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Front pages:2008
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On intellectual property, copyright, citing articles and accuracy in critiquing this website5/11/08 As more and more blogs related to the casino are coming online I find that this website and me personally are being referenced more frequently. In the interest of fairness for all concerned, and to promote accuracy in clarity and criticism, I am publishing some basic guidelines and suggestions. My understanding is that intellectual property laws have held that the owners of content on letters belongs to the writer of the letter, while the letter itself (the paper and ink) belongs to the recipient. This is now being interpreted in a similar way for online consent, whether on a website or in an email. All material which I write on this website is copyrighted by me and should only be quoted in small excerpts relevant to one's critique. People are encouraged to include active links to anything I write. To make this easier, this month I have started to put my articles on their own web pages. I have read postings where my positions have been interpreted without citing exact quotes which demonstrate the writer's contentions. In general, using quotes for this purpose is not only acceptable but considered good form. In most cases selecting the most relevant brief quotes to copy while referencing the rest of the article suffices. While one can't expect posters on a blog to adhere to the rules for writing an academic journal article or college term paper, fairness and good form dictate at least this much attention to providing citations. If someone believes I haven't applied my own rules to them I encourage them to contact me. Common sense online etiquetteIt's called netiquette in the online world. But basically it is a combination of maintaing good manners and posting messages according to the laws and generally accepted guidelines described above. A number of practices have developed over time that are conventions but not hard and fast rules. Common sense ought to dictate that some different guidelines may apply to a national message board where, unless you post on The Daily Kos, which actually had a convention, you are highly unlikely to meet a fellow poster. Here the various blogs often include references to people you run into at meetings, the supermarket, and on the street. Even when you post anonymous you ought not to call them any names you wouldn't call them to their face in front of your children, pastor or mother. One of the common sense conventions of online posting is that if you have been told who an anoymous poster is in confidence you don't reveal that information. Locally a number of blog owners have revealed their names on their profiles or in public and it defies reason to insist you are breaking a rule of netiquette if you use their name when referring to a position they espoused on their blog. Another issue that often comes up in blogging is the questioning the extent of the responsibility of the owner for content of messages posted on their blogs. Legality aside, it seems to me that if the owner reads a message they wouldn't want spoken to the other person in front of their children, pastor or mother, that message should be deleted. If everybody followed these recommendations I believe it would go a long way to focus the onlne debate where it should be, on the issues, not the people. |
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It's real. It's serious. But because Middleboro almost certain to host a resort that is also a major casino, we should learn the basics about this psychiatric disorder.
