Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Stalkers.
I'd get the exact quote from my #tasvideos log, but it turns out logging everything for almost 2 years makes it impossible to open without crashing every app I've tried.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Okay, so which moderator removed Patryk1023's picture? Because I'd like to tell him to his face that this is an incredibly dumb thing to do.
Honestly? You think you can protect some guy from the DANGERS OF THE WORLD by removing his picture from an internet site, as if there are millions of pedophiles just waiting to pound on the opportunity to analyze it and determine his location?
Whoever did this must have delusions of grandeur in thinking he can levee any kind of protection whatsoever on a younger member of the forums by preventing him from posting his picture.
Let Patryk1023 decide for himself whether he wants to do that, and if you're really that concerned, tell him to ask his parents for approval.
Okay, so which moderator removed Patryk1023's picture? Because I'd like to tell him to his face that this is an incredibly dumb thing to do.
Honestly? You think you can protect some guy from the DANGERS OF THE WORLD by removing his picture from an internet site, as if there are millions of pedophiles just waiting to pound on the opportunity to analyze it and determine his location?
Whoever did this must have delusions of grandeur in thinking he can levee any kind of protection whatsoever on a younger member of the forums by preventing him from posting his picture.
Let Patryk1023 decide for himself whether he wants to do that, and if you're really that concerned, tell him to ask his parents for approval.
I'm somewhat on the fence about this. In general, it should be the parents preventing this sort of online activity. In the absence of parental controls, Brushy was doing his best to prevent bad behavior from a minor (US law, minors can't give consent for... anything).
However, a harmless picture is just that. So yeah, Brushy may have been overbearing, but I'd rather the former happen than too loose of moderation.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
DarkKobold wrote:
(US law, minors can't give consent for... anything).
That is a pretty slippery slope considering if you're going to comply with COPPA, you need to get parental permission to even allow people under 13 to use the site. No forum that I've ever seen actually complies with this aside from maybe forcing people to click on the "I am 14 or older" button in the registration form (if you click the other button, they'll simply tell you you can't register in order to avoid the paperwork). In practice, this only applies to commercial websites and to my knowledge it has never been enforced on a small non-commercial website like this one.
PS: photos were never explicitly part of COPPA and the general consensus is that they don't apply. See the quote under "privacy and permissions" at http://www.cic.edu/teach21/t21_website/ep/guided_tour/dialogue.html
So, as far as I'm aware, Brushy did not remove the picture as per any of the laws. Which is good because it would be following the letter of the law for no sane reason, and that's a big no-no. Nach has already issued bans to people referencing fansub trackers and whatnot on IRC, that's harsh enough, we don't need any more paranoia-induced law enforcement. It should also be pointed out that Brushy is in a position to make that kind of call, should be able to defend it, and it's up to the senior staff members to decide whether he did a good job with it.
The basis for this decision has been a strong moral stance which I, as more of a libertarian, lack (and negligence is the flip side of libertarianism in vast majority of real-world scenarios). I don't share the same stance, but since in this case it was good intention that caused the strong decision, and not just flexing muscles for fun or showing who's the boss, I have no strong moral ground to oppose it: I can't speak for Patryk1023 whether he is conscious enough to post his photos on a public forum, but then again I can't speak for anybody else either, regardless of the age. Age may give a general picture of what to expect, but on a case-by-case basis it's useless. There are written norms and then there are actual people in actual situations that go beyond that.
In short, I am of the opinion that forcefully removing a photo is a measure that ideally should not happen, but since we are dealing with a sensitive situation, it should at least be discussed with the poster in private. Which, by the way, was what Brushy intended to do. How did it go?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 78
Location: Minnesota, USA
Initially I was for the removal of the image, but I've mulled it over and taken an about-face.
Here's my view on the issue. Since it's my view, it's obviously the correct one.
Patryk may be young (Perhaps the youngest TASVideos member,) but an image without personal information is in no way damaging or dangerous to him. If the image was accompanied by contact information, then that's obviously a danger. Due to his young age, and the fact that most TASers are obvious pedophiles, there's always the danger of solicitation as well.
However, none of this justifies the removal of the image. If we're to make a rule, then an age limit is the only appropriate one to take; an action I would vehemently protest.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Warp wrote:
I honestly can't believe this is a serious policy. Facepalm:
(I suppose the above image is bannable as well. After all, it shows a photo of a minor.)
I don't think that person is a minor anymore, furthermore, his parents already gave consent to the mass distribution of that image.
More to the point though, there is no need for people to share their photos here. Your presence here will not be in any way negatively affected if you can't share your photo.
In terms of what might happen to people who share their photo, use your imagination, I'm sure there's plenty of good works of fiction out there that present remote possibilities. Someone with plenty of life experience could weigh the possibilities and decide for him/herself if such a risk is worth taking or not.
In the case of Patryk1023, he is quite young and possibly naive. Further, we don't know what is or isn't going on in his life. Who are we to say if organized crime is after him or not? As remote a possibility it is for him to be negatively affected by posting his photo, it's not up to us, or him for that matter to decide that. It's up to his parents and/or legal guardian. Our staff should err on the side of caution and look to protect our minors, I applaud whoever removed the photo.
Before raising a ruckus about censorship or whatever, if you yourself are a parent, or you yourself have been a target in the past, you may appreciate what we're doing. If not, please don't prevent us from protecting users from things you don't understand. Thank you.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
In the case of Patryk1023, he is quite young and possibly naive. Further, we don't know what is or isn't going on in his life. Who are we to say if organized crime is after him or not? As remote a possibility it is for him to be negatively affected by posting his photo, it's not up to us, or him for that matter to decide that. It's up to his parents and/or legal guardian. Our staff should err on the side of caution and look to protect our minors, I applaud whoever removed the photo.
You have to admit that the above paragraph is pure unadultered paranoia.
If you are so concerned about his age, well, his age was already mentioned in this thread. That alone would constitute a serious breach of private information, according to that logic. What difference is a photo going to make? (In fact, divulging someone's age could be considered even worse than him posting his own photo which, without current age information, could just as well be a childhood photo taken 15 years ago for all we know.)
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Warp wrote:
Nach wrote:
In the case of Patryk1023, he is quite young and possibly naive. Further, we don't know what is or isn't going on in his life. Who are we to say if organized crime is after him or not? As remote a possibility it is for him to be negatively affected by posting his photo, it's not up to us, or him for that matter to decide that. It's up to his parents and/or legal guardian. Our staff should err on the side of caution and look to protect our minors, I applaud whoever removed the photo.
You have to admit that the above paragraph is pure unadultered paranoia.
Regardless of that, no matter how paranoid you are, you aren't paranoid enough.
Warp wrote:
If you are so concerned about his age, well, his age was already mentioned in this thread. That alone would constitute a serious breach of private information, according to that logic. What difference is a photo going to make? (In fact, divulging someone's age could be considered even worse than him posting his own photo which, without current age information, could just as well be a childhood photo taken 15 years ago for all we know.)
Read what I said again, his age implies he can't properly know if he should or shouldn't be posting said photo. You can use your imagination to determine what problems could result of a photo. Just be happy we allow him to speak at all.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Well, maybe you should also protect him from the practices of using ROMs to create TASes, as well as reading these forums which may contain materials offensive for minors, including profanities which Patryk himself has used quite liberally on IRC, then?
You are not his parent, and there has to be a limit to your parenting of unrelated minors.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
You can use your imagination to determine what problems could result of a photo.
I honestly can't even begin to imagine what these problems might be, especially since no contact information is divulged. (And even then it sounds so extremely far-fetched as to be ridiculous. What? Is a neighbor going to stalk and rape him because he saw his photo on an online forum?)
Just be happy we allow him to speak at all.
I'm again leaning on believing this is just some really elaborate joke. You can't be serious.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
moozooh wrote:
but then again I can't speak for anybody else either, regardless of the age.
Yeah I'd just like to stress here that I'm not speaking out on behalf of anybody, and certainly not the poster whose picture was removed. I'm speaking out because I don't agree with this decision for a number of reasons, and I think that the people who moderate our forums, who have the power and the ability to overrule us regular members, should be properly scrutinized as a responsibility of having that power.
Whether or not Patryk1023 agrees or disagrees with the decision is not relevant to that discussion, and it's something that he should take up with Brushy himself.
That said, let's talk about it. Supposedly the reason to remove that picture was because a young member probably does not understand privacy and therefore should not be allowed to post pictures of himself. It should be noted here that, even if you take the COPPA law as an example, which is the controversial and rarely enforced US federal law that applies to this exact situation, pictures are part of a so-called "sliding scale" of how likely something constitutes a privacy violation. It is interpreted as stating that pictures of children can be disseminated as long as there is no identifiable information contained in the picture and they are taken at public places. The picture that was posted (I saw it before it got taken down) applies to this perfectly.
So even by the most rigid standard of paranoid US federal law, this picture does not constitute a privacy breach. Indeed, it might as well have been any picture of any person. There's nothing that actually links the picture to any specific person.
But what bothers me the most is the idea that some individual moderator believes he knows what's best for a specific person and unilaterally decides to act based on that belief. He didn't ask in advance. He didn't talk to him in advance. Supposedly there was some kind of urgency to remove the image, as if millions of pedophiles were just waiting to pound on the opportunity to look at a completely generic and unidentifiable image of a minor. This is pure grandeur on Brushy's part.
Now I should state that I don't have anything against Brushy. In fact, I think he's a cool guy. We've talked on IRC and we've exchanged posts. This is not a personal issue that I have with him, nor should it be interpreted as such. He made some decisions in the past that I disagreed with. Don't forget that the last controversial action he took was locking a topic saying "there's no need for this" after he himself had just started that exact same type of topic.
I've always thought that moderators should do nothing except forum housekeeping, guiding the discussion, and taking action only if absolutely necessary. The concept of giving a moderator's opinion more weight than that of other members is inherently wrong, because they're just like us. They're not special. People become moderators mostly by being active and willing to put some time into keeping things running. Yet moderators keep abusing their privileges by enforcing their personal opinions onto people. Whether it be in the form of locking someone's topic that was technically in the right place and nobody was bothered by or even complained about, or removing a picture because it is his personal opinion that the poster doesn't know what he's doing. This is wrong, and it should be properly scrutinized.
tl;dr nobody's going to read this post because it's ridiculously long already, but basically it comes down to this: the reason why so many moderators are bad (and the vast majority are) is simply because they do more than is required, yet there's no recourse whenever they decide on something. Brushy's action here lacked any kind of logical rationale, did nothing to help anyone and probably did more harm to Patryk1023's self-esteem than anything else. And it was conceived on the notion of valiantly defending him against the dangers of the world, which can only be described as paranoia married to delusions of grandeur.
Nach wrote:
Regardless of that, no matter how paranoid you are, you aren't paranoid enough.
Nach wrote:
Just be happy we allow him to speak at all.
I am sincerely disappointed that someone so coldly irrational could be the supreme authority of this website.
So, as far as I'm aware, Brushy did not remove the picture as per any of the laws. Which is good because it would be following the letter of the law for no sane reason, and that's a big no-no. Nach has already issued bans to people referencing fansub trackers and whatnot on IRC, that's harsh enough, we don't need any more paranoia-induced law enforcement.
Actually, after reading the Wikipedia page on COPPA, I feel that we should go further, not less. The idea, (at least, to me), isn't to protect Patryk, that is the job of his parents. The job is to protect the website from lawsuits.
I had this conversation with AngerFist, recently. While American copyright laws do not apply to him, the physical servers that host the website reside in America, and therefore are under the jurisdiction of American laws and courts. I will hole-heartily agree that the current copyright, DMCA, COPPA, and etc laws are ridiculous. However, the purpose of this site is to host entertaining movies of video games... Not to be the martyr against unjust laws. A single lawsuit (just or unjust, winnable or not for any reason would basically be the end of TASVideos.org. (Lets face it, community donations wouldn't scratch the surface of the legal fees).
Thus, we have heavy-handed actions to deal with things we perceive that could cause the end the site. Yes, in fairy tale land we'd stand up for truth and justice... but, this is the real world.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
That said, let's talk about it. Supposedly the reason to remove that picture was because a young member probably does not understand privacy and therefore should not be allowed to post pictures of himself. It should be noted here that, even if you take the COPPA law as an example, which is the controversial and rarely enforced US federal law that applies to this exact situation, pictures are part of a so-called "sliding scale" of how likely something constitutes a privacy violation. It is interpreted as stating that pictures of children can be disseminated as long as there is no identifiable information contained in the picture and they are taken at public places. The picture that was posted (I saw it before it got taken down) applies to this perfectly.
Actually, after reading the COPPA law, I'm tempted to remove the information about his location from his profile. (Which, combined with his picture, makes it more identifiable.)
Once again, I disagree with Brushy's reason (to protect Patryk), however, the conclusion is the same (to protect the website from lawsuits, regardless of the 'rarity' of enforcement.)
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
DarkKobold wrote:
Actually, after reading the Wikipedia page on COPPA, I feel that we should go further, not less. The idea, (at least, to me), isn't to protect Patryk, that is the job of his parents. The job is to protect the website from lawsuits.
[...]
Thus, we have heavy-handed actions to deal with things we perceive that could cause the end the site. Yes, in fairy tale land we'd stand up for truth and justice... but, this is the real world.
This is so wrong I can't even imagine you read so little as the Wikipedia page. Okay first of all COPPA is interpreted as allowing the dissemination of pictures of children, as long as those pictures do not show a child in a "vulnerable situation" such as a hospital, and do not divulge any identifiable information.
Second of all COPPA has basically never been enforced on non-commercial websites. In fact it has rarely been enforced at all. That's because it's pretty much impossible to enforce except on extremely high-profile websites. You talk about how we're supposed to live "in the real world", but in the real world COPPA is almost null and void.
DarkKobold wrote:
Thus, we have heavy-handed actions to deal with things we perceive that could cause the end the site.
Could we please stop with the paranoia?
edit:
DarkKobold wrote:
Actually, after reading the COPPA law, I'm tempted to remove the information about his location from his profile. (Which, combined with his picture, makes it more identifiable.)
Yes, all I need to do now is find a child who lives in Poland. That is where he lives, right? Great, I'll have found him in no time.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Warp wrote:
Nach wrote:
You can use your imagination to determine what problems could result of a photo.
I honestly can't even begin to imagine what these problems might be, especially since no contact information is divulged. (And even then it sounds so extremely far-fetched as to be ridiculous. What? Is a neighbor going to stalk and rape him because he saw his photo on an online forum?)
I'm surprised you don't have more of an imagination here.
Say for example he's in witness protection, and the photo of him has some kind of landmark in the background. Those looking for him might recognize him and know where he is.
Warp wrote:
Just be happy we allow him to speak at all.
I'm again leaning on believing this is just some really elaborate joke. You can't be serious.
I'm 100% serious.
Also, over IRC I received information that his parents indeed don't want him to be giving our such personal information. This should be the end of the matter.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
If I volunteer to host all pictures of minors posted from this point on on my own host(s), will anything change, or we'll still cower in fear at the slightest thought that some authority somewhere is watching for us to do something remotely inappropriate to shut us down without warning or formal requests?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
(I suppose the above image is bannable as well. After all, it shows a photo of a minor.)
I hope this settles the matter.
