Why?

Sarah Cooper58 said:You weren't warning anyone about COVID—you were just spreading panic by repeating the same old story over and over. Honestly, I got so fed up that I moved over to Reddit where we could actually have a normal conversation about everything... just everything...

That’s exactly what I’m going to do now—I don't need this.

Well, regarding the NNNI thread on Reddit, it has that same "panic-mongering" tone as those folks back in February last year when a few of us were posting...😍

Sandra Brown18 said:Are you honestly suggesting that the Women’s Corner subforum is some kind of joke? Is every single topic and debate on ZK considered unserious, which is why people are allowed to chat about riding streetcars, ferries, or buses there? Why on earth would public figures be any less protected than, say, major banks—which I’m not even naming specifically, just making general points when I critique them?

I am requesting that the forum rules explicitly state which subforums are deemed "serious" versus "unserious," and precisely what we are permitted to discuss in each one. I also want a list of specific terminology that is restricted to certain sections.
Nothing should happen without clear rules.
Furthermore, I’d like a formal definition of what constitutes a "serious discussion."
If the goal is to make the Politics section "serious" by whatever standard you're using, then 90% of the posts there would need to be deleted because they don't meet that threshold for "serious" debate.
Be careful what you wish for; it might just come back to haunt you.

Maybe go look up the actual definition of gossip before you try to compare a gossip thread to a topic over in the Economics section.

And since this is my second post to you, let me just get this out of the way... if people were required to identify themselves on the COVID threads—where you were such a shining star—I wouldn't have spent nearly a year staying under the radar.
Best,

Sarah Cooper58 said:So, here’s the post—written a few years after the fact—from the woman who actually went through it. She's expressing some doubt about whether everything was handled according to protocol, specifically regarding the legal request for intellectual property and all that...

http://www.example.com/post...postcount=3849

Thanks. I guess I find it a little strange that she didn't feel the need to verify if everything followed the official procedure mentioned in the letter, especially since she already hired an attorney. But, oh well, it's probably not the main point. You did a great job digging this up, by the way.
ps
Now I'm just curious about who usamljen Rudy from 2014 actually was, but I suppose I'll have to look into that myself whenever I get a spare moment. 🙂

As for the topic at hand, I might add a few thoughts regarding the PDF Policy:

- maybe start by issuing warnings (you'd be surprised how much that actually works), then move to yellow cards, and only then go for the red ones. If you could just align the enforcement so that, as a user, I don't have to worry about which specific moderator is on duty... because I'd like to know exactly what to expect for the same violation in the same place.

- please don't issue cards to forum members just because you're debating them; if they seem worth it, maybe suggest a different moderator. (Personally, I think being that petty would be such a massive failure that I'd rather hang myself with a mouse cord than do that as a mod).

- let's not label every slight difference of opinion as "trolling." If there's a suspicion that someone is trolling, maybe don't just mechanically penalize the post, but instead judge whether it's actually disrupting the flow of conversation or if it's just one or two posts that aren't pulling anyone else down. Maintaining a smooth, readable discussion where people feel free to speak is probably more important than making sure everyone gets hit with a penalty in a super pedantic way.

Try to look at the big picture and not just sanitize every single thread. Moderate the conversation itself, rather than just picking apart individual posts.

There's more I could say, but I don't really feel like typing anymore right now. I think I'll go hunt down usamljen Rudy from 2014 instead. 😍

To sum things up, just like Beljki said—one link points to a user who’s already questioning if this even involves the forum, while the other points to someone where there’s clearly no connection at all, because either she made the whole thing up (since anyone with even a shred of knowledge on the subject can see how thin that story is, and people were skeptical from the jump), or someone actually filed a defamation lawsuit serious enough that the police issued a warrant for the site to hand over IP addresses... which, of course, the site then has to comply with.

For those of you starting to panic—99.99% of regular people with an IP address aren't capable of doing anything significant. The hardcore fanatics would need a very close friend working at a major ISP like AT&T or Verizon who's willing to risk getting fired just to peek at who's hiding behind an IP address... though it seems the higher-ups at those companies would definitely notice if an employee was snooping.

If the police were involved at any point, we're talking about a defamation suit that has nothing to do with the forum itself, and once there's a valid warrant, every provider is legally required to cough up the data.