[OT]Re: Books...

[John Reimer]

Hello Manfred,

> John Reimer wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
>> spreading and encouraging illegal copies of material
>> 
> Please stop this: unless someone verified that using the link gives
> access to an illegal source of the content of the book in question,
> there is no spreading or encouraging of making illegal copies
> recognizable.
> 
> And there is no proof of such a verification---and there seems to be
> no legal possibility of such a verification. For seeing this: think!
> 
> Hint: even lars Ivar is not allowed to download over that torrent
> unless
> 1) he has the "written permission of the holders of the copyright and
> the publisher", and
> 2) he already knows, that the torrent cites an illegal copy of the
> source.


Manfred, we could go back and forth saying "Please stop this".  It seems 
that you are bent on dwelling on ambiguities so as to escape the real issue. 
 Whether we can verify this or not is really not the question; the perception 
is enough to know what is being done.  If you believe that the perception 
(or the effect of perception) is not a damaging element, then I suppose you 
will take away all argument against the potential power of all forms of marketing 
and propaganda (legal or illegal) as well.  This is actually very simple... 
and I could say like you do: "please read my posts carefully".  Saying that, 
however, does not help either of us; all that it does is manipulate our readers 
into thinking one of us missed an important point in the others post; further, 
it sounds quite condescending.


>> We are not analyzing Google here
>> 
> But we have to, because next time the questionable link might be
> replaced by a link to Google containing the canonical search pattern.
> That link might even be made unreadable by using EBG-13. What then?
> 


No, I'm hoping that doesn't happen.  That's why I keep stressing that people 
please not do this or varying levels of the same: the suggestion is by far 
unnecessary and unhelpful in this group; rather concentrate on simple principles 
of courtesy, and these things shouldn't be a problem.  Most people should 
realize that nobody even needs help using Google in that context; so a person 
who posts such material is doing it for no particular good reason. That said, 
it's easier to set the tone by discouraging a linked torrent item in a post; 
that is what we are talking about here.

It's quite a simple cause and effect situation, and the muddy waters you 
create over legality were hardly helpful in addressing the "spirit" of the 
matter.  Honestly, one could argue away illegality on almost anything if 
enough ambiguities in semantics are asserted; the same goes for the use of 
rhetoric.


>> just simply delt with immediately
>> 
> Who should be allowed to be an immediate dealer(?):
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/revert_war
> 
> -manfred
> 


Yes, you may put your definition on something if you like. However, I have 
a feeling that your revert definition was referring to something else (like 
code changes between two programmer's who are peers?) in which case you are 
throwing more confusion into this discussion.   

Please realize that what you are facing is simple policy that any moderated 
or semi-moderated service would do to help solve a problem that is not solving 
itself (actually, some might intercept the post first).  Your word "revert" 
is actually "delete" in a forum environment (or torrent server for that matter) 
 because there is nothing to "to reverse" and there aren't two peers with 
equal authority to make the changes.  It seems that Walter has accepted this 
as a manner in which he moderates this public forum (though, quite rarerly). 
 Walter could just make a policy that people not add such posts and simply 
remove posts that don't comply with that policy. In the past, he has acted 
on posts without any policy in place (that I'm aware of).  Having a policy 
merely helps people know ahead of time, when they join the newsgroup, what 
to expect if they post questionable content: it's a deterrant and a courtesy 
in itself.  It also shows that the forum management is consciencious about 
keeping the forum clean of links to /potentially/ illegal material.

Whether or not "greatly lowering the opinion of all observers as to the maturity 
of the participants" takes place in this environment is an assumption you 
take possibly as a result of a misused definition: such a response would 
be more dependent on the matter being deleted (and the manner) than on the 
act of deleting.  For example, would Walter be acting immature if he deleted 
a newsgroup post that provided a link to his complete compiler suite?  Probably 
not.  But if he ranted and raved while doing so, it would probably look very 
immature.  Since all this makes no sense in terms of your definition,  my 
conclusion, in this case, is that your link to this definition is being used 
to end your argument condescendingly and, further, that the definition has 
been misapplied.  But perhaps since it was only a /link/ to the definition, 
it doesn't mean that you actually agreed with it? ;-)

My own argument ends here.

-JJR