the real cdaae

2009-11-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

I hardly ever use this blog, but I want to post a couple of links.

First, Ewan's liberal musings: Good luck to 500000 turfed off incapacity benefit, and the comments on it.

And second, a new blog on Being on Benefits, addressing the myths the media perpetuates about people on incapacity benefit, especially those with invisible disabilities (like mental illness and chronic pain).

The stigma surrounding being on benefits, and the fear of losing them, contributes a huge amount of unnecessary stress and distress to the lives of people who are already struggling. They - or I should say we, since I suffer from depression and have been on income support for incapacity - find life hard enough as it is, due to our various disabilities, and income support really doesn't provide much to live on. There are many factors that keep us on benefits, from the rather obvious fact that many of us need them because we cannot work, to the fact that employers blatantly discriminate against people with a history of mental health problems, and people with gaps in their work history.

Many of us contribute to society in ways other than through paid employment, like voluntary work, and sometimes as homemakers and caregivers. Yet we are tarred with the brush of being "economically inactive" (even though this is not true, as what little money we have goes straight back into the economy when we spend it), and treated as lazy, good for nothing scroungers.

In the rather unlikely event that anyone is reading this, I hope you'll go and check out the links above.

2008-11-04T07:02:00.001-08:00

2008-09-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

Pub uses electronic cigarettes to beat the smoking ban
Pubs around the country have reported a decline in custom since the rules came in July last year, but landlord, Chris Giles of the Butler's Arms in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham believes he has found the solution.

The new E.cig smokes like a real cigarette and users get a shot of nicotine every time they inhale.

The device even produces a cloud of water vapour with every puff, though causes no harm to smokers.

Best prices from www.smokenotar.com / www.smokenotar.co.uk

2007-07-06T11:17:00.000-07:00

Oh noes! Harry Potter spoilers!

My Harry Potter Spoiler of Doom is:
Harry burns down Hogwarts, and everybody celebrates and rids the world of Daleks
Get your Harry Potter Spoiler of Doom

Autistic person translates from her language

2007-01-27T16:23:00.000-08:00

This is truly one of the most beautiful and moving statements I've seen on language and communication. "In My Language" is a video in which a non-verbal person with autism "speaks in her own language" -- a combination of sounds and visual cues and gestures -- and then explains what this all means by means of a text-to-speech program.

read more | digg story

2007-01-12T18:08:00.000-08:00

The Phantoms of the Opera (Almost Complete) - if not completely definitive, definitely the most spot-on article about the various Phantom films ever seen. It's not only laugh-out-loud funny, it's all true. How often do I find pieces on Phantom where I agree with just about everything the author says? Very rarely. Go enjoy.

2006-09-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

Mercy Brown, "Fifteen Songs from Missing Children"

I've been meaning for a couple of weeks to write some kind of review of Mercy Brown's Fifteen Songs from Missing Children, but I am shit at describing music. I never even know what genre something is, let alone how to describe whatever I like about it (exception being musicals, which I have no difficulty reviewing). This is why when I do posts of song downloads, my descriptions and recommendations tend to be something like "This song is great. Listen to it, or else."

This band is great. Listen to them, or else. I think it I had to pick a genre description out of the air, I'd call it something like "melodic indie rock". With a wide dark streak.

There's always a risk, when buying a CD from someone you know, that you'll think it's a bit mediocre and will have to search for polite things to say, so I was glad I liked it from the first few bars of the first track. In fact the first few bars of quite a few of the songs already give me shivers. If I was any good at music reviews, I'd list various other artists whom I hear the influence of, but I'm not. Although I will say that they're varied... One of the keyboard lines on "Secret Phrases" reminds me a bit of The Doors, other songs send me off into a trancy state, just closing my eyes and nodding along. A couple of the tracks have already been added to my "favourite songs" mix. Which means that if my Last.fm plugin and iTunes would actually work at the same time, they'd be shooting up the rankings on my chart.

Oh, and the lead singer has quite the sexy voice.

Mercy Brown's Website
Mercy Brown on Last.fm

Tags: music, mercy brown, indie, independent, alternative, rock

2006-07-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

How po-faced of someone on Wikipedia to want to delete the Mini Mammoth entry.

The multi-purpose Mini Mammoth also is suited to varying tasks such as house cleaning mammoth, seeing-eye mammoth, dental hygiene, and as a guard-mammoth. Potentially the greatest invention since the computer, the mini mammoth is set to be the leader in purchases, both commercially and domestically, once on the market, whenever that may be.

Traditionally, they have been a delicacy item. Due to a slump in sales of roast mini mammoth, the advertising slogan 'It's not just for Christmas, it's also for lunch' was coined. [citation needed] Indeed, it was this advertising slogan that caused their extinction in the first place.

While not a separate breed, mini mammoths have an above average birth rate of albinism. Albino mini mammoths are a preferred food production animal due to their "Self cooking" nature in the tropics. However due to spontaneous combustion, they have a tendency to be over cooked.

2006-06-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

Bush camp attacks newspaper 'treason'.
George Bush and Dick Cheney are calling The New York Times a disgrace, Republican congressmen say it is guilty of treason and demand the prosecution of the Editor, while a right-wing radio presenter suggests most of its readers must be 'jihadists'.
...
Republicans in the House of Representatives prepared to table a motion yesterday condemning the newspaper.

You know what I find amusing? The Daily Telegraph, the UK's most conservative non-tabloid newspaper, has some deal with The New York Times where they include a 4 page sampler issue of the NYT once a month - some news articles, and the opinion articles. To the thoroughly conservative Telegraph, the NYT's shocking liberalism is apparently a lot less clear and obvious than it is to US readers.

Maybe it's something to do with the fact that there are actually some genuinely vaguely liberal/left-wing newspapers in the UK, so we know how to tell the difference a bit better.

Oceans Reaching the Point of No Return

2006-06-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

The UN has warned the world's governments that humankind's exploitation of the sea could be passing the point of no return.

-- People have known things were reaching this point for years, and was anything significant done about it? No. Ahh, human race, what a load of idiots you can be.

read more | digg story

Active Volcanos of the World: Google Style

2006-06-06T09:06:00.000-07:00

This is cool- uses Google Earth to display the world's active volcanos, which you can then zoom in on. Fun!

read more | digg story

2006-06-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting piece by Boris Anthony about the way that with a lot of the free social networking, bookmarking, or blogging sites we use, we're effectively working for companies for free. They - those that survive by advertising revenue - need our content. We often hear that we shouldn't complain if the service is free, but looked at like this, it's not free. We're paying for it with our time and labour. And mostly that works just fine, so long as we don't have complaints about the service. When we do, though, remember that we don't have to be handing them our cash to be giving them something of value.

So what? What are these people doing with your data? It's pretty simple: they use it to drive advertising revenues.

Here's how. I mentioned structure and context. When you publish something, share it, you try tell a story; you labor to package it up, give it meaning (semantics through communication technologies, like language) and you place it on the web within a context, be it via categories, tags, links to related information. You are organizing data.

To folks like Google and Yahoo!, that is worth gold. Literally.

Before I continue, lest I be labeled disingenuous, I should make clear that I am NOT railing against all this. I use Flickr every day--more like 300 times a day; it's my #1 destination, almost as often as my email inbox--and I manage weblogs that sport Google Ads and Technorati tags and del.ico.us links and all that stuff. I just want to try to make sure people actually realize what is going on.

We are all working for them. For free. That's how it's "about we". It's not a "media revolution", it's a reversion to feudal medievalism. "Voluntary servitude" it's been called (back in 1548!)

The counter argument is "but they are providing a service which in order to survive must sustain itself economically somehow, and you free information people are the first to yell "information wants to be free" and so it is and we can't rely on subscription or pay-per-content schemes." Totally fair. And services like all the above mentioned all do fairly decent jobs of providing ways to export and retrieve your data. One way or another, you gotta pay to play, right?

The malaise remains however: they are profiting from our ignorance (or forgetfulness). Whether it is ignorance of their actions or ignorance of your abilities (to do any of this yourself in a de-centralized way) or rights.

The Nipplegate story has been breaking out all over. I won't give all the links I've found here, just a few pieces.

The Register - LiveJournal Kerfuffle
Customers are Always - LiveJournal Members' Feedback is Not Important
Blogging Times - LiveJournal Restricts Breastfeeding Photos

And, Is it art or is it pornography? (since classic art, including the Virgin Mary, is also covered by the default userpic bare bits ban).

Tags: blogging, social, livejournal

2006-06-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

From ProMom's media information page on LJ and 6A:

Bullet Points - Problems with LJ Abuse

No appeals process for suspensions, along with refusal to answer legitimate questions from users.
Inconsistant and contradictory answers given to users about LiveJournal's rules and what is regarded as a breach.
Questions raised about breaches of privacy and abuse team's ability to read users' private posts have not been answered.
Discourteous replies received by users asking questions.
Replies received evade questions put by users, and support requests are then closed with no further response.
Rules not specified in Terms of Service or abuse team policy document are used to suspend accounts, and definition of words (such as harassment) are twisted to suit team's decisions.

(Read the press release here.)

Users of the popular LiveJournal website are calling on parent company Six Apart to reform the way LiveJournal's volunteer abuse team is run, after the team declared they were not interested in listening to users' feedback.

Complaints have been raised about users' privacy, inconsistant enforcement of the Terms of Service, conflicting information and responses from abuse team members, and discourteous replies to users seeking clarification on the rules.

So. The abuse team says they follow a set of rules, but our experiences show that the rules they claim to follow and the rules they really apply are very different things. When we ask them to explain these contradictions, we get no answer. Users are suspended with no opportunity to appeal. Six Apart is losing paid users because they refuse to make the abuse team professional.

Are they going to do anything about it?

As I wrote a while ago:

I also get annoyed at people who get annoyed at people for protesting about something they care about. It doesn't really matter why they care about it, they don't have to justify themselves to you. I've seen this recently in some of the "nipplegate" discussions - LiveJournal is a private company so they can do whatever they want, deal with it. Well, yes, they're a private company. They can't actually do whatever they want as they're still bound by the law, but within those limits they can have whatever TOS they choose. And as users, we can speak out (or shout and scream) if we think that TOS and those rules are wrong, or poorly applied. Using the service of a company does not take away your right or ability to complain when you think something is wrong. Indeed, a company should be listening to its customers harder than it should listen to people who don't utilize it.

It's legal for Wal-Mart to use sweatshops, it's legal for Starbucks to sell "sweatshop" coffee, it's legal for all manner of companies to pollute the environment and screw over their workers. Of course, compared to these things, LiveJournal's TOS or abuse team problems are pretty insignificant. But part of LJ's business model, part of the reason we all use it, is that it builds up that sense of community. Without the community, quite a few of us wouldn't stay. If a company depends on its users and their communities for its popularity and success, it would be wise to listen to them. They may not owe any legal duty to do so, but it's a poor business decision not to.

LJAB quoted me, and added:

How do questionable suspensions of users affect other users, for instance? When a user is suspended, all of their posts are removed, and all of their comments (replaced by "reply by suspended user"). If you have a post where a suspended user contributed significantly to the discussion, with information or ideas, that is lost. You do not have a choice about whether to retain their comments, they're just gone and the flow of your thread ruined. You've lost their whole contribution. If they were a prominnt poster in your community, everything they've contributed is gone. If they're your friend, all your threads and comments in posts on their journals are gone too.

LiveJournal Abuse doesn't seem to consider this when they make decisions - past actions and overall contributions on LiveJournal don't count, unless they're counted against you. Minor infractions, small enough not to warrant action, can be brought up against you. How much you've helped others, or spent time building the communities and community atmosphere LiveJournal depends on, doesn't matter. There's a prosection but no defense.

Are people who care taking it all too seriously? As realcdaae said, no one should have to justify why they care. But it's LJ's very business model which encourages this sort of attachment and makes people care. It relies on making networks of friends. It's full of communities for support, for sharing, for information, for entertainment. When people invest time and energy into those things, of course they care. For some more isolated users, and users with problems, the communities built up through LiveJournal can be invaluable.

So why does LiveJournal, or Six Apart, not care what we think?

Then there's privacy, and the way the abuse staff treat people...

On LiveJournal, you can set an entry to be "friends locked", supposedly allowing you to control who can read it. Abuse team managers can read these private entries, but recently claimed they only do so in cases concerning breach of US law or copyright infringment. Yet they read my locked entries when there was no breach of copyright, or any other law, alleged. In fact there hadn't even been a complaint against me - they confused me with another user, who'd once used a similar username.

I asked them for an explanation. I didn't get one. I emailed the managers of the abuse team directly. I had no response. I sent a copy of that email to the CEO and VP of Six Apart, but I have still had no reply. I guess they're too busy with their new service, Vox. I wonder if Vox users will be served any better the LiveJournal's?

The petition reads:

We call on Six Apart to recognize that there are serious problems with the LiveJournal Abuse team which extend beyond any one issue, and to stop dismissing users' feedback and concerns.

Significant and long-term problems have been described with the LJ Abuse team, from inconsistent and contradictory answers to rudeness and refusal to answer users' questions. LiveJournal's poor customer service has attracted attention on numerous blogs, but Six Apart continues to brush it off.

The signers of this petition ask that Six Apart genuinely listens to its customers' concerns and commits to address the issues. They cannot be brushed under the table, and must be dealt with fully and openly.

Here are just four of the many comments left on it.

Beverley Andrews: I wish to lend support to this petition. LJ Abuse needs to be staffed by individuals who are able to think rationally and put aside their own personal feeling towards members. Rules/guidelines need to be clearly laid out and the owners of LJ should make sure that not only the users stick to the rules, but also that the abuse team stick to the rules, not changing them in order to save face or validate an earlier banning. This issue runs deeper than breastfeeding pictures. I could not care less about pictures of nipples, but I DO care about being governed by a corrupt and inconsistent body of people who refuse to even discuss the reasons for their decisions.

Robert Dalton: Highly unprofessional for 6A to neglect concerns of customers. Abuse team on LJ needs fresh start with competent management. Privacy concerns MUST be addressed!

Melissa Aldinger: Numerous complaints of violation of privacy, harassment, copyright infringement and inappropriate content have been ignored and brushed off though they clearing violated LJ's TOS. I am disgusted with the way the issue was handled.

Rob Bennett: I am an longtime paid LJ user with no past run-ins, or friends who have had run-ins, with LJA. However, as an observer of LJ culture it has been patently apparent to me that a reform and EXTENSIVE personnel shakeup for the LJA team has been in order for at least the last two years.

Tags: livejournal, six apart, customer service, blogging, privacy, protest

2006-05-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

Press Release: Popular Blogging Site Restricts Use of Breastfeeding Photos

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Popular Blogging Site Restricts Use of Breastfeeding Photos:
LiveJournal cites images as 'inappropriate' and sends mothers to the virtual restroom.

Contact:
Carrie Patterson
Executive Director, ProMoM.Org
http://www.promom.org
carrie@promom.org
678-513-6329

Popular Blogging Site Restricts Use of Breastfeeding Photos:
LiveJournal cites images as 'inappropriate' and sends mothers to the virtual restroom.

Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 - Women on the popular blog site LiveJournal are calling foul at the company’s decision to brand images of breastfeeding as ‘inappropriate.’ Many users of the site have joined together to urge LiveJournal’s parent company SixApart to address their concerns and reevaluate the policy.

Small "userpics" of no more than 100 by 100 pixels represent LiveJournal members throughout the site. Users can define one of these icons as "default icon" which plugs it into the user's public profile. These default icons were originally not permitted to be ‘sexually explicit or graphically violent.’ Recently, icons which depicted breastfeeding were cited as being ‘inappropriate’ by the LiveJournal abuse team, a group of volunteers who monitor complaints on the site. After clarification was requested, LiveJournal changed their FAQ to reflect a no nudity rule and is claiming that icons with visible areola or nipple are not permitted. Whether or not areola is visible in a photograph is dependent on a number of factors, including skin tone of the mother and physical changes during pregnancy.

Claimed Live Journal Abuse Staffer 'Erin' in a post on the site, "That's really a matter for the FCC to decide. LiveJournal's policies on this mirror what would be allowed on primetime TV or in a PG-13 movie." However, this is not true. The FCC does not consider the act of breastfeeding on television to fall under the definitions of indecency or obscenity.

Breastfeeding is exempt from nudity laws throughout the United States as well as countries such as Canada. Advocates are urging LiveJournal to adopt the same criteria. "It is regrettable that LiveJournal has chosen to target breastfeeding mothers instead of standing up for the protection provided them by law," says Carrie Patterson, executive director of ProMom.org, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing public awareness and public acceptance of breastfeeding. Advocates state that the feeling that breastfeeding should be hidden only fosters the idea that the natural act of nourishing a child is scandalous.

Breastfeeding bloggers who have refused to change their default icon have been suspended from the site. These users, as well as others questioning the policy, have been treated poorly by the site’s volunteer abuse team, something that is not unusual according to other site users.

More than 1,000 LiveJournal users complained, and SixApart issued an apology to the group. However, the company refuses to consider modifying their policy and continues to suspend users whose default icons are deemed inappropriate. Although LiveJournal stated a clarified rule, mothers are still reporting major inconsistencies in its application.

The breastfeeding debacle is only the most recent in a long line of incidents that have people wondering if the abuse procedures as a whole should be reviewed for fairness and propriety. Complaints have been raised about users' privacy, inconsistent enforcement of the Terms of Service, conflicting information and responses from abuse team members, and discourteous replies to users seeking clarification on the rules.

Activists are now working together to get this policy changed and to clarify the policies and procedures of the LiveJournal abuse team. While some are refusing to continue paying for the service, others have moved to different journaling websites to protest what they feel is a violation of their rights.

For more information, contact Carrie Patterson at 678-513-6329 or carrie@promom.org or visit http://www.promom.org/bf_info/mp.html.

###

Tags: livejournal, six apart, press release, breastfeeding, protest

2006-05-31T17:42:00.000-07:00

Yeseterday I sent a follow-up email to the CEO and VP of Six Apart, as I have not received a reply from Mark Ferrel or Denise Paolucci (heads of the LiveJournal abuse team) about their claims about the privacy of friends-locked entries.

It's on my LiveJournal, or should that happen to become suspended for any reason, it's also here.

LJAB also reports that Six Apart is launching a new blogging service tomorrow. They've taken some of the community aspects of LJ, and the ability to friends-lock posts. Like LJAB, I wonder how they'll organize their abuse team? And will friends-only really mean friends-only, or will the abuse team look at locked entries, then claim they only ever look when investigating law-breaking, but refuse to tell individual users what law-breaking was being investigated?

Let's just say I won't be signing up with Vox for now.

Tags: six apart, livejournal, lj abuse, vox, blogging

2006-05-31T12:06:00.000-07:00

From ProMom's media information page on LJ and 6A:

Bullet Points - Problems with LJ Abuse

No appeals process for suspensions, along with refusal to answer legitimate questions from users.
Inconsistant and contradictory answers given to users about LiveJournal's rules and what is regarded as a breach.
Questions raised about breaches of privacy and abuse team's ability to read users' private posts have not been answered.
Discourteous replies received by users asking questions.
Replies received evade questions put by users, and support requests are then closed with no further response.
Rules not specified in Terms of Service or abuse team policy document are used to suspend accounts, and definition of words (such as harassment) are twisted to suit team's decisions.

I also get annoyed at people who get annoyed at people for protesting about something they care about. It doesn't really matter why they care about it, they don't have to justify themselves to you. I've seen this recently in some of the "nipplegate" discussions - LiveJournal is a private company so they can do whatever they want, deal with it. Well, yes, they're a private company. They can't actually do whatever they want as they're still bound by the law, but within those limits they can have whatever TOS they choose. And as users, we can speak out (or shout and scream) if we think that TOS and those rules are wrong, or poorly applied. Using the service of a company does not take away your right or ability to complain when you think something is wrong. Indeed, a company should be listening to its customers harder than it should listen to people who don't utilize it.

It's legal for Wal-Mart to use sweatshops, it's legal for Starbucks to sell "sweatshop" coffee, it's legal for all manner of companies to pollute the environment and screw over their workers. Of course, compared to these things, LiveJournal's TOS or abuse team problems are pretty insignificant. But part of LJ's business model, part of the reason we all use it, is that it builds up that sense of community. Without the community, quite a few of us wouldn't stay. If a company depends on its users and their communities for its popularity and success, it would be wise to listen to them. They may not owe any legal duty to do so, but it's a poor business decision not to.

LJAB quoted me, and added:

How do questionable suspensions of users affect other users, for instance? When a user is suspended, all of their posts are removed, and all of their comments (replaced by "reply by suspended user"). If you have a post where a suspended user contributed significantly to the discussion, with information or ideas, that is lost. You do not have a choice about whether to retain their comments, they're just gone and the flow of your thread ruined. You've lost their whole contribution. If they were a prominnt poster in your community, everything they've contributed is gone. If they're your friend, all your threads and comments in posts on their journals are gone too.

LiveJournal Abuse doesn't seem to consider this when they make decisions - past actions and overall contributions on LiveJournal don't count, unless they're counted against you. Minor infractions, small enough not to warrant action, can be brought up against you. How much you've helped others, or spent time building the communities and community atmosphere LiveJournal depends on, doesn't matter. There's a prosection but no defense.

Are people who care taking it all too seriously? As realcdaae said, no one should have to justify why they care. But it's LJ's very business model which encourages this sort of attachment and makes people care. It relies on making networks of friends. It's full of communities for support, for sharing, for information, for entertainment. When people invest time and energy into those things, of course they care. For some more isolated users, and users with problems, the communities built up through LiveJournal can be invaluable.

So why does LiveJournal, or Six Apart, not care what we think?

We call on Six Apart to recognize that there are serious problems with the LiveJournal Abuse team which extend beyond any one issue, and to stop dismissing users' feedback and concerns.

Significant and long-term problems have been described with the LJ Abuse team, from inconsistent and contradictory answers to rudeness and refusal to answer users' questions. LiveJournal's poor customer service has attracted attention on numerous blogs, but Six Apart continues to brush it off.

The signers of this petition ask that Six Apart genuinely listens to its customers' concerns and commits to address the issues. They cannot be brushed under the table, and must be dealt with fully and openly.

Here are just four of the many comments left on it.

Beverley Andrews: I wish to lend support to this petition. LJ Abuse needs to be staffed by individuals who are able to think rationally and put aside their own personal feeling towards members. Rules/guidelines need to be clearly laid out and the owners of LJ should make sure that not only the users stick to the rules, but also that the abuse team stick to the rules, not changing them in order to save face or validate an earlier banning. This issue runs deeper than breastfeeding pictures. I could not care less about pictures of nipples, but I DO care about being governed by a corrupt and inconsistent body of people who refuse to even discuss the reasons for their decisions.

Robert Dalton: Highly unprofessional for 6A to neglect concerns of customers. Abuse team on LJ needs fresh start with competent management. Privacy concerns MUST be addressed!

Melissa Aldinger: Numerous complaints of violation of privacy, harassment, copyright infringement and inappropriate content have been ignored and brushed off though they clearing violated LJ's TOS. I am disgusted with the way the issue was handled.

Rob Bennett: I am an longtime paid LJ user with no past run-ins, or friends who have had run-ins, with LJA. However, as an observer of LJ culture it has been patently apparent to me that a reform and EXTENSIVE personnel shakeup for the LJA team has been in order for at least the last two years.

Tags: livejournal, six apart, customer service, blogging, privacy, protest

Creative Commons founder calls for end to "extremism" in copyright laws

2006-05-30T10:49:00.000-07:00

Lawrence Lessig on balancing the rights of artists and the creativity of web users re-using material. Likens anti-piracy efforts to using "DDT to kill a gnat".

read more | digg story

Low Income, Not Race or Lifestyle, Is the Greatest Threat to Health

2006-05-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

"Racial differences in health are explained by income; perceived discrimination plays a role; low income can be an especially good predictor of mortality; when income is taken into account, behaviors such as smoking, drinking, sedentary lifestyle, and obesity accounted for only a small proportion of differences in mortality."

One of those things I thought people already knew, because it's pretty obvious - being poor is the greatest threat to your health. (Especially in countries like the US, where you can't afford health insurance!)

read more | digg story

Canadian Corporations begin using Radio Frequency Identification

2006-05-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

"Canadian Corporations have quietly begun using RFID to track products after purchase. This is raising serious concerns with privacy advocates."

Creepy stuff...

read more | digg story

2006-05-28T16:57:00.000-07:00

Why LJ abuse needs to be answerable for its actions

LJ abuse team lying about actions.

I have emailed Denise Paolucci, Mark Ferrell, and shamanix, to ask them directly what breach of copyright or US law was alleged in my case, and posed the same question to Doug Bryan. I have yet to receive any answer.

Tags: livejournal, six apart, lj abuse, privacy

WTF....

2006-05-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

Jewelry made from Modified Ectoplasmic Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroach

"They are decorated with the finest Austrian Swarovski crystal. Each roach takes about an hour of painstaking work to achieve his final magical glory. All roaches are male to ensure sterility, and come complete with a leash set that clasps to the cockraoch's carapace to keep him from running amok"

read more | digg story

Republish censored sites on your site

2006-05-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

An Amnesty campaign that allows users to republish and spread sites that are being repressed on their own sites. You can get a badge that will dynamically show different excerpts from censored sites around the world and link back to irrepressible.info where you can learn more about the site in question and the campaign itself.

read more | digg story

American cops taped torturing drug suspect

2006-05-27T13:41:00.000-07:00

When Tennessee law enforcement officials showed up at the home of Lester Siler, who they suspected of drug use, they asked Lester's wife and son to leave. Then Lester exercised his constitutional right not to sign a consent to search his house, these officers spent the next two hours torturing him.

read more | digg story

2006-05-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

Call to Action and Petition - Six Apart, LiveJournal, and LJ Abuse.

If you want to see wider changes being made to LJ Abuse, please write to them. Tell them that this cannot be brushed off as an issue about default icons and breastfeeding. It is a problem with LiveJournal's culture.

Sign.

2006-05-26T16:11:00.000-07:00

Alleged hackers blackmail MySpace

Two teenagers in New York State have been take into police custody on charges of illegal computer access and attempted extortion after they allegedly threatened to shake down the Web site MySpace.com unless its operators paid them $150,000, prosecutors said.

Govt seminars ask clergy to lead sheep into passivity

2006-05-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

US government briefings to encourage pastors to guide their congregations into passivity and compliance with illegal governmental operations, and pass information from the congregations to the government.

read more | digg story

Six Apart forced to respond to breastfeeders\' complaints

2006-05-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

LJ\'s response to the boob nazis so far...

read more | digg story

2006-05-23T20:05:00.000-07:00

From my LJ, and regarding the LiveJournal Breastfeeding Fiasco:

On the flip side, I also get annoyed at people who get annoyed at people for protesting about something they care about. It doesn't really matter why they care about it, they don't have to justify themselves to you. I've seen this recently in some of the "nipplegate" discussions - LiveJournal is a private company so they can do whatever they want, deal with it. Well, yes, they're a private company. They can't actually do whatever they want as they're still bound by the law, but within those limits they can have whatever TOS they choose. And as users, we can speak out (or shout and scream) if we think that TOS and those rules are wrong, or poorly applied. Using the service of a company does not take away your right or ability to complain when you think something is wrong. Indeed, a company should be listening to its customers harder than it should listen to people who don't utilize it.

It's legal for Wal-Mart to use sweatshops, it's legal for Starbucks to sell "sweatshop" coffee, it's legal for all manner of companies to pollute the environment and screw over their workers. Of course, compared to these things, LiveJournal's TOS or abuse team problems are pretty insignificant. But part of LJ's business model, part of the reason we all use it, is that it builds up that sense of community. Without the community, quite a few of us wouldn't stay. If a company depends on its users and their communities for its popularity and success, it would be wise to listen to them. They may not owe any legal duty to do so, but it's a poor business decision not to.

Also quoted over here.

2006-05-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Why does LiveJournal Abuse hate breasts?

Breastfeeding moms are up in arms over LJ deeming the act of breastfeeding inappropriate for default user icons. LJ Abuse responds to their complaints by altering the wording of the FAQ to support their new anti-breast stance. Shit flies all over LJ, and beyond.

2006-05-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

More things I'm sure make us all really trust the wonderful US government.

"The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY."

2006-04-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'm amazed this blog keeps getting so many hits, considering how rarely I write anything on it. You may have noticed that I removed the comments when I got back from LA. I didn't check them out first, I'm just guessing from what others have told me about their blogs that I probably had a heap of drivel too. I really cannot be bothered to keep up with Melouise's insanity.

2006-03-18T18:59:00.000-08:00

V for Vendetta - see it!

2006-03-17T15:25:00.000-08:00

Maybe I should actually use this as a good old-fashioned web log, and post random news items which have caught my interest here, when I've already posted about five entries on my LJ and spammed my friends to death.

Teens look for privacy in public on MySpace.com.

The MySpace scandal at Mankato East Senior High School exploded from an older piece of technology, the telephone.

A parent called the principal, Don Poplau, and asked him if he'd seen the photos of kids from his school on MySpace. The photos showed students drinking and smoking. Poplau investigated, and later suspended two students from extracurricular activities.

Students were furious. What right, they asked, did school officials have to go online and view their personal Web pages?

Well, they're public pages, so they have every right. What right they had to suspend those pupils for something not done on school property or in school time is another matter.

Caught by the Net

Many youths are finding what they post solely for their friends at online social sites can put their education, job prospects and even themselves in harm's way.

I think it's scuzzy of schools to be Googling pupils or potential students, and scuzzier still to suspend them for things done in their personal time, but at the same time I have to wonder why these nitwits are posting all over the place with their full, real, names? How hard is it to give yourself a nickname or screen handle? Or to use something like LJ or GJ where you can lock anything that's actually sensitive, so only your friends can see it?

Oh well. I suppose I'm glad I didn't have the net when I was a teenager. Some things are better left scrawled in a private diary you keep under your bed.

Also: there's a new blog documenting the nonsense that LJ Abuse pulls on people. Check it out. Exposing LJ Abuse.

2006-03-04T06:09:00.000-08:00

At the moment this blog is here to let people know what's going on, since I keep getting messages asking what happened to my other LJ - which of course I can't answer on LJ. So here you go.

Melanie has started reading it already, also of course, and responding with more delusional ramblings. After a year and a half of attacking me, insulting me on boards I didn't post on, and claiming she was reporting me to the police for mentioning her name, she finally achieved "victory". Gosh, how impressed we all must be! She's not a crazy obsessive stalker who can't stop stirring up a drama she keeps saying she wants to let die, or anything like that. Dear me. To think that I once actually felt sorry for her.

The only point worth addressing is that I know what my suspension email from the LiveJournal Abuse Team said, thanks very much, and as well as the outside of LJ link from cdaaelives it included the URL to a friends locked post on cdaae talking about feminist-friendly alternatives to the word "cunt". LJA felt that it must have been about Melanie.

If people want to know what the background to all this crap is, this blog has some of the recent stuff, ED has some of the rest (with links to the LJ Drama posts), this is what I said about it in March last year, and here's Peter Karrie's statement - which Melanie keeps blithering about not being "a legal document", because she doesn't know what the phrase actually means. The attached statutory declaration is a legal document, signed under penalty of perjury.

Amusingly, if I was the malicious person Melanie thinks I am, the tags and text on that page would include phrases like Sam Vincent, Brad Swaile, and meet the master of vocal disguise.

2006-03-03T13:13:00.000-08:00

So, I should probably explain how I ended up with a Notice of No Contact with Meele to begin with.

After I banned her from my journal the first time, she used other accounts to leave more comments, which is a ban evasion and against the TOS. So, she was told she had a NONC against me, and couldn't mention me in any way or leave comments. This didn't stop her of course, and she's had more than 20 accounts suspended by LJ in the last year alone.

This was a one-way thing. She wasn't allowed to mention me, but I could still mention her. During the drama there were two or three more times when I publically addressed her bullshit on my LJ - bullshit that she was spreading on blogspot. On one occassion she wrote a long rant about me, and about Peter - one of those 30+ times when she said she was done with the drama and having nothing more to do with it, then just couldn't resist starting it up again after a week or two.

In this post, on her LiveJournal, she came out with the "he tried to seduce me" line again. I posted on my LJ one line - a quote from what she'd said about seduction before.

"Seducing means to charm someone into following you, like Eric and Christine. That's all he did." - Melanie Somers

I reported Melanie's LJ entry, and more comments she'd left me from yet another account which was quickly suspended. However, tired of dealing with her constant drama, LJ Abuse extended the NONC to cover me, to prevent me from saying anything about it on LJ when she breached the order and went off on an attention whore binge again.

I asked what rule I breached to get this Notice of No Contact.

I was told "From what we can determine, neither person is solely responsible for what can only be described as an ongoing flame war. The discussion on both sides is heated, and you have both responded to each other in negative fashions."

Oh, a flame war is against the rules?

Here's what the LJ Abuse Policy Document says about Flame Wars.

* Summary *

A conflict between two users where both users are equally responsible for harassing each other.

* Action *

No action required; response to complainant indicating that the Abuse Team will not intervene in flame wars. The response should indicate that if the user should take action to remove him or herself from the situation and then, if the situation persists, contact the Abuse Team again for further assistance. Upon a second report, in absence of other violations and providing the user has not participated in the situation since the initial report, it can be treated as one-sided harassment.

* Explanation *

We recognize that sometimes conflicts between people are simply unavoidable. We don't want to get involved in personal arguments; if two people are having a personal conflict (such as an argument in comments) and there are no other violations of the Terms of Service present, we don't think it's our place to "police" the situation. Instead, users should resolve the conflict themselves, such as by use of the journal security and comment control features.

So if neither party breaks the TOS, nothing is done. If one party breaks the TOS and earns herself an Notice of No Contact, the other party can get given one in spite of doing nothing against the rules or to break the TOS.

I didn't bother arguing the point because I knew enough about how LJ Abuse works from their suspension of cdaae13 for things posted before she was given a NONC.

Fast forward to the stuff below. They suspend yellow-finch for a spurious breach of her NONC, because they infer that it could only possibly be Melanie endlessly refreshing her LJ, there being no other crazies out there on LJ. They suspend me along with her because they have confused me with cdaae13.

I make a replacement LJ for myself, cdaaelives. I copy the text of an old post from my LJ on to a page on my personal site, because I want it to remain on the internet. I use this as my personal website URL in my user information on LJ. I do this only because I know that LJ does not consider links to sites outside of LJ to be breaches of any rules. They say they do not use evidence outside of LJ's servers when making their decisions.

LJ Abuse then apologize for their "grievous error" in suspending cdaae, and hope it won't interfere with my enjoyment of LiveJournal.

Then Melanie complains about the link on cdaaelives, and they suspend them both again.

I ask them WTF. They say that I am correct that "under normal circumstances of investigating violations of our Terms of Service, we do not take into account content that is outside of LiveJournal's servers."

And we are supposed to know that a NONC is not normal circumstances through our mysterious psychic powers?

"The notice is explicit in that it allows no mention of the individual in any way, shape or form. This includes inference to an individual and links about them that could point to content outside of LiveJournal."

The notice is explicit?

Here's what a LiveJournal Abuse Notice of No Contact says:

"This warning indicates that there should be no contact between you and otherusername, which encompasses any and all other journals held by this user, within the domain of livejournal.com. You may not write about her in your journal, or in any community journal, in any way, shape, or form. You may not make any comments in her journal, or in response to any comment she may post in any other journal, including community journals."

How does this inform one that it includes links pointing to content outside of LiveJournal? Where is the clue that the usual rules of LJ Abuse for investigating the TOS don't apply?

Then there's inference of course, which is what yellow-finch was suspended for. LJ Abuse inferred who they thought she was talking about... from nothing but their own thoughts. Must we always name who we are referring to, for fear of LJ Abuse inferring that we're talking about someone we shouldn't be mentioning?

From their later email (and I don't see why they couldn't include this line in the actual NONC, to make it absolutely clear before you breach it):

"To make this absolutely clear, you should not link, discuss, vent or post anything that could have any relation whatsoever to the individual(s) covered by the Notice of No Contact."

What does that mean, could have any relation whatsoever? Am I allowed to mention Canada? Am I allowed to say I'd like to go back to Toronto some time? How about discussing meeting performers at stage doors? Cosplay? Spaying and neutering programs? If my personal home page has a link anywhere on it to this blog, can I still link to my personal home page?

Will I get an answer?

2006-03-02T17:57:00.000-08:00

For those who are wondering:

The first suspension was because they thought I was yellow-finch. Melanie reported yellow-finch for a post in which yellow-finch referred to her hit logs and said she had a batshit stalker, whom she told to buzz off. Melanie felt that she was the only person who could possibly be refreshing yellow-finch's journal, and friends list, often enough for this to refer to anyone but herself. LJ Abuse apparently agreed. (They have a notice of no contact against each other.)

When they figured out I wasn't yellow-finch, they asked me to accept their apologies for "this grievous error", and hoped "that it does not further affect your enjoyment of LiveJournal's services."

In the meantime I'd made cdaaelives. Since cdaae wasn't there, I put the text of my March 2005 entry about Melanie Somers harassing Peter Karrie on my personal site, and assigned that as my website link in cdaaelives. LJ Abuse has always maintained that links to content outside of LJ were not a breach of anything. They say they do not consider material hosted outside of LJ's servers. The link was labeled only "website", so I didn't think it would be considered a breach. Indeed, Melanie had a link to a statement breaching the order many times. I don't think anyone bothered reporting her, because LJ Abuse had always ruled that they didn't care about outside links.

So, she reported the link, and they suspended cdaaelives.

Then they went into cdaae to look at friends only posts to see if there was a breach anywhere there - which they're not supposed to do, and usually if you report something in a friends only post they say they can't look at it because its friends only. However, they found the following entry from a couple of weeks ago:

"I really need a good selection of abusive words for someone, which aren't basically words to describe women or animals. I'm too feminist to call people cunts as insults (and why is it that calling someone a cunt is so much worse than calling them a dick?). Bitch and cow - that's just insulting animals. I'm leaning towards 'fetid heap polluting the genepool' but it just doesn't have the same ring, does it?"

In their infinite wisdom, and having dealt with Melanie for a year or so, they decided that this must be a reference to her. No one else, it seems, so fits the description of a "fetid heap polluting the genepool".

I protest this. I'm sure Melanie would be equally offended by the assumption.

2006-03-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

So, in the last 4 days I've been suspended, unsuspended with sincere apologies from LJ Abuse for their grevious error, and re-suspended again (even though links to content not on LJ never used to count). Will I rise from the dead again?

What if I linked to this blog, and this blog had a link about crazy Peter Karrie stalker Melanie Somers who refreshes my LJ(s) so many times in a day it's amazing she has time to do anything else? Would that be LJillegal?

2006-02-28T01:51:00.000-08:00

So isn't this fun!

LJ Abuse apparently thinks that yellow-finch and I are the same person, and that we broke the order of no contact with Melanie the crazy by obliquely referring to her in some way. They haven't explained what or why, or how come they think we're the same person. We await further enlightenment.

Since so many people are asking, and I can't mention her to explain it on LJ, I'm using this blog to keep people updated on the situation.

We have no clue why alleykitten was suspended - it's been over 7 hours and they haven't even contacted her to tell her.

2005-09-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be way paranoid about mentioning her on LJ because of the notice of no contact, but the me1983 account was 100% definitely her - both accounts were suspended because she broke the notice of no contact by leaving me comments as me1983.