[Decision] ToS Change - Illegal Activites

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Proposal revoked (see my last post in this thread why)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Proposer: PowerWizard

Supporters: [user]Ludwig van Beethoven[/user], [user]Caradog[/user]

Note: this is a revised proposal, so posts #2-#23 refer to the previous proposal, that added emphases on the first paragraph of the ToS text. The current proposal adds emphasis on the second paragraph, but the aim is the same: to make the promotion of genocide and other crimes against humanity illegal under the ToS.

Decision for Tos Change

The Curia proposes the following change in the Terms of Service:

Promoting Illegal Activities (4 or 8 points)






Posts that promote violation of the law are not allowed. Violation of the law includes, but is not limited to:

• Obtaining or providing copies of copyrighted works or modifications to copyrighted works without permission from the copyright holder. This includes pirated games, pirated music, pirated videos, altered game executables, pirated operating systems, etc. In the case of Total War games, it includes any unmodified game files.
• Obtaining or providing ways to circumvent copy protection. This includes no-CD hacks, key generators, hacked ROMs, etc.
• Cheating in online games, or otherwise violating license agreements.
• Possessing, distributing, or using drugs in a way that would be illegal in most jurisdictions (e.g., owning marijuana).
  

"Promoting" illegal activity includes, but is not limited to:

• Asking for someone else to commit an illegal activity (e.g., asking for a cracked game).
• Assisting someone else in an illegal activity (e.g., linking to a site that distributes cracked games).
• Encouraging or advocating an illegal activity, or portraying it as normal or acceptable (e.g. advertising or promoting people, groups or organizations that commited genocide in the near past, casually mentioning that you have pirated games/smoked pot/etc. as though this were normal and acceptable). Exceptions will be made for threads that are devoted to serious discussion of illegal activities in an abstract sense (e.g., about whether copyright law should be relaxed or marijuana should be legalized), on a case-by-case basis.

What exactly qualifies as illegal depends on jurisdiction. When jurisdictions differ on whether something is legal, moderators will decide on a case-by-case basis which jurisdiction to follow.

Reasoning

• Of course the list looks silly now, with a huge jump from genocide to cheating in online games. But there is no reason why the promoting (encouraging or advocating) genocide shouldn't be mentioned in the ToS (and mentioned in the first place; compare them to copyright infringements), as there's already a consensus that the promoting (encouraging or advocating) such crimes is not tolerated on the Board (correct me, if I'm wrong).
• Make clear for everyone what is allowed on the site and what is not.
• For the reference, genocide is the act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. (Article 6 of the Statute)
• For further reasoning I refer to the Preamble of the Rome Statute.
• I have faith in the moral sanity of TWC citizenry.

[Hotspur]

Are we so inundated by un-moderated calls for genocide that the ToS needs amending?

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Are we so inundated by un-moderated calls for genocide that the ToS needs amending?

Give me a reason why this shouldn't be in the ToS.

[Hotspur]

Give me a reason why this shouldn't be in the ToS.

Show me an example of a post this would cover that wasn't moderated.

[Squid]

Give me a reason why this shouldn't be in the ToS.

Oppose, the bolded below is the reason:

Promoting Illegal Activities (4 or 8 points)

Posts that promote violation of the law are not allowed. Violation of the law includes, but is not limited to:

• Obtaining or providing copies of copyrighted works or modifications to copyrighted works without permission from the copyright holder. This includes pirated games, pirated music, pirated videos, altered game executables, pirated operating systems, etc. In the case of Total War games, it includes any unmodified game files.
• Obtaining or providing ways to circumvent copy protection. This includes no-CD hacks, key generators, hacked ROMs, etc.
• Cheating in online games, or otherwise violating license agreements.
• Possessing, distributing, or using drugs in a way that would be illegal in most jurisdictions (e.g., owning marijuana).

"Promoting" illegal activity includes, but is not limited to:

• Asking for someone else to commit an illegal activity (e.g., asking for a cracked game).
• Assisting someone else in an illegal activity (e.g., linking to a site that distributes cracked games).
• Encouraging or advocating an illegal activity, or portraying it as normal or acceptable (e.g., casually mentioning that you have pirated games/smoked pot/etc. as though this were normal and acceptable). Exceptions will be made for threads that are devoted to serious discussion of illegal activities in an abstract sense (e.g., about whether copyright law should be relaxed or marijuana should be legalized), on a case-by-case basis.

That's a nice catch all for anything else not explicitly stated.

@Ludwig Van Beethoven - As long as it doesn't promote genocide, or violate some other part of the ToS it should get left alone.

[Soulghast]

Well, generally posts that promote genocide, murder, rape or abuse of any kind, are deleted, and the poster infracted. I rarely see such posts though.

I would give my support to this, as long as discussion about war crimes and genocides is still allowed.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Encouraging or advocating an illegal activity.

When genocide is legalised, I will support your decision.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Show me an example of a post this would cover that wasn't moderated.

I've seen many of them, linking them here wouldn't be appropriate.

Well, generally posts that promote genocide, murder, rape or abuse of any kind, are deleted, and the poster infracted. I rarely see such posts though.

I would give my support to this, as long as discussion about war crimes and genocides is still allowed.

War crimes are a different case, they are more disputed crimes than these. That's why I didn't include them.

Discussion about these crimes would be allowed of course, but promoting them, either explicitly or implicitly (including the advertisement of people, groups or organizations that are established in order to commit these crimes), would be against the ToS.

Oppose, the bolded below is the reason:

That's a nice catch all for anything else not explicitly stated.

And why are the rest of the illegal activities featured then? :hmmm:

When genocide is legalised, I will support your decision.

Genocide is not illegal in all countries of the world, and is/was "legalised" in some countries of the world.

[Hotspur]

I've seen many of them, linking them here wouldn't be appropriate.

Balderdash. If you want support to change the ToS, you need to show how and why the current provisions are failing.

So, show me a post that this change would cover that wasn't moderated.

Discussion about these crimes would be allowed of course, but promoting them, either explicitly or implicitly (including the advertisement of people, groups or organizations that are established in order to commit these crimes), would be against the ToS.

So that's what this is all about. Are you still in a twist about Soviet avatars?

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Genocide is not illegal in all countries of the world, and is/was "legalised" in some countries of the world.

It's illegal in Texas, that's all that matters.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

The current provisions are not failing, I didn't say this.

As I said linking the incriminated posts here wouldn't be appropriate, using the report button is.

But you just need to venture into the D&D forums to know what I'm referring to. Also take a look at the userbars and some sigs that are clearly promoting crimes against humanity.

This isn't about moderation. This is about making some principles clear in the ToS for everyone.

PS I tried to obtain some statistics to provide hard evidence, but no such statistics can be generated.

[Hotspur]

The current provisions are not failing, I didn't say this.

As I said linking the incriminated posts here wouldn't be appropriate, using the report button is.

This isn't about moderation. This is about making some principles clear in the ToS for everyone.

You mean it's about making your principles clear in the ToS for everyone.

Oppose.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

You mean it's about making your principles clear in the ToS for everyone.

Have you even read the proposal? At this point, I'm not sure. :hmmm:

These crimes are defined by an international treaty that was signed by 108 countries of the world. Yeah, "my principles".

[Hotspur]

Have you even read the proposal? At this point, I'm not sure. :hmmm:

These crimes are defined by an international treaty that was signed by 108 countries of the world. Yeah, "my principles".

Who the frak cares about the ICC treaty. The current ToS works just fine to deal with these issues. The problem is that you are apparently uncomfortable with the degree of discretion that the moderators exercise and would like to wrap TWC in nerf. Bugger that. I like my discussions a little messy, a little objectionable. If someone's sig annoys you, here's a thought: turn off sigs.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

As I see it, such posts are already moderated, so that proposed change would just make things more clear, it wouldn't change anything. "Is not limited to", is a very broad category, so further definition of some things can only be good.

I'll take that as a yes.

Who the frak cares about the ICC treaty. The current ToS works just fine to deal with these issues. The problem is that you are apparently uncomfortable with the degree of discretion that the moderators exercise and would like to wrap TWC in nerf. Bugger that. I like my discussions a little messy, a little objectionable. If someone's sig annoys you, here's a thought: turn off sigs.

As I already said twice, this proposal isn't about the level of moderation. The level of moderation is fine. It's about making it clear in the ToS, that promoting such crimes, explicitly or implicitily, are not tolerated on the board.

[Soulghast]

As I see it, such posts are already moderated, so that proposed change would just make things more clear, it wouldn't change anything. "Is not limited to", is a very broad category, so further definition of some things can only be good.

[Squid]

So we include every offence in the criminal code of the United States in the ToS? How about state laws that are broken in the state where the server resides? How about municipal laws in the municipality where the server resides? If the server ends up in GED's house, and he's part of a HOA or Condo, do we include those rules as well? How about the laws from the various countries, states, provinces, municipalities, etc. where the various site members reside?

This is a ridiculous amendment, there is a line in the ToS that covers everything not explicitly stated, and since we can't state everything because we'd need the laws of every jurisdiction in the world, this decision is entirely pointless.

What's next are you going to propose a decision where we have to outline every possible insult in the ToS, because currently they aren't explicitly stated?

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

@Squid: of course, I won't make proposals to include every rule of the US Criminal Code. Please don't rush at me, mate. I just think the basics should be in the ToS, that's all.

@pannonian: thanks for your input. This wouldn't mean that things wouldn't be moderated case by case. A moderator would still have to deliberate the nature of the post.

[Desperado †]

Full Support.

It should be made crystal clear that prommoting genocide is against the ToS. The more vague the ToS the easier it is for those that brake it to slip through the net or have some argument in their favour (not that I doubt the Moderators one bit, but theres nothing wrong with making a clearer ToS)

EDIT: Also, it is clear by the length of this thread that it is not clear:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...45#post4000145

And as for the fact that that was a joke, it simply does not work, as with that logic I could post a nude image with a funny caption or as a sarcastic remark, or people could use the fact that it was a 'joke' to avoid the ToS and it can be hard to judge what a joke is, especially when this could upset any one on the site (wheras with a personal insult/joke the insulted/mocked just ahs to give confirmation it was an insult/joke)

[Father Jack]

Oppose - seems needles and its not a common occurance on this forum. If it is advocated (I have only seen it once) then it is usually done for a joke. It was also closed with the reason 'This wont end well' - Tasteless but harmless.

NB. All people with blue eyes should be exterminted for my sadistic pleasure.