mbstone

This is an excellent reason to elect a lawyer to the TB. IAAL, and IMHO the present TOS is a model of ambiguity.

What legal effect does this statement have? Are TOS binding on posters/FT members? What does the phrase "we'd say" mean? Do we say, or do we not say? A court would probably say that we didn't say.

Fortunately, it's hard to see the issue of ownership of FT posts ever becoming a significant legal issue, either for FT or for any individual poster. Just don't post chapters of your book here, or write a book entitled "My Collected FT Trip Reports."

VPescado

I disagree strongly. If an auhor is willing to share a chapter of a book (as many do on amazon.com for example) with FT - do we want to prevent that from happening due to our TOS being poorly worded.

And why shouldn't someone be allowed to publish their memoirs of living large off of loyalty programs and use their Trip Reports as part of the story. Come to think of it - thats a good idea.

mbstone

I should have said -- don't post your content here unless and until the TOS are updated and reworded.

VPescado

I hope that I haven't given the impression that I would advocate changing the TOS so that stealing another poster's content was acceptable. To be clear - I want posters to retain ownership of their original content (and by definition, to retain ownership, they must have had ownership to begin with).

Radioman

Hi
Its ok. I was just showing that things do happen and have happened.

regards
RadioMan

missydarlin

I am in complete agreement with bhatnasx.

missydarlin

I've been trying really hard to stay out of the clique discussion, and I'm sure this will just give fodder to those who have already chosen to assign me to a clique ... but here it goes anyway.

Dirty little secret?

I'm not sure exactly what you think you've exposed. If you were to do a search on "clique" you will find 294 threads using that term. Lots of people accusing lots of other people of being cliquey.

What it comes down to in my opinion is relationships. In a group of 80000 people, you are going to find people that you have kinship with, and you will find those that you can't stand. When all you are judging someone by is what you see of them on the internet, it becomes easy to just assign people to groups. "They agree with poster X a lot or disagree with poster Y most of the time... therefore they are part of Z group." While relegating someone to a clique makes it easier for us to make base judgements, it certainly doesn't challenge us to really get to know someone, and find out what their ideas are.

When people meet, and the relationships become more 3 dimensional, that judgement becomes more complicated. When someone you don't know posts something nasty, all you see is that post. When its a friend, you take into account the things you know about them... going through a rough divorce, dealing with a drug addicted family member, or a death, or just having a bad patch. Sometimes that means choosing to support a person when you don't support their view. Is that inherently a bad thing?

What some people are choosing to assign as "clique" behavior on all ALL sides of the argument are IMO people respecting a history of friendship. I'm of the opinion that you cant be an influence if you aren't involved. Because one chooses not to hang their friends out to dry publicly does not mean they have not tried privately to be an influence to the positive. I think all candidates as well as members should be given the benefit of the doubt, and if you can't do that, then ask them outright.

That all being said.. I'm a proud member of the Buenos Aires Grill Clique, AND the KegDo clique. If you believe me to be members of any others, by all means ask.

I'd like to close with a post another candidate made a long time ago that sums up my feelings very well on the clique subject

John C

bhatnasx & missy -
Perhap I am just overlooking something, but I am not seeing how this differs from the joint ownership concept I discussed where both parties have full rights to duplicate in full or in part. Are we actually all in agreement or is there a finer hair to split that I am not yet seeing? If both parties retain full rights, I actually don't believe the view is at all unpopular but rather is just an acceptance of what most posters likely assume to begin with.

CameraGuy

You must have me confused with someone else. I have NEVER sought to bring FT back to the "good-old" days. In fact, with the exception of one change (News Crap), I have welcomed the changes to FT.

I'll accept, in advance, your apology for lumping me in with the people who will never be happy, as they are the ones who want to roll FT back to 1998.

NOLAnwGOLD

I believe that your opinion. writings and ramblings are yours and yours alone. What you say, write, compose, photograph, create is your responsibility as well as your property.

In that light, your posts to FT are still yours, and should not be FT's property.

gleff

I believe that Flyertalk.com should have nonexclusive rights to anything posted here. That would solve the problem of a member claiming rights to their posts and demanding mass deletions, etc. bhatnasx has an excellent point about others reposting/using Flyertalk content and I'd want to explore how to fully incorporate this.

I also have no problem with, as a condition of membership, allowing limited republication rights as currently outlined in the TOS.

Finally I have no problem with Flyertalk forbidding republication or mirroring of its content on other sites -- I couldn't copy and paste a Flyertalk thread on my own site and say that my site has the best discussion of frequent flyer miles on the net.

But I would argue for members retaining rights to their own original posts/content, such as reposting personal content elsewhere.

VPescado

Madame President,

First of all, I would welcome you to read my words a bit more carefully. I said that I was the first to raise this issue in this forum. I stand by what I say, and its an important distinction - not only as it makes what I said true, but because there are a lot of members out there that new or simply have not been involved in the specific history of which I speak.

No one else wanted to risk being accused of negative campaigning by bringing the facts to the voters, so I did. We don't have CNN or the Washington Post publishing exposes on the TB candidates, so I'm doing what I can.

We both know that I am not refering to a clique of people interested in the chess club, but in a specific clique that you are indeed a member of. So there is no sense in trying to convince you as you know the truth.

I would invite those in the electorate, to contact friends from FT that have been around for a while and have a lot of posts. Ask them if they know what I am talking about - and if they believe that I am telling the truth. Ask them about who the TireFlockers are.

You might even try asking some of the candidates that have been around for a while. I know it wouldn't take too long to find one or more of the TB members that aren't running for office who would likely confirm what I am saying.

The point is, if you are new to FT, I am not asking you to take my word for it. Ask questions of folks that you respect, and you should be able to find answers.

In another thread today, someone posted some old threads that cast a member of the other clique in a bad light. The post has been since deleted, but it was interesting that the account that posted it had been around for many years, but only posted 4 times including today. You don't have to be a rabid conspiracy theorist to suspect this might have been a political dirty trick by someone of the TireFlock clique to attack an opponent using a secondary handle. This is exactly the sort of thing that many people associate with the TireFlockers and don't be surprised when these same pseudo-handles come out of the woodwork to vote for other members of this clique.

But we seem to have gone off topic yet again. Hmm, it seems that missy was the one that strayed, I merely followed.

Getting back to the topic:
Again, I am not a lawyer, but I think this might effect your ability to sell the remaining rights to the work. Its one thing to say "I'll sell you the complete rights to this work with a minor exception cut out for FT and its siter publications." and quite different to say "I'll sell you the complete rights to this work, except for anyone that FT might decide to license them to. " I don't think Randy would likely do that, but a prospective buyer might disagree.

VPescado

Oh look, another set of coincidences: Both you and Missy have gone off topic, misrepresenting what I have said about a clique that you both would wish to claim not to be members of. Such symmetry.

What I said was: it would be just as inaccurate to characterize your clique in that particular manner, as it was to use the characterization that you used.

While I have made mistakes in my campaign and apologized for them, I wouldn't wait up for the apology that you seem to expect.

CameraGuy

More inaccurate statements! I think we have a professional politician here.

Where, oh where do I claim not to be a member of a clique?

Also, you may want to check your hidden sources for accuracy. I have never met missy (would like to, I admire her) and to my knowledge have communicated with her once or twice in FT chat about the Sea-DO's.

If "chatting" about an FT Do makes a member part of a clique, then you and your hidden sources have a pretty sad definition of a clique.

VPescado

CG,

1. My sources? I didn't say anything about sources. I merely invited folks to ask around. It shouldn't take them a long time to find the truth.

2. I can't help but notice that your language is very stilted. You list some places that you have had contact with missy but never come out and say that it is a complete list. Let me ask you this . . .what was your involvement with TireFlock?

3. I am happy with continuing this as long as you guys are, but it just doesn't belong in this thread. Might we at least agree to take follow ups to the open forum?