At one time h2o was being spammed with porn. The h2o admin found out where the person was spamming from, notified their university about their activities and had the University track the student down. You went so far as to post the address of the dean of the University and encouraged h2o posters to write and complain about this student's activities.
Hello InfoOverload, if you review my post to Simon you'll see that I'm not against taking action provided there is a policy in place.
In the instance you mentioned, H2O's written policy was against pornography. Specific reasons for the policy were that H2O was a site frequented by Jehovah's Witnesses of all ages and porn is deemed by many including mental health professionals as inappropriate for young people. Not only was a policy against porn in place but specific reasons were sited for the policy.
Next, an online agreement was placed in H2O's Forum Participation Policy (FPP) that states user agrees that his or her participation is based upon adherence to the FPP. In essence, H2O had a "shrinkwrap" agreement that was "wrapped" around its free forum services. This was to give moderators the "teeth" to act against violators of the FPP.
I agree that it's Simon's site and he can do anything he darned well wants, but my only point was that since this is a site that invites the public that he should have policies. Heck, if he wants to post a policy that states "participant agrees to be humiliated publicly, and even turned into his employer or university if I so choose", and has an agreement that registered users are bound to his policies, then he can do that.
It's noteworthy that ALL of H2O's policies were designed for the benefit of users and not, as some have charged, to feed the "egos" and "power trips" of moderators or site management. I challenge anyone to point to one posted policy of H2O's that does NOT benefit the users for whom H2O was created?
In summary, there was a time when as you said "h2o was being spammed with porn." SPAMMING is probably considered the more heinous offense by most forum administrators on the internet, because it tramples the rights of all users to benefit from open discussions. It interferes with discussions. It destroys the delicate social fabric of online forums, so there might as well not be online forums unless the spamming is stopped.
Knowing fully well there are minors who are on the site engaged in discussions -- and the site is religious in nature -- makes the crime of spam all more heinous, when one thus spams with PORN! Posting pornography that is accessible by young people, IMO, is a crime of morally attacking them. We know that literal physical assault of youth is criminal, as http://www.silentlambs.org/ has brought to the forefront of our attention.
But what about the crime of psychological "rape" against a youth by exposing their precious and defensely minds to the moral filth and decay that is brought this world to ruins?
Finally, H2O never mentioned to the university that if you find the person, to place this on his academic record and make sure the university notes he is taking time away from his studies. Same would have held true if it were a corporation. WE SIMPLY NOTIFY THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE FACTS. For all we know, a janitor or outsider is using the facilities to post the porn. In like manner, for all Simon knows, an outside consultant or family member of an employee is tunnelling into the corporation through access to its proxy, like a great many people in the JW reform movement do to cover their tracks. There are so many available I.P. addresses floating around large corporations that are borrowed by consultants, temps, family members and friends of employees including executives, so difficult to trace who is the "guilty" party(ies).
All H2O ever did in this instance of clear activity that violated its posted policies is to inform the administrator at the point of origion of offending transmissions. All that administrator could do is to try to determine who was involved. Perhaps it was some dirty old fart who took breaks between sweeping floors late at night to grab a terminal to logon to the net? Who knows? Our concern was to alert the administrator so that offending transmissions were STOPPED, even if it meant for the administrator to block the I.P. address(es) we reported from accessing H2O. Perhaps they never caught the person, but whoever logs onto the net suddenly finds they cannot access H2O due to some sort of "proxy error" they aren't sure is at their end, or our end? Who knows? At least we stopped the porn, and protected those in our charge from its corrupting influence.
Derrick
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
-- William Blake (Auguries of Innocence)
