Registration agreement 3-22-2005 w/new privacy policy

About This Message Board
1

The agreement below spells out the rules by which SDMB users are expected to abide. Substantive changes since the last version are indicated in bold. (Stylistic changes and re-ordering of material not marked.) Major changes include: (1) Revised privacy policy. (2) Prohibition of threads seeking romantic/sexual partners. (3) Clarification of policy regarding misrepresentation. All changes are effective immediately. We’ll leave this thread open briefly; please confine questions/comments to the registration agreement.

Straight Dope Message Board Registration Agreement

We have one guiding principle: Don’t be a jerk.

A one-time 30-day guest membership on the Straight Dope Message Board (“the SDMB”) is free. We don’t request personal information other than your e-mail address (although you may include such information in your user profile if desired). To continue posting after your guest membership expires, you must purchase an annual subscription for a modest fee. A subscription is not required merely to read the board. For more information about subscriptions, click on the “Subscribe” link in the menu bar at the top of most SDMB pages after you register. Users who register under a different name for an additional guest membership after their first has expired will have their posting privileges revoked.

The following rules apply to both guests and subscribers, except as noted.

Considering the real-time nature of this bulletin board and the volume of messages received, it is impossible for us to verify the information posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. Users should be particularly wary of medical, legal or other professional advice posted on the message board and recognize that it is no substitute for in-person consultation with a competent professional. Messages express the views of their authors, not necessarily the views of the operator of the SDMB, namely the Chicago Reader, Inc. (“the Reader”), or any entity associated with it.

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use the SDMB to post any material that you know or should know is false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, threatening, invasive of a person’s privacy, or violative of U.S. law. You agree not to post material that in our opinion fosters or promotes activity that is illegal in the U.S. We reserve the right to revoke the posting privileges of persons misrepresenting themselves on the SDMB.

You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by the operator of the SDMB, except as permitted by the “fair use” provisions of the U.S. copyright laws (in general this means brief excerpts only). You agree to abide by the wishes of the board moderators in interpreting and enforcing these rules. Refusal to cooperate with board moderators or to abide by these rules is grounds for revocation of your posting privileges.

This message board is intended as a medium for public discussion. Do not post spam, including but not limited to advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, solicitations, or other messages primarily intended to promote a cause, venture, organization, event (except Straight Dope-related events), website, or other entity or activity, whether or not money is involved. We allow exceptions for worthy causes (in our sole opinion) if you obtain prior permission from a moderator or administrator. Do not post the same or similar messages or threads to multiple forums; multiple threads on the same topic; or an excessive number of threads on any topic within a limited period of time. Do not start threads expressly for the purpose of meeting other posters for romantic or sexual purposes. We will notify the Internet service provider of any party posting objectionable messages.

You are free to express your views in a forceful manner provided you remain civil. Hate speech, insults, and purposely inflammatory remarks (i.e., trolling) will not be tolerated. Do not post threats or state or imply that any individual or group is deserving of harm. We recognize that this rule cannot be strictly applied in discussions of war, capital punishment and the like but urge users to express themselves in moderate terms nonetheless. If we tell you to refrain from behavior that we regard as uncivil, do so or face revocation of your posting privileges.

The board is not intended to furnish you with a forum for promoting your personal agenda. We reserve the right to ask you to limit postings on a particular topic, or to refrain from posting on such topics altogether. Please do not ask other members to do your homework or provide input for your article, paper, or other off-board project. We may waive this rule if you obtain prior permission from a moderator or administrator.

Do not post links to pornography - we will be the judge of what constitutes pornography. Links to nudity or other potentially shocking or offensive material are permissible only in the context of a mature discussion - gratuitous posting of such links is grounds for revocation of your posting privileges. When posting a link to potentially shocking or offensive material, observe the “two click” rule - don’t link directly to the item, but rather to an intermediate page that in turns links to the item. If you’re not sure whether a link is appropriate, contact a moderator or administrator before posting it. Any user who feels a posted message is objectionable should contact the moderators of the affected forum by e-mail.

Only one screen name is permitted per user. If you wish to change screen names please email an administrator. Use of multiple screen names is grounds for revocation of your right to post under ANY screen name. We reserve the right to refuse postings from screen names we find objectionable.

Vandalism, tampering, or any other abuse of the site is grounds for immediate banning. We reserve the right to report violators to their Internet service provider and law enforcement.

We reserve the right to delete any message for any or no reason whatsoever. You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Reader, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited (the makers of the bulletin board software), and their agents with respect to any claim based upon transmission of your message(s).

All postings and other material on the SDMB are copyrighted by the Reader. Republication of material appearing on the SDMB without express written permission of the Reader is prohibited, except that users retain the right to republish their own work. By posting on this board you grant the Reader and its successors and assigns a nonexclusive irrevocable right to reuse your posting in any manner it or they see fit without notice or compensation to you.

The Reader and its agents, including the administrators and moderators of the SDMB, are not responsible for anything associated with any real life meeting of our members. While we permit SDMB users to post announcements and other discussion of meetings and events on the Straight Dope Message Board, we don’t organize, sponsor, endorse, approve, or have any formal association with such events or any activities that may occur at them. We don’t vouch for any individual or group organizing or participating in an event. Attend at your own risk. SDMB moderators and administrators who attend events do so as private individuals and not as representatives or agents of the Reader. We encourage all attendees at these events to obey the laws of the jurisdiction in which they are held.

Privacy policy: The Reader respects your confidential information. Confidential information is information that you are required to submit in order to participate on the SDMB and that is not publicly available. We will not release confidential information about you except in the following circumstances: (a) we have your consent; or (b) we believe in good faith that we are legally required to do so; or © there is an emergency involving personal danger; or (d) you have vandalized our site or otherwise behaved in a manner that warrants our contacting the authorities or your Internet service provider.

You are required to submit and maintain a valid e-mail address. If you do not wish to receive e-mail from other SDMB users you may so indicate in your user profile. However, we retain your e-mail address in our database and reserve the right to have SDMB staff contact you.

**If you subscribe to the SDMB using a credit card, your card number and related information is retained in a secure database at our office. Access to this database is restricted to authorized Reader personnel. SDMB moderators and administrators do not have access to the database.

We log your Internet address (IP number) each time you post. The IP number tells us your Internet service provider. We reserve the right to reveal the IP numbers (but not the confidential information) of chronic SDMB rule violators to other bulletin board operators.**

Please remember that postings on this board are visible to anyone with access to the Internet, and are retained in a database indefinitely. Please do not post personal revelations or other information that may come back to haunt you. In particular, do not post your telephone number or address.

Subscribers: By subscribing to the Straight Dope Message Board you agree to abide by the rules above and to submit to their interpretation and enforcement by our moderators and editors. Changes to the rules will be posted in the “About This Message Board” forum. Rule changes become effective upon posting unless otherwise stated. Except in extreme cases, you will be given at least one written warning prior to being banned from the SDMB or otherwise disciplined for violating our rules. This warning will be posted on the SDMB, typically in the message thread where the violation occurred, and will indicate the nature of the infraction. Subsequent violations may result in banning or other disciplinary action without further notice. It is your responsibility to make yourself aware of any warnings and modify your behavior accordingly. If you do not understand a violation you have been warned about, please e-mail a moderator or administrator for an explanation. Do not pester us for hypothetical examples of what does or does not constitute a violation - we believe our rules are reasonably clear. Subscribers who are banned forfeit all subscription fees they have paid. We reserve the right to ban a subscriber without warning in extreme cases, including but not limited to threats against the SDMB or users thereof or the Reader or its agents, regardless of where or how the threat is expressed. We are the sole judge of what constitutes an extreme case. If you have been banned from the SDMB and subsequently subscribe, you will be banned again without notice and forfeit your subscription fee.

Guests: Please remember that you are our guest here, and that we reserve the right to exclude you at our whim, for any or no reason whatsoever. By registering and using the board you acknowledge this right and agree to abide by our rules and to submit to their interpretation and enforcement by our moderators and editors.
Revised 3/22/2005

2

Did we have a problem with ‘personals’ threads? I must have missed that one.

3

Cool, thanks for posting this!

My reading of this is that it would not cover what occured during TRU. Is that the case? The information released was not “required to submit in order to participate” as far as I can tell.

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The staff agreement we’re now finalizing purposely defines “confidential information” more broadly than the registration agreement. Under the staff agreement, some of the information revealed in the recent incident would be considered confidential insofar as the staff is concerned. However, and this is an important point, SDMB users are not party to the staff agreement. The registration agreement, including the privacy policy and any future amendments posted on this board, constitutes the whole of the agreement between the Chicago Reader, Inc., and SDMB subscribers and guests. Make no assumptions about what additional restrictions, if any, may have been placed on the staff.

5

But will we be able to see the agreement that is required of the staff?

6

And before I subscribe, does asking that make me a jerk?

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It might be an idea to make the connection between (a) ‘“personals” threads’ and (b) ‘threads expressly for the purpose of meeting other posters for romantic or sexual purposes’ more explicit.

What I mean is that I didn’t connect (a) with (b) when reading the Agreement. (Otherwise, very good, bu the way.) In particularly, (b) sounds somewhat pornographic, whereas (a) doesn’t. Since there’s stuff elsewhere specifically about porn, this makes the distinction that clearly you wish to make between posting links to porn and starting personals threads rather blurred.

Perhaps you could get round this by including the word ‘personals’ in the main text (b) where the prohibition is made.

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So, Rog, you have something against sex? Just askin’?

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No, for two reasons: (1) It’s between the Reader and the staff, not the Reader and you. I don’t want a troll calling out a mod because he thinks the mod is violating the troll’s perverse interpretation of a staff rule. (2) I don’t want SDMB users thinking the staff agreement is designed to protect them. It’s not. It’s designed to protect the Reader. I am happy to tell you in a general way what’s in it if you have questions, but this creates no obligation between the Reader and you. What protects you is the privacy policy. If you don’t think it protects your interests adequately, you can suggest changes and we’ll consider them, but if the end product is not to your liking, don’t subscribe.

10

No, but it suggests that you didn’t read Ed’s latest post carefully. He explicitly stated that no, we don’t get to see what the expectations of the staff are. I’m not positive why, though I’d venture a guess that part of it is to avoid legalistic idiocy on the part of pissed off members wanting to claim that “tomndebb violated point six of the agreement and I demand he be tarred and feathered!”

I do hope that when it’s finalized we get some details on it, though.

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OK, I’ll fix it.

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I was surprised by this addition. Would it be possible to explain the motivation for this clause? While I understand what it means, I am not sure I understand the benefit to the SDMB or its members.

13

I see the logic of it. Certain people, whom I will carefully not name, have in the past engaged in more-or-less trolling expeditions on SDMB and other boards I have belonged to. Ed and the Reader are making it explicit that this and other cooperating boards will exchange information to enable easier identification and extirpation of those who do that sort of thing. Since this is between the Reader and its subscribers, it’s stated as what the Reader reserves the right to do. But presumably Just Another Message Board [arbitrary madeup name] will provide the SDMB with IP traces just as the SDMB provides JAMB with the same, to their mutual benefit.

14

The bit about IP numbers was put in to deal with rogue guests who create multitudes of socks and otherwise contrive to be a PITA. Since we have no credit card info on these guys, and getting ISPs to cooperate often entails lawyers, once in a long while we compare notes with operators of other boards to see if their jerk is the same as our jerk. IP numbers sometimes help in this respect. Granted, establishing commonality of jerkitude doesn’t really get us very far, but it consoles us to feel like we’re getting a fix on the SOB.

15

Somehow, I think this sentence rocks. Not because of what it says but because of words therein and how they have been strung. Exquisite.

Um, sorry for the interruption. Anyway, back to the discussion.

WRS

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I’m a civil libertarian with lots of prickly sensitivities, and I want to congratulate Ed and whatever admin folks participated in the agreement redesign for language that covers the necessary territory and doesn’t raise any of my hackles in the process. Not that I’m an Officially Designated Barometer or anything, but even so.

Thanks.

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Threads about meeting people-would that include threads about potential Dopefests, or “Hey, I’m going to be in such and such area, if anyone wants to get together…”?

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“This message board is intended as a medium for public discussion. Do not post spam, including but not limited to advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, solicitations, or other messages primarily intended to promote a cause, venture, organization, event (except Straight Dope-related events), website, or other entity or activity, whether or not money is involved. We allow exceptions for worthy causes (in our sole opinion) if you obtain prior permission from a moderator or administrator. Do not post the same or similar messages or threads to multiple forums; multiple threads on the same topic; or an excessive number of threads on any topic within a limited period of time. Do not start threads expressly for the purpose of meeting other posters for romantic or sexual purposes. We will notify the Internet service provider of any party posting objectionable messages.”

Pretty clear, I thought.

19

No. The agreement prohibits “threads expressly for the purpose of meeting other posters for romantic or sexual purposes.” While a romantic encounter may be an incidental result of a Dopefest or other get-together, not that I would have any personal knowledge of such things, it’s not the express purpose.

20

Quite frankly, it looks like you’ve modified the privacy policy to explicitly state that the Recent Unpleasantness would not have been a violation of the new privacy policy. Which is a bit unexpected, to say the least. Usually the privacy policy is written to protect the user, rather than protecting the site.

May I ask how the Reader knows that the staff is following the staff agreement? Are they now more closely monitoring staff actions? If the answer to this is no, then it is, as it as always been, up to the users of the board to escalate administrative errors until they make it onto your radar. In which case, it would be nice if the users knew what rules the staff was supposed to be playing by.

-lv