ToS and Posted Rules: What to do?

 

 

Apple do appear to be engaging in law suits with all the major phone makers, HTC, Motorola, Samsung… Some cases are defensive & some cases Apple initiated.

 

I'm have a hard time seeing how Soulbearer's opinion is against the forum rules, it is full of sweeping generalisations, but it is an opinion nontheless. 

 

 

Your next statement is just as contentious and general as the one that Soulbearer made (has Samsung copied everything Apple does), accept you are bashing Samsung, not Apple.

 

Perhaps there was other content in the comment that pushed it over the limit (which I didn't see), but now it is unclear.

I know nothing is black & white, so please can you clarify why generalising against Samsung is OK, but generalising against Apple is not OK?

No, his comment is clearly trolling. It's like if I said to someone here, "In my opinion your mother is a whore," would you think I was really just expressing an opinion or trying to evoke an emotional reaction by such a pathetic comment? I hope the latter. That's what Soulbearer is doing.

Regardless, what is and isn't trolling and what the rules are etc are not what this thread is about. Polite behavior in a forum is that you stick to the topic and take all off topic out of the thread to an appropriate place. Sad part is that a troll was more on topic even with his FUD and it was a moderator that went off topic when he should be the one keeping things in check.

This is not the first time this has happened and I know it won't be the last which is why I still wish there was a way to ignore posts and the replies to it so I can just erase out such sub threads

1) That is a personal attack because you directed it at the person. It's like saying a poster is stupid is an ad hominem, but saying that you think a post is stupid has a different focus.

2) "To debase oneself by doing something for unworthy motives, typically to make money" can also be used in terms like consumer whore. That is the original meaning people think of, but if you examine the etymology you actually get something very different. ORIGIN late Old English hōre, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch hoer and German Hure, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin carus ‘dear.’ Not that I had any such focus in my example. In fact, I wasn't thinking of anything sexual at all. More comedic than anything else. See SNL Jeopardy skit.

I can see that PoV. I doubt I would have even noticed the poster if not for TS deleting it and then quoting what he deleting. Sometimes trollish comments are so obvious in the way they are formatted that I'll naturally skip them.

Ah, I see your point. I'm pretty sure the ToS used to be considerably more extensive. I guess ad hominem attacks are no longer part of them.

I could argue that it would fall under hateful if you make such a comment but I'd still expect the ToS to cover that specifically if they thought it was necessary.

THIS IS NOW A THREAD ABOUT TROLLING IN A THREAD...

 

Any further discussion about the initially posted subject will result in a perma-ban.

 

That'd be because it isn't banned. Profanity isn't against the rules, however I feel about it (put simply, I receive it poorly), so it's fine. 

 

The site's feelings on profanity is outlined pretty well in the rules. If you wish it restricted further, start a thread with a poll in the Feedback subforum.

 

People NEVER actually do this when I recommend it, which tells me that they don't really give a crap about the things they're saying. What, do they think we won't listen? Of course we'll listen. I'd start half the threads I recommend myself if it weren't for the fact that they should probably come from a regular user.

 

Now come the posts ostensibly talking about trolling but subtly trying to stick in references to the lawsuit and either Apple or Samsung. And we'll have invented a brand new way of discussing things and have to come up with a name for what to call legitimate discussion when it's inserted into a trolling thread… 

Great idea, overly zealous moderation started it, more moderation can fix it!

 

Thanks for adding to my list of e-mail services to ban on sight.

Actually, profanity is not mentioned at all.

http://forums.appleinsider.com/a/terms-of-service

 

and the 3rd paragraph is messed up.

 

What "rules"?

 

Okay. But I'm supposed to agree with some other non-existent rule(s) first before I warrant anything.

 

How about;

"By posting on this site, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.

If you violate the above rule, your posts may be deleted and/or you may be prohibited from posting."

I love the regular posters on AI. Always intelligent and entertaining comments.

 

That's… a given. That's implied by the words themselves… 

 

You're selling [product], see, and this kid comes up and takes one—walks off with it. Are you saying that because there's no sign on your door that says "no stealing, otherwise we'll take it back from you" he can keep it? REALLY?! 

 

I mean this, when I refer to "rules". 

 

TOS and rules are separate entities. Where our TOS page falls down is in its… lack of linking to any list of actual rules. The "agree not to post yada yada" part seems to be required by every TOS on every website, and that doesn't much constitute rules so much as guidelines (ironically, as our rules sticky is called "guidelines").

 

And while it's only stickied in the General Discussion subforum, I've always felt that link of rules applied to all subforums. PoliticalOutsider has identically-worded rules 1 and 2, but rule 3 is changed due to its unique position. 4-7, I would imagine, apply just the same. Though—perhaps because it isn't specifically written out—4 often seems to be ignored over there… 

 

If we were to go by the TOS as our "rules", I'd have to stop banning spambots. 

 

Which reminds me; gotta do my daily signup check.

Unfortunately it can be argued that guidelines are not rules/laws. The OAD3 lists it as "a general rule, principle, or piece of advice." JeffDM's made a guideline that stated rules — which I agree with — but they aren't official adopted by Ai because they are not detailed in the ToS in some way. It's the lack of clarity of guidelines being seen as rules and ToS having no such rules that does obfuscate the issue quite a bit for those that don't practice a modicum of forum etiquette or have much experience with internet forums.

In that video I posted about 1m:25s in he starts in about having a list. I thought it fit nicely into your previous comments.

1) I know you were kidding, even without the emoticon.

2) And I, you. You will disagree with me if you think I'm wrong and will hold your ground with thoughtful and engaging comments that are straightforward and allow me to do the same without either one of use feeling insulted by the other.

 

Well, thank you. I love this place, I love these people. Probably why I fight so hard. Too hard, at times.

 

If anything, you should be giving the Huddler team tips on how to put in proper features. There are things I could tell you about the back end that would make your hair stand on end… 

 

For example, did you know that we can't ban IP blocks anymore? vBulletin can, but Huddler can't right now. Have to do it individually, so all these SELLING REAL FAKE PASSPORT spambots that we've been seeing lately (or, if I'm doing my job right, either not seeing or not seeing for very long)? Even though they're coming from the same place (same country, actually, but we can't ban signups by country, either), we'd have to ban each IP individually. And by 'we', I mean 'admin and higher', otherwise I would have personally gone through and input every single IP for Cameroon by now.

 

Oh! And there's no meaningful searching on the backend. Sure, we can see all site activity by category, and sure, we can restrict that by username and by activity performed on the content (held by our spam-catcher, deleted, deleted as spam, edited-and who did the editing, and manually validated), but we can't search for any specific content. If I wanted to find all the posts that had the spam link to that matte Mac petition, I couldn't. Or if I wanted to find all the users whose user page biography field read "Man" (since, to date, that is our largest group of spam signups, and every single one does that for the biography), I couldn't. All that has to be manual. Worst, if I wanted to find all the users whose name contained (not STARTED with, contained), say, "from_UZ", I couldn't.

 

Actually, the user-side search can find that stuff! But then there are no mod tools on that page, so you'd have to go to each user page individually, then each user's ban page individually… etc.

Is this all saved in a text file on the server? If so, I would think that it would be pretty easy to create a utility that could input a range of values based from x to y by simply counting up from x++ until y is reached.

 

I dunno. I'd have to be an admin to even see the page used to add to the list.

Okay. Thanks for that.

But the page I linked to states, "We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below"

There are no detailed rules below (on that page). 

 

and on the guidelines age you linked to it states, "2. Attacks against anyone NOT a member of AI, including AI itself, are allowed. However, posting or discussion of forum moderation, except in threads set up for that purpose, will be unceremoniously removed."

 

So all these posts should begone. 

 

Exactly. Actually, hang on, I think I'll just link to the guidelines page from within the ToS themselves. At least that'll be a temporary fix.

And I made this its own thread, since not doing that would be against the guidelines. 

Also, the ToS explicitly grants me the ability to do it. 

That works!

What's that saying about absolute power...?

 

While I'm quite happy with the beginning of the adoption of IPv6, I shudder to think of what this will mean for spam before the forum softwares update. And in the case of some, ever.

 

Maybe this will force Apple to put back the IPv6 support they took out of the redesigned AirPort Utility…

FYI: You can still download and use the previous -> AirPort Utiltity 5.6.1

 

 

Yeah, but I shouldn't have to. I realize it's like Final Cut Pro X, where they drop features to focus on the core whatsahoosits, but didn't they drop a lot of important stuff in AirPort Utility? Including UFO support*, meaning that until I get my house's wires moved around, I can't use the new AirPort Utility, much less a new AirPort router.

 

*yeah, not that important, I guess…

Cool . Thanks for posting the link .