Tripod- Just A Glitch?
annein...@home.com
Pass it on.
> "What's happened is that a technical glitch caused a bunch of
> sites to be removed accidentally. They're being restored today.
> Believe me, it wasn't targeted at anyone's site in particular. Lots
> of different sites [were swept] --including many of our favorites.
>It was just a really bad bug. Small bug, big effect. we're working
> as quickly as we can to get everyone's site back online. We know
> how terrible this is for members, so we apologize profusely."
Derek Bruneau, director of engineering and personal publishing at
Tripod
anne in chicago
lee burwasser
work.
annein...@home.com wrote:
Feel free to pass this on, too:
Leaving aside the question of whether to believe this story, the whole
thing brings two serious issues into focus: advance warning, and
objections to "objectionable."
If Tripod had made itself a reputation of not acting precipitously, we
would have reason to believe that the wipeout was accidental. If Tripod,
or Lycos, had made the promise not to pull anyone's plug without
informing them that someone had complained about them, and precisely what
the complaint was, we would have reason to believe.
In short, Lycos-Tripod have just had a lesson in the value of due process
to the guys in power: the little guys can pick up their marbles and go
home.
Perhaps they will rewrite their Terms of Service with an eye toward
equity, instead of demanding all the power and privilege for themselves
in exchange for a service that can be had elsewhere.
A good place to start is to TOSs that word "objectionable."
Objectionable to whom? I'm sure the Judi Barri site is objectionable to
the FBI -- the civil rights lawsuit finally goes to court this fall.
Fundamentalists certainly find all mention of evolution objectionable,
which
means all biology sites with any claim to scientific validity. Every
website put up in protest, or on either side of a "controversial" issue,
is objectionable to the other side of the controversy, or the target of
the protest.
Why do they suppose the courts keep throwing out censorship laws as
"unconstitutionally vague"? There is no way to tell if we are in
compliance or not. Instead of such impossibly vague requirements as "not
objectionable," servers should be REQUIRED to couch their Terms of
Service in terms with precise legal definitions: ban defamitory or
libelous material, or ban "fightin' words." Ban vulgarity, if it bothers
you. You say you feel silly spelling it out? Then why do something you
dare not name?
Lee Burwasser
*working stiff--don't blame me for policy*
Toniann
that my completely non-fic-related web site (it's on Mozart, actually)
was taken down inexplicably this weekend... and now is back up, with a
more formal version of the letter below in my inbox, stating that it was
just a mistake. So maybe there was a glitch after all... but fic sites
were, at the same time, targeted.
Toniann
"Sharon" <sfe...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3AB6DF12...@earthlink.net...
> Not so sure the fanfic deletions were a glitch--I just read an article
on
> Salon.com that says they were removing sites that violated TOS, and a
glitch
> in the system took down other sites as well.
>
> Here's the URL for the article, fwiw--
>
> http://www.salon.com/tech/log/2001/03/20/tripod/index.html
>
> My sympathies to all who lost their sites over the weekend--
>
> --Leilia
> --
> "Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I...I...I...poked a badger with
a
> spoon..."
> -Eddie Izzard
>
>