[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #231 - 4 msgs

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Dr. Cat
> Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 12:25 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Cc: pixel at bga.com
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #231 - 4 msgs
> 
> 
> > From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at verant.com>
> > Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] integrated character webpages ala 
> Black and White c
> > reature pages
> > 
> > As far as putting up stories--there is a very large concern with
> > user-generated content and liability there, even for 
> hobbyist muds. It's
> > very easy for this to outpace your ability to vet the 
> submitted content,
> > leading to your website hosting material that you may well 
> not want on
> > there.
> 
> I'm still convinced that user-generated content is the future 
> of almost
> everything, and I'm glad to see there that major multi-national
> corporations still feel there are strong reasons to be 
> cautious about it.

It is, and there are. Just a short list of cases which can lead to trouble:

- brand-damaging content posted by a user opening the host to liability
(picture if someone uploaded graphic sexual imagery to a Disney-themed
space. Disney is open to lawsuits on the part of users over something like
that).

- intellectual property issues (picture someone uploading Star Trek content
to a Babylon 5 themed space, the operators are potentially liable for the IP
violation).

- copyright and fair use issues (picture someone uploading the script to the
new Batman movie to your space. You are arguably a publisher of said
content).

That said, there's still tremendous reasons to make as much use as possible
of user-generated content. It IS the future of almost everything.

> But ten years ago we had Rusty & Edie's BBS, and more 
> recently Geocities
> et. al. 

Geocities isn't a content provider itself, though, is it? (I admit to being
mostly unfamiliar with it). As a pure hosting service, the issues may be
different. A lot of things can get more tangled if your user-generated
content is mixed in with admin-generated content and they are
indistinguishable from one another to the average user.

> And if not one single
> person has bothered to complain about some particular page, how big a
> problem is it really?

In the above examples, it only takes one case, and it can crop up months or
years after the fact.
 
> Allow users to post all content, and review only when there's 
> a complaint.
> That's a correct 21st century information age kind of approach.

If only the law had caught up to it. :) The biggest area where it has not
caught up is in intellectual property law (which is currently called very
much into question by the 21st century information age).

> Refinements include mechanisms to allow users to have areas where they
> volunteer to vet content for each other, for those that 
> prefer cleaner or
> "safer" content. 

This can also get complicated, if those volunteers can be seen as having
proxy status for the administrationin any way.

[snip a bunch of great ways of doing user moderation]

-Raph



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