Gaia's ToS needs to be revised

[Alexius08]

According to the previous version of the Terms of Service, we should be informed of changes to it. However, in December 16, 2013, Gaia altered it without informing anyone.

First, Section 3 has been altered to allow unannounced changes.

Old Terms of Service

Gaia reserves the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of these Terms at any time by posting a notice on the Website or by sending you an email.

New Terms of Service

Gaia reserves the right to modify or discontinue the Site with or without notice to you. ... Gaia reserves the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of these Terms at any time by posting an updated version on the Website.

For this update, no announcement about the changes (either in Staff Updates or in the Announcements section) was made, and I (and probably everyone else, unless some others got notices in their e-mail inboxes) never received an e-mail about this, although Gaia managed to send me an e-mail about that year's Christmas event in addition to several other e-mails about their announcements.

Then, Section 4a has been altered to outlaw disparaging, ridiculing, and scorning Gaia itself, its staff members and third parties.

Old Terms of Service

YOU AGREE not TO:
"stalk", harass, threaten, or defraud other Gaia Members;

New Terms of Service

YOU AGREE TO REFRAIN FROM ENGAGING IN ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:...
"stalk", harass, disparage, ridicule, scorn, threaten, or defraud any other Gaia member, or Gaia, its officers or employees, or third parties;

Also, the following provision (Section 4q) was added:

New Terms of Service

YOU AGREE TO REFRAIN FROM ENGAGING IN ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:...
post, distribute or divulge personal information of a Member or employee of Gaia on Gaia Online, or through any forum, blog or other method;

Section 4a of the ToS in its revised form, along with the newer Section 4q, have been used to suppress feedback, especially when we noticed that some staff members spoke to outside (non-Gaian) audiences about issues that matter to us. Worse, these rules seemed to be in force even before the ToS was revised to include them.

Although Lanzer and other founders are now in charge, these excessively-harsh rules remain in force. If you change the ToS, you should announce that you are doing so and revise Section 3 to make the announcement of changes to the ToS mandatory.

Section 4a should revert to the previous version. It can be easily exploited by users against others just through accusing their potential victims of making fun of them or just being anti-Gaia. Several posts in this thread, for example, can be argued as instances of ridicule against Gaia.

Section 4q needs to be repealed. As it stands today, old threads containing names, images or videos of staff members can be taken down. Worse, public figures (or even those who impersonate one) can request instances of their name to be taken off from forum posts and usernames. Imagine what would happen if, for example, Donald Trump (or someone who pretends to be him) signs up for an account and successfully invokes that provision. While the current privacy policy advises users against posting their real names and other personally-identifiable information, and "Gaia assumes no responsibility for any occurrence that is a result of [their] disclosure, whether directly or in a forum or other location on www.gaiaonline.com, of [their] personal information to other Members or Users," section 4q of the ToS seems to contradict the Privacy Policy through outlawing the posting of personal information of users and staff members regardless of who initially posted it.

Public figures, past and present C-level Gaia staff members (who, as highest-ranking employees, are supposed to be the company's lead representatives), and others who choose to officially represent Gaia in offline events, conferences (whether or not those events are organized by Gaia), and media interviews should automatically and irrevocably forfeit the right to keep secret their names (unless they use their Gaia username to introduce themselves) and their faces. For users and other staff members not covered above, if they post their real names or pictures of themselves, they should forfeit the right to request the removal of those (unless they can somehow prove beyond reasonable doubt that they're not in control of their accounts when those material were posted). Banning unwanted use of home addresses, contact numbers, links to social media profiles, and names/pictures not provided by the users themselves is already covered by the old version of section 4a.

As an apology to those affected by these rules, you should:

• restore posts made from March 2013 to present that were removed under these rules
  
• unban everyone who were permabanned under these rules
  
• not let warnings and/or temp bans against users who violated these rules negatively influence their applications for positions in Gaia, whether as moderators or in-house staff.

Similar amnesties should be granted to those who got warnings and/or bans for reporting spam announcements and PMs.

There are also other parts kept from the previous version that may need to be revised, but the aforementioned changes to the ToS were done by the previous management. These are among the "old ways of the previous management" that you need to step away from.

EDIT: Section 4q has been relaxed.

EDIT 2: Schofield-era ToS provisions are about to be repealed.

EDIT 3: An ex-mod shares what happened to those who reported spam PMs from admins.

EDIT 4: We're getting a new version of the ToS.

EDIT 5: Some parts contradict each other. This should be revised to remove the contradictions.

EDIT 6: Ban reviews are now underway.

ALSO SEE:

1. Moderation in review: Consistency in forum rules, please.
   
2. A guide on requesting changes for forum-specific rules

[Erynne]

So the rules apply to public figures?

[Alexius08]

Erynne

So the rules apply to public figures?

Section 4q in its current form doesn't distinguish between public figures and private individuals.

[Erynne]

Alexius08

Erynne

So the rules apply to public figures?

Section 4q in its current form doesn't distinguish between public figures and private individuals.

So another ninja fix could solve that immediately?

[Alexius08]

Erynne

Alexius08

Erynne

So the rules apply to public figures?

Section 4q in its current form doesn't distinguish between public figures and private individuals.

So another ninja fix could solve that immediately?

A revert to the previous version would be a quick fix that would solve this problem immediately. Private individuals who don't want their names and other details being spread in Gaia can invoke the old version of section 4a to have those stuff removed. Public figures can't use it to remove their names and pictures, but they can use it to remove other personal information that they don't want to be circulated (e.g. e-mail/home addresses, phone numbers).

[l3lue Jay]

It's kinda dumb but what are you gonna do?

[HighClass Badass]

l3lue Jay

It's kinda dumb but what are you gonna do?

Bring awareness to it in a site feedback thread and hope it catches Lanzer's eye like many other threads have?

[Katulain]

Alexius08

As an apology to those affected by these rules, you should:
* restore posts made from March 2013 to present that were removed under these rules
* unban everyone who were permabanned under these rules
* not let warnings and/or temp bans against users who violated these rules negatively influence their applications for positions in Gaia, whether as moderators or in-house staff.

Similar amnesties should be granted to those who got warnings and/or bans for reporting spam announcements and PMs.

There is no doubt in my mind, action like this would revitalize this community in a way that many may not expect.

I have a hard time believing a thread like this would have even seen the light of day two weeks ago. But now that we are experiencing a transition back to the leadership of Gaia's founding, this thread is really evidence of one thing:

Hope.

People may not see it, but this is really rolling back a curtain of tyranny and oppressed thoughts and opinions, simply for the totality of a morally bankrupt past administration.

In order to move past this, fundamentally challenge who we have become with who we truly are, and usher in success after success... the community and its moderation should be given a second look, and then a second chance.

[Hat-tori]

Katulain

Alexius08

As an apology to those affected by these rules, you should:
* restore posts made from March 2013 to present that were removed under these rules
* unban everyone who were permabanned under these rules
* not let warnings and/or temp bans against users who violated these rules negatively influence their applications for positions in Gaia, whether as moderators or in-house staff.

Similar amnesties should be granted to those who got warnings and/or bans for reporting spam announcements and PMs.

There is no doubt in my mind, action like this would revitalize this community in a way that many may not expect.

I have a hard time believing a thread like this would have even seen the light of day two weeks ago. But now that we are experiencing a transition back to the leadership of Gaia's founding, this thread is really evidence of one thing:

Hope.

People may not see it, but this is really rolling back a curtain of tyranny and oppressed thoughts and opinions, simply for the totality of a morally bankrupt past administration.

In order to move past this, fundamentally challenge who we have become with who we truly are, and usher in success after success... the community and its moderation should be given a second look, and then a second chance.

I really have to agree. As sappy as it sounds, something as simple as Lanzer acknowledging the massive inflation, the recockulous announcement schedule, and so on has actually made me happy to come to SF and talk.

(Insert a Second Coming Of Lanzer image here at earliest convenience)

[Katulain]

Hat-tori

I really have to agree. As sappy as it sounds, something as simple as Lanzer acknowledging the massive inflation, the recockulous announcement schedule, and so on has actually made me happy to come to SF and talk.

(Insert a Second Coming Of Lanzer image here at earliest convenience)

Aww. -hugs-

I have to say, the past few days have reminded me a lot of what Gaia used to be. We're all still posting on a thin ice... and in talking to people through backchannels, there's an intense amount of interest in these SF threads. There are several users who are just not posting because for the past three years, their opinions would have caused (or did cause) them to get banned.

But people want to know that the ToS is going to change and that Gaia's community will be put in front of its business. People want to believe the right thing will be done for once.

[Qwertea]

Isn't there a policy for accounts that have been banned for 90 days? Anything past 90 days without filing a ticket (during the 90 days) can't be unbanned? I could have sworn that I've seen it mentiond in a past AtS. If need be I'll go hunt the post down.

Anyway even if he can't unban the accounts it would be nice to have a staff alert telling us when people change up the ToS. It's not really fair to change and edit rules without telling people. sweatdrop

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

I can really agree with most of the OP here. I always thought it was heavy-handed to punish people for using publicly available information (names of the executives). I understand that threats and abuse were becoming a problem, but I think the moderation procedure should have focused on dealing with the people who were making threats and saying really abusive things. I totally agree that it's questionable to include ridiculing/disparaging "Gaia" as a banned activity, especially in the absence of any guidelines as far as what constitutes ridicule and disparagement. People shouldn't be abusive but should be able to express frustration at the site even if that frustration includes some sarcasm or snark.

I'm not sure about asking them to try to restore all of the posts that were deleted for this issue (some of them were probably legitimately deleted, and it would take a long time to go through them all, if they even still exist anywhere on the server), but I agree that the ToS should be updated to at least fully clarify, if not remove, the newly questionable sections.

Also, good point about public figures like DT. He is a wildcard, very sensitive to criticism, and I could see him or one of his team taking advantage of a rule like that to stifle political discussion here. One of the themes I'm seeing right now as far as "how to protect democracy" in the face of an authoritarian government is not to self-censor or voluntarily give up rights before they try to require it.

[Neshira Namea Returns]

It would definitely be nice. My account was permabanned under the new modified rules because I was warning charity owners about a scammer and giving them the usernames of the 30+ accounts she uses to scam charities, community events, and guilds out of trillions of gold.

Unfortunately she chose to report me for "name-dropping" and because I gave those usernames in an attempt to protect other Gaians I was banned.

I have no doubt that under the old rules I may have been warned perhaps but never perma banned for trying to protect people while she was never fully punished because despite IP address proof Gaia chose to claim they had "no definitive evidence that these 30+ accounts were all the same person."

[Alexius08]

Daffodil the Destroyer

I'm not sure about asking them to try to restore all of the posts that were deleted for this issue (some of them were probably legitimately deleted, and it would take a long time to go through them all, if they even still exist anywhere on the server), but I agree that the ToS should be updated to at least fully clarify, if not remove, the newly questionable sections.

Deleted forum posts and threads can be restored, since Gaia's search function can still detect their contents. "Deleted" threads aren't actually deleted: they're instead moved to a "Trash Bin" forum that only mods and admins can see (which I learned when one of my threads were removed). I'm not sure about posts, but there might be an option for mods/admins to restore them. I'm less sure if the same can be done to comments in the ex-CEO's Gaia profile.

The restoration of those posts can be handled either by existing mods or newly-appointed ones (if the existing mods have too much workload). If I'm invited to help them on that, I will join them.

Dogoda

Isn't there a policy for accounts that have been banned for 90 days? Anything past 90 days without filing a ticket (during the 90 days) can't be unbanned? I could have sworn that I've seen it mentiond in a past AtS. If need be I'll go hunt the post down.

If such a policy exists, it should be overruled when dealing with bans that were issued under these rules. They have to overturn bans from as far back as 2013.

[Knight Yoshi]

Daffodil the Destroyer

Alexius08

Daffodil the Destroyer

I'm not sure about asking them to try to restore all of the posts that were deleted for this issue (some of them were probably legitimately deleted, and it would take a long time to go through them all, if they even still exist anywhere on the server), but I agree that the ToS should be updated to at least fully clarify, if not remove, the newly questionable sections.

Deleted forum posts and threads can be restored, since Gaia's search function can still detect their contents. "Deleted" threads aren't actually deleted: they're instead moved to a "Trash Bin" forum that only mods and admins can see (which I learned when one of my threads were removed). I'm not sure about posts, but there might be an option for mods/admins to restore them. I'm less sure if the same can be done to comments in the ex-CEO's Gaia profile.

The restoration of those posts can be handled either by existing mods or newly-appointed ones (if the existing mods have too much workload). If I'm invited to help them on that, I will join them.

Dogoda

Isn't there a policy for accounts that have been banned for 90 days? Anything past 90 days without filing a ticket (during the 90 days) can't be unbanned? I could have sworn that I've seen it mentiond in a past AtS. If need be I'll go hunt the post down.

If such a policy exists, it should be overruled when dealing with bans that were issued under these rules. They have to overturn bans from as far back as 2013.

Bans can be appealed up to 1 year after the account has been banned. After that all appeals are disregarded. Account hacks can be filed up to 90 days after the account was hacked. They can be filed past that date, but there's no guarantee they'll look into it and less that items would be recovered.