Erlang forums (was Re: PING TEST)

[Richard O'Keefe]

At least under US and NZ (Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015) law,
if someone harasses you on-line you can go through their ISP/e-mail service
provider.  If I understand correctly, the service agency can pass on a
court order without revealing anyone's identity, and if the offender
complies with the court order, all's well.  If the service agency cannot
reach the offender, now they have a problem.

On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 at 01:11, <greim@REDACTED> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> if we are talking about any legal contract, we have to know
> which right we have to follow.
> Even basic mechanisms about a contract can be totally different between
> two different countries.
>
> The emailforums. <http://emailforums.org/>com is registered in Island, at
> least following the info in the whois records.
> (see below) Obviously its an anonymous service of Namecheap Inc. and the
> Islandic address is only a postbox.
> If you start a traceroute its not even clear where the server is hosted,
> at least not for me.
> A company I did't really trust in.
>
> Unfortunately on the whole web site there is no legal binding address.
> This would be necessary, if the site would be hosted for example in the
> EU.
>
> Avoiding any legal responsibility, I guess, its the main reason for such
> gray or dark hosting construct.
>
> But In principle:
> The main problem in all forums and "social media" is hiding of members
> behind an anonymous account.
> If for example John Mayer from Denmark is calling me an asshole,  I can
> offend him at a local
> or Danish court. Same procedure if he would do it on the street or in a
> restaurant.
> If JohnyM99@REDACTED <Johny99@REDACTED> is doing it, its is de facto
> impossible.
> So free speech is one thing, anonymous insult or hate another thing....
>
>
>
> Registrant Name: Redacted for Privacy
> Registrant Organization: Privacy service provided by Withheld for Privacy
> ehf
> Registrant Street: Kalkofnsvegur 2
> Registrant City: Reykjavik
> Registrant State/Province: Capital Region
> Registrant Postal Code: 101
> Registrant Country: IS
> Registrant Phone: +354.4212434
>
>
> Regards
>
> Markus Greim
> Germany
> [image: Sent from Front]
>
> On December 7, 2021, 12:33 PM GMT+1 raoknz@REDACTED wrote:
>
> I once typed up a set of lecture notes on the Law of Contracts for my
> father,
> who was a law lecturer.  I understood very little of it.  But some key
> points
> remain:
>  - there must be an offer of something
>  - it must be accepted
>  - there must be consideration (= payment)
>  - the contract must be for a legal purpose
> He said repeatedly "there is no contract without consideration".
> Now I have visited the erlangforums web site and wandered around a bit,
> but I never saw the code of conduct.  DIdn't know there was one.
> I certainly never took any action that explicitly or implicitly constituted
> acceptance.  So between whoever runs that site and me, no contract exists.
>
> One problem with these codes of conduct is that they get elaborate and
> overtly
> political, and remain vague, making them best suited as a means of
> excluding
> people for their views rather than their behaviour.  I note, for example,
> that "harassment" is every bit as vague as "being an arsehole".  If someone
> makes an absurd claim (such as "Erlang was actually invented be Tesla")
> and I
> bring evidence against it, it is open to the OP to accuse me of harassment
> and for the moderators, should they not like me for some reason (I know,
> it is
> impossible, I am so lovable, even the sharks want to kiss me) to agree
> that I
> am a harasser.  We could imagine a rule such as "factual statements are
> never
> harassment", but unfortunately modern times are such that calling
> something a
> fact is now regarded in some quarters as intrinsically oppressive.
>
> I learned a simple but challenging thing about security, recently.
> * An engineer looks at a component and thinks "what is this mean for?
>   How can I use it?"
> * a hacker looks at a compoment and thinks "what does this actually do?
>   How can I ABuse it?"
>
> In the same way, any proposed code of conduct needs to be carefully
> scrutinised by someone who is really good at thinking of ways the code
> can be ABused to harm individuals and the community.
>
> *I* do not have the wisdom to craft a code of conduct that cannot be easily
> abused, and I have not seen any such.  The wisest man I ever knew (we
> disagreed
> about politics and religion, but always got on very well together, probably
> because he *was* wise) could be relied on, in any staff meeting where an
> amendment to the student code was proposed, to ask "This has happened only
> once
> in the last 15 years; do we really have such a bad problem that we NEED a
> rule
> for this?"  The answer was always "no", and we never regretted listening
> to him.
>
> Perhaps we should ponder the major message that a code of conduct conveys.
> It says, loud and clear, to any prospective member of the community,
> "WE DON'T TRUST YOU".
>
> Anything I write in mail or on a forum has to conform to the laws of
> my country, which *already* cover things like discrimination and
> harassment.
>
>
>
> On Tue, 7 Dec 2021 at 23:47, Ivan Uemlianin <ivan@REDACTED> wrote:
>
>> Agree with Loïc, but for me the weirdest thing about erlang forums.com’s
>> ToS is that they insist repeatedly that the terms are legally binding. I
>> must “agree to be legally bound” by the rules, under English (and Welsh)
>> law. So, by using the site, I am entering a contract, legally bound by a
>> contract —- but with who?
>>
>> Nowhere on the site does it indicate what legal entity is behind the
>> site. Is this omission deliberate or accidental? In either case I refuse to
>> be “legally bound” to an anonymous entity.
>>
>> Given this, the particular content of the terms is irrelevant.
>>
>> Ivan
>>
>> —
>> hilaritas excessum habere nequit
>>
>> > On 7 Dec 2021, at 09:56, Loïc Hoguin <essen@REDACTED> wrote:
>> >
>> > Nobody is arguing against rules, just against bad rules. Rules that
>> are selectively enforced or subjective are bad. One good rule is that the
>> topics posted must be related to Erlang and the replies to the topic.
>> >
>> >> On 06/12/2021 22:47, Fred Hebert wrote:
>> >> The list of forbidden actions on the erlang forums (abusive, obscene,
>> slanderous, defamatory, threatening, discriminatory based on
>> race/sex/orientation/gender/nationality/disability/age/religion/affiliation,
>> unlawful or fraudulent content, harassment or bullying, spam, doxing, etc.)
>> is something I'd consider reasonable.
>> >
>> > Leaving the ideology problems aside, these rules are never enforced
>> equally. For example there is a members-only topic about nominating a woman
>> for some kind of award. According to the rules this is discrimination based
>> on sex or gender.
>> >
>> > Another example would be if the BEAM conferences were posting about
>> their diversity tickets, which discriminate based on most of the
>> characteristics you quoted. "if" because there hasn't been a new conference
>> yet, but you know it will happen.
>> >
>> > Another example would be a small company posting looking to hire people
>> locally. Depending on where they are located they would definitely need to
>> discriminate based on nationality.
>> >
>> > I can go on all day. I don't think all of these examples are bad, for
>> what it's worth.
>> >
>> > If the intent is to avoid clashes between people, then you'd expect a
>> simple rule such as "using these forums, do not attack other users or any
>> other individual". Not an ever expanding accumulation of protected
>> categories that are selectively enforced.
>> >
>> >>  * If you can't bring up a topic about programming Erlang without
>> >>    breaking the rules above, then your topic wouldn't have been about
>> >>    programming Erlang in the first place
>> >
>> > And therefore it would break the first rule I mentioned which is that
>> the content must be on topic, or the second rule which is that you
>> shouldn't attack people. The only other rules needed on top of that are
>> more technical in nature, such as spam, phishing and so on.
>> >
>> >>  * if you don't want rules and there are no rules, then you can't ask
>> >>    to be pointed to which rules you were breaking when you are excluded
>> >>    because you asked for there to be none, or otherwise you have to
>> >>    accept the deep subjectivism of whoever being a mod may believe you
>> >>    to be an asshole and that's it.
>> >
>> > Rules do not get rid of subjectivism. *Good* rules, universally
>> enforced, do.
>> >
>> >> I tend to prefer a set of basic rules protecting basic communication
>> mechanisms, both as a participant and when I happen to be a moderator. Some
>> people may feel they can't openly be themselves if they can't also be
>> racist or sexist or discriminatory. If that feeling is strong to the point
>> they would rather self-exclude themselves from such communities, then that
>> is a feature, not a bug.
>> >
>> > Unfortunately the people that setup these kinds of rules tend to not
>> believe in them and they enforce them selectively. The rules end up having
>> the opposite effect as a result.
>> >
>> > You don't need to look far to see this happening, it's everywhere these
>> days. The only way to avoid this is to not divide people into categories,
>> and not let anyone divide people into categories.
>> >
>> > Cheers,
>> >
>> > --
>> > Loïc Hoguin
>> > https://ninenines.eu
>>
>>
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