Comments Guidelines
Groklaw is a noncommercial site. It's my home on the internet, and just like if I invited you to my home, I'd appreciate it if you helped keep it clean, tidy and a friendly place to visit.
The Groklaw goal has always been civil speech and devotion to the truth, even when discussing those to whom we are opposed. Especially then. Groklaw has never been just a news site, although it is a news site, because we have a purpose: to unFUD the FUD by laying out the facts. We pool our knowledge and work as a group. Our discussions require tolerance and politeness, so that we can focus on our goal.
We don't need hatefulness, or crudity, or venom. The truth is enough.
While I welcome your comments, kindly keep them on the topics at hand. I reserve the right to moderate, although I have no duty to do so. You are responsible for your comments. This is a legal research and antiFUD site and we work as a community on projects. Therefore, divisive topics are not appropriate here. Keep in mind that Groklaw has visitors from all over the world. I would like everyone to feel at home, so please stick to the one thing that we share in common, an interest in legal cases in the news.
Consequently, I will delete any nasty or obscene remarks, any obvious
trolling, any personal attacks, any illegal suggestions, any URLs to
loathsome content or dangerous or annoying scripts, at a minimum. I reserve the right to remove user accounts as well. I will also
remove misleading or incorrect statements or links thereto made by persons
having an interest in the stock price of any company involved in any of the cases we cover on Groklaw, and no permission is granted to any such persons to reproduce the content of Groklaw. Please don't leave links to any such websites either. I don't want Groklaw used for that, nor do I waive my author's moral rights. The Groklaw site is copyrighted by Pamela Jones, but unless otherwise noted, my articles (but not the comments) are released under a Creative Commons license, attribution, noncommercial no-derivatives 3.0. Note that we have guest articles too sometimes, and you'll have to note whatever licenses they are released under, which could sometimes be straight copyright. The license on my articles means they may be reproduced elsewhere for noncommercial purposes with attribution, and as an explanatory note, when it says noncommercial, I mean that I don't want you using my work for any commercial purpose, including trying to affect the stock price for your benefit. More details regarding the license.
I'd like you to update the articles if I do, so they are accurately representing Groklaw; and while I release my articles under the CC license, Groklaw does not endorse and is not associated or affiliated with, or responsible for, the content of any other website, and you agree to make that clear if you reproduce my article(s) and to indemnify and hold me and Groklaw harmless for any content you choose to reproduce from Groklaw on your website. Comments on Groklaw are copyrighted by their authors and no one may copy, modify, reproduce, index (including comment message numbers and thread pointers), or distribute the comments from this site or deep link to comments on this site without permission. An occasional link in accord with fair use is acceptable.
So, no defamation. No threats. No profanity. No pretending you don't work for a company being discussed, if you do. Be honest, please, and participate as who you are. No unsupported insults/allegations. No legal advice, no false statements of fact, please. No comment spam. Humor
is okay, within reason, but this a working site, not a playpen. We are
trying to avoid distractions. If you just want to hang out and act silly,
please do so -- but somewhere else. Puns and other word play and parody are not silly and are always welcome. I had to add that. If Groklaw got too serious, it'd be hard to do it day in and day out. Please remember that Groklaw has a purpose that I believe is serious and important, and many lawyers, judges, and CEOs read Groklaw, and I want them to feel comfortable here and to be undistracted from our purpose in inviting them here.
Here's a list of the basic things I would request you to remember:
- Please don't respond to trolls.
- Don't be one either.
- No foul language or links to porn or other such things. That includes initials and ****s. I can figure it out, and it is no different in effect therefore. I just really don't enjoy reading that day after day. So if you would humor me, I'd be very grateful.
- No images are to be uploaded.
- No ads.
- No violations of anyone's copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets or patents. That would mean, in addition to other things, don't post entire articles without the author's permission.
- Please don't post anyone's private email without permission. It's not nice. It's also a violation of copyright. Especially don't post anyone's email address (or meat space address either) without permission. They will get spam, and you know how awful that is.
- No personal attacks on anyone, friend, foe, or each other. I want Groklaw to always be a pleasant site, where we can relax and enjoy our work and our interaction. If we are civil to each other, the Golden Rule, if you will, we'll enjoy Groklaw more and we'll get more work done too.
- Disparate viewpoints are fine, as long as they are expressed politely and are not designed to troll. I am the final arbiter of what I think constitutes trolling, because somebody has to be. And it's my site, so I have to be the one who decides. I try to be fair and to distinguish between trolls and new folks who just aren't up to speed yet on the stories. I am virtually guaranteed to make mistakes sometimes, being an imperfect human. But I'll do my best. If you don't enjoy Groklaw, you are free to start your own website, but you are not free to disrupt mine.
- No suggestions to do anything illegal or instructions on how to do so or links to material that is illegal or promotes illegal activities.
- Please remember that those who are not necessarily friendly to Groklaw visit too. Please keep that in mind and use good judgment.
- No political debates or religious flames. There are plenty of places to do that on the Net. Groklaw is not the appropriate place. It works against our stated purpose, which is to work together smoothly.
- No stock advice.
- No misrepresentation of who you are. If you work for Microsoft or one of its many support organizations, for example, or for SCO please say so. If you don't, and I realize you are just pretending to be a member of the FOSS community, I reserve the right to remove your membership.
- Don't give legal advice. The only legal advice I ever give is: ask your lawyer.
If you see a comment that is offensive or that violates our standards, please email me and let me know. This is a site run by volunteers, so I depend on you to let me know when there is a problem needing my attention. If you leave a comment and later wish you could delete it, if you contact me, I'll try to do it for you, assuming I have the time. If you send me a list of a hundred comments, I won't have time for something like that, so think before you hit the send button. You grant Groklaw the right to display your comments on Groklaw by leaving them, and we have no obligation to delete comments for any reason. I think that's everything, but I reserve the right to expand this list as needed, so check back here for updates, which will hopefully be few. Last Updated Friday, January 11 2008 @ 04:46 PM EST
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