WHOA! TMHP!!!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I fully understand the need to protect a copyright. When I chose the email name str8dope.zzn.com it was specifically so that I wouldn’t be violating that. I have been trying to deal with that issue since September, but the folks at the Zap Zone Network aren’t being very helpful. Then the letter came telling me not to use the phrase anywhere else so what was I to do?

I have since received more mail, which includes:
Opal, I am not asking you to take down your Teeming Millions page or to
refrain from mentioning the words “Straight Dope.” I am asking you to stop
attaching our name to your ventures. Surely you can see the difference . . . . I know
you are capable of understanding this distinction, and I regret that you
have chosen deliberately to misconstrue my words in order to stir up a
fuss.

So now I’m apparently misrepresenting everything to make trouble. Yeah, that’s it. They write me a letter which I take at face value, and I get accused of starting trouble. Blow me, Chicago Reader.

–
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

42

“deliberately misconstrue”? Way to calm the waters!

Could you post the whole text of the letters they sent you? I don’t like it when they imply “well, only a moron could misunderstand this” and I can’t say “I would have misconstrued it” since I don’t have the full text and they can claim they cleared it up later in the letter.

I’d hate to lose the TM homepage; I really feel it made us more of a community (even though I never set up a profile). I can appreciate the work it is to set it up; I take care of only two websites and it’s quite enough to take care of!

Can you ask the SD lawyers to hassle ZZN instead of you? Use their powers for Good, rather than Evil!

“Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.”

  • Bertrand Russell
43

Opal and I have had our differences in the past. That said, I sure do hope that the TM home page stays up. I have never said it before, but I will say it now, thanks Opal for the work it must take to maintain that site. I hope it all works out for you. But don’t take any crap from the powers that be, you CAN just shut it down. I will miss it, but you must think of yourself first.

44

*Dear Opal,
I am writing as a representative of Chicago Reader, Inc., to formally
request that you cease your use of our name, The Straight Dope, in your
email service and anywhere else. As you know, The Straight Dope is our
registered trademark. We have given the term its meaning and intend to
control its use. Though we feel friendly toward you and are grateful for
all you have done to promote The Straight Dope, we consider your use of the
name a violation of our copyright and our policy must be to protect such
rights by whatever means necessary. We are fully confident of our ability
to prevail in a legal action. We hope you will agree that it’s best to
change the name now, before more people become accustomed to your illegal
use.
Please, let’s end this matter amicably so that no further action is necessary.
Sincerely,
Mike Lenehan
Executive editor
Chicago Reader, Inc. *

and Opal, I am not asking you to take down your Teeming Millions page or to
refrain from mentioning the words “Straight Dope.” I am asking you to stop
attaching our name to your ventures. Surely you can see the difference.
If I say "Visit OpalCat’s cool page at www.opalcat.com," you would have no
reason (or legal cause) to object. But if tried to rub some of your glamor
off on myself by putting up my own page called “OpalWorld,” and publicizing
it to your audience on your message boards, you’d have every right to
object – especially if “Opal” were a federally registered trademark whose
value you had worked hard to establish over a period of many years. I know
you are capable of understanding this distinction, and I regret that you
have chosen deliberately to misconstrue my words in order to stir up a
fuss. *

–
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

45

Pretend that after “and” there is a new line, and the stuff after it is in italics.

–
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

46

First: Opal, since I never said it before, thank-you for the Teeming Millions Home Page. It was (and hopefully still can be) awesome.

Secondly, I left this board once before (in a huff), and I came back because I missed all of you. It was so much fun to post to his board and discuss things with everybody. But now, slowly all of the fun is draining away. It seems like every week there is a new scandal and a new reason to be unhappy. What’s happening here? Where did all the fun go?

Cessandra

Why sex is better than religion: You can scream “Oh, God” during sex, but just trying saying “Oh, f***” in church!

47

As I have already mentioned elsewhere, there is a simple, amicable solution to this problem. As Ed and the Reader have repeatedly demonstrated, enlightened management is not their forte. They seem determined to alienate people who have indicated their strong loyalty to their product. New Coke anyone? Sure, the Reader has a legitimate interest in protecting its copyright. Must it do so in the most heavy-handed, officious way possible. I am offended by Ed’s and the Reader’s management’s treatment of OpalCat. As I’ve said elsewhere, this also looks like mighty poor lawyering to this modest barrister.

Personally, I frequent the SDMB for the regs. Cecil and the columns are secondary at best (flame away Cecil loyalists). I haven’t found anyplace else with the intellectual, humor and personal content of these fora. If someone with a working knowledge of HTML were to open a viable message board, perhaps others who feel the same way would migrate there.

This message soon to be edited by the moderators.

48

I’m with you, counsel. I personally almost never venture out to the columns anymore. We’re like family on these message boards, and it bothers me to see my (figurative) sister Opal being treated shabbily, [hyperbole]especially since I’m not in a position to beat anyone up over it.[/hyperbole]

Opal dear, I want to add my admiration for your site to the people who’ve praised it above. I hope this all ends happily for you.

Live a Lush Life
Da Chef

49

Oh, sweet jesus, not the “I’ll start my own message board” threat.

Frankie, you, of course, are welcome to do anything you damn well please. But I’d be REAL interested how you’re gonna keep your board as spam/idoiocy free as this one.

You try finding high-class moderators that’ll work for free and not play favorites. Suddenly, I think that the mods here’ll look like demigods.

The columns aren’t important? Then what exactly are you going to do to draw great minds to your site? Let everyone know the ** the great Frankd6 ** owns it? The lnknowledge that this is the Straight Dope, the fight against ignorance, all that rather hyperbolic stuff on the main screen, taht’s what brings people here at first.

Sure, maybe you could pull away 5-6 regs. (Good luck, though. They’ve sat through hell and high-water and I don’t think you’re going to be the one who convinces them to go.)But for a viable board you’ll need more people than that, and no matter how acid a tongue they’ve got, a few regs won’t hold of the thousands of idiots waiting to screw you over and turn your board into a “Joani and Chachi” fansite.

Consider this fact, folks. The legal team botched it, yeah. Bitching about this will do no good, since the legal team is most likely off til Monday morning. Ed’s original intent, which seemed to get miscommunicated was to shut down the email service. Therefore, a simple disclaimer won’t do, Opal would have to have the Reader’s approval to continue. You all seem to think taht’s what they should do. But why should the Reader be forced to run the risk of being considered spammers (how would you like it if you got an porn spam from Cecil@str8dope?) just because Opal made the decision for them?

Opal is not just some poor “little person” being crushed by an unfeeling corporation. This is a business matter, where both sides have a legitimate claim, and it’s none of our damn business until it’s fully resolved, and it probably won’t be then.

Keep in mind that, unlike Opal, Ed probably can’t release emails, for legal reasons. So we’ll never really know the whole story. At any rate, the Reader’s side has posted anything since Friday night, possibly since this is the weekend and this is their job, so they might want to get away. It seems foolish to make judgements based on one side of the issue.

–John

50

Opalcat’s post included a letter from:

Mike Lenehan
Executive editor
Chicago Reader, Inc.

I’m not sure if everyone noticed this, but Mike Lenehan was Cecil’s original editor. (Ed Zotti is the third, although he has done it by far the longest).

Thus, if I understand correctly, it was Mike Lenehan who originally “birthed” Cecil Adams, and thus deserves credit for getting The Straight Dope [TM] phenomenon rolling some twenty-seven years ago. If so, I just wanted to thank him. (Also, if anyone wanted to do some context analysis, you can use this letter to compare writing syles and try to match up which of the early columns Mike edited).

51

As long as we are straying off the main topic, betale said “your prig law staff”. What’s prig?

52

OpalCat: I may excercise my freedom of free speech, which protects the right to do parodies, and put up a “Straight Dupe” site though…

Careful, OpalCat. That’s what the creator of “The Disfunctional Family Circus” thought, until he got nastygrams from King Features Syndicate.

This is like wearing a Coke T-shirt for years, giving them free advertising, then having them sue for copyright infringement because you were seen on TV wearing it. Kinda. shrug

53

People & Administrators Alike: The Straight Dope is fun. Until it stops being fun . Then we’ll leave ;& go to another of the millions of websites on the Web.

I appreciate the existance of this site. Until it stops being fun.

Then, I remove it from my bookmark file; stop buying SD books; & that’s that.

Nothing fun lasts forever. I fear that The SD is beginning to run it’s course. Too bad.

Censorship, heavy-handedness & lawyer-boys may ultimately ruin this board; but not yet.

Enjoy it while you can.

Then, when it stops being a worthwhile use of your time–leave.

In the mean time, don’t post links to commercial sites. The SD board sells adspace & you are depriving the board of the cash it needs to stay on-line. (THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO OPALCAT’S BOARD, & I AM NOT IMPLYING THAT IT DOES, SO FLAKE OFF.)

Don’t post a string of four-letter words. That’s a pain in the butt.

And when the Chicago Reader’s corporate lawyers jump on us all; or jump too much…

Don’t forget to wave Bye-Bye. It’s polite.And we’re the customers. Who are always (fill in the blank here).

Is an appreciation of beauty a function of the human soul?

54

*daniel p bostaph: And we’re the customers. *

Maybe not for long. After going on-line, I’ve been able to read SD without going out of my way to pick up a FREE copy of the “Washington CityPaper”. (Which is like CR, getting most of its revenue from ads of dubious sex services and gay chat lines.)

The last book I bought was of course full of columns which I remember like they were yesterday. (Oh, wait, they were.)

I can save myself a few bucks every couple of years by just cut-n-pasting the columns as they appear here, complete with Slug’s cartoons, into my own private Word document.

That is, until the CR copyright the @!#?@! alphabet.

55

Does it? Then why did they get so upset at Contestant # 3 when he posted a link to a porn site?

Goldie

56

The TMHP has been around for a long time, so why are they just now having a problem with it?

>^,^<
KITTEN
Please tell your pants it’s not polite to point.

57

…not to mention the fact that I’ve repeatedly told them that zzn.com owns “str8dope.zzn.com” and that I can neither change nor delete it (though I’ve emailed them several times to that end). I would really hope they wouldn’t want to just cut it off anyway, depriving 30+ people of their email with no way of retrieving it. The plan was to change it to tmmail or teemingmillions.zzn.com or something, but I can’t do that… yet they keep jumping on my back about it like crazed babboons.

:::muttering::: maybe I should trademark “Teeming Millions”…

–
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

58

Goldie… this is WAY off the subject (with which I am a big time supporter of opal) but I am aware of the post that had contestant #3 posting a porn site… I saw the early post and well… HE DID NOT. he posted a site to a money making scheam that regarded the OP. Nickrz thought it was advertising and censord the post and the link he changed to (hyperlink removed)(I dont remember how many x’s but more then six) just thinking he was negating the link, but it linked to a porn site of course. Another moderator… I cant remember who… jumped in thinking Contestant #3 had posted the porn link and Banned him completly. This I testify under oath!! you can email me even.
[Note: This message has been edited by Eutychus55]

59

Not too surpirisingly, B_Line12, you just posted a link to a porn site. Moderators, I will plea in advance of impending action that I doubt, from the context, that B_Line12 purposefully linked to said site.

60

If we wanted to go toward more freedom, the posts such as the above xxxx site could be edited by the original poster. UBB allows that. I don’t see a problem with correcting posts, but some people did when they set the rules.
Of course you could request the moderator to make changes, but that adds another post to clutter the discussion.