The content of reaped nodes can't be viewed by anonymous visitors. And the default settings for anonymous visitors even hides reaped nodes in most cases. This is easy to test rather than wonder about, of course. For example, most people don't log in via perlmonks.net so http://perlmonks.net/index.pl?node_id=709148 will show you the reaped node as an anonymous visitor and you can see that trying to view the content is prevented and that clicking on the parent node doesn't show the reaped reply.

The subject of the root node is why I voted "keep" on that consideration.

Trying to hide the link to the presumed-unauthorized copy of some material does nothing to make that copy go away. You can bury nodes in the sand along with your head but that really doesn't help any author earn more for the book that they wrote.

A much better goal is to educate the person who put the link in. In every case of non-anonymous nodes linking to such material where the author was given a chance to correct their mistake, that happened. By far, the best result for all concerned is for the author of the node to learn about why adding a link to such material is very inappropriate and to update their node with their sincere expression of why they won't be doing that again.

Reaping prevents any but gods from removing that link (and I think you're more likely to get one of the gods to unreap the node than to edit the reaped content, especially since modifying the reaped content must be done via SQL).

Also, if editorial intervention is used to remove such a link, then this sets a precedence that makes it more likely that PerlMonks can be held legally liable if there is ever a link that doesn't get editorially removed. I don't think it is wise to take actions that increase the risk of legal liability to the site and its owners / operators.

So I think the worst possible action is for a janitor to modify such a link. The best action is to teach the node author the error in their ways and have them demonstrate what they have learned by removing the link and adding an appropriate apology. In the case of anonymous nodes with such links, reaping is the best route since that hides the link from anonymous visitors including search engine spiders.

And I think it is time to just make this official site policy, documented it a sitefaqlet.

- tye        

In reply to Re^2: Editing pirated content links in reaped nodes (no) by tye
in thread Editing pirated content links in reaped nodes by grep

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