Flintlock76I was very angry at the time.
Well, I'm glad that you are no longer angry.....life's too short!
I have wondered about anger being a possible vector...where a member getting put on moderation, and having such an angry reaction to that they end up banning him altogether.
Being "moderated" didn't really bother me all that much, but the part about having the [edit] feature disabled along with that, was a real bummer.
Convicted One Flintlock76 I was very angry at the time. Well, I'm glad that you are no longer angry.....life's too short! I have wondered about anger being a possible vector...where a member getting put on moderation, and having such an angry reaction to that they end up banning him altogether. Being "moderated" didn't really bother me all that much, but the part about having the [edit] feature disabled along with that, was a real bummer.
Flintlock76 I was very angry at the time.
With Kalmbach IT and its own fickleness - it can be difficult to know if one is being 'moderated' or if the system is being recalcitrant on its own.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Lithonia OperatorI'm disappointed. To be honest, I find a lot of it boring and pretentious.
I find the New Yorker magazine in general along the lines of a "continuing education credits" publication for elitist wannabes, so he was probably just playing to his audience.
Convicted One but the part about having the [edit] feature disabled along with that, was a real bummer.
Oh, that drove me crazy! Especially when a typo slipped past me and I didn't catch it before I posted.
So I had to type my comments v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y and proofread like my life depended on it. What a pain. It was worse than the moderation itself!
Flintlock76 Sorry to report this folks, but "Miningman's" been "Wanswheeled," that is, exiled for 165 years, give or take a few. No reason given. I'd hate to think it was because of his posting of a forty year old obituary of a former "New Yorker" staffer who I'm sure the current "N-Y" staffers never heard of or could care less about. C'est la vie.
Sorry to report this folks, but "Miningman's" been "Wanswheeled," that is, exiled for 165 years, give or take a few.
No reason given. I'd hate to think it was because of his posting of a forty year old obituary of a former "New Yorker" staffer who I'm sure the current "N-Y" staffers never heard of or could care less about.
C'est la vie.
Miningman repeatedly posted copyrighted material from Wanswheel, so banishment was inevitable.
Miningman repeatedly and flagrantly posted extremely lengthy (pages) of copyrighted material from Wanswheel, so banishment was inevitable. IP protection is important.
charlie hebdo Flintlock76 Sorry to report this folks, but "Miningman's" been "Wanswheeled," that is, exiled for 165 years, give or take a few. No reason given. I'd hate to think it was because of his posting of a forty year old obituary of a former "New Yorker" staffer who I'm sure the current "N-Y" staffers never heard of or could care less about. C'est la vie. Miningman repeatedly and flagrantly posted extremely lengthy (pages) of copyrighted material from Wanswheel, so banishment was inevitable. IP protection is important.
Yeah, well, not a whole lot of people read this forum, so I find it unlikely that any of the copyright holders are really being hurt.
I am of the opinion that copyright should die with the author/creator, but unfortunately that is not the law in either of our respective countries.
It is well known that the forum software does not actually host images, and one cannot post an image unless it is already hosted on another site. So I really don't see the difference between posting an image on the forum and posting a link to the same image.
While Mike and Vince are probably the most prolific, multiple other users including myself have at one time or another posted quotes or even the entire text from paywalled articles to the forum, including from Kalmbach's own NewsWire.
Threadlocking, moderation and bans on this forum only seem to happen when somebody complains to the 'authorities'. I wonder who it was this time?
BTW, go ahead and ban me (again), it's really not that hard to come back. More annoying than anything else.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
SD70DudeYeah, well, not a whole lot of people read this forum, so I find it unlikely that any of the copyright holders are really being hurt.
But as a magazine, I would think that Kalmbach isn't one to condone copyright violations. It's kind of their thing...
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
It wasn't me who reported the latest law-breaking but violations of intellectual property rights, even with this small an audience, cannot be condoned.
Since posting a link is legal, one wonders why they felt the need to flout the law by copy and pasting whole works, some of which were many pages long? To circumvent paywalls? That is also illegal.
zugmann SD70Dude Yeah, well, not a whole lot of people read this forum, so I find it unlikely that any of the copyright holders are really being hurt. But as a magazine, I would think that Kalmbach isn't one to condone copyright violations. It's kind of their thing...
SD70Dude Yeah, well, not a whole lot of people read this forum, so I find it unlikely that any of the copyright holders are really being hurt.
Ignorance is bliss? That seems to be the modus operandi for the forums, at least most of the time (I actually quite like that style of moderation).
Interestingly enough, the offending (dare I say plagarized) text is still present on the previous page of this thread, and I'll bet most if not all of Vince and Mike's past postings are still there as well.
I wonder what will happen tomorrow morning when the Kalmbach staff come back to work and see this thread.
charlie hebdo Since posting a link is legal, one wonders why they felt the need to flout the law by copy and pasting whole works, some of which were many pages long? To circumvent paywalls? That is also illegal.
It's also quite easy on a lot of sites. Simply hit the 'stop' button when the page is half loaded. Or if the site allows you "one free article", you just have to clear your cookies and browser history and the site will think you are a new individual user each time. This isn't top secret rocket science, just bad/lazy coding.
I don't think you can directly copy and paste an image from behind a paywall to this forum, you'd probably have to use another photo hosting site as an intermediary. And posting the link to your (illegally copied) image would seem to be ok under the forum rules.
My inner Spock is coming out, there is something highly illogical about this entire proceeding.
We think alike. I was wondering the same thing.
SD70Dude Interestingly enough, the offending (dare I say plagarized) text is still present on the previous page of this thread, and I'll bet most if not all of Vince and Mike's past postings are still there as well.
SD70DudeI don't think you can directly copy and paste an image from behind a paywall to this forum, you'd probably have to use another photo hosting site as an intermediary.
Some sites not behind a pay wall won't allow a linked use of an image off their sites.
I used to have a personal website that I could upload images to and then use to post here. That assumes I could copy the image from the original site in the first place. The danger there is that I could well use a copyrighted image without proper attribution.
These days, I usually try to find an image that's been used on several sites (indicating that it's pretty much fair use), and I use the image address with the "insert image" function here on the forum. Clicking on said image here takes you to the original site.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Go way back on some of the more ancient threads and you will still find Wanswheel postings.
By the way, I heard from Mike yesterday and he's thrilled his old nom de plume has been turned into a new verb, that is, "Wanswheeled."
At least I think he thrilled. Hey, go for immortality any way you can!
I wonder how fast it'll wind up in the "Urban Dictionary?"
SD70DudeIgnorance is bliss? That seems to be the modus operandi for the forums, at least most of the time (I actually quite like that style of moderation).
Or we coudl go the other way and say Wanswheel was banned for posting that stuff, so why would Miningman think his outcome would be any different for posting the same stuff?
Personally, I don't care if he wants to post all that old stuff- I never read it, and I suspect most here didn't either. But it is not allowed, so the consequences shouldn't be too surprising.
SD70Dude charlie hebdo Since posting a link is legal, one wonders why they felt the need to flout the law by copy and pasting whole works, some of which were many pages long? To circumvent paywalls? That is also illegal. It's also quite easy on a lot of sites. Simply hit the 'stop' button when the page is half loaded. Or if the site allows you "one free article", you just have to clear your cookies and browser history and the site will think you are a new individual user each time. This isn't top secret rocket science, just bad/lazy coding. I don't think you can directly copy and paste an image from behind a paywall to this forum, you'd probably have to use another photo hosting site as an intermediary. And posting the link to your (illegally copied) image would seem to be ok under the forum rules. My inner Spock is coming out, there is something highly illogical about this entire proceeding.
In the internet / digital age, there are always ways to break laws protecting intellectual property. But condoning that is is no more right than condoning stealing alcoholic beverages from the package store or shoplifting a cell phone.
zugmannPersonally, I don't care if he wants to post all that old stuff- I never read it, and I suspect most here didn't either. But it is not allowed, so the consequences shouldn't be too surprising.
Now you've managed to touch on the part of the story I find interest in.
I usually found it irritating to have people do long copy and pastes of other people's works, with no comments pertaining to the actual subject matter, or even an explanation of why the copier believes it is relevant. Just a "Here, FYI" with no further explanation.
Same thing with links to long stories, if the person offering the link cannot at minimum explain why they believe their offering is relevant, why should I bother wasting my time reading through it?
Just as a f'rinstance, it is generally unwise for anyone to mention that a post, let alone a long series of posts with 'unusual' content or formatting, are being made "for" or by way of forwarding something from a banned member. (In this case, unjustly banned, but don't expect fascisti to make fine distinctions in their fabricated law and morality...)
A properly-run forum has to be constantly vigilant against sock puppets and other synthetic things like multiple accounts for the same person or group that troll or spam each other to drive traffic (or whatever other object they have in 'mind'). Were I to speculate about what would trigger an outright ban without either 'moderation first' or an explanation being thought necessary, it would be a concern of that kind.
In my opinion, one of the reasons wanswheel posted images at length is that he has 'special access' to a number of resources that aren't open, like newspapers.com and JSTOR. "Posting a link" to these only produces a request for credentials few here are likely to have and fewer willing to acquire, or a payment request usually north of $30 per article, which I confidently note no one here would be willing to engage in.
The basic 'copyright' issue here involves the scope of 'fair use'. Wanswheel would be justified in letting 'friends' read a downloaded and printed copy of copyrighted material, as it involves neither dissemination nor republication in the proscribed sense. He would also be justified in posting to a closed, members-only group (which has the understanding that no further dissemination of the material will be made), like the T1 engineering-committee repository -- and, technically, the claim could easily be made that a Kalmbach forum is members-only: look at how impossible it is to log in and post interestingly often.
The problem is that Kalmbach forums are not only 'free to read', but no one bothered with niceties like robots.txt in any sort of coherent manner, so bots and crawlers easily capture post content and put up Google-accessible access to it. (While the community-search function was MIA, it's entirely possible this was some Bangalore tiger-team's answer to make content 'searchable'; if so, it should be 'undone' as quickly as possible...) Anything that puts protected content on the Internet is, essentially, republishing to the public (whether or not 'for gain') and it becomes very difficult to excuse posting protected content, other than links to that content, to a forum that allows it.
An associated issue, not directly copyright but with financial 'teeth', is the timeless topic of hotlinking. It was very clever of Kalmbach to put a tool allowing image embed right in the feature bar, but it's become less moral to use such a tool when image providers start charging for each access... and a view of the page counts as an access. It becomes even less moral when other folks can easily scrape the embed code and use it indiscriminately. I have gone largely to using links to any content ... with the dubiously moral excuse that 'let them worry about whether the image is properly credited and all that' ... as it solves any potential liability to Kalmbach for providing images without permission or credit.
charlie hebdoIn the internet / digital age, there are always ways to break laws protecting intellectual property.
I don't see the removal of uninvited cookies from my own machine, as being an illegal activity.
Convicted OneI don't see the removal of uninvited cookies from my own machine, as being an illegal activity.
There was, I admit, some discussion in the IETF and ISTF about whether or not some classes of cookies in a 'distributed environment' (or "the cloud") should be considered a provider's intellectual property. It is settled law, however, that deleting (as opposed to editing or forging) cookies within a piece of client software, whether it runs on a user's own machine or on a VM in a piece of software, is a user's right. (Part of that discussion: any organization stupid enough to enforce a ban by putting a flag in a cookie is not entitled to protection against voluntary erasure...)
Part of how this factors into current understood law can be seen in how Kalmbach can make posts or whole threads disappear, but can't edit the posts' content. It opens up the interesting discussion for sophomore-year ethics class of whether 'doing something legal with the understanding and intent that it is illegal' is a crime, or whether it should be dissuaded officially or prosecuted in the absence of specific legal objection citing the right precedents.
charlie hebdo In the internet / digital age, there are always ways to break laws protecting intellectual property. But condoning that is is no more right than condoning stealing alcoholic beverages from the package store or shoplifting a cell phone.
That's were you and I differ.
I view most large copyright holders as big, faceless evil corporations who are able to hold on to copyright for far too long, so that makes it ok (to paraphrase that old cable TV bit in 'The Simpsons').
Like most folks on here, it is highly unlikely that I would pay for a subscription to whatever site(s) Wanswheel is getting stuff from. So it's not like they are losing my business.
Zug - I agree, and I actually did say over on the 'Classic' side that I was not surprised this happened.
SD70Dude charlie hebdo In the internet / digital age, there are always ways to break laws protecting intellectual property. But condoning that is is no more right than condoning stealing alcoholic beverages from the package store or shoplifting a cell phone. That's were you and I differ. I view most large copyright holders as big, faceless evil corporations who are able to hold on to copyright for far too long, so that makes it ok (to paraphrase that old cable TV bit in 'The Simpsons'). Like most folks on here, it is highly unlikely that I would pay for a subscription to whatever site(s) Wanswheel is getting stuff from. So it's not like they are losing my business. Zug - I agree, and I actually did say over on the 'Classic' side that I was not surprised this happened.
Just because you can get away with stealing doesn't make it right. Intellectual property, whether the rights are owned by its author and/or an evil corporation, is just as much property as your car. So next time something is stolen from you, don't complain. The double standard is disturbing.
The question is...how many real people were actually banned?
On this issue. Wanswheel, who knowingly misused his privilege to post material he had access to and thus was banned. After that Miningman continued posting material from Wanswheel, again repeatedly and in full knowledge that it was wrong. He was a teacher and certainly should have known better than to traffic in purloined goods.
BackshopThe question is...how many real people were actually banned?
I know firsthand of fourfive. I think there were many more during the short reign of Wimberley. That doesn't count the folks on permanent moderation.
If this list is anything like the ones I ran, there are a number of 'new members' every week who have to be banned. Sometimes they even wait cunningly until out of initial moderation to try the link or whatever. I don't think Kalmbach is doing this rigorously as there are some highly interesting usernames on this forum that cleverly put the spam in their 'personal description' ... perhaps this is why we lost the ability to browse members by name! ... but on the other hand, as with the number of terrorist plots the United States foils every week, the number of bans may be much larger than I could see.
Overmod Backshop The question is...how many real people were actually banned? I know firsthand of four. I think there were many more during the short reign of Wimberley. That doesn't count the folks on permanent moderation. If this list is anything like the ones I ran, there are a number of 'new members' every week who have to be banned. Sometimes they even wait cunningly until out of initial moderation to try the link or whatever. I don't think Kalmbach is doing this rigorously as there are some highly interesting usernames on this forum that cleverly put the spam in their 'personal description' ... perhaps this is why we lost the ability to browse members by name!
Backshop The question is...how many real people were actually banned?
I know firsthand of four. I think there were many more during the short reign of Wimberley. That doesn't count the folks on permanent moderation.
If this list is anything like the ones I ran, there are a number of 'new members' every week who have to be banned. Sometimes they even wait cunningly until out of initial moderation to try the link or whatever. I don't think Kalmbach is doing this rigorously as there are some highly interesting usernames on this forum that cleverly put the spam in their 'personal description' ... perhaps this is why we lost the ability to browse members by name!
That's why my email isn't publicly visible :), I'll take the compliments though!
Not sure if my previous life ("SD70M-2Dude") is one of those four, at any rate my posts from that account are still visible, it's just locked. I can still log in to it an even comment on NewsWire stories with it, but everything on the cs.trains.com server is off limits.
Of course, I wasn't banned for posting copyrighted material, I used the occasion of Hunter Harrison's demise to make a lewd, rude and crude comment about the man, which obviously ran afoul of the censors.
charlie hebdo SD70Dude charlie hebdo In the internet / digital age, there are always ways to break laws protecting intellectual property. But condoning that is is no more right than condoning stealing alcoholic beverages from the package store or shoplifting a cell phone. That's were you and I differ. I view most large copyright holders as big, faceless evil corporations who are able to hold on to copyright for far too long, so that makes it ok (to paraphrase that old cable TV bit in 'The Simpsons'). Like most folks on here, it is highly unlikely that I would pay for a subscription to whatever site(s) Wanswheel is getting stuff from. So it's not like they are losing my business. Zug - I agree, and I actually did say over on the 'Classic' side that I was not surprised this happened. Just because you can get away with stealing doesn't make it right. Intellectual property, whether the rights are owned by its author or an evil corporation, is just as much property as your car. So next time something is stolen from you, don't complain. The double standard is disturbing.
Just because you can get away with stealing doesn't make it right. Intellectual property, whether the rights are owned by its author or an evil corporation, is just as much property as your car. So next time something is stolen from you, don't complain. The double standard is disturbing.
No, I just think copyright, patent, and other IP protections have gotten out of control, and now go far beyond what they were originally meant to do. The vast majority of the stuff Wanswheel dug up was very old, and in my opinion should have passed into the public domain by now.
Overmod Backshop The question is...how many real people were actually banned? I know firsthand of fourfive. I think there were many more during the short reign of Wimberley. That doesn't count the folks on permanent moderation. If this list is anything like the ones I ran, there are a number of 'new members' every week who have to be banned. Sometimes they even wait cunningly until out of initial moderation to try the link or whatever. I don't think Kalmbach is doing this rigorously as there are some highly interesting usernames on this forum that cleverly put the spam in their 'personal description' ... perhaps this is why we lost the ability to browse members by name! ... but on the other hand, as with the number of terrorist plots the United States foils every week, the number of bans may be much larger than I could see.
Wimberly was a volunteer moderator tried to level the playing field for all. He passed away (literally) from illness.
Henry 6 was a good one who got banished. But for those few who were banished, there were many more who left voluntarily because they were repeatedly attacked. One was the guy in Hamburg, Germany, who briefly was a moderator as well. Another was Juniatha, another foreign source of much information on motive power.
SD70DudeNot sure if my previous life ("SD70M-2Dude") is one of those four, at any rate my posts from that account are still visible, it's just locked.
Odd that account hasn't been sucked into the "Anonymous" black hole that has ursurped so many other dormant accounts?
charlie hebdoHenry 6 was a good one who got banished. But for those few who were banished, there were many more who left voluntarily because they were repeatedly attacked. One was the guy in Hamburg, Germany, who briefly was a moderator as well. Another was Juniatha, another foreign source of much information on motive power.
My opinoin: there was a double standard on here for awhile (don't know if it still the case, nor do I really care) where certain members seemed to enjoy more "freedom" than others.
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