http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=41385


in reply to Who owns your words? A resolution is needed.

Part of me thinks that we're really overblowing this whole issue, but the other part disagrees, saying that so many people wouldn't be interested if this was trivial. Then the first part said... oh never mind.

Ok, I'm not going to be any more definitive than anyone else here, but I have some observations to offer. Before you get out the flamethrowers, I know this is all obvious, but sometimes stating the obvious helps! Also, lest this be misconstrued, note that I'm not meaning to imply anything untoward about any individual here.

- anything you enter anywhere here (apart from /tell, maybe) may be read by anyone on the 'net
- just because you see albannach say something in the chatterbox does not mean that it wasn't one of his cats lying on the keyboard, or one of his co-workers trying to embarass him
- anything you read in a node, despite annotations or citations, could well be a complete fabrication
- I could put a really deep metaphysical point here about the nature of existance and you wouldn't be able to prove it wrong either
- you cannot stop people from logging the chatterbox themselves, short of having all the text converted to old english and written in a bitmap (but then you'd just get someone to write a kickass OCR in Perl...). In fact, it would probably be foolish to assume it was not being recorded somewhere. In public it would be very sad to think you were being recorded, but here the Chatterbox is often of great value, and I expect that many people, lurkers and otherwise, at least save bits and pieces.

So, is there a solution? If everyone understands these points, is there a problem? Quoting myself in the chatterbox earlier (I reviewed this and gave myself permission ;-) "I'm full of good and bad ideas, I just can't tell them apart":

- the Official Monastery Policy on the usage of the Chatterbox should make clear what is intended (as well as the potential risks noted above), though this may not have any bearing on what is legal, or what is actually done (has anyone ever been excommunicated, err, undef()'d from the Monastery?)
- the chatterbox could have an /anon command so that your name wouldn't be shown
- as has been noted above, it would be wise to confirm permission and probably allow review of any attributed text before posting it to a node. This would ensure the information is reasonably accurate, and nobody quoted in the text would be upset later. It may be that some would allow it to be posted if their names were obscured.

I'm running a risk of getting into a commentary on the degradation of society as a whole here, so I'll cut it off for now. Of course I've been distracted so many times since I started this that it's probably all been said by now, but I'll be damned if I'm going to waste these electrons!

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(jcwren) RE: (2) Who owns your words? A resolution is needed.
by jcwren (Prior) on Nov 13, 2000 at 23:44 UTC
    I generally agree with everything you've mentioned, with the exception of the /anon command. I am very opposed to something like that. For all practical purposes, it would be the same as allowing Anonymous Monk to use the chatterbox. I'm all for freedom of speech, but there has to be accountability.

    --Chris

    e-mail jcwren
      I take your point and agree, but I was torn as to whether I'd rather get a good contribution from anon than no contribution from a nervous monk. Note that it isn't quite an anon monk, as you'd have to be registered to do it, and so you'd be one of the monks in the on-line list. I guess that pretty much destroys that idea right there!