Re: how to deal with advertising submission for FAQ

Bernhard Muenzer (mue@gsf.de)
Fri, 7 Oct 1994 10:29:17 +0100 (MET)

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In reply to: Wilf Leblanc: "Re: how to deal with advertising submission for FAQ"

From wilf@sce.carleton.ca (Wilf Leblanc):
>
> Lani Teshima-Miller writes:
> >
> [...]
> > Basically, you have a couple of options. As an editor, YOU can
> > exercise what you want to do. Remember that as a FAQ maintainer who
> > has total control over the files' contents, you *may* be held
> > accountable for content, even if you didn't write it yourself.
> [...]
>
> OK, but it seems to me that if you are quoting something that someone
> else wrote how could you be held accountable ? For example, if
> someone posted a scathing flame of company X (C&S for example),
> and someone included the entire post in a FAQ, would the FAQ
> maintainer be somehow libel for the contents of the post ?

Quoting doesn't make you immune to legal action, though it
makes it harder to sue you. The country you post from may also make
a difference.

> If the person asked you to remove their post from the FAQ, or company
> X asked you to remove it do you have to ?

You may not have to, but it's common courtesy to do so anyway.
As an FAQ maintainer, you are more dependent on how your readers
and contributors view your integrity than as a normal poster.

There are exceptions, though - the maintainers of the net.legends
and alt.usenet.kooks archives will not remove any entries if the
respective authors ask them to do so :-)

If a contributor asks me to remove something from the FAQ, I will at
least remove the reference to him.
If it is a larger portion of text that might cause copyright problems,
I will not keep the text either. The same would hold for elaborate
ASCII art. This is not a legal issue with me, but common courtesy
(it might also be a legal issue, but common courtesy towards the
contributor is more important to me).

If I decide that the content of the contribution is important to the
reader and researchable by me, I will try to verify the facts, rephrase
the statement in my own diction and possibly add that a fellow netter
drew my attention to the fact.

If I can't verify the facts but think the issue important I'll put
it up to discussion in the newsgroup, removing it from the FAQ until
the question is either resolved or I have quotable material for
both sides.

If the company asks me to remove an entry, I will try to discuss
the issue with the company and the contributor, trying to turn it
into a public discussion on the newsgroup, and temporarily replacing
the original statement with the note that this issue is being under
discussion.

These considerations are part of my reasons not to post diffs for
my FAQ, since that would cause deleted material to be re-posted.

With best regards,

Bernhard Muenzer

GSF - Forschungszentrum fuer Umwelt und Gesundheit GmbH PUC Neuherberg Phone: +49-89-3187-2425 85764 Oberschleissheim FAX: +49-89-3187-3369 Germany e-mail: mue@gsf.de

Next message: David C Lawrence: "Re: Improving efficiency of *.answers moderation process"
Previous message: Steve Lionel 06-Oct-1994 2101: "Re: Improving efficiency of *.answers moderation process"
In reply to: Wilf Leblanc: "Re: how to deal with advertising submission for FAQ"

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