Objection

[Abatael]

I have an objection to the judgement found here. I later used 1000 Cats as an example for something; I wasn't objecting to that judgement, in fact, I support the judgement. But, back on-topic, if we were to use this post as precedent for which laws NS bases rules off of, we would find that consumption of cannabis is illegal in all four of the nations that were listed, which is supported by the sites below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis#.C2.A0Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis#.C2.A0Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis#.C2.A0United_Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis#.C2.A0United_States, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_the_United_States

And, a map with a general outline of the legality of cannabis; the majority of the world being illegal.

And, here is any easy to navigate table with a list of nations, and the legality of cannabis in the coresponding nation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_country

With that said, he openly admitted to consuming cannabis, which is illegal, so he submitted illegal content, which is an infraction of the code of conduct: found here. In the code of conduct, it says:

“You may submit content to NationStates.net so long as it is not [...] illegal.

That would be a direct violation.

I believe, using [violet]'s post as precedent of which laws to follow, that is illegal, and a violation of the Terms & Conditions of Use. If I am still considered wrong, then, if I may, I request an Administrator to review the judgement, and re-consider it. If the Administrator affirms the initial judgement, I will abide by it. I'm sorry for any inconvienence I may have brought up in the process, and thank you.

[[violet]]

As a policy, we don't permit people to post on this site about committing crimes. Whether cannabis usage is a crime (according to the territories-we-care-about test) isn't something we've ever formulated official policy on, as far as I recall, since nobody seems to have really cared before.

But in light of this request, we'll perform a review. This means gathering information on the legal status of cannabis use in various states and countries, and using that to form a broad policy on whether it's essentially legal or essentially illegal. This will probably take about a week.

[Abatael]

As a policy, we don't permit people to post on this site about committing crimes. Whether cannabis usage is a crime (according to the territories-we-care-about test) isn't something we've ever formulated official policy on, as far as I recall, since nobody seems to have really cared before.

But in light of this request, we'll perform a review. This means gathering information on the legal status of cannabis use in various states and countries, and using that to form a broad policy on whether it's essentially legal or essentially illegal. This will probably take about a week.

Thank you for your quick response, and consideration. And, I am so sorry for any pain, trouble, or inconvenience I may have caused as a result of the request. Again, thank you.

[The Blaatschapen]

As a policy, we don't permit people to post on this site about committing crimes. Whether cannabis usage is a crime (according to the territories-we-care-about test) isn't something we've ever formulated official policy on, as far as I recall, since nobody seems to have really cared before.

But in light of this request, we'll perform a review. This means gathering information on the legal status of cannabis use in various states and countries, and using that to form a broad policy on whether it's essentially legal or essentially illegal. This will probably take about a week.

Considering that those territories-we-care-about do not have jurisdiction where I live and that where I live the stuff is decriminalized. Can I or can I not talk about the stuff on here (not that I smoke anymore, but still...)?

I'll hope to see the answer to my question as well next week.

Thanks

[Forsher]

I have a question, I thought the point was not to be seen endorsing illegal activity?

[Abatael]

Will we be getting a response to this anytime soon? It's been more than a week.

[Belschaft]

If there's no objection to me throwing in a quick five cents;

I think that this raises a very serious issue that could have a serious impact on the viability of the site, or at least NSG and F7. If this particular rule is re-interpreted as forbidding any discussion of actions committed by a user that is in breach of US/Canadian/UK/Australian law, regardless of the existence of said offence in the individual users locality or the seriousness of it, then potentially we could see a huge number of areas of discussion being closed off; for example, a discussion about file sharing would be, under such a ruling, in breach of the rule. So could a discussion in which someone admits to being an illegal immigrant. The list of such subjects, in which users have and may desire to share personal experience, is potentially limitless, and as such we could very well find ourselves with vast areas being deemed taboo. NSG, and NS in general, has always thrived on heated debate of controversial subjects; restricting that would be bad for NS.

Whilst I understand the purpose of the rule in question it has been, to the best of my knowledge, previously been applied only to posts that are encouraging/facilitating the committing of serious offences, and even then only sparingly. If that is incorrect please correct me.

I am of the opinion that any ruling on this issue that restricts the ability of users to discuss subjects, whatever they may be, would be bad for the site. As such, I implore the relevant authorities to apply as conservative a definition of what constitutes illegal content as possible.

[Abatael]

If there's no objection to me throwing in a quick five cents;

I think that this raises a very serious issue that could have a serious impact on the viability of the site, or at least NSG and F7. If this particular rule is re-interpreted as forbidding any discussion of actions committed by a user that is in breach of US/Canadian/UK/Australian law, regardless of the existence of said offence in the individual users locality or the seriousness of it, then potentially we could see a huge number of areas of discussion being closed off; for example, a discussion about file sharing would be, under such a ruling, in breach of the rule. So could a discussion in which someone admits to being an illegal immigrant. The list of such subjects, in which users have and may desire to share personal experience, is potentially limitless, and as such we could very well find ourselves with vast areas being deemed taboo. NSG, and NS in general, has always thrived on heated debate of controversial subjects; restricting that would be bad for NS.

Whilst I understand the purpose of the rule in question it has been, to the best of my knowledge, previously been applied only to posts that are encouraging/facilitating the committing of serious offences, and even then only sparingly. If that is incorrect please correct me.

I am of the opinion that any ruling on this issue that restricts the ability of users to discuss subjects, whatever they may be, would be bad for the site. As such, I implore the relevant authorities to apply as conservative a definition of what constitutes illegal content as possible.

That would be incorrect. See here. The Mods, and Administrators cannot, to my knowledge, change Terms, & Conditions of Use policy, no matter how much they disagree.

[Belschaft]

That would be incorrect. See here. The Mods, and Administrators cannot, to my knowledge, change Terms, & Conditions of Use policy, no matter how much they disagree.

I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to point out.

If it is that they have to obey the following;

You may submit content to NationStates.net so long as it is not obscene, illegal, threatening, malicious, or defamatory, does not invade the privacy or infringe the intellectual property of a third party, and does not constitute "spam."

I'd argue that this is an issue of how the moderators and admin's choose to interpret such, and as such they have a great deal of leeway. I'm arguing for a very loose interpretation of what is 'illegal' that does a minimum of impact upon NS, and does not prevent discussion of controversial topics.

[Abatael]

That would be incorrect. See here. The Mods, and Administrators cannot, to my knowledge, change Terms, & Conditions of Use policy, no matter how much they disagree.

I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to point out.

If it is that they have to obey the following;

You may submit content to NationStates.net so long as it is not obscene, illegal, threatening, malicious, or defamatory, does not invade the privacy or infringe the intellectual property of a third party, and does not constitute "spam."

I'd argue that this is an issue of how the moderators and admin's choose to interpret such, and as such they have a great deal of leeway. I'm arguing for a very loose interpretation of what is 'illegal' that does a minimum of impact upon NS, and does not prevent discussion of controversial topics.

This will be my last post on this thread about this; I do not wish to get in trouble for spamming. This thread is about their interpretation of the policy concerning consumption of cannabis. It is illegal in all of the territories they care about. The posting of illegal content, such as consuming cannabis, is not allaowed. If you do not agree to it, do not use the site. But, we have yet to see their decision about it. Now, the consumption of cannabis may be controversial, but, more importantly, it is illegal; and, therefore, not allowed.

[[violet]]

Will we be getting a response to this anytime soon?

It's still under review.

[[violet]]

As per the site FAQ, we don't allow content that is obscene, illegal, threatening, malicious, defamatory, or spam. A question has been raised about how the ban on illegal content applies to someone posting about cannabis usage.

As previously discussed, judging whether something is illegal is often not as simple as it sounds. Different things are illegal in different places. We can't be lawyers or police officers, figuring out where each poster lives and how his/her local laws might apply, so we need to adopt broad guidelines for whether something is generally legal or illegal. We'll then apply these to user posts, except in unusual circumstances such as a poster talking about something that is legal in its local or historical context.

If we find content that contravenes a site rule, what we do next depends on how egregious the violation is. For something minor, we might just ask or remind the poster to not post things like that in the future. If it's more serious, or the poster seems to be ignoring past advice, we may hand out an official warning, which is noted on their account, or skip straight to a temporary or permanent ban from the site.

There are different ways a poster can talk about illegal activity: they can admit to it, they can encourage it, and they can facilitate it. "Facilitating" means posting instructions on how to break the law, and this is generally very illegal, even if the crime in question is less so. "Encouraging" others to break the law is also usually a fairly serious matter--although please do note the huge difference between "I believe ____ should be legal, help me campaign to change the law," and "You should go out and do _____."

"Admitting" to a crime is a little murkier. We probably don't have a problem with, for example, someone discussing a crime they committed in the past and now regret. We do have a problem when that post edges into encouraging or facilitating that behavior in other people. Generally speaking, when someone posts that they did something, they're implicitly endorsing it. This is particularly true if they talk about an ongoing practice. So while we don't ban admitting to criminal behavior on its own, those posts are probably unacceptable unless they take steps to ensure they don't present as encouraging or facilitating.

So, to cannabis usage in particular. We've consulted various sources, including these two helpful pages, and concluded that it is broadly illegal. In most places, it seems to be considered a very minor crime, even to the point of non-enforcement. On balance, though, the weight of current law is against cannabis, not for it.

As such, we'll adopt a similar policy. That is, posters won't be permitted to encourage or facilitate cannabis usage, according to the guidelines above. This includes posts about people using cannabis personally, except in special circumstances where it's clear the poster is talking about a legal context. Posters who do this will be asked to stop.

With specific reference to game-side, and regions such as Weed, we'll generally assume that people are posting about their nations, not their personal lives. And of course it's fine to control a nation in which cannabis use is legal. We'll only act if the nation is clearly talking about breaking real-life laws.

tl;dr:

• "Marijuana should be legal": OK
• "I have just consumed some excellent cannabis": not OK
• Some description about using cannabis in a way that's clear from the context of the post is legal, and doesn't require us to go all International Super Lawyer to figure it out: OK
• A region that is pro-cannabis: OK

[Das vierte Deutsch Reich]

I understand why you might ban a hanchika, not a swastika, but I see the communist flags as a major offense to me because of how the USSR killed of 100 million people in there life time and goes against my morals and what humanity stands for. Thank you for considering my argument.

[Luna Amore]

Don't bump random 4 year old threads.

In response, please read over the site policy on malicious content.