I have this little website, that I consider myself the proprietor of given that I started it and put a lot of work into it and pay for for the dedicated server that it’s hosted on. If someone comes here and acts like a total jerkwad, I will ban them, and I don’t really feel much need to explain myself or cite laws or terms of use or constitutional amendments because you know what? Don’t act like a jerkwad. (And if the ban-ee differs with my definition of jerkwad, I refer them back to the part about me being the proprietor of this site, which is to say that I get to pick the definition).
Now, the example you cited, where the dude actually called the guy’s employers — that is something different. (Notwithstanding the idiocy of posting such stuff from work). You say “People get banned or people get tracked down and sued or something similar.” — I say, there is a big difference between getting banned (no big deal, just find a different site to be obnoxious on) and getting sued or fired, which is a major negative vis-a-vis one’s real, offline life.
Rich[/quote]
See the problem with that distinction is that some people don’t have much of a life outside their preferred blog (eg: cafeluv aka marion aka urbanrealtor). For them, being banned is as devastating as being fired or divorced. Not that I am projecting.
On a more serious point, I don’t think its that anyone disputes the definition of “jerkwad”, its that nobody knows what it is (and to be clear that’s not something that is peculiar to this site). I think thats the one of the issues in the example cited. If the site referenced had stated that “pussy” would be deleted and the ip addy used to track back then it would be a bit less of a controversy. There were several other references to cunnilingus in the blog that did not get deleted (and presumably not tracked).
You have a good point about the difference in consequences but the obfuscation of guidelines is still an issue. That’s what I find the most interesting part. The utterly insane consequences are what drew it into stark relief.
My 2 bits.
edit: and for the record, I don’t see any easy or really ready solution to this.
