TOS and Abuse Policy document suggestions
We can complain about individual cases of unfair suspensions but what practical suggests does anyone have to change the TOS or Abuse Policy document to make the workings of LJ Abuse clearer?
It was suggested in a comment below that the TOS should be cut down because no part other than this is necessary:
"You agree that LiveJournal.com, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, journal, or account, and remove and discard any content within the Service, for any reason"
I'm sure some of us have some more specific suggestions than that!
People cannot be expected to follow rules which are unspoken and which deviate from the usual way of doing things or plain common sense.
Harassment is not defined in the policy document which allows LJ Abuse to adopt an extremely wide definition of the word. They also use "incitement to harass." As they've used it against communities which posted pictures of non-LJ users found on Google and other sites, saying these were incitement to harass the anonymous people pictured, they must be using a wide definition of that term too. We are left thinking that harassment = anything LJ Abuse takes against.
Notices of No Contact are described as " A solution used by the Abuse Team prohibiting two users (who cannot keep the peace between each other by any other means) prohibiting them from having further contact on LiveJournal, or from discussing each other in any way on LiveJournal. Violation of a Notice of No Contact is punishable by termination."
cdaae was suspended for breaking a Notice of No Contact. She gives the details here.
She writes:
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?
As far as I know she didn't, and neither did yellow-finch: Does LJ Abuse ever give anyone a straight answer?
I also feel that abuse team member's ability to read locked and private entries should be addressed in either the Abuse policy document or LJ's privacy policy. LJ Abuse has declined to take action on locked entries before, saying they can't read them, but it is obvious they can and do.
If you can't post about your suspended account here feel free to post about it on my blog.
It was suggested in a comment below that the TOS should be cut down because no part other than this is necessary:
"You agree that LiveJournal.com, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, journal, or account, and remove and discard any content within the Service, for any reason"
I'm sure some of us have some more specific suggestions than that!
People cannot be expected to follow rules which are unspoken and which deviate from the usual way of doing things or plain common sense.
Harassment is not defined in the policy document which allows LJ Abuse to adopt an extremely wide definition of the word. They also use "incitement to harass." As they've used it against communities which posted pictures of non-LJ users found on Google and other sites, saying these were incitement to harass the anonymous people pictured, they must be using a wide definition of that term too. We are left thinking that harassment = anything LJ Abuse takes against.
Notices of No Contact are described as " A solution used by the Abuse Team prohibiting two users (who cannot keep the peace between each other by any other means) prohibiting them from having further contact on LiveJournal, or from discussing each other in any way on LiveJournal. Violation of a Notice of No Contact is punishable by termination."
cdaae was suspended for breaking a Notice of No Contact. She gives the details here.
She writes:
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?
As far as I know she didn't, and neither did yellow-finch: Does LJ Abuse ever give anyone a straight answer?
I also feel that abuse team member's ability to read locked and private entries should be addressed in either the Abuse policy document or LJ's privacy policy. LJ Abuse has declined to take action on locked entries before, saying they can't read them, but it is obvious they can and do.
If you can't post about your suspended account here feel free to post about it on my blog.