In this thread, Samclem closed the thread because he said it’s a violation of board policy to discuss violating a company’s rules. Is that true? I know we’re not supposed to be discussing how to break American laws but is there also a rule saying we can’t discuss breaking the rules of a private company?
What’s next? No discussion of birth control because it violates the tents of the Catholic Church? No posting descriptions of football games without the express permission of the NFL? No profanity because somebody’s mom forbids swearing?
I’m honestly really surprised at this - I had no idea it was against Board rules to discuss how to get around web-blocking software like Websense. Could someone please point me to this rule?
I’m not doing anything illegal, I just think my company’s policies are unnecessarily draconian, plus I have a lot of free time on my hands. As a matter of fact, ALL messageboards and chatrooms are blocked at my office so I had to ask an administrator very nicely just to be able to get onto the SDMB!
I don’t know that it’s explicitly stated, but it would probably fall under the same category of how to get by blocks to “forbidden” sites from countries that censor the Internet, or asking about E-Mail anonymizers or bulk mail programs. They may not be against the law as such, but they are an open invitation to potential lawsuits.
What lawsuit? People are under the illusion that a lawsuit can be filed for anything but that’s not true. On what possible basis could a private company that has no legal relationship with the Chicago Reader or the Straight Dope file a lawsuit against them? That would be like McDonald’s making a rule against eating at Burger King and then suing everybody in the country that broke their rule.
More to the point, Little Nemo, even though a company couldn’t sue the Reader for hosting the discussion, it could certainly fire their employee for using that information to violate their company policies. That user could then maybe be a little peeved at the Reader for its involvement, minimal though it may be.
The vast majority of board rules can be summed up as “Don’t make waves.” We’re here at the sufferance of the Reader, and if they decide we’re too much of a pain in the neck to have around, we’re outta here.
are you really saying that if a poster posted something here that got them fired, you think in some insane universe, the Chicago Reader could be held culpable by the employee/poster who did such a thing?
I suspect that the ‘rule’ as such is something to the effect of “don’t post something here that may cause you harm” (which IMHO, also is why we are discouraged/not allowed to post out names, addresses etc.)
It’s your company’s decision (within the bounds of applicable law, of course) how draconian they wish to be. Since the computer isn’t yours (it’s your employer’s), it up to your employer what is appropriate activity on that computer.
You said you asked an administrator for access to SDMB and they went along with that? That leads me to believe that your company isn’t particularly draconian - they just want to know what is going on.
Never let it be said that the typical Doper isn’t possessed of a high level of self-importance, and a certain level of entitlement due to having to pay an annual fee for this service. However, given how upset people here get by things such as the closing of stores for the memorial for Gerald Ford, people who use their windshield washers and spray washer fluid clear over their car and onto the windshield of the car behind it, and whether or not the new Coke can makes the soda taste better, it’s not outside the bounds of reason to expect that somebody who got fired for being a jerk might well turn their embarassment at being fired in such a way to some other target, with the obvious target being the Reader.
And, really, how bad would that look on the resume, anyway? “So, why did you leave your last job?” “Well, I got fired for inappropriate use of the Internet.”
But many things discussed here may be against some law somewhere. The Reader cannot possibly keep track of what is legal outside the US.
AFAIK, the Reader adheres to US law. Thus, discussions of how to obtain OTC codeine and unauthorised music file-sharing are not allowed (even though both of those are legal in Canada), and discussions of Tibetan independence are allowed (although that is illegal in China).
But that’s not the Reader’s fault. It’s an affair solely between the errant employee and the employer. Might as well sue CBS because the employee surfed their website as well.
I thought it was “Don’t be a jerk,” not “Don’t make waves.” The latter sounds like a sentiment more welcome in some conformist society, not the U.S. of A. Why would someone pay to use a message board so dull that nobody on it ever discusses anything remotely controversial? Obviously the SDMB hasn’t devolved to that point yet, but this thread does remind me how much more trestricted this place is then when it began, and didn’t cost a penny. I would think the opposite would be true. Huh.
Wonder how long it will be until I’m banned for posting this?
Oh-oh - I’ve made some waves this week. I may be banned at any moment.
Yeah, the closing seemed weak to me, but if it’s board policy, it’s board policy. I don’t agree with not being able to give medical advice here, either (I think you get what you pay for if you take advice off of public message boards), but I’m not making the rules here.
Seems to me that if Mr. Olgilvie wants to use Websense to ensure that Mr. Majors isn’t paying the folks at Continental Flange to play Ghostzilla (without him knowing about it), and if he finds out that the rank and file are learning all about how to get around the controls by visiting the SDMB, he’s not going to be really happy with the Reader.
It also seems to me that we don’t want the Reader’s General Counsel to be submitting billable hours under the heading: Responses to letters of inquiry from General Counsel for Continental Flange.
Why isn’t there an indemnity clause in the registration agreement requiring members to hold The Reader harmless from liability? That would seem to cover a lot of these gray areas.
Threads asking for help getting around policies like this have been closed with this rationale for many years. Just like the fact that we don’t help people with their homework, it’s seems like it is consistent with our effort fighting ignorance and not being a jerk.
My point in the OP is that there are clear and explicit prohibitions against posts that are discussions of ways to break American laws, copyright violations, requests for homework help, hate speech, commercial messages, trolling, dating and/or sex requests, etc. But there’s nothing there that says “don’t post anything that discusses breaking the company rules of your employer”. So when did that become a board policy and shouldn’t we have been notified of it?