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posted by on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the anything-not-illegal-is-compulsory dept.

Bleh. Apparently not caring what you do on other sites or even requiring any personal information isn't good enough for the state of Confusion^WCalifornia, so we have a shiny, new, temporary Privacy Policy posted on every page and linked at the top of the nav bar.

If you feel like prettying the language, layout, or whatever up before I get around to it, feel free to do so and submit a pull request.

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Figures and Forecasts and Facts... Oh My! 120 comments

I have a couple things to bring to the attention of the community concerning site funding and comment moderations. As always, if you are not interested in these matters, feel free to skip past this one; another story will be along shortly. Otherwise read beyond the fold for an update.

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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:25PM (5 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:25PM (#961401) Journal

    Privacy Policy: We don't track anyone except on this site, so DNT requests aren't relevant and are ignored. We don't collect any personally identifiable information from you except your email address, which you can change at any time, never has to be real in the first place, is only used to contact you if necessary or requested, and we share with nobody.

    You know our nicknames, and you track our karma. That is just outrageous! /sarcasm

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:28PM (28 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:28PM (#961402)

    Ruin everything. The site's ruined, ruined, ruined.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:26PM (27 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:26PM (#961431)

      Have you seen /. recently? They completely disabled A.C. posts. You have to register and sign in to post comments. On top of that they IP ban anyone with differing political views even though the comments made were clean. I got IP banned for submitting a funny true BBC news story about cops in a donuts shop. It's like it's run by North Korea or Apple.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:30PM (18 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:30PM (#961433)

        WTF did you go there once we had SN?

        • (Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:40PM (5 children)

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:40PM (#961443) Homepage Journal

          I skim the headlines on the crapper in the morning. Sometimes they have something we missed that's worth subbing. Plus it's fun to laugh at their lack of UTF-8 support. I mean, I even offered to do that shit for them back years ago when they said they were going to finally implement it. For free. Hell, it's not even difficult if you've done it once before.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:23PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:23PM (#961537)

            They claim now that they don't have UTF-8 support on purpose. Depending on which staff member responds, it has something to do with censorship in China, avoiding combining character spam (like this [ycombinator.com]) or to maximize discussion by forcing people to use English. Either way, it definitely sounds like bullshit, since even the staff post mojibake from forgetting to change quotation marks and it isn't that hard to handle Unicode while stripping or catching most of the things they don't want.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @12:48AM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @12:48AM (#961630) Homepage Journal

              Yeah, it's a minor pain and a bit of reading but it's not in any way difficult. Make a list of the crap you don't want being used by Unicode code points, get the hex and decimal HTML entities for each, and get any named HTML entities for each. After you have those it doesn't take more than a few minutes to code up.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 24 2020, @01:36AM (2 children)

            by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday February 24 2020, @01:36AM (#961649) Journal

            Plus it's fun to laugh at their lack of UTF-8 support.

            That is their saving grace. No emojis! Twenty years of archives ain't too shabby either...

            --
            La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @01:50AM (1 child)

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @01:50AM (#961655) Homepage Journal

              You make a compelling argument but having your code monkeys and editors look like retards every time someone uses a type of quotation mark or dash not found in ASCII isn't a good tradeoff IMO.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 24 2020, @02:00AM

                by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday February 24 2020, @02:00AM (#961658) Journal

                Yeah, they should reject the submission than contains any of that junk and tell the guy to sanitize his input.

                --
                La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:46PM (9 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:46PM (#961446) Journal

          Nostalgia, probably. Everyone remembers their childhood, and their alma mater, and such. So, you get nostalgic, one day, and go for a drive through the old neighborhood. Maybe you even stop to visit the school. And, it's all warped, because none of it's as big as you remember. And, it's probably warped even more, due to the house that burnt down, the house that was blow away by a tornado, and the fifteen new houses, and the thirteen convenience stores that didn't exist.

          Except - at slashdot, the good was all gone before we even left. I mean, how high can you stack guano, anyhow?

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:51PM (2 children)

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:51PM (#961450) Homepage Journal

            Dunno, how tall are you?

            Don't blame me when you slow pitch one across the plate like that.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:25PM (1 child)

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:25PM (#961461) Journal

              Nahh, I'm being kinda serious here. When I left the elementary school, headed up to the junior high school, I never expected to come back. But, I did one day, after graduating from high school. I actually had to go inside the elementary school to pick up a cousin who needed a ride home. GEEZ LOUISE! The ceilings were so low, the hallways narrow, I felt like I had walked into the twilight zone. The office, and the one classroom I entered were just TINY. For that matter, the playground seemed postage-stamp sized. And no, I'm not a giant - 6 ft tall even. But the difference between ~5' 6" twelve year old me, and 6' tall 20 year old me was a very big difference!

          • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:21PM (2 children)

            by Fnord666 (652) on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:21PM (#961510) Homepage

            Nostalgia, probably. Everyone remembers their childhood, and their alma mater, and such. So, you get nostalgic, one day, and go for a drive through the old neighborhood. Maybe you even stop to visit the school. And, it's all warped, because none of it's as big as you remember. And, it's probably warped even more, due to the house that burnt down, the house that was blow away by a tornado, and the fifteen new houses, and the thirteen convenience stores that didn't exist.

            Except - at slashdot, the good was all gone before we even left. I mean, how high can you stack guano, anyhow?

            More like remembering the sound of the belt zipping through your Dad's belt loops.

            • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:27PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:27PM (#961538)

              At the mere suggestion, I heard your comment. And he wonders why I never call.

            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @12:58AM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @12:58AM (#961634) Homepage Journal

              Only if you had a childhood that was worth having lived. I mean, if you never got up to anything good enough to get your ass whipped, you wasted yours entirely.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 4, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday February 24 2020, @10:44AM (2 children)

            by TheRaven (270) on Monday February 24 2020, @10:44AM (#961771) Journal
            Slashdot got a lot worse after this site was set up as a result of one simple decision: they removed the Message Center. That meant that there wasn't any way of replying to a post without manually monitoring each of your posts for replies and so discussion fell into one-shot remarks. If you asked someone a question, they'd never see it so you wouldn't get a reply (and if you did, you wouldn't see it). This format dramatically favoured trolls and selects against in-depth discussions.
            --
            sudo mod me up
            • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday February 24 2020, @07:31PM (1 child)

              by tangomargarine (667) on Monday February 24 2020, @07:31PM (#961950)

              WTF, why? You might as well just say "stop posting here."

              --
              "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
              • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday February 27 2020, @05:15PM

                by TheRaven (270) on Thursday February 27 2020, @05:15PM (#963615) Journal
                I can't speak for their intentions, but that's how I interpreted it and stopped.
                --
                sudo mod me up
        • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:38PM

          by shortscreen (2252) on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:38PM (#961519) Journal

          I haven't been going to the green site anymore, but learning that the site has now devolved to such a level does hold some schadenfreude value. Like learning that your ex who ran off with the pool cleaner was just arrested for shoplifting or something.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @08:30AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @08:30AM (#961749)

          Nostalgia? I made some great posts there.

      • (Score: 4, Touché) by captain normal on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:00PM

        by captain normal (2205) on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:00PM (#961455)

        "Have you seen /. recently? "
        No.

        --
        When life isn't going right, go left.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:04PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:04PM (#961503)

        Have you seen /. recently?

        No. I have not intentionally returned to that other site since the great leaving due to beta.

        I have accidentally been taken there by a link from another site where I did not notice soon enough that the link went to that other site. The tab was closed as soon as I realized where the link had taken me.

      • (Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Monday February 24 2020, @06:01PM

        by cmdrklarg (5048) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 24 2020, @06:01PM (#961910)

        They completely disabled A.C. posts.

        This is not correct. Registered and signed in users are still able to post as AC. I do this from time to time, mainly to not invalidate any moderation I've done.

        I have no problem with this, as the massive majority of AC posts at the time were shitposts (there was a LOT of them too). I had to hide anything under 2 it was so bad.

        --
        The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
      • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday February 24 2020, @10:26PM (3 children)

        by vux984 (5045) on Monday February 24 2020, @10:26PM (#962045)

        "Have you seen /. recently? They completely disabled A.C. posts. You have to register and sign in to post comments."

        This appears to be completely false.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @11:43PM (2 children)

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @11:43PM (#962078) Homepage Journal

          Nope. I verified it a month or so ago. Logged in users can post anonymously like they can here but actual ACs were banned last year.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Tuesday February 25 2020, @12:34AM (1 child)

            by vux984 (5045) on Tuesday February 25 2020, @12:34AM (#962103)

            I stand corrected.

            I got as far as seeing that the AC form displayed and looked normal before posting. But your right, I get a message "Sorry, anonymous posting has been turned off. Please register and log in." upon hitting the "Preview" button.

            Sad.

      • (Score: 2) by Chocolate on Tuesday February 25 2020, @03:44AM

        by Chocolate (8044) on Tuesday February 25 2020, @03:44AM (#962204) Journal

        It's in my RSS feed. . no more is required

        --
        Bit-choco-coin anyone?
  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by SDRefugee on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:33PM (3 children)

    by SDRefugee (4477) on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:33PM (#961407)

    Its more like Commiefornia, or my favorite, the "Democratic Peoples Republic of Kalifornia", otherwise known as DPRK #2 after North Korea...

    --
    America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
    • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:51PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:51PM (#961417)

      ZINGER! Nice one.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:26PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:26PM (#961512)

      Ah yes, making websites disclose what information they collect on users is totally a communist plot!

      SDRefugee is the type of person that makes it hard for us to have nice things. Probably hates the concept of universal healthcare more than Nazis.

    • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday February 24 2020, @10:46AM

      by TheRaven (270) on Monday February 24 2020, @10:46AM (#961772) Journal
      Yes, because having information symmetry between participants in a market is a communist idea. Curse those people legislating to protect a free market economy, those damn communists!
      --
      sudo mod me up
  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:38PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:38PM (#961409)

    You're on the Internet dipshit... Nothing is private.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:40PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:40PM (#961410)

      penis

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:44PM (4 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:44PM (#961413) Homepage Journal

        Oppai (おっぱい): ( o Y o )

        Hey, look, we're educational now! You just learned a Japanese word.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:54PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:54PM (#961420)
          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Booga1 on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:16PM (2 children)

            by Booga1 (6333) on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:16PM (#961427)

            There are a great many things to celebrate in Japanese culture. For me, this is not one of them...

            • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @09:51PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @09:51PM (#961578)

              Your just racist I guess.

              • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @07:29PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @07:29PM (#961947)

                what about my just racist?

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Hartree on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:51PM (4 children)

    by Hartree (195) on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:51PM (#961418)

    You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be laughed at or sneered at.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:58PM (3 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday February 23 2020, @03:58PM (#961421) Homepage Journal

      Nah, that's more like our CoC [github.com].

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2, Informative) by barbara hudson on Monday February 24 2020, @01:29AM (2 children)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Monday February 24 2020, @01:29AM (#961644) Journal

        Using tabs for indentation instead of spaces.

        Sudden outbreak of common sense. :-)

        --
        SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @08:35AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @08:35AM (#961750)

          Python coder spotted! Arm torpedoes!

          • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday February 24 2020, @01:02PM

            by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Monday February 24 2020, @01:02PM (#961805) Journal

            Python coder spotted! Arm torpedoes!

            Where? Where? ,,, no need to kill them - they're dying all by themselves, same as python.

            --
            SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
  • (Score: 5, Touché) by SomeGuy on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:16PM (2 children)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:16PM (#961426)

    Apparently not caring what you do on other sites or even requiring any personal information isn't good enough for the state of Confusion^WCalifornia,

    In the state of California, it is a well known fact that it is impossible for a web site to exist without collecting personal information. This is similar to how it is impossible for someone to not own a smart phone, and how it is impossible for a device with blue LEDs to not be better or more powerful than the old one that didn't.

    And not collecting personal information is known to cause cancer.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:36PM (20 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:36PM (#961437) Journal

    The thing is, if you don't say you don't collect information, how are those who come here via a link supposed to know? (OK, they could look at the html, but most people couldn't read that, and I've never bothered ... hmmm, those look like links to perl scripts (etc.).

    The real question is "What if you lie in your privacy policy?". This is likely a piece of security theater. (OTOH, I've never read the law, so perhaps not.)

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:48PM (18 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:48PM (#961448) Homepage Journal

      And there's the problem. The people behind laws like these are themselves bad actors at heart or they wouldn't assume everyone else is. Crap like this doesn't turn a criminal into an upstanding citizen, it just treats upstanding citizens like criminals.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:29PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:29PM (#961515)

        Top kek libertarian logic right there. Wish I could go through life so confidently stupid, all the self-reflection and critical thinking gets tiring.

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:22PM (1 child)

          by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:22PM (#961536) Homepage

          Californian assholes making our laws and voting for them seem to be doing everything out of spite schorched-Earth style rather than looking out for the people's best interest.

          If I didn't know any better I'd say it's because they're all Mossad about to be tried for sedition. We haven't seen much of Liddle Adam Schitt since the impeachment fiasco but I'm sure the lawmakers are rubbing their hands together trying to figure out what convenient or tasty thing they want to ban next.

          • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:42PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:42PM (#961543)

            Ah, back to day drinking huh?

            You should really get into a rehab clinic, you're not a good drunk. The confederates lost, get over it.

        • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @01:46AM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @01:46AM (#961654) Homepage Journal

          Well, you've got the stupid nailed. Work on your confidence and you'll get there eventually.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @03:47AM (11 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @03:47AM (#961707)

        Requiring websites to tell users how their data is being used is not treating everyone like criminals. The bad actors aren't the legislators writing and passing these laws, but the companies that show blatant disregard for the privacy of the users. It is not a horrible or unreasonable burden to require you to state what data you collect about users and how that data is used.

        The reason that "upstanding citizens" become criminals in this context is because the pursuit of profits is placed ahead of all other interests so that it's no longer important to do right by your customers and users. Milton Friendman's idea that the only social responsibility of a corporation is to maximize profits has been incredibly damaging to capitalism. When the pursuit of profit is placed ahead of anything else, that is when otherwise responsible businesses go wrong.

        • (Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @12:45PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @12:45PM (#961796) Homepage Journal

          Any burden that is forced on good actors because it's possible they might decide to act badly is an unreasonable burden and treating them like a criminal. That you're in favor of it is a function of your own shortsightedness and choosing the illusion of security over liberty. Franklin would say you deserve neither.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @07:40PM (9 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @07:40PM (#961956)

          look, you stupid fucking slave, i don't need a professional thief telling me how to write my privacy policy, or mandating fucking popups to tell people that cookies exist, even though i don't fucking have any fucking tracking cookies. Nor am i interested in addressing stupid shit like DNT as i have no fucking spy scripts. Now, i'm supposed to write some script to remove one user's data from all my backups for free? fuck you and your parasitic masters.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @09:36PM (8 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @09:36PM (#962015)

            Yes, cursing at me repeatedly is really going to win me over to your side. Your rage would be better directed at the system that encourages this behavior and the businesses that don't respect users' privacy. When the sole objective of most corporations is to maximize profits and selling users' data is profitable, pretty much everyone is going to sell users' data and not respect their privacy. I'd love for the free market to handle this situation but there just aren't a lot of alternatives that don't sell users' data in certain types of businesses. Legislation like this won't be necessary when the free market is able to handle the situation. So far, that hasn't happened.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @10:01PM (7 children)

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @10:01PM (#962030) Homepage Journal

              Nah, dude's rage is placed exactly where it belongs. Other people are not yours to command. Thinking otherwise is sick. Seek help.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @10:09PM (6 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @10:09PM (#962035)

                So much for being civil and professional unless people are assholes to you. Who's the "shithead troll" now?

                • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @11:49PM (5 children)

                  by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @11:49PM (#962080) Homepage Journal

                  That was civil. And truthful. And informative.

                  And thanks for showing that you're exactly the disingenuous shithead troll who cares nothing about what he's complaining about that I said you were from the very start. Making one semi-coherent and civil comment might have actually confused someone.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25 2020, @12:41AM (4 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25 2020, @12:41AM (#962110)

                    It would be shocking for you to discuss something without hurling personal attacks in just about every post. Your comment about needing to seek help and being a sick person was exactly that. If you could actually defend your position, you wouldn't need to resort to personal attacks.

                    Basic standards of consumer protection are NOT treating everyone like a criminal. Nobody is placing some great burden on you or this site by insisting that you add a bit of text explaining what data you collect and how it's used. The outrage you're expressing is extremely disproportionate to the actual burden of being required to have a privacy policy. This isn't treating everyone like criminals to require you to meet basic minimum standards so users know how their data is being used. By that logic, requiring people to obtain building permits and meet building codes would be treating anyone doing construction like a criminal. Or being required to obtain a concealed carry permit could be construed to treat gun owners who want to carry concealed like criminals. Requiring a privacy policy isn't an unreasonable burden.

                    You're conflating maximizing your individual liberties with maintaining a free society. When you maximize the liberties of individuals, you end up with anarchy, not freedom. Some restriction on individual liberty is required in order to have a free society. Laws that restrict individual liberty can reduce the freedom of society or they can protect it, but it depends on the nature of the law. Privacy and data protection laws restrict the liberties of businesses and perhaps of some individuals to increase the privacy for all citizens. In this case, a privacy policy requires that users be able to understand how a website is going to use their data so they can make an informed choice about whether to share their data with the site. It places a very small burden on the website with a likely significant boost to the privacy of everyone and, therefore, their freedom.

                    I want a free society, not the anarchy you seek. A small burden on individual liberty is worth it to significantly increase the freedom of society. You have a warped idea that a small burden from government is restricting your freedom but that businesses should be able to do whatever they want. Most corporations act like psychopaths because their sole objective is to maximize profit for shareholders. They're following Milton Friedman's idea that the sole social obligation of a corporation is to maximize profits. It is for this reason that businesses are willing to cut corners with worker safety, user privacy, and the quality of products and services. If you have your way, government won't restrict liberties at all, but we'll end up slaves to big businesses. The society you want is absolutely not a free society. It's anarchy that will end up being ruled by massive corporations.

                    I am willing to allow reasonable restrictions to maintain a free society -- free from an authoritarian government but also free from corporate slavery. You, on the other hand, want to kick government out altogether, which will allow corporations the fully unrestricted ability to disregard the interests of users, customers, and workers, all in the name of maximizing profit.

                    A small burden to protect free society is worth it. You are NOT being treated like a criminal. What you're after isn't freedom at all. Your individual liberties won't matter when the absence of government gives way to anarchy and corporate slavery.

                    Now try responding without personal attacks next time. If you can make your case, you can make it without personal attacks.

                    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday February 26 2020, @09:44PM (3 children)

                      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday February 26 2020, @09:44PM (#963130) Homepage Journal

                      Yeah, sorry not sorry. I'm not buying it when you started the Privacy Policy topic with attacks and insults. Feel free to take your concern trolling and your tone trolling and shove them both up your ass.

                      --
                      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2020, @05:03AM (2 children)

                        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2020, @05:03AM (#963324)

                        I wish you had discussed the topic instead of posting what you did. Upon reading your post, I've come away thinking you crossed a line. I said nothing in this particular series of comments in this thread about initiating the privacy policy discussion. I said nothing to that effect in this thread. The only reason someone would have been aware of that is by seeing my hashed IP. Connecting me to that original comment is sharing information that is normally only available to administrators.

                        At this moment, you haven't posted anything that would directly reveal my IP address or other personal information. I'll grant that. But the fact that you were willing to disclose details only available to administrators like you seems to seriously undermine what you've said about your conviction to defend privacy. When it was convenient for you during an argument, it seems you were willing to violate that conviction. I expected that you would act in good faith and not disclose such information under any circumstances. It appears to me that you chose not to act in good faith and you've violated my trust that this website will honor my privacy.

                        I've posted other AC comments that discuss the nature of my employment and where I work to discuss other matters in good faith. I did so with the trust that the administrators of this site would act in good faith and wouldn't provide details about which ACs are posting which comments unless compelled to do so by law. I believe you've violated that trust and violated my privacy. If you were willing to violate the privacy of an AC poster in this instance, it raises serious questions about whether you'd do it again. I'm not sure that I can trust that you wouldn't out ACs again when it suits your purposes.

                        I'm far from perfect. I make lots of mistakes. When I'm frustrated with someone or in a heated argument, I've said far too many things that I regret. Part of the reason I post AC is because I don't think people should be judged on the basis of a few things they've said in the past that are stupid. I don't trust people to not dig something up about me in the past and hold it against me long after I've regretted what I've said and tried to learn from my mistake. And yes, I actually do regret some of the things I've said to you, which is why I've tried to address you in a conciliatory tone at times -- something you've repeatedly rejected. And I do apologize to you for the mistakes I've made. I did overreact about you saying that fusta wasn't also posting as AC and I'll admit that. Part of the reason I've replied in a hostile tone to you is because you've adopted the same tone with me in the past when I tried to address you in good faith. But I've always believed that one of the reasons anonymous posting is important is because I don't think people should have to fear that stupid comments they've made in the past will be held against them for a long time. I wish I could trust that my anonymity wouldn't be outed, but now I'm not 100% sure.

                        If that's not your intent and I've completely misunderstood what you were saying, please tell me right now. I really want to believe your comments about being willing to even defy a court order to protect user privacy. But this exchange seems to say otherwise. I've tried very hard to word my comment in a way that conveys uncertainty about what I think happened. If you can provide a compelling reason that I misunderstood your comment, I'll take you at your word and drop it. I might even consider going on IRC to try to make amends and clear the air provided that my privacy is respected and we deal in good faith. I really want to believe that SoylentNews respects my privacy, though I'm not confident after your post. Please clarify.

                        • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 27 2020, @11:00AM (1 child)

                          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday February 27 2020, @11:00AM (#963407) Homepage Journal

                          Whether you started the topic in this thread or another thread is irrelevant. It's extremely obvious that you don't actually give a shit about it, you're just trolling. Fuck off.

                          --
                          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2020, @06:38PM

                            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2020, @06:38PM (#963646)

                            I very much care ensuring that my privacy is protected. It's a shame you didn't take my concern seriously enough to even give me a straight answer. I've tried to be conciliatory. I even offered an apology in my comment and reviewed my comment to make sure it expressed uncertainty before posting it. I am still concerned about my privacy based on your behavior. Do I need to ask one of the other admins about my privacy concerns or do you want to give me a straight answer?

                            The only person I've really argued with on this site is you. I've occasionally had disagreements with Azuma but those have been more civil on both sides. Otherwise, I can't think of any arguments I've had with anyone on this site. You, however, have a lot of enemies. There's a saying that if you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, you're the asshole.

      • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Monday February 24 2020, @10:07AM (1 child)

        by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday February 24 2020, @10:07AM (#961768) Journal

        I'll disagree with you just a little bit.

        In an ideal world, I'd like to know what a website collects about me and be able to view that in plain, curt, understandable English.

        Now, you and I both know that our world is not ideal and every website we frequent (except for this one) obfuscates (and often contradicts) the important points in the privacy policy. Which leads right back to your comment being on the mark. 99% of the websites out there operate criminally (or at least immorally). The other 1% (like this website) are then forced to come up with some piece of crap privacy policy so as to satisfy... well, I'm not sure what they are trying to satisfy. But it's so out of hand that when I go to a website, I assume they vacuum up all the information they can about me.

        I want a privacy policy from websites, but until this data collection nonsense is fixed, it makes no sense to have privacy policies. Privacy policies are only a farce these days. And an extreme waste of everyone's time.

        So, I guess, in short, thanks for doing the unpleasant work so we can keep chugging along. It is appreciated.

    • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:49PM

      by SomeGuy (5632) on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:49PM (#961449)

      "What if you lie in your privacy policy?"
      Have you ever seen a common privacy policy that was not clearly 100% pure grade-A bull fucking shit? It is fairly well accepted that polices may read "we protect your privacy! Reeeallly!" while they turn around and quietly sell that data to the highest bidder.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:48PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:48PM (#961447)

    I run a business and a website. Just for laughs I thought I'd try the "free" privacy policy generator on the linked site.

    Not only is it littered with options that say +$9 or +$12, but one of the questions is:

    What kind of personal information do you collect from users? Click all that apply:

    Email address
    First name and last name
    Phone number
    Address, State, Province, ZIP/Postal code, City
    Social Media Profile information (ie. from Connect with Facebook, Sign In With Twitter) + $9
    Others

    I don't collect any user information, so I left all of the fields blank. When I try to go to the next page, it highlights the question and says, "This field is required."

    No, it is not required that every website interact with users or attempt to track them for the sweet, sweet ad revenue. Sometimes we just want to provide information and the occasional download link.

    Time to whip up somethin' snarky. Thanks for the heads-up.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:08PM (#961507)

      No, it is not required that every website interact with users or attempt to track them for the sweet, sweet ad revenue.

      For those who are stumbling drunk from suckling at the teat of that sweet, sweet ad revenue, a site collecting no information is so far outside of their field of vision that they can not possibly comprehend a site that does not collect anything.

      Their normal is "something must be collected" and they've lived that normal for so long they have forgotten that there is an alternative (the 'collect nothing' alternative).

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by shortscreen on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:09PM (1 child)

      by shortscreen (2252) on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:09PM (#961531) Journal

      I have a website with nothing but static html. I don't collect anything. The hosting provider collects stats like OS/browser/referrer/location. I know that because I can see a monthly tally if I log into their site. I don't know if they collect anything else or if it counts as personal information. Will the hosting provider or any other middle men need to have their own privacy policy? Displayed on my page?

      I'm a little curious about how this is going to play out. Although I don't really give a crap. If I get hassled about it I'll just take the site down.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DavePolaschek on Monday February 24 2020, @01:58PM

        by DavePolaschek (6129) on Monday February 24 2020, @01:58PM (#961821) Homepage Journal

        I had a static website. It’s down. Didn’t get hassled, but my ISP emailed suggesting that hassles were coming. "OK. You just lost that $30/month that I’ve been paying for five years because I was too lazy to shut it down."

  • (Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:56PM (8 children)

    by gtomorrow (2230) on Sunday February 23 2020, @04:56PM (#961453)

    If you feel like prettying the language, layout, or whatever up before I get around to it...

    I don't have any problem with the language: it says what it's gotta say and, strangely enough, reads in a voice that reflects this site. Nice and Aspergery!

    My beef is why is it so huge? It's as big as the article titles, bigger than post text! It eclipses the neighboring fortune! Law say you gotta display it/link to it, not that it's gotta be in your face! Then again, with a privacy policy like soylentnews.org's, why not display it prominently?

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:25PM (7 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:25PM (#961460) Homepage Journal

      Because I was too lazy to style it at all.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Sunday February 23 2020, @06:12PM (6 children)

        by gtomorrow (2230) on Sunday February 23 2020, @06:12PM (#961477)

        WOW! Lazy or not, you're fast! It's already reduced and styled nicely.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 23 2020, @06:58PM (5 children)

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday February 23 2020, @06:58PM (#961499) Homepage Journal

          Minor changes to live templates are simple and fast. I haven't committed any code yet though.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:37PM (4 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:37PM (#961518)

            Yup, what is in the codebase repo does not match what is actually being used. Good thing you're totally trustworthy *eyeroll*

            • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:18PM (3 children)

              by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:18PM (#961534) Journal

              If you've ever done live maintenance, that's just part of the job. Otherwise you end up spending so much time on synching with the repo that the job doesn't get done.

              But here's the thing - if you don't trust him, why are you here? And what do you base your skepticism on? Anything specific, or just the "everyone lies" thing?

              --
              SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
              • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:40PM (2 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @08:40PM (#961541)

                Go back to taking care of your eyesight, don't waste time on other people's arguments if you're too lazy or uninformed to properly participate.

                • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday February 23 2020, @10:57PM (1 child)

                  by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Sunday February 23 2020, @10:57PM (#961610) Journal
                  I've had to recompile c code remotely on a FreeBSD server multiple times while it was getting 100-800 hits a second. I know what it's like with a server written entirely in c with loadable modules also written in c, no easy peas scripting language. And if I got it wrong it meant a trip 500 miles away for a manual reinstall on the crashed server because (that's what I was told - because).
                  --
                  SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
                  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @01:08AM

                    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @01:08AM (#961638) Homepage Journal

                    I'm just enjoying myself a day off of church work. I had to pull several muscles to score it, so I plan on making the most of it by doing as little as possible.

                    On top of which, which branch production servers currently match up precisely with (dated release? a couple hotfixes beyond? emergency rollbacks? something usefully cosmetic but a dirt simple merge?) is not a fixed value in the real world.

                    --
                    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 3, Touché) by BK on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:18PM (12 children)

    by BK (4868) on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:18PM (#961458)

    You collect the username I provide.
    You collect the email I provide which you don’t verify
    You collect and log IP address I visit from which my isp also collects
    You collect moderation that I submit
    You collect my posts, if any,
    If I name friends or enemies, you collect this info

    You connect username and ip info with each post
    If I log in, you associate ip & username and link to moderation to produce karma
    If I do or don’t log in, you associate moderation to my ip to produce invisible karma
    Because my isp also collects ip info, anyone with access to both datasets can associate me with my posts.

    You keep this information probably forever

    And if the fbi shows up and points a machine gun at you, you’ll probably give em the whole mess and complain later about warrants and systemd.

    Amiright?

    --
    ...but you HAVE heard of me.
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:43PM (2 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:43PM (#961463) Homepage Journal

      We do hash the IP info but IPv4 addresses aren't something you can secure with a hash anymore because of the relatively small key space, so you're functionally correct even if it would take a few minutes to brute force the hash with a vid card. And we keep it for... two weeks. Precisely because we don't want anyone to even be able to come along and demand it from us with a court order.

      Username and email address? Really? You could put random characters in there. It's as much your choice to make that information in any way personal as not putting links to pictures of your driver's license in a comment is.

      Me support governmental infringement of your rights? You really think a guy who was okay with getting killed or crippled for the rights of people he doesn't even like is going to balk at eating an obstruction charge? Get real, man.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @06:06PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @06:06PM (#961913)

        I must say that, even if I don't always agree with your political perspectives, I admire your guts and the courage of your convictions.

        Case in point, this privacy policy. It's short and easy to read. Amazing. I guess it helps that basically SN doesn't collect personal information (to sell to the highest bidder, or worse), so it's easy to say what little you collect and why.

        (Why can't more websites be like this one?)

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @10:17PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @10:17PM (#962039) Homepage Journal

          Because, for all their oft-signaled socialist/equality virtues, nearly all tech workers are not just happy to but absolutely ecstatic to sell their utopian dreamland project to a bunch of bean counters for a dump truck full of cash. Nearly everyone on the planet are lying hypocrites.

          Me? Some folks may consider me an asshole but I wouldn't take the combined net worths of Bezos and Gates to go against my principles in even a relatively minor way. It's not an easy way to live but you can look in the mirror and not just be satisfied but downright proud of what you see in the morning. Now I will occasionally react contrary to them before I think but that's just ordinary human fallibility and I'm not going to apologize for being imperfect until I meet someone who isn't.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:44PM (8 children)

      by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:44PM (#961464) Journal

      re: username, mod points, posts, friends/enemies

      Are these things SN collects, or are they things users generate? Is there a meaningful difference? If the collection is obvious like a post, does it have to be spelled out?

      I also don't think it is necessary to collect IP info. What collecting IP data prevents is a user posting as AC, and then logging in and upmodding his/her own post. Since you can only mod a post once anyway, that isn't a very large evil in my view. Besides, anyone with a VPN can do the same evil without much effort, and lastly, on the scale of evil, upmodding one's own AC post is so low, there's are probably "good acts" that are objectively more evil than that.

      Unless I'm missing something about IP collection, I'd be happy to see that go away.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:55PM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday February 23 2020, @05:55PM (#961469) Homepage Journal

        It's handy (as in extremely effective) as a first line of defense against spammers too. It also helps us spot obvious sockpuppets. It doesn't stick around very long though.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:32PM (6 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @07:32PM (#961516)

        TMB lies to you, they do store the hashed IPs for a long time and he has admitted it would be trivial to get the actual IP out of it but he is just "too lazy."

        Just FYI, don't take his statements at face value.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @01:12AM (5 children)

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @01:12AM (#961639) Homepage Journal

          Use IPv6 if it bothers you. They most assuredly are not a trivial keyspace. And, yeah, I lie all the time. It's not like I have more than half a dozen other admins with vastly differing views on everything except our free speech policy reading the Meta stories.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by edIII on Monday February 24 2020, @02:26AM (4 children)

            by edIII (791) on Monday February 24 2020, @02:26AM (#961675)

            Or use the TOR address. You guys got that right?

            For the record, part of why I'm not worried about this site's privacy policy, are the admins like you. I can give you shit about some things, but not for being a liar or a coward. I trust you guys.

            Is it just me, or is the grammar off here:

            Privacy Policy: We don't track anyone except on this site

            Does that mean you don't normally track people at all, unless they're on this site? :)

            --
            Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
            • (Score: 2) by Chocolate on Monday February 24 2020, @08:43AM

              by Chocolate (8044) on Monday February 24 2020, @08:43AM (#961751) Journal

              Or VPN. Just reconnect every few minutes.

              --
              Bit-choco-coin anyone?
            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @12:53PM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @12:53PM (#961801) Homepage Journal

              We do but since none of us staff have a ToR setup that allows us to resolve .onion addresses, it could very well be broken at any given time and nobody would know until the WTF reports start coming in. Anyone who does go through all that trouble and feels like keeping it working is welcome to join staff and do so.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 24 2020, @01:00PM (1 child)

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 24 2020, @01:00PM (#961804) Homepage Journal

              Sorry, didn't catch the question at the end. Switch "normally" with "ever". We track all kinds of things about everyone's interactions with this site (kind of necessary if we want to be able to put user names on comments and such) but nothing about their actions anywhere else. Hell, we don't even log referrers.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 29 2020, @03:57AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 29 2020, @03:57AM (#964506)

                Hell, we don't even log referrers.

                You should put that as the last sentence of the privacy policy.

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