gets closed because the national fast food chain mentioned in post #2 has not paid for advertising. “Until and unless businesses purchase advertising space from the Chicago Reader or the SDMB, threads mentioning them by name will be closed.”
You gotta admit, the OP has a point. The rational that I’ve seen is that since the READER is in the business of “intellectual property” which is copywrited (Never mind that they give it away for free and most of their “intellectual property” winds up abandoned on the El, tossed in a trash can or used to mop up puke outside a pub on the Loop), that they feel have to be extra “tough” on P2P topics. Unfortunately, if you digitalized the READER and made it available on Kazza or Bit Torrent or Limewire or whatever, I suspect that it would be downloaded slightly fewer times than naked pictures of Rosie O’Donnell and Earnest Borgnine dancing the tango, so maybe they’re just jealous of people who produces material worth sharing. (The Straight Dope being the obvious exception to this rule. Even a blind pig lays an egg sometimes). None the less, it is hypocritical for them to react so strongly to any mention of P2P, stating as their reason that it is “illegal”, while letting slide discussions of other illegal activities, including the page after page of ads for businesses that are nothing more than “legal” fronts for prostitution in Chicago that the newspaper itself carries. I would love to find out the real reason behind the P2P paranoia that rules the administration of the SDMB, but I suspect we’re just going to see the same tired, stupid excuses that don’t even seem plausible to my dog, if they even bother to respond at all.
Jesus fucking christ, you goddamned moron. The difference is copyrights. Period. The Chicago Reader as the owner/operator of the boards has a vested interest in a strict interpretation and enforcement of copyright protections/laws. As one would logically expect from a publisher. If one were thinking logically. You may argue about the Reader’s interpretation of various copyright laws—whether they’re reasonable, or fact-based, or whatever, but this is just stupid. The Reader cares strongly about copyrights; not so much about vice laws.
When one doesn’t understand something, one would usually find fruit by looking for the patterns. The pattern here is copyrights. It’s really pretty simple.
Dave, the real reasons have been explained - many times. It’s the same reason the mods delete major portions of posts when they’re nothing more than copyrighted news stories. The Reader, quite simply, and quite reasonably, as a publisher, is much more concerned with copyright issues that vice issues. The logic behind this should be immediately apparent to anyone who wants to give it a moment’s reflection.
Fer instance, you sell insurance (or broker it, or something like that). I would find it emminently reasonable to find that you are more concerned with insurance fraud (and would like to see stronger enforcement of insurance fraud laws) than you care about, say, illicit gambling. Even tho’, if you personally aren’t, the insurance industry overwhelmingly is.
As I said, this has been explained on the boards many, many times. The fact that lots of people refuse to recognize this and disagree with the Reader’s reasoning, doesn’t mean the explanation hasn’t been made. And maybe the reasoning is paper-thin—to you. But that doesn’t matter; it makes sense to the Reader.
Why bother? The best response to a temper tantrum is to ignore it.
Any point the OP had could’ve been made with better wording and posted as a question in ATMB. It’s an interesting topic, I’m sure plenty of people would have responded. As opposed to this silly assed demand:
