Are we an RPG Discussion website or a Free Speech website?

[rusty_shackleford]

Exactly how much risk would you be willing to take with a government that locks its own citizens inside their homes and grants them the privilege of leaving for 1 whole hour of recreation a day?

Their laws regarding this are broad and draconian, they're very open to interpretation. You know what pisses off a powertripping government? Attempting to skirt authority.

This is the same kind of argument as "they will probably make the vaxx mandatory, so I better cuck out now and get it."

Australia still has laws. What he needs is to find a way to not go against those laws, whether with IP blocking or something else. If new laws come out, then he will need to reassess.

Australia indeed has laws. Lots of them, especially about what you can't say, who you aren't allowed to say it to, your liability for content uploaded to sites you own irregardless of who provided it, and what kind of content hosted on your website will send you to prison.
I don't see any exceptions in these laws that takes away liability if your website is inaccessible for Australians. In fact, I see the opposite. For example, their new 2019 censorship law is full of things like this:

(2) For the purposes of this section:

(a) it is immaterial whether the content service is provided within or outside Australia; and

(b) it is immaterial whether the hosting service is provided within or outside Australia.

 

[Ehrenmann]

For example, their new 2019 censorship law is full of things like this:

(2) For the purposes of this section:

(a) it is immaterial whether the content service is provided within or outside Australia; and

(b) it is immaterial whether the hosting service is provided within or outside Australia.

Damn, is this really how it ends.

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

It's almost like there is a totalitarian NWO being set up where you get sent to a GULAG for wrongthink.

 

[Lady Error]

I don't see any exceptions in these laws that takes away liability if your website is inaccessible for Australians.

I do:

474.34 Removing, or ceasing to host, abhorrent violent material

Content service​

(1) A person commits an offence if:

(a) the person provides a content service; and

(b) the content service can be used to access material; and

(c) the material is abhorrent violent material; and

(d) the person does not ensure the expeditious removal of the material from the content service.​

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), it is immaterial whether the content service is provided within or outside Australia.

(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to material unless the material is reasonably capable of being accessed within Australia.​

https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019A00038

In other words, no prosecution unless the material is "reasonably capable of being accessed within Australia".

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't see any exceptions in these laws that takes away liability if your website is inaccessible for Australians.

I do:

474.34 Removing, or ceasing to host, abhorrent violent material

Content service​

(1) A person commits an offence if:

(a) the person provides a content service; and

(b) the content service can be used to access material; and

(c) the material is abhorrent violent material; and

(d) the person does not ensure the expeditious removal of the material from the content service.​

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), it is immaterial whether the content service is provided within or outside Australia.

(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to material unless the material is reasonably capable of being accessed within Australia.​

https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019A00038

In other words, no prosecution for hosting "illegal" stuff, unless the material is "reasonably capable of being accessed within Australia".

Who gets to define what "reasonably capable" means?

I'm sure DU is thrilled to risk going to prison over a judge(or jury or Australia's high minister of truth) deciding that VPNs are considered reasonably capable.

 

[Zenith]

I'm mostly a lurker and, I'm sure, not the only one who started lurking with the SirTech thread. Stayed mostly for monocled gen.gaming shitflinging. Pure RPGs for me are secondary, but even as a formality, the website's RPG focus pulls the level of discussion on other genres up a little.
So related to that, and something I don't see mentioned, is the Codex's value as an archive. I can go and catch up on the last couple of months just as easily as I could catch up on some decade-old topic. In chronological order, in a relatively untouched state. Now this requires both the forum structure and a certain commitment to free speech. Again, you can say that the Codex being some kind of Rosetta stone chronicling the decline of the West might be a ridiculous notion, but, is it? What else is there? I see people seriously suggesting nuking this or that half and starting over. At least contact ArchiveTeam before you do something this retarded.
And speaking of retarded, crying about The Man oppressing you in Australia mere months after your admins bragged about doing whatever the fuck they want with the users' personal and payment info is some bad timing, huh? Also the "nigger" debacle is lame and witless as hell, even replacing with "mudcrab" would have been better. In general, once the process starts, keeping up with censorship rules is a stupid game with stupid prizes. Russian internet blacklists started with "think of the children" drugs & pedo stuff, didn't take long to allow them to block literally whatever they wanted.
Anyway, that's my two cents. Did not vote.

 

[Lady Error]

Who gets to define what "reasonably capable" means?

That's what he should look into or get a lawyer to do it.

You didn't even see this excemption and only focused on the negative. So what's your point? DU should pre-emptively give up and close the Codex?

 

[Burning Bridges]

DU, in my opinion this is a RPG discussion site. There is however a third option, which is that you move out of Australia.

 

[Atlantico]

this doesn't imply a carte blanche on anything that would constitute hate speech

I want every single anti-Catholic slur and lies banned and each such poster punished with fines and jail time, because that's "hate-speech".

Every anti-white slur, every anti-family propaganda, is hate-speech. Fueled by hatred, inciting violence and crimes and discrimination against me and my kind.

So I expect the Codex to come down hard on such hate-speech.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Australia is not just weird and dictatorial but also the continent with most alien activity, so I would leave for that alone.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Who gets to define what "reasonably capable" means?

That's what he should look into or get a lawyer to do it.

You didn't even see this excemption and only focused on the negative. So what's your point? DU should pre-emptively give up and close the Codex?

This is a country that made publishers liable for comments posted by others in reply to them on their Facebook that they have zero control over. The government of Australia locks its citizens in their own home and allows them to go outside for one whole hour a day if they get enough goodboy points.

My point is that it's a terrible idea to operate an internet platform out of Australia regardless of what content is being hosted on it.
DU — I assume — has no interest in trying to fight the man over your right to insult minorities on an obscure Fallout fansite. There is a very good chance he will end up in prison because people on an obscure website for RPGs made by neanderthals egged him on. If you think he should try to fight, I think you're insane.

I won't attempt to lecture DU on what he should do, he's a big boy and I think I've given a decent enough defense of the situation he's in.
If I were in his position, however, I'd probably seek to transfer ownership to someone like SaintProverbius or (God forgive me) Crispy.

 

[communard]

Just get rid of the politics forum and start moderating GD a bit more lol. Keep the rest as is. One thing that could and should go are all the (non-gaming related) ragebait-repost megathreads.

This has very little to do with protecting against litigation. If somebody wants to fuck with you they can fuck with you unless you sanitize the site to the point of unusability (and even then). Dissuading the gamergate- and /pol/-emigres will significantly reduce the size of the big bullseye the site currently has painted on it though.

And obviously if there's a way to divorce the site from Australia that would probably be good for everybody involved. Nothing good comes from associating with Australia.

EDIT: What year did Politics split off from GD anyway? My sense of elapsed time has gone to complete shit.

 

[Lady Error]

If you think he should try to fight, I think you're insane.

If I were in his position, however, I'd probably seek to transfer ownership to someone like SaintProverbius or (God forgive me) Crispy.

We are looking for a legal solution, not a fight.

You propose a solution that may be more difficult to accomplish (or maybe not, if Saint_Proverbius is up for it), while IP blocking is legally less secure but much easier to do.

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

If I were in his position, however, I'd probably seek to transfer ownership to someone like SaintProverbius or (may allah forgive me for uttering this word) Cr*spy.

ftfy

 

[Tacgnol]

I think the arguments over the last 2 pages seem to boil down to one thing:

Consult a lawyer.

We can all make suggestions to DU, but they are ultimately pointless without a legal expert who actually understands the minefield that is Australian laws.

 

[Burning Bridges]

And a psychiatrist

 

[RNGsus]

Just get rid of the politics forum and start moderating GD a bit more lol. Keep the rest as is. One thing that could and should go are all the (non-gaming related) ragebait-repost megathreads.

This has very little to do with protecting against litigation. If somebody wants to fuck with you they can fuck with you unless you sanitize the site to the point of unusability (and even then). Dissuading the gamergate- and /pol/-emigres will significantly reduce the size of the big bullseye the site currently has painted on it though.

And obviously if there's a way to divorce the site from Australia that would probably be good for everybody involved. Nothing good comes from associating with Australia.

EDIT: What year did Politics split off from GD anyway? My sense of elapsed time has gone to complete shit.

How do you nuke politics and not the rest of GD? Everything - from movies, anime, science, religion, celebrity deadpool, technology, cooking ffs - is downstream of politics now. Including gayms. Everything is an alt-right dog whistle. Shitbox will have to die. I agree though, if this site is staying Australia, admins will have to go full nazi to float. Everybody but effort posters like myself and octavius must be eliminated.

 

[fantadomat]

If DarkUnderlord blocks all Australian IPs, then how will he be able to access his own site?

By becoming a citizen of the free world....aka Chinaman.

China does have censor law and procedure in force, though.

I speak, not generally, but specifically. I know for a fact the amateur novels on Net, written and read by Chinese, are censor. I quite frequently find chapters get 404, or rewritten, and whole novels might be blocked officially and commercially (there's unofficial access thanks to horde of copypasta collection sites).

The rules on what and who get censored can be quite obscured, according to "victims".

So forums are definitely targets of censor laws~

Ahhh yes,that was the joke. Tho at this moment there is more freedom in china than in the west. In the west there is a lot more censorship and spying,also their social system at least it is clear on to what you are allowed or not. In the west you get fucked for shit didn't knew were problematic because the purity line is pushed with every day.

 

[Burning Bridges]

RPG / gamedev discussion are really the only thing that are worth keeping.

General Gaming, strategy, "space" gaming etc is retarded. The movie / cooking stuff is honestly not that much and something you can have in other places too.

GD / politics is cancer. Sport is mostly shitposting, and basically just a waste of time during the World Cup.

And the "help me how insert penis into vagina the first time without embarassing myself" stuff. Well that really is so sick and embarassing that it belongs to a locked psychotherapy group.

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

Consult a lawyer.

And a psychiatrist

And an exorcist.

 

[communard]

How do you nuke politics and not the rest of GD?

Because it's a bad sub-forum that attracts annoying people. Why does a computer game site need a politics sub-forum? I don't remember why it was created in the first place but I would assume it was an attempt to improve GD which it clearly didn't do so just yeet the fucking thing.

 

[Atlantico]

RPG / gamedev discussion are really the only thing that is really worth keeping.

There is a high risk of hate-speech and Australian law breaking in RPG / gamedev discussion.

We may have to shut it all down. Just to be sure.

 

[Burning Bridges]

How do you nuke politics and not the rest of GD?

Because it's a bad sub-forum that attracts annoying people. Why does a computer game site need a politics sub-forum? I don't remember why it was created in the first place but I would assume it was an attempt to improve GD which it clearly didn't do so just yeet the fucking thing.

GD was pretty much a harmless past time, you could argue with stupid, post shit and swear and nothing really happened.

This was until ca 2014 when a lot of really repulsive people came in that basically just wanted to talk politics and had massive chips on their shoulder. The normal thing would have been to nuke it right away but that was against all principles, so they came up with the 1-year-before-first-post-in-GD rule.

Tbh I don't even know what DU is still waiting for, I would delete the whole garbage and get on with discussing games and arts and fine taste like in the old days.

I would love to have the principle remain that you can insult posters as long as you do not talk the extermination of entire branches of people you can't stand.

 

[Kruno]

How do you nuke politics and not the rest of GD?

Because it's a bad sub-forum that attracts annoying people. Why does a computer game site need a politics sub-forum? I don't remember why it was created in the first place but I would assume it was an attempt to improve GD which it clearly didn't do so just yeet the fucking thing.

GD was pretty much a harmless past time, you could argue with stupid, post shit and swear and nothing really happened.

This was until ca 2014 when a lot of really repulsive people came in that basically just wanted to talk politics and had massive chips on their shoulder. The normal thing would have been to nuke it right away but that was against all principles, so they came up with the 1-year-before-first-post-in-GD rule.

Tbh I don't even know what DU is still waiting for, I would delete the whole garbage and get on with discussing games and arts and taste. I would love to have the principle remain that you can insult posters as long as you do not talk the extermination of entire branches of people you can't stand.

I farted.

 

[communard]

GD was pretty much a harmless past time, you could argue with stupid, post shit and swear and nothing really happened.

This was until ca 2014 when a lot of really repulsive people came in that basically just wanted to talk politics and had massive chips on their shoulder. The normal thing would have been to nuke it right away but that was against all principles, so they came up with the 1-year-before-first-post-in-GD rule.

This is basically the way I remember things as well. Was Politics created before or after the 1 year quarantine was instituted? I feel like it was after but I can't remember.