Rowland: (Again, everyone, unless you tell me otherwise, I’m assuming that anything on newsgroups is public domain. Yes, yes, yes, I know the other angle on that issue 🙂

Peter (all that follows): Well there are some considerations that bear mention.

I suppose one might feel honoured, privileged, proud, whatever, at having their posts quoted in public. Personally I’m not sure that I’m quite happy to have mine (some with personal comments) appearing on your site, where they do so out of their intended context. Although ng posts are public domain, as you say, they are nevertheless intended for a specific audience- the readership of the ng- and are invariably made with that in mind, and intended to be read in relation to the thread under discussion. When you remove them from that locale and context, and post them on your website, you expose them to an unintended audience- those visiting your website.. and your readership is quite large, about 1,000 per week- and place them within an unintended context.ie, one of your choosing.

Published literature is in the public domain also, but you cannot quote from a book without the authors permission, yet you are using ppls remarks to promote viewpoints, even contrary to what they would wish, without their permission. You also make no attempts to conceal authorship, and sig files are left intact, which would allow the author to be both identified and contacted.

The more paranoid among us may even consider that this plagiarism [ 🙂 ] is a form of exploitation, where ones comments are used as ‘feed’ to suit your own agenda. In many instances it is the reply of another that is used, which makes for an even worse case scenario in this regard.

There is also the issue of durability. Ng posts have a limited lifespan lasting several weeks at most. Transported to a website they last indefinitely as long as the site is up. People are in a transitional state most of their lives in many ways, and comments that are or seemed appropriate at one point in time, might cause embarrassment or otherwise at a later date, or if viewed by those the author would or did not consider would be viewing them. Remember we are not talking about a literary work that was intended to be read by the public in general, and ng posting is not always taken seriously (perhaps it should be), and so comments may have been made hastily, without due consideration, or as an angry emotional response, or for frivolous or whatever reasons. So again I come back to the issue of matters out of context.

You may however argue that you do nothing that ppl like Google, and formerly Deja.com, have done, and that may be a valid response. However these organizations are archiving messages for research purposes, and persons would need to seek out postings with deliberate effort. Comments appearing on a website are viewable unintentionally by just browsing, as has happened to most of us on occasions I’m sure. So that could be the answer to that.

You say that you will remove any article upon request, but by doing so you are requesting action after the fact.. a bit like a manufacturer who sends a product unsolicited, and says return it if you don’t wish to be billed for it!

I don’t wish to put too fine a point on this, but I just think that you are perhaps treading in some muddy waters ethically and morally, and perhaps legally.. unless you have made investigations about these of course. I wonder tho, what your legal position would be if someone were to suffer any personal or professional damage or injury as a result of comments published on your website? It’s possible that someone could discover via your website that somone they know has a particular religious ‘bent’, and might discriminate against them on that basis.. occupationally or otherwise.

Finally I don’t know if usernet or ng FAQ’s come into play here, or to what extent.

These are just some thoughts, and I would be interested to hear what others think about this. (comments such as ‘Peter is a wanker’ will be ignored 🙂

[p.s. I wonder if this will wind up on your website! ]