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thoughts nobody asked me for
This is probably going to make me sound like an apologist for Six Apart, which I assure you I'm not. I am, however, (a) contrary by nature and (b) not as fired up about the recent [flaily gestures] as a lot of other people. So, thus disclaimed:
LJ/6A has finally answered questions about [x].
There's no way for 6A to win this one. When they answer questions immediately and off the cuff, they are (rightly) criticized for their casual (even jovial) tone, and -- more seriously -- they run the risk of making promises they're not in a position to keep if it turns out that upon examination they were wrong. And then they have 57815624 fans going "But you promised!!!" I mean, this happens when they do take time to prepare (but evidently not proofread) their public statements -- witness the disposition of the claim that no journal would ever again be suspended without the user being warned. Conversely, when they take time to make sure everyone is reading from the same playbook, everyone lambasts them for foot-dragging when they ("finally") reach the podium. I have no illusions that it would help if they took the middle road -- prairie-dogging periodically (more frequently than they do) to say "Hi, we're working on it, stay tuned". All they'd have is 6473917465 more angry comments in various flavors of "Oh yeah? When?!" In a nutshell: if we want them to think before they act, we should also allow them to think before they speak.
[related to this: I actually don't think it's a bad thing at all that they created a journal for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theljstaff. It was faintly stupid of them not to have done so before. Granted, we lose the transparency of knowing which staffer it is making this or that statement. We gain, however, the ability to say 'But look, your staff said this' -- whereas before, all we could say was 'This staffer said that', and the easiest thing in the world would be for them to say 'That staffer was not speaking in an official capacity at the time'.]
they still haven't provided assurances about [y].
Well, no, they haven't. In this instance, the issue in question was visual representations of sexual situations involving minors; so cluttering up the discussion with tangents about verbal representations of sexual situations involving minors, or about visual representations of sexual situations not involving minors, would be a bit off-message. Of course people want assurances that the long arm of whomever isn't going to get even longer and start reaching where it even more clearly doesn't belong. But listen: there's no way they can say "nobody will ever be suspended for A, B, or C", because there's no guarantee someone won't find a way to do A, B, or C in a way that does violate the TOS. It should not ever be the case that prose fiction qualifies as child endangerment. Of course it shouldn't. I can't think of explicit prose that would violate the TOS as outlined in lj-biz yesterday*; neither can you, and neither can they. But if it did happen, and they had to suspend someone, would it be at all useful for them to have made a statement like "All sexually explicit fiction is permitted"? It would not. No, of course they shouldn't go suspending people for insufficient cause. If you look closely, what's happened (twice) recently is that people have been suspended for what turned out to be insufficiently-articulated cause, and they've firmed up the language and undone the suspensions (in many cases). They have in fact applied the new TOS retroactively to the journals that were suspended. You know? Which is good. Rather than, I mean, leaving the TOS in its less-clear, less-accessible state and saying Sorry, man, but that's how it goes.
Of course I wish none of this had ever happened. Yes, I have accounts elsewhere and am backing everything up in case someone drops a house on my head. Do I think we're ever going to get everything we want from 6A? No. Do I think we're ever going to find everything we want anywhere else? Also no.
Am I pleased with the lj-biz clarification and the new policy it outlines? Anh, I give it a B. But frankly, I give the law (18 USC 1466A) a B/B-minus here, so there wasn't really much room to work with.
*Wait, yes I can. Prose fiction with explicit sexual content could be, and almost certainly has been and will be again, used to harrass, threaten, intimidate, etc. etc. another user. This would be both bad and in violation of the TOS, and would -- if the victim could prove the writer's intent to 6A's satisfaction -- be a bannable offense. So a statement categorically permitting all sexually explicit fiction would be dangerous and in fact wrong for LJ/6A to make.
LJ/6A has finally answered questions about [x].
There's no way for 6A to win this one. When they answer questions immediately and off the cuff, they are (rightly) criticized for their casual (even jovial) tone, and -- more seriously -- they run the risk of making promises they're not in a position to keep if it turns out that upon examination they were wrong. And then they have 57815624 fans going "But you promised!!!" I mean, this happens when they do take time to prepare (but evidently not proofread) their public statements -- witness the disposition of the claim that no journal would ever again be suspended without the user being warned. Conversely, when they take time to make sure everyone is reading from the same playbook, everyone lambasts them for foot-dragging when they ("finally") reach the podium. I have no illusions that it would help if they took the middle road -- prairie-dogging periodically (more frequently than they do) to say "Hi, we're working on it, stay tuned". All they'd have is 6473917465 more angry comments in various flavors of "Oh yeah? When?!" In a nutshell: if we want them to think before they act, we should also allow them to think before they speak.
[related to this: I actually don't think it's a bad thing at all that they created a journal for
theljstaff. It was faintly stupid of them not to have done so before. Granted, we lose the transparency of knowing which staffer it is making this or that statement. We gain, however, the ability to say 'But look, your staff said this' -- whereas before, all we could say was 'This staffer said that', and the easiest thing in the world would be for them to say 'That staffer was not speaking in an official capacity at the time'.]they still haven't provided assurances about [y].
Well, no, they haven't. In this instance, the issue in question was visual representations of sexual situations involving minors; so cluttering up the discussion with tangents about verbal representations of sexual situations involving minors, or about visual representations of sexual situations not involving minors, would be a bit off-message. Of course people want assurances that the long arm of whomever isn't going to get even longer and start reaching where it even more clearly doesn't belong. But listen: there's no way they can say "nobody will ever be suspended for A, B, or C", because there's no guarantee someone won't find a way to do A, B, or C in a way that does violate the TOS. It should not ever be the case that prose fiction qualifies as child endangerment. Of course it shouldn't. I can't think of explicit prose that would violate the TOS as outlined in lj-biz yesterday*; neither can you, and neither can they. But if it did happen, and they had to suspend someone, would it be at all useful for them to have made a statement like "All sexually explicit fiction is permitted"? It would not. No, of course they shouldn't go suspending people for insufficient cause. If you look closely, what's happened (twice) recently is that people have been suspended for what turned out to be insufficiently-articulated cause, and they've firmed up the language and undone the suspensions (in many cases). They have in fact applied the new TOS retroactively to the journals that were suspended. You know? Which is good. Rather than, I mean, leaving the TOS in its less-clear, less-accessible state and saying Sorry, man, but that's how it goes.
Of course I wish none of this had ever happened. Yes, I have accounts elsewhere and am backing everything up in case someone drops a house on my head. Do I think we're ever going to get everything we want from 6A? No. Do I think we're ever going to find everything we want anywhere else? Also no.
Am I pleased with the lj-biz clarification and the new policy it outlines? Anh, I give it a B. But frankly, I give the law (18 USC 1466A) a B/B-minus here, so there wasn't really much room to work with.
*Wait, yes I can. Prose fiction with explicit sexual content could be, and almost certainly has been and will be again, used to harrass, threaten, intimidate, etc. etc. another user. This would be both bad and in violation of the TOS, and would -- if the victim could prove the writer's intent to 6A's satisfaction -- be a bannable offense. So a statement categorically permitting all sexually explicit fiction would be dangerous and in fact wrong for LJ/6A to make.
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