I can’t argue with your numbers directly, Sam, because that stuff is outside of my knowledge. But what I keep on coming back to is:
It’s clear that the CR has more important things to deal with than finding a way to minimize the net cost of the SDMB. So whatever the numbers are, the cost of this place can’t be terribly far above the white-noise level. If they were incurring front-burner costs here, then raising revenue from this site would be a front-burner issue for them. It’s not.
Not knowing what the CR’s budget looks like, I can’t say what that means in terms of your numbers. But free alternative weeklies generally aren’t rolling in money, no matter how ad-filled their pages are. I’ve got to think this place doesn’t cost them that much in real terms, regardless of how it shows up on the ledgers.
I’m pretty sure this site is hosted in-house – there was a board outage a few weeks ago due to a flooding problem in their office. The thing to remember is that the Chicago Reader maintains several web sites, some of which are far less frivolous than this one. So the cost of fiber, servers, tech support and the like are already sunk costs; the additional cost of this board is probably not that great.
Well, I can appreciate the expense of running a message board. Even my dipshit personal site costs at least $500 a year to maintain, and recently I had to just delete everything and start over before I hit my server space limit rather than pay for old crap.
Be that as it may, I grimace a bit at the next statement, that is supposedly logically connected, that therefore there are certain rules that need be enforced to discourage lawsuits.
Uh, yeah, sure. Not to sound that cynical, but boiled down the reasoning is “We pay for this, therefore we get to control content”. Fair enough, provided one just comes out and says it rather than relying on some canard about being victimized by fears of lawsuits. I am not questioning the expense of running the forum, just the next statement that therefore fear of lawsuit dictates policy. Besides, if that is the issue, then what would it matter if the forum was being operated at a loss or not?
OK, maybe I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about, and if so, then perhaps someone can give me a single precedent of someone suing a forum provider or usenet provider for statements made by a consenting participant in the forum to another consenting participant in the forum? I know individuals have sued other individuals for libelous statements, but I fail to remember the suit beign extended to the provider itself.
And if that is such a fear, then why not, as part of registering for the forum, disavow any responsibility for statements made by participants, and make people acknowledge a waiver to that effect?
And should fears of lawsuits be well-founded and there is precedent, I am suing the hell out of everyone, their dog, and the exhumed corpse of their maiden aunt, for being called a “fucking tool”.
I admitted I might not know what I am talking about.
I asked for a precedent.
I indicated that although participants have sued each other, I did not see it extending to providers.
Now, I know some people love to play oneupmanship to the extent that they start treating written text like Rorschach tests, but how in fuck does what I wrote indicate I “presume *'ve seen everything on the internet”?
A search for “Merlingate” yielded a query whether I meant “Merlin Gate” which yielded some nice hits on real estate and garage door openers. A search on “Melingate” yielded the thrilling:
Well, someone is erroneously presuming they know what they are talking about and I don’t think it is me.
So, ** kabbes**, if you have a point or a precedent, why not look it up yourself and provide us with the particulars instead of tossing something off the top of your head expecting people to do the work and make your point for you?
There was a flood of these kinds of lawsuits a few years ago. It was perfectly logical for a defamed person to, rather than sue some judgment-proof idiot in his basement, to go after the deep pockets of the providers of the forum. These kinds of suits were so pervasive that Congress enacted the Communications Decency Act, which, in effect, tried to limit the liability in libel/defamation suits of forum providers. However, the mere existance of the CDA does nothing to stop somebody from suing these forum providers, it just may act to stop them from winning.
And it is not just libel and defamation, a forum provider could easily face a lawsuit for copyright infringement. And, even if they are not a party to a lawsuit, the Chicago Reader could easily suffer financial loss in defending a request for a subpoena to determine the actual identity of a poster. Check out America Online, Inc. v. Nam Tai Electronics, Inc. 571 S.E.2d 128 Va.,2002. Defending a subpoena, or even consulting a lawyer on any of these issues, would cost them money. Money that they aren’t making from having the message board in the first place.
That may not protect them from a lawsuit of a member, yet alone somebody who has not even signed up. If, before you signed up here, had called you a child-raping murderer, you could sue, and the registration process would have meant nothing to the lawsuit.
In your infinite wisdom, did you consider trying the board’s search function? Since it is this message board we are, after all, talking about. Since we are, after all, considering why this message board, in particular, might be a touch twitchy about getting sued?
Or did you just see a suggestion that there might be something that you don’t know and leap straight off the deep end, with narry a parachute in sight?
Incidentally, this took me all of 2 seconds, not that I’m expecting an apology, or even a suggestion of a hint of a recognition that you may have overreacted.
I guess that even with all your vast, extensive internet experience and world savvy, searches are tricker than the first appear, eh?
Yes, nothing to do with your intemperate comments, of course.
Nope. Never occurred to me. When someone says “search” I think Google. I think Lexus Nexus. I don’t immediately think of the message board’s search function because if the information is not out there on the internet, I will assume that it is just incestuous information submitted by a poster that has as much validity as any other information submitted by a poster, which without external references, is worth, not to mince too much epistemic jargon, diddley-squat.
I already indicated that I required education on the particulars. That doesn’t mean, of course, that you could submit the informational equivalent of coffee grounds and egg shells and be my hero.
** Hamlet**
Unfortunately, or fortunately, I was not born omniscient like some people and forced to walk the earth as does Lucifer in the Book of Job.
Thank you though for trying to post something of substance rather than being an obscurantist whistle-dick like kabbes, who is obviously privey to information not suitable for those who are not the elect, have not signed in blood and have not snatched the pebble from the old blind guy’s hand.
Unfortunately, just telling me:
Tells me very little and, at best, tells me the state of things circa 1995.
The reference to America Online, Inc. v. Nam Tai Electronics, Inc., is interesting, but not quite salient to the idea of one poster suing another poster for malicious comments. And it has little to do with the functioning of the SDMF. I will try not to be subtle, because this seems to confuse people who are, paradoxically, omniscient unlike me: AOL is a service provider. Not a host of a forum. They have access to people’s legitimate identity because they process payments. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t give the SDMB my credit card number when I registered and there is nothing that prevents people from entering bogus information and using a disposable Hotmail account to register. So the idea that the SDMB or the Chicago Reader would be face legal action to reveal someone’s identity is just silly. If someone tried legal action against the SDMB or the Chicago reader in the same way or for the same reason as they did for AOL they would be fucking barking up the wrong tree.
Yes, we know frivolous lawsuits happen. I am familiar with Robert Novak, owner of Petswarehouse.com who filed a 15 million dollar lawsuit against several aquarium hobbyists who had posted critical comments about his business.
So what? He was suing the posters, not the provider. Apples and Oranges there. Again, it is a case of a business seeking suit, not posters suing each other for calling each other dipshits. How this means that a forum has any complicity is beyond me. Then again, I am not tapped into the fundamental quantum hum of creation like some people.
Besides, what possible guidelines are going to defend against that? I have had numerous problems with my home Gateway computer, to the extent that I am considering filing a claim against Gateway for selling me a $3,500 lemon, making an inferior product, selling as new a comouter with used parts, being a bunch of dipshits and probably having complicity in any number of cattle mutilations.
They can sue away. Nothing to do with the SDMB or the Chicago reader and should they try to get my name off the SDMB they are going to be sadly confused. In any case, the first thing they would do is not harrass the Chicogo reader, they would check internic registrations anyway.
First off, you say “child-raping murderer” as if that’s a bad thing. If, for example, I was Japanese they would have a shrine for me if I were, say, in Nanking circa 1937.
I expect legal action by the Japanese government any second now…
Secondly, if you did call me a child-raping murderer and I decided to sue, who would I be suing? You. Not the SDMB, not the Chicago reader and trying to get who you are and where to sent the process server based on your SDMB registration would be pointless. Secondly, it’s not clear that one can sue someone based on comments directed at an internet alias. How calling “Reverend Mykeru” anything at all would affect my employment, my family and my good name is not cut and dried.
Nor, of course, does it have jack shit to do with the original issue.
Sorry for delving back into reality and the point of the original posting, but it all has nothing to do with one poster calling another a dipshit and deploying the Dream Team. The thread that was locked contained one poster asking for information on ripping MP3s and the moderators stupidly locked the thread on the claim that ripping MP3s indicate copyright infringement.
Bullshit.
The poster was not asking for information about trading MP3s, just information about creating them off CDs. I happen to own a 128 mb Yepp MP3 player. I make MP3s off CDs that I purchased to upload into my Mp3 player. Not all MP3 rippers are the same, some are easier to use, some create better quality of smaller files.
That may be, but has nothing to do with what the OP was dealing in, unless the moderator has some magic process for getting music off my purchased CDs onto my Yepp that I am aware of. Of course, due to stupidity drift, people immediately relate the issue as “file sharing” when that had nothing to do with the OP in the first placebut does give people who, pumped up with their very cluelessness, can exercise their “love it or leave it” option.
So what we have here is another SDMB bit of moderator stupidity, that leads to bullshit legalistic rationalizations that have nothing to do with the issue, or anything else for that matter, leading to another fine SDMB tempest in a teapot that seems to exist simply so that some posters can flex their big brains while simulanteously exercising the complete irrelevancy that seems to be the cornerstone of their existence in some alternate universe.
Did Altoids experience a huge increase in sales about a year and a half ago?
I remember there was a very short period when we had banner ads (or ad-- I only remember the Altoid one.) Was there more than that? What happened? Why’d they stop? Should I repost these questions in ATMB?
They didn’t bother me at all. Banner ads are fine-- pop-ups are eeeviiilll, though.
Sure, right after you apologize for your snotty comments about my “presum[ing] *'ve seen everything on the internet” when I was merely asking for information.
All this simply because I admitted I may not know of any precedents and asked for information and then when told to do a search I stupidly assumed that meant a search on the internet?
