Oh, for Heaven's Sake...

[liz_marcs]

Dear 6A/LJ,

When I said I wanted clarification of your policies, this was not what I meant.

I meant clarification, not "the ToS hasn't really changed" followed by a bunch of vague statements that still doesn't actually say anything and still doesn't clarify what is and is not acceptable on LJ.

In case you're wondering, the issue is all about how you are interpreting the ToS. Since we can't read minds, we need you to tell us point blank. Which you're not.

And no, we're not whining. This is what happens when your user base has stopped trusting you. We're looking for loopholes where you could conceivably screw us over. This is about protecting ourselves, which obviously clashes with your need to protect your interests.

Really, the comments to the post say it better than I can at this point.

Look, answers in blunt English would be good here. Even if they're answers I don't like, something more than these vague statements and transparency that's about as transparent as mud is not an answer.

*throws up hands*

So much for that clarification...

Comments

[first-spike.livejournal.com]

To my mind, there's no contradiction, because the actors in the two clauses are different: in the first one, it's "you", ie, the person writing the profile; in the second, it's "we", as in, LiveJournal staff.

Barak isn't saying anything new; he's pointing to something that's been on the edit-profile page as long as I recall. If he's at fault, it's for using the passive voice instead of saying, "when you list your interests, you should do so as if you're saying, 'I like x' or 'I'm in favour of x'...". Burr86 and Barak (in his latest post) both say how LJ will interpret that list when push comes to shove.

It may seem inconsistent, but actually, it's a rehash of a system design principle: be generous in what you accept, and conservative in what you send. That's conservative in a non-political sense, by the way: in engineering terms, it means stick to the published standard and avoid options, extensions, and other non-standard usage. It might be a "geek thing", but actually, it works pretty well in human interactions, too.

The problem in the LJ context is that people tend to list X as an interest when they mean "the use of X in literature to evoke a reaction" or "society's views on X", perhaps because that's the shorthand in their community of interest. Somewhat flippant example: I might list "rape" as an interest; LJ's reminder might prompt me to say "growing rape" or "canola" instead. In any event, when the Jihad on Innocence comes knocking, LJ will (say burr86 and barak) consider my profile as a whole, including my bio (farmer) and other interests (wheat, oats, manure), in order to decide whether there's a case to answer. Stupid example, but enough to show how both clauses have a role and they are not inconsistent.

[blade-girl.livejournal.com]

That is a distinction so fine as to be nearly microscopic. And in an environment where many users don't even speak English, it's unacceptably unclear.

If they meant to instruct us to use the interests as a list of things that we like or support, they should damned well have stated that outright. Given the stakes, there is no excuse for not making their expectations crystal clear.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

If nothing else, they really do need a list of "terms" in the ToS where everything is spelled out, even if it's spelled out in legalese.

The thing is, Barak's posts are notoriously imprecise, which leads all of us to fanwank that he means X-Y even though he said X. Given the recent problems, people want him to either say X and precisely define what he means by X, or to say that he really means X-Y and define what he means by X-Y.

Now I an understand the reluctance to paint themselves in a corner, but people need at least a baseline to work with...which we don't have.