Thrown off MM!

Huh! So you can have a conflict of interests while volunteering on a social networking site? That's a new one, not to mention utterly dismaying.

Yeah, that seemed a bit odd.

It was announced a while back that Dean, Brian, Nemi, and one other Mod (I think it was Benny but I'm not sure) have some sort of special status with IB among the Mods. What exactly that means, no one but them know.

Well I'm not surprised that there would be a close affiliation... Whenever someone had a question about the management at MM, it's Dean and Brian that get thrown in to answer the members with "it's being discussed".

Huh! So you can have a conflict of interests while volunteering on a social networking site? That's a new one, not to mention utterly dismaying.

Yeah, that seemed a bit odd.

Well they do ask in the GK qizzle if you're a mod in any capacity anywhere else! I bet if you answer yes to that you automatically get rejected.

So are Mod's, with the possible exceptions of Dean and Brian (though I don't know that for sure, that's just my guess).

Huh! So you can have a conflict of interests while volunteering on a social networking site? That's a new one, not to mention utterly dismaying.

I can understand it. Look at it from an honest point of view.

IB is a corporation. They want to make money. You can't really fault them for that, they saw MM as a good business opportunity for their company. While it is volunteering, it's still selective volunteering, with an application process. It only makes sense that if you're "in the know" about new things happening or more in depth discussions about behind the scenes things, they'd rather not have you spilling that to people they see as a competitive business.

Well they do ask in the GK qizzle if you're a mod in any capacity anywhere else! I bet if you answer yes to that you automatically get rejected.

That was added after MI was launched.

Well they do ask in the GK qizzle if you're a mod in any capacity anywhere else! I bet if you answer yes to that you automatically get rejected.

That was added after MI was launched.

It was announced a while back that Dean, Brian, Nemi, and one other Mod (I think it was Benny but I'm not sure) have some sort of special status with IB among the Mods. What exactly that means, no one but them know.

Presumably they had to sign a personal service contract and have admin privileges beyond what other mods have.

Does anyone here wonder if their MM messages have been read by the powers that be?

I strongly doubt that mine have, of course (why would they?), but don't they have the ability to do that on MM?

Does anyone here wonder if their MM messages have been read by the powers that be?

I strongly doubt that mine have, of course (why would they?), but don't they have the ability to do that on MM?

As far as I'm aware, they do. I wouldn't be surprised in the least.

Here it comes:

http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=514220

Here it comes:

http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=514220

Talk about a biased version.
AGAIN he's making it sound like Roger demanded a mass removal.

Does anyone here wonder if their MM messages have been read by the powers that be?

I strongly doubt that mine have, of course (why would they?), but don't they have the ability to do that on MM?

They do, but only certain mods, I believe.

I'm guessing the same ones that James listed has having more power.

Miguel has weighed in

http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=514220

Here it comes:

http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=514220

Talk about a biased version.
AGAIN he's making it sound like Roger demanded a mass removal.

He's not really answering the concerns about the TOS, is he?

I wish I could comment over there.

"Miguel" said, "We have, to my knowledge, never banned a member simply for stating their opinion. People should feel absolutely free to respond."

This is disingenuous. I've been told directly that I am not to comment on MM policy or I will be banned. That's just a fact. I can't participate in the discussion over there if I am to believe what I've been told and do not wish to lose my account.

Indeed, it makes me wonder if, knowing that they're certainly reading this thread over here, this post is enough to cause that to happen. If I'm banned at MM, I suspect we'll know why.

Open question to Roger: if MM invites you back after honoring your DMCA, will you go? What if they apologize and invite you to resume dispensing advise and corrections?

I wish I could comment over there.

"Miguel" said, "We have, to my knowledge, never banned a member simply for stating their opinion. People should feel absolutely free to respond."

This is disingenuous. I've been told directly that I am not to comment on MM policy or I will be banned. That's just a fact. I can't participate in the discussion over there if I am to believe what I've been told and do not wish to lose my account.

Indeed, it makes me wonder if, knowing that they're certainly reading this thread over here, this post is enough to cause that to happen. If I'm banned at MM, I suspect we'll know why.

Open question to Roger: if MM invites you back after honoring your DMCA, will you go? What if they apologize and invite you to resume dispensing advise and corrections?

Yeah. And Mods and GKs and Contest Mods have to agree not to even question politely anything about the site because it might "give ammunition to the troublemakers."

So I may be getting kicked off MM or out of the PotD 18+ Contest tonight.

I wish I could comment over there.

"Miguel" said, "We have, to my knowledge, never banned a member simply for stating their opinion. People should feel absolutely free to respond."

This is disingenuous. I've been told directly that I am not to comment on MM policy or I will be banned. That's just a fact. I can't participate in the discussion over there if I am to believe what I've been told and do not wish to lose my account.

Indeed, it makes me wonder if, knowing that they're certainly reading this thread over here, this post is enough to cause that to happen. If I'm banned at MM, I suspect we'll know why.

Open question to Roger: if MM invites you back after honoring your DMCA, will you go? What if they apologize and invite you to resume dispensing advise and corrections?

Yeah. And Mods and GKs and Contest Mods have to agree not to even question politely anything about the site because it might "give ammunition to the troublemakers."

So I may be getting kicked off MM or out of the PotD 18+ Contest tonight.

I already quit.


I pointed out that it had little to do with Roger (no offense Roger) but more to do with my disappointment and disgust with the apparent way IB was taking the site.

Let me deal with the claims he is making on MM:

Earlier today we were forced to remove a long time, active member of the site. The removal was simply and purely due to the fact that this member explicitly stated his disagreement with the terms and services of the site. As all members of this community are required to agree to these terms, it was essential that this person no longer be a member.

This is artfully worded, but misleading. It is not true that I disagreed with the Terms of services. Far from it, I was asking that they abide by their stated Terms, and they refused. They claimed a new, previously unknown interpretation of those Terms, very different from what I or, to my knowledge, anyone else had ever imagined they could mean. I disagreed not with the terms, but with that strange interpretation.

The disagreement involved the use of the Model Mayhem forums and who retains the right to the comments of the members and who has the right to edit those comments.

Again, artfully worded and misleading. Nowhere did I make any statement or request about editing anything anyone else had said. I asked solely and only that they remove MY words (and in some cases, pictures) which their own Terms said they no longer had a license to display.

Our view is this: by taking part in an online discussion you are giving other participants in the discussion the opportunity to quote your statements to help them place their own statements in context. This act of quoting is effectively making an archived version of your statement and is an essential aspect of any conversation.

This is a novel use of the term "archived". I have no issue at all with the fact that a site archives its content, including content that I have placed on it. There are good historical and technical reasons for it. But to say that someone who is placing text in quotes is "archiving" it is stretching the English language far beyond it's accepted meaning.

Our terms of service clearly state that we retain the right to hold an archived version of content. This is in place for a number of reasons, one of which is to maintain the integrity of the website so the broader community can still find value in it. (I like the example posted in a separate thread of a quote archived in a newspaper)

I absolutely agree with all of this. There is, as I have said before, perfectly valid reason for archiving. Real archiving. Not claiming that anything put in quotation marks is "archived". That's just ludicrous.

Right now we give all members the right to edit and delete their own posts.

True. And in fact I did that. No issue with that at all.

We also gave this specific member the opportunity to reach out to those that had quoted him to ask them to eliminate his words from their posts.

And they could chose to, or chose not to. Some of them may be friendly, others not. Whether or not my copyright is honored should not be left to the whim of others who may or may not have my best interests at heart.

The whole concept of the DMCA takedown notice is to cause the site to act in place of the infringer. It recognizes that not all requests will be honored, which their process does not.

We (MM Moderators or IB) do not edit people's posts.

This is false. Posts by people are hidden all the time. Most of the posts I asked to be hidden contained very little other than a verbatim quotation of my work.

If a post is deemed to contain material that is the copyright of others and we receive a proper DMCA take-down notice we will comply, as we do with all proper DMCA notices.

Again, artful but it appears to be misleading. It does not say they recognize that requests to have quotations removed are, in fact, "proper notices", nor that they recognize that such quotations of huge tracts of text or images do in fact constitute an infringement of copyright. In fact, they have already said, in effect, that they do not recognize this, so they are just attempting to mislead the reader.

I said I would send a DMCA takedown notice and they said they would delete my account.

Consider the logic of that. Either:

(a) My request is proper, the material should be taken down, but they will punish me for making the request, or

(b) My request is not proper, my interpretation of their Terms is not correct, and their Legal staff will decide not to take it down. That may turn out to be true, but my account was deleted before the formal request was even made. So, guilty before trial, too bad.

I can't believe Miguel just said this
"If you explicitly state that you disagree with the terms of this site or your actions clearly indicate that you disagree with them, we unfortunately are required to take away your membership."
http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=514220

Open question to Roger: if MM invites you back after honoring your DMCA, will you go? What if they apologize and invite you to resume dispensing advise and corrections?

What it would take for me to return (not that I think they have any inclination to either apologize or invite me) would be more than that. I believe, and have made clear to them, that there are fundamental issues with the place that are causing great disservice to the membership, and to go back without substantial changes would be a travesty.