OMG.. My site's a dump site?

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Phalanx
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Post by Phalanx »

Enough of this bloody TOS nitpicking, already! This is pointless.

The non-linkage from the front page was a minor issue, and more of a misunderstanding than a violation. At any rate, it's clear Clay was always acting in good faith, so there should have been no need for all this ruckus at all, an email reminder would have sufficed.

At any rate, Clay should be getting his account back soon with an apology, so that is hopefully one issue resolved.

The only good outcome out of this it that at least that outdated TOS gets updated...

Speaking of which... Kelly asked me to post these modified versions of the TOA and AUP:
New Keenspace Acceptable Use Policy wrote:<pre>
ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY

This Acceptable Use Policy document, including the following list of Prohibited Activities, is an integral part of your Hosting Agreement with KEENSPACE. If you engage in any of the activities prohibited by this AUP document KEENSPACE may suspend or terminate your account.

KEENSPACE's Acceptable Use Policy (the "Policy") for KEENSPACE Services is designed to help protect KEENSPACE, KEENSPACE's customers and the Internet community in general from irresponsible or, in some cases, illegal activities. The Policy is a non-exclusive list of the actions prohibited by KEENSPACE. KEENSPACE reserves the right to modify the Policy at any time, effective upon posting at: http://www.keenspace.com/aup.html

Prohibited Uses of KEENSPACE Systems and Services:

1. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws.

2. Sending Unsolicited Bulk Email ("UBE", "spam"). The sending of any form of Unsolicited Bulk Email through KEENSPACE's servers is prohibited. Likewise, the sending of UBE from another service provider advertizing a web site, email address or utilizing any resource hosted on KEENSPACE's servers, is prohibited. KEENSPACE accounts or services may not be used to solicit customers from, or collect replies to, messages sent from another Internet Service Provider where those messages violate this Policy or that of the other provider.

3. Running Unconfirmed Mailing Lists. Subscribing email addresses to any mailing list without the express and verifiable permission of the email address owner is prohibited. All mailing lists run by KEENSPACE customers must be Closed-loop ("Confirmed Opt-in"). The subscription confirmation message received from each address owner must be kept on file for the duration of the existence of the mailing list. Purchasing lists of email addresses from 3rd parties for mailing to from any KEENSPACE-hosted domain, or referencing any KEENSPACE account, is prohibited.

4. Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP or the AUP of any other Internet Service Provider, which includes, but is not limited to, the facilitation of the means to send Unsolicited Bulk Email, or initiation of pinging, flooding, mail-bombing, or denial of service attacks.

5. Operating an account on behalf of, or in connection with, or reselling any service to, persons or firms listed in the Spamhaus Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database at http://www.spamhaus.org.

6. Unauthorized attempts by a user to gain access to any account or computer resource not belonging to that user (e.g., "cracking").

7. Obtaining or attempting to obtain service by any means or device with intent to avoid payment.

8. Unauthorized access, alteration, destruction, or any attempt thereof, of any information of any KEENSPACE customers or end-users by any means or device.

9. Knowingly engage in any activities designed to harass, or that will cause a denial-of-service (e.g., synchronized number sequence attacks) to any other user whether on the KEENSPACE services or on another provider's network.

10. Using KEENSPACE's Services to interfere with the use of the KEENSPACE network by other customers or authorized users.


Customer Responsibility for Customer's Users

Each KEENSPACE customer is responsible for the activities of its users and, by accepting service from KEENSPACE, is agreeing to ensure that its customers/representatives or end-users abide by this Policy. Complaints about customers/representatives or end-users of an KEENSPACE customer will be forwarded to the KEENSPACE customer's postmaster for action. If violations of the KEENSPACE Acceptable Use Policy occur, KEENSPACE reserves the right to terminate services with or take action to stop the offending customer from violating KEENSPACE's AUP as KEENSPACE deems appropriate, without notice.
</pre>
New Terms of Service Agreement wrote: KEENSPACE TERMS OF AGREEMENT

This Agreement is entered into by YOU, ("CARTOONIST"), on the one part, and KEENSPACE, ("KEENSPACE"), a division of KEENSPOT, a California general partnership, on the other.

1. Copyrights -- The characters, site design, and strips of the CARTOONIST's cartoons/comic strips are the intellectual property of the CARTOONIST who retains ownership of the Copyrights on such items.

2. Agreement -- KEENSPACE agrees to give the submitting CARTOONIST free webhosting and promotion. CARTOONIST agrees to place KEENSPACE'S ad banners and promotional materials on CARTOONIST'S website in the proper locations. CARTOONIST also agrees to follow KEENSPACE's Acceptible Use Policy.

3. Term -- The term of this agreement commences upon the execution of this Agreement and shall terminate within thirty (30) days after the delivery of a notice of termination by the CARTOONIST to KEENSPACE, and thirty (30) days after delivery of a notice of termination by KEENSPACE to the CARTOONIST. KEENSPACE reserves the right to immedately terminate without notice the agreement in cases including, but not limited to, violations of KEENSPACE's Acceptible Use Policy.

4. Indemnity -- CARTOONIST agrees to indemnify and hold KEENSPACE and all of it's partners (and their partners) harmless from any liability, damages, actions, costs, and expenses incurred on account of the content of the CARTOONIST'S material, including but not limited to defamation suits, and including but not limited to reasonable attorneys fees and costs of defense. KEENSPACE reserves the right to refuse to publish any material which, in KEENSPACE'S discretion, would increase KEENSPACE'S risk of liability.

5. Mediation/Arbitration -- The parties agree to mediate through an independent mediator selected by CARTOONIST any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to this Agreement, or the breach thereof, the costs of mediation to be shared equally. If mediation does not resolve the entire controversy or claim, then the remainder shall be resolved by arbitration under the provisions of the California Arbitration Act, section 1280 et. seq. of the California Code of Civil Procedure, or any successor statute.

6. Attorneys Fees -- The prevailing party shall be entitled to attorneys fees in addition to other costs incurred in any litigation or arbitration necessary to enforce the provisions of this agreement or matters arising out of this agreement.

7. Notices -- Except as otherwise expressly provided by law, notices or other communications required or permitted by this agreement or by law to be given to either party shall be in writing and shall be deemed given when personally delivered to the party to whom it is directed, or, in lieu of such personal service, when deposited in the United States mail, first-class postage prepaid, addressed to the party shown near its signature below, or to such change of address noticed in the manner provided in this section.

8. Binding Effect -- This agreement is binding upon and shall inure to the benefit of the transferees, successors and assigns of the respective parties.

9. Counterparts/Facsimile -- This Agreement may be signed in counterparts and shall have the same force and effect as if all parties executed one document, and signatures may be provided by facsimile transmission.
And hopefully that's all for tonight.
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Risky
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Post by Risky »

Phalanx wrote:Enough of this bloody TOS nitpicking, already! This is pointless.

The non-linkage from the front page was a minor issue, and more of a misunderstanding than a violation. At any rate, it's clear Clay was always acting in good faith, so there should have been no need for all this ruckus at all, an email reminder would have sufficed.

At any rate, Clay should be getting his account back soon with an apology, so that is hopefully one issue resolved.

The only good outcome out of this it that at least that outdated TOS gets updated...
Good idea... doesn't really cover the issue though, does it? Except "decisions may be arbitrary and sudden" has been added... which is of course required in services like this... but perhaps something should be added that would prevent some cartoonist from doing the same in the future?

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Kisai
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Post by Kisai »

STrRedWolf wrote:Clay, these are the reasons why I've removed your site:

Faub reported me to the account, and I checked it. While you may have had ads on every page, there was no comic on the main page itself, nor any accessible archives from the main page. Reports say it was being heavily linked to, and that for me (and Kisai here) triggers a "This is a dump site/file locker" which is a violation of the TOS -- KeenSpace is for comics, not for a file locker, warez, or movies.

If you had comics on the account, but seperate lines of comics, you are welcome to apply for seperate accounts and use Autokeen to manage their archives. If you had fan artwork relating to those comics, and they were linked with those comics, they would be OK -- I nor Kisai wouldn't mind them. BUT if you didn't have them linked via the front page, then you were trying to hide something. The bandwidth usage tipped Faub off, who reported it. I checked it, and terminated it.

Your account was archived before it was removed. It is our policy to do so -- I know some folks may be wrongly removed. I also know some folks send up files that clog up our HD, or some may want their art back.

You have not been banned from KeenSpace. We've had you here before, and I'm not going to boot you out when something can be worked out. The best thing you can do now is contact me. I'll leave a message in your PM box here, or see about emailing you, so we can discuss a solution.

Excuse me? I've known about uwakimono for YEARS, don't you think I would have removed it if it violated something Kelly?

This is unacceptable, check the webalizer log files or even the web server log files and you'd see that NOTHING was violated. The only oversite would have been the main index page. Clay linked to the pages from sexylosers.com NOT THE IMAGES.

There are multiple comic series on the site which the autokeen system would not be able to track. We know that autokeen doesn't track when an author doesn't use autokeen and using autokeen is optional anyway.

The current "guide" goes by day, so people who are violating TOS by altering the ad code would in fact drop them selves off the list if they change it.

That is NOT the same as bandwidth.

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Post by X space coyote X »

If violations of the KEENSPACE Acceptable Use Policy occur, KEENSPACE reserves the right to terminate services with or take action to stop the offending customer from violating KEENSPACE's AUP as KEENSPACE deems appropriate, without notice.
So basically, something like this can happen again, and be justified? Shoot first, ask questions later? I don't want to hear anyone say "Clay should've e-mailed/PM'ed Kelly about this!" when Kelly didn't contact Clay before deleting the account like the fineprint said would happen if a term violation occured (though it doesn't say that anymore). If he had done that, this thread wouldn't have happened. Other Keenspacers have the right to know something like this happened and can happen to them.

Don't try to make Clay look like the bad guy when he didn't do ANYTHING to violate the TOS. If there were new rules, the TOS should've been updated. We can't read your mind.

I like Keenspace and all, but you're seriously shooting yourself in the foot several times here, Kelly. Can't you even admit you made a mistake?

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Post by Oualawouzou »

So basically, something like this can happen again, and be justified?
To be frank, about any TOS (or TOA, or whatever other synonym) has a clause like that. This is to protect whoever is providing the service from people exploiting loopholes/grey areas/etc. in their rules.

ETA: And yes, it means that mistakes will be made. For some reason, I think the present situation would have been resolved much faster and with much less drama had the user contacted an admin privately instead of publicly. When you confront anybody publicly about a possible mistake without trying to work something out in private first, that person goes into defensive mode and the only thing you're ensuring is that the problem will take longer to get resolved and it'll be more painful for everybody involved.

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Post by X space coyote X »

Oualawouzou wrote:When you confront anybody publicly about a possible mistake
It WAS a mistake, and a careless one. That's why attention was brought to it.

Maybe this thread should just be locked now.

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Post by Oualawouzou »

Alright, remove "possible" and what I said is still true. I wasn't commenting on this even in particular, hence the "possible", since it applies to both real and perceived errors.

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Post by X space coyote X »

Everyone makes mistakes, but Kelly isn't taking ANY responsibility for his mistake and tried to defend his decision by bringing up unwritten, unspoken rules and accused Clay of trying to "hide" things (hide what? his comics? on a comic host?), which is what's annoying me the most right now.

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Post by Ghastly »

Oualawouzou wrote:
So basically, something like this can happen again, and be justified?
To be frank, about any TOS (or TOA, or whatever other synonym) has a clause like that. This is to protect whoever is providing the service from people exploiting loopholes/grey areas/etc. in their rules.
However, it should be noted that the law will not recognize a contract that is vague.

So a contract that says "we'll do whatever we want for whatever reasons we want when and how we want" is not legally binding.

Contracts have to be exact and precise to be valid even if that means there are loopholes to be exploited. Infact the more exact and precise the fewer the loopholes.

That's why contracts are long and boring and hammered out endlessly by lawyers, the only people souless enough not to be sucked completely dry by the process of drafting a contract.

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Post by STrRedWolf »

If this thead doesn't calm down, I may be forced to lock it.

First: I GOOFED. Clay raised the TOA up and called on it, and I'm bound by it -- he had to have 30 days notice. He however had several items hotlinked that were not accessible through the front page. This would of been better handled by me mailing him and having him fix his site.

Once Clay applies again, and notifies me he has verified the signup, I'll create his account ASAP and move the files back over.

Second: Because of this, the TOA is being modified, and a seperate Acceptable Use Policy is being drafted. The TOA is showing it's age -- it was drafted well before spam was widespread. The modifications will actually allow me and Kisai to actually remove accounts without notice, usually in cases where we get spam reports and find that they are legit. The AUP is actually a nessisary addition in this day and age.

THE NEW TERMS OF AGREEMENT AND ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY IS STILL IN A DRAFT STAGE. So far, the only changes are to allow us to actually operate in line with standard practices for ISP's (aka it would damage us if we let a spammer live for 30 days before we remove the account).

WHEN IT IS READY: I will personally post the changes publicly in an offical post to Annoucements and put up modified pages.
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Post by X space coyote X »

Great, Kelly, except one thing:
STrRedWolf wrote:He however had several items hotlinked that were not accessible through the front page.
What did he have hotlinked? Linking to an HTML file isn't hotlinking, and it isn't bandwidth theft. (Sorry if this is nitpicking, but it still sounds like you're trying to make it look like he did something wrong.)
STrRedWolf wrote:Once Clay applies again
You mean IF he applies again.

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Post by Grey_the_angel »

X space coyote X wrote:Great, Kelly, except one thing:
STrRedWolf wrote:He however had several items hotlinked that were not accessible through the front page.
What did he have hotlinked? Linking to an HTML file isn't hotlinking, and it isn't bandwidth theft. (Sorry if this is nitpicking, but it still sounds like you're trying to make it look like he did something wrong.)
STrRedWolf wrote:Once Clay applies again
You mean IF he applies again.
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Yar... lass, ye won the battle. don't go around pissing off the mods. teh can 'n will boot ye ass if need be. they don't have'ta be supporting anybody, ya know. :-? *sails off*
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Post by X space coyote X »

We speak normal english here, if you haven't noticed. And I think I've been asking legitimate questions here.

I've been planning on moving my comic to my own webspace anyway. They can go ahead and boot me. I've always been a zealous defender, supporter, and, uh, recommend-er of Keenspace. I think I've done my part and can now move on.

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Post by Gobo »

First: I GOOFED. Clay raised the TOA up and called on it, and I'm bound by it -- he had to have 30 days notice. He however had several items hotlinked that were not accessible through the front page.
Summarizing: "Oops I'm sorry, but you were doing something wrong there, but you couldn't have know about that."



And IANAL, but you might want to put something in the new rules about users having to check those rules every now and then or you notifying them of updates. Otherwise, you run the risk of your changes not being applicable to current users.[/quote]

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Post by Risky »

X space coyote X wrote:We speak normal english here, if you haven't noticed.
Darn noobs thinking we speak normal english. Snootchies.

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Kisai
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Post by Kisai »

Enough.

I've restored the site myself.

Kelly don't touch it again please.

Everyone else, nothing else to see here, move on.

Locked