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A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

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Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#231

Post by apostacy »

mumblemumble wrote: post #223
marcosdumay wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And why do they assume that the DMCA applies in other countries? The company is on the US, so it would be illegal for them to keep the answer.

Not sure why you're downvoted. I don't know that your statement is 100% accurate, but it's not far off the mark, either. The law in the US is such that a high-profile site that does business in the USA, like SO, is entirely reasonable if it wants to to err on the side of caution on these things. Not all the questions around the DMCA have been settled by the courts, so, no, we can't necessarily say for sure what is le…

Actually in the case of breaking DRM potentially in violation of the DMCA, they have relaxed things a bit[1]. I do remember that they would delete any discussion of cracking DRM.

But my bigger point is that they essentially act as toadies when they are not obligated to. I think it is actually worse when they try to act as enforcement agents of behalf of terms of service for corporations that they have no relationship with.

And there is no moral context considered. What if a Saudi woman being held hostage wanted technical information to escape and seek refuge in another country, but doing so violated some company's TOS? I am certain that SO would side against the woman, because of their narrow and sycophantic attitude.

For example, I was enrolled in the Meego developer program in 2011, and was given a free Exo Tab tablet from Intel. When the project was canceled, I was supposed to destroy the tablet after one year. Intel technically retained ownership of the tablets on paper, so that developers would not have to pay taxes on them.

So, I posted, asking to find out how I could get the specialized drivers and interface software for Windows 7 on the device. But the mods decided that they should act as agents on behalf of Intel and the US Internal Revenue Service, even though nobody else cared.

I asked a simple technical question about where I could hypothetically get software for hardware I was in possession of.

A representative from Intel assured me that Intel had no plans to enforce this agreement, and it was merely on paper so that we did not have to pay taxes. Additionally, I seriously doubt that the IRS would want to track me down and fine me for not paying taxes on the $700 tablet I received. And the development program was canceled anyway, so why not put it to other use? And how do they know I was not going to honor my agreement and destroy it anyway??

But no, the toadies on SO decided that just in case I wouldn't honor my trivial agreement with Intel and just in case I wouldn't pay taxes, they would prevent further discussion of it. How could they possibly know my intentions? Nobody asked them to interpret the intentions of Intel and do what they think is their bidding for them! They are a bunch of toadies who way overstep their bounds.

[1]: https://meta.superuser.com/questions/2212/is-discussion-of-t...

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#233

Post by marcosdumay »

apostacy wrote: post #231
mumblemumble wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're downvoted. I don't know that your statement is 100% accurate, but it's not far off the mark, either. The law in the US is such that a high-profile site that does business in the USA, like SO, is entirely reasonable if it wants to to err on the side of caution on these things. Not all the questions around the DMCA have been settled by the courts, so, no, we can't necessarily say for sure what is le…

Actually in the case of breaking DRM potentially in violation of the DMCA, they have relaxed things a bit[1]. I do remember that they would delete any discussion of cracking DRM. But my bigger point is that they essentially act as toadies when they are not obligated to. I think it is actually worse when they try to act as enforcement agents of behalf of terms of service for corporations that they have no relationship…

I've noticed you didn't post this under your real name...

You are asking a company to help you do something illegal, on writing and published to the entire world in a high visibility site. Do you really thing they shouldn't reserve the right to deny help?

The DMCA bothers me a lot, because on my country I have the right to remove restrictions on anything I own, yet it's hard to find a safe forum to discuss how to do it without it being taken down for some commercial reason. But it's really undeserved entitlement to expect other people to risk themselves helping you.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#234

Post by mumblemumble »

apostacy wrote: post #231
mumblemumble wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're downvoted. I don't know that your statement is 100% accurate, but it's not far off the mark, either. The law in the US is such that a high-profile site that does business in the USA, like SO, is entirely reasonable if it wants to to err on the side of caution on these things. Not all the questions around the DMCA have been settled by the courts, so, no, we can't necessarily say for sure what is le…

Actually in the case of breaking DRM potentially in violation of the DMCA, they have relaxed things a bit[1]. I do remember that they would delete any discussion of cracking DRM. But my bigger point is that they essentially act as toadies when they are not obligated to. I think it is actually worse when they try to act as enforcement agents of behalf of terms of service for corporations that they have no relationship…

You're raising a bunch of very legitimate concerns, and they speak to how deeply @#$#@%ed the DMCA is as a law.

But I still think it's legitimate for a company like SO to err on the side of taking things down. You can cast it as being toadies, you can cast it as CYA. You can also cast it as an abundance of caution. It's probably a distinction without a difference, but words are funny things like that. The lawyers who are often setting these policies are presumably thinking in terms of their professional responsibility, which is to minimize the chance that their employer gets sued. They're probably not thinking in terms of unlikely hypotheticals involving hostage scenarios, because "We thought it was OK to bend the rules because otherwise X might happen" is unlikely to hold up in court. The American courts are more like Immanuel Kant than Jeremy Bentham about these sorts of things. Nor do they give a crap about your free tablet, or whether or not Intel gives a crap about your free tablet. It's way too expensive for them to be making these decisions on a case-by-case basis.

Maybe that's not exactly how SO was thinking. Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood are not lawyers, nor do I know if they consulted their lawyers. Nor am I a lawyer. But I had a dream where I played one on TV once, and that's more than a passing qualification for weighing in on legal matters around here.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#235

Post by artsyca »

celticmusic wrote: post #205
charlesism wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is often useful to ask why a user wants to do something a particular way, and commendable to inform them if it’s bad practice. The trouble is, if you’re going to reply that way, you should strive to first answer the question, as asked . If the answer is bad practice, of course, you should mention that. That’s the respectful way to handle a misguided question, in my opinion. Give the reader both solutions, ex…

seriously. I've been doing this stuff a long time, there's usually a reason why I'm doing it the way I'm doing it. I understand you don't like it, think it shouldn't be done that way, and so forth. But I promise you, I've already considered the alternatives. And if you mention an alternative I haven't considered, I'll consider it then. But please, for the love of god, just answer the effing question and stop assuming…

Classic situation faced repeatedly throughout one's career -- I used the word nuance just yesterday!

Lest we forget, stack exchange is already rising from the ashes of the 'Experts Exchange' if anyone remembers that --

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#236

Post by mark-r »

ratww wrote: post #203
mark-r wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd be in favor of the question "What's the best regular expression for parsing HTML?"

Why not? Like it or not, regexes are able to parse a limited subset of HTML. By explaining why they only can parse this small subset is a great teaching opportunity on Chomsky Hierarchies. And the people searching for it might learn that XML parsers exist. By actually giving an answer to the question (after saying the above of course) you might be helping thousands of people parse very simple HTML when they're in a h…

Anyone incapable of writing their own regular expression for this is unlikely to know when their problem is too complicated to be solved by it. You're not actually doing them a favor by answering the question.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#237

Post by scarejunba »

hos234 wrote: post #32
scarejunba wrote: post #11

Every one of these community groups inevitably has some sort of internal political strife of some sort. I've never found any meaning in attempting to engage their politics in any more than the most basic sense. The groups always exaggerate the impact of actions upon the rest of us when it's usually a no-op as far as we're concerned. E.g. Reddit iama had this massive controversy around a Reddit facilitator being fired…

Misguided yet understandable conclusion. People enjoy doing things for others. It's a deep Need people have. If mass violence and wars, natural disasters of all kinds through the ages, have not been able to make us more selfish and wipe out that need, internet drama is not going to either. The process is messy sure, and if you are experiencing it for the first time it can be confusing, repulsive and misleading. It's…

Oh no, I've been around this stuff for decades and I contribute to Wikipedia. It's the tying your self-worth and identity to it that's going to lead to unhappiness. I like contributing to Wikipedia. If I were banned, I'd just eat it and go away. It wouldn't hurt me.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#238

Post by wendyshu »

csande17 wrote: post #211

This resignation notice from a moderator on the Christianity Stack Exchange appears to provide the most detail about what's going on: https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/b...

Aha, the Jordan Peterson issue.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#239

Post by ratww »

mark-r wrote: post #236
ratww wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Like it or not, regexes are able to parse a limited subset of HTML. By explaining why they only can parse this small subset is a great teaching opportunity on Chomsky Hierarchies. And the people searching for it might learn that XML parsers exist. By actually giving an answer to the question (after saying the above of course) you might be helping thousands of people parse very simple HTML when they're in a h…

Anyone incapable of writing their own regular expression for this is unlikely to know when their problem is too complicated to be solved by it. You're not actually doing them a favor by answering the question.

That's bullshit.

By explaining to them Chomsky Hierarchies they can understand limitations of regexes and learn about parsers and.

By showing them the regex able to parse a limited HTML subset they might be able to try it out and see such limitations by themselves on their own screen. Additionally they might be able to learn some new regex tricks.

Maybe you learned things in a different way, but lots of people enjoy learning stuff by doing and by seeing demonstrations.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#240

Post by magicalhippo »

jasode wrote: post #186
magicalhippo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question & the answer is for the community more than questioner. Part of the confusion might be that they're very unclear about this point. For example, on the front page right now the following is prominently displayed: > Stack Overflow is an open community for anyone that codes. We help you get answers to your toughest coding questions, share knowledge with your coworkers in private, and find your next dream…

>, on the front page right now [...] "We help you get answers to your toughest coding questions, " -- Clearly that is something very different from building a "Q&A wiki" which you allude to. That text blurb on the landing page is relatively new. It may not accurately reflect Stack Overflow's long-standing strict editorial focus. The new SO landing page appeared less than 4 months ago around June 27, 2019.[1][2] In co…

Fair points. They did indeed bury it before though. Yes "collaboratively edited" is there, but what you saw front and center were the questions and answers. And as you say, the nuances of what "collaboratively edited" means can quickly get lost, especially for non-native speakers.

Maybe a meta-moderation system like Slashdot had could have helped. In the end though I think their implementation was ultimately flawed. They created a great platform for asking questions, but that wasn't what they wanted to create.

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