SCP Foundation - Creepypasta with roid rage - now ITT: SCP fans

[Furret]

Support for keeping Harmony's articles up seems to be mostly based on lies (i.e Harmony is using their articles as leverage, Harmony is harassing staff, etc.), if Harmony were to address and explain these lies preceding any action it would probably make people much more skeptical. Also this has mostly been contained to site internal drama, I've seen no mention of this on the reddit or other big mainstream social media platforms in any real capacity.

I've seen people asking about it on places like Reddit, and of course the inner community immediately jumped in to explain exactly why Roget/Harmony is a monster who shouldn't be given any favors.

 

[BurnerPhone]

I've seen people asking about it on places like Reddit, and of course the inner community immediately jumped in to explain exactly why Roget/Harmony is a monster who shouldn't be given any favors.

Doesn't help that Roget tanked his goodwill on the site by acting like an idiot towards everyone before he was banned

 

[Furret]

Doesn't help that Roget tanked his goodwill on the site by acting like an idiot towards everyone before he was banned

Yeah, there's a lot of bullets in her feet at this point. I'll be surprised if this works out well in any capacity, but we're just discussing a hypothetical so it's not a big deal.

 

[alanshaffer3293]

Doesn't help that Roget tanked his goodwill on the site by acting like an idiot towards everyone before he was banned

Yeah I mean, if I was them I would've at least pretended to respectfully retire for a bit, then get my articles deleted, then begin the leaks and other autism. But there's no point dwelling on what-if's right now.

 

[AnOminous]

I believe there is an argument to be made that users may actually retain their rights to their articles because sufficient notice is not given on the site specifying which that authors are posting under a Share-Alike 3.0 license. Whether or not Roget was aware of the this may be irrelevant because he still never signed an agreement to specifically relinquish his works. Roget, if you're still hung up on this, DM me and we can discuss potential avenues of action

It's not at all clear from the mere existence of a link at the bottom of the page, which isn't even put there by SPC itself, that it is a contract and that you are assenting to it by creating an account.

A similar case involved Netscape, which had a license agreement for a download manager called SmartDownload. However, despite the existence of the agreement, you didn't have to indicate you were actually agreeing to it. The court's reasoning:

Although an onlooker observing the disputed transactions in this case would have seen each of the user plaintiffs click on the SmartDownload "Download" button, see Cedars Sinai Med. Ctr. v. Mid-West Nat'l Life Ins. Co., 118 F.Supp.2d 1002, 1008 (C.D.Cal.2000) ("In California, a party's intent to contract is judged objectively, by the party's outward manifestation of consent."), a consumer's clicking on a download button does not communicate assent to contractual terms if the offer did not make clear to the consumer that clicking on the download button would signify assent 30*30 to those terms, see Windsor Mills, 25 Cal.App.3d at 992, 101 Cal.Rptr. at 351 ("[W]hen the offeree does not know that a proposal has been made to him this objective standard does not apply."). California's common law is clear that "an offeree, regardless of apparent manifestation of his consent, is not bound by inconspicuous contractual provisions of which he is unaware, contained in a document whose contractual nature is not obvious." Id.; see also Marin Storage & Trucking, Inc. v. Benco Contracting & Eng'g, Inc., 89 Cal. App.4th 1042, 1049, 107 Cal.Rptr.2d 645, 651 (2001) (same).

Specht v. Netscape, 306 F.3d 17, 29-30 (2002). The procedural history here is a bit ugly, in that it's a case in the Second Circuit which is appeal from the Southern District of New York, concerning an attempt by Netscape to enforce an arbitration agreement according to California law, because of a choice-of-law provision.

Still, the question is whether someone agrees to a contract by using a website that doesn't ever explicitly tell them what they're agreeing to, and even the admin team seemed confused in chat as to what the contract actually is and what it means. I don't actually know the signup procedure for SCP except it requires you to sign up first to wikidot, and then to SCP. It seemed rather arcane when I looked at it years ago. I don't remember any explicit clickthrough or even directions that such a document existed, but I probably wouldn't after this long.

In any event, it is fairly obvious that to agree to a contract, you have to have at least been on notice of its existence. Barring unconscionability, though, if you do have a clickthrough of some sort, where you must click a button saying something like "Agree," such that you should be aware you're actually doing so, you've agreed to it even if (like the vast majority of people) you completely blow off even reading it.

Do we know for a fact that there is no such clickthrough or other prominent notification such that a person signing up could not do so without being put on notice and actually agreeing to it?

 

[Furret]

Still, the question is whether someone agrees to a contract by using a website that doesn't ever explicitly tell them what they're agreeing to, and even the admin team seemed confused in chat as to what the contract actually is and what it means. I don't actually know the signup procedure for SCP except it requires you to sign up first to wikidot, and then to SCP. It seemed rather arcane when I looked at it years ago. I don't remember any explicit clickthrough or even directions that such a document existed, but I probably wouldn't after this long.

In any event, it is fairly obvious that to agree to a contract, you have to have at least been on notice of its existence. Barring unconscionability, though, if you do have a clickthrough of some sort, where you must click a button saying something like "Agree," such that you should be aware you're actually doing so, you've agreed to it even if (like the vast majority of people) you completely blow off even reading it.

Do we know for a fact that there is no such clickthrough or other prominent notification such that a person signing up could not do so without being put on notice and actually agreeing to it?

I actually recently registered a Wikidot account under the name I use here to see if they would ban it, and I don't remember seeing any kind of notification that I was surrendering any work I made to CC when I created my account or when I joined the wiki itself. I didn't realize that the disclaimer at the bottom wasn't considered enough.

 

[alanshaffer3293]

It's not at all clear from the mere existence of a link at the bottom of the page, which isn't even put there by SPC itself, that it is a contract and that you are assenting to it by creating an account.

A similar case involved Netscape, which had a license agreement for a download manager called SmartDownload. However, despite the existence of the agreement, you didn't have to indicate you were actually agreeing to it. The court's reasoning:


Specht v. Netscape, 306 F.3d 17, 29-30 (2002). The procedural history here is a bit ugly, in that it's a case in the Second Circuit which is appeal from the Southern District of New York, concerning an attempt by Netscape to enforce an arbitration agreement according to California law, because of a choice-of-law provision.

Still, the question is whether someone agrees to a contract by using a website that doesn't ever explicitly tell them what they're agreeing to, and even the admin team seemed confused in chat as to what the contract actually is and what it means. I don't actually know the signup procedure for SCP except it requires you to sign up first to wikidot, and then to SCP. It seemed rather arcane when I looked at it years ago. I don't remember any explicit clickthrough or even directions that such a document existed, but I probably wouldn't after this long.

In any event, it is fairly obvious that to agree to a contract, you have to have at least been on notice of its existence. Barring unconscionability, though, if you do have a clickthrough of some sort, where you must click a button saying something like "Agree," such that you should be aware you're actually doing so, you've agreed to it even if (like the vast majority of people) you completely blow off even reading it.

Do we know for a fact that there is no such clickthrough or other prominent notification such that a person signing up could not do so without being put on notice and actually agreeing to it?

Yes, there is absolutely no clickthrough agreement whatsoever or contract or notification or anything like that. Not when you sign up to wikidot, and certainly not when you sign up to SCP.

Edit: For wikidot, all you have to do is put in your email, a username, and a password. Then they send you a confirmation email (which also doesn't contain any of those aforementioned notices) which is basically just a thank you for signing up, and then you're in.

 

[ToS]

I actually recently registered a Wikidot account under the name I use here to see if they would ban it, and I don't remember seeing any kind of notification that I was surrendering any work I made to CC when I created my account or when I joined the wiki itself. I didn't realize that the disclaimer at the bottom wasn't considered enough.

Bruh. I know you got that VPN tho.

A buddy tried to sign up with the name “CapitalismWillWin”. SCP rejected it, no reasons attached.

Also Harmony was neck deep in the licensing team while at SCP, so she can’t claim she didn’t know any of this.

 

[Cow-Chan]

Bruh. I know you got that VPN tho.

A buddy tried to sign up with the name “CapitalismWillWin”. SCP rejected it, no reasons attached.

Also Harmony was neck deep in the licensing team while at SCP, so she can’t claim she didn’t know any of this.

ProcyonLotor handles a boat load of licensing stuff, and a lot of it was outwardly-aimed from what I had seen in the chats. Mostly dealing with people on vender sites not attributing their merch properly. I doubt this kind of thing was something that came up on a regular basis enough for it to have been seriously discussed.

 

[Furret]

Bruh. I know you got that VPN tho.

A buddy tried to sign up with the name “CapitalismWillWin”. SCP rejected it, no reasons attached.

They actually let me in. I suspect that the Admins get swamped with so many applications that they didn't notice, or they don't care when it's not the chat. Someone did eventually go back and revoke my membership almost a month later with no reason given, so I guess they eventually realized what happened. It was never recorded on O5 Command though.

I remember there was a debate among staff over whether Scantron's name was acceptable or not, and they eventually decided that it was. I guess political names are only acceptable when it's an ideology they agree with.

 

[alanshaffer3293]

Bruh. I know you got that VPN tho.

A buddy tried to sign up with the name “CapitalismWillWin”. SCP rejected it, no reasons attached.

Also Harmony was neck deep in the licensing team while at SCP, so she can’t claim she didn’t know any of this.

In addition to what Immortal mentioned there are a number of things they could say to refute this, like that policy was too vague and they were only mediating disputes of people who explicitly consented to CC then tried to retract. This could further be supported by the fact that Harmony has only ever put CC licensing notices on certain articles with lots of crosslinks, but not all, implying (not to us, but to a hypothetical court) that they thought it was something they had control over.

tl;dr they could just claim ignorance and not being properly informed every step of the way through a number of means

 

[BurnerPhone]

In addition to what Immortal mentioned there are a number of things they could say to refute this, like that policy was too vague and they were only mediating disputes of people who explicitly consented to CC then tried to retract. This could further be supported by the fact that Harmony has only ever put CC licensing notices on certain articles with lots of crosslinks, but not all, implying (not to us, but to a hypothetical court) that they thought it was something they had control over.

tl;dr they could just claim ignorance and not being properly informed every step of the way through a number of means

Furthermore, it may very well be moot if Roget had knowledge of the site's licensing procedures because the site theoretically applies the license incorrectly in the first place. If a random SCP writer can claim the "agreement" to use the license is invalid Roget may be entitled to the same claim.

 

[Shitassdeaddude]

And staff actually do have a sizeable amount of money to spend on a legal defense after the Duksin case. It's not exactly a corporation defense, but it is sizeable, and Roget/Harmony is apparently broke as shit, so.

That is assuming they haven't spent it on bullshit already.

Fishmonger also threatened to sue, and that didn't affect their decision back then in the slightest, even though they had far less money and reach back then. The eventual decision to delete Fish's articles was a purely moral one, and they were preparing to lawyer up if Fish did. I doubt they would shy away from court here, especially because it would show that any other author could force them to do things just by suing.

Maybe, but do keep in mind there are different people in charge nowadays.

 

[Furret]

Maybe, but do keep in mind there are different people in charge nowadays.

Mann's been around since 2009, and he's Master Admin, so the legal funds and responsibility to lawyer up would be his. It won't surprise me if he's absolutely willing to fight this out in court.

 

[BurnerPhone]

Mann's been around since 2009, and he's Master Admin, so the legal funds and responsibility to lawyer up would be his. It won't surprise me if he's absolutely willing to fight this out in court.

SCP as an organization is so haphazardly thrown together I'd hate to be the lawyer trying to represent them. Maybe they can get Markiplier to shill for them again too

EDIT: I think we're missing the biggest factor here in that there is already precedent for deleting articles at the author's request, and that refusing Roget's request is a violation of a contract between both parties.

 

[alanshaffer3293]

Mann's been around since 2009, and he's Master Admin, so the legal funds and responsibility to lawyer up would be his. It won't surprise me if he's absolutely willing to fight this out in court.

I would be extremely surprised, he can't be that idiotic. Fighting Duskin while also fighting Harmony, spending hundreds upon thousands of dollars and completely bankrupting SCP and likely himself based on some autistic "principal" when he can just resolve the situation by removing their articles.

 

[Furret]

I would be extremely surprised, he can't be that idiotic. Fighting Duskin while also fighting Harmony, spending hundreds upon thousands of dollars and completely bankrupting SCP and likely himself based on some autistic "principal" when he can just resolve the situation by removing their articles.

The Duksin case has stalled and might have already been lost, and I think he's still got a hefty sum laying around to go to court with. Even if he doesn't, he can always crowdfund again.

 

[alanshaffer3293]

The Duksin case has stalled and might have already been lost, and I think he's still got a hefty sum laying around to go to court with. Even if he doesn't, he can always crowdfund again.

It would be really hard to crowdfund for this. The majority of the SCP community is dirt poor college students, the majority of the donations last time came from Markiplier and Matpat's videos. It would be a lot harder to get that amount of people to rally around something weird and more internal like this.

Also the majority of that money is likely already gone, legal proceedings especially overseas are no joke.

 

[ToS]

SCP should really release the receipts. They owe that transparency to all who donated.

 

[Furret]

SCP should really release the receipts. They owe that transparency to all who donated.

Kalinin put it best:

Edit: TIL I'm too retarded for images.