on theReally Useful Forum
The Really Useful Forum is a discussion board on the Really Useful Company's web site. Over the past year it has been frequently abused by imposters, troublemakers, and people intent on harassing certain fans. This has varied between general mischief making, and the malicious targeting of certain groups of posters. By the end of last year it reached unbearable levels with users being harassed daily.
In spite of numerous complaints the Really Useful Group would do nothing to help the victims of the harassment track the abusers down. Their web company, who maintain the Forum, had logs tracking the IP numbers of posters, but would not release these to people so that they could discover the identity of the abusers.
Then Karin Willison, who runs the Shadow Song web site, discovered how easy it was to install IP tracking on such a Forum. She discovered that she only needed to insert 5 lines of code to the CGI script running the Forum for it to display the domain name or IP address that each post came from. She made the modification to her own board, driving away some troublemakers, and informed the RUG that all they needed to do was implement this simple change, a matter of minutes work. They did nothing. Other boards which had suffered similar though less severe problems installed the script and the troubles went away. The Really Useful Company refused to make the change.
This lead to accusations of negligence against them. The behavior on the Forum was easily harassment under US Law, and the victims had redress in law -- if they could track down and identify the perpetrators. By failing to add the code the RUG were denying them the chance to do this. When a prudent person observes injurious behavior and has the ability to stop it, they are expected to. Failure to act at that point becomes negligence. The RUG had the responsibility to take reasonable measures to prevent abuse of their Forum. They were shown a way that would satisfy the victims and would take less than 5 minutes to implement. They did not do it.
Some posts to rec.arts.theatre.musicals discussed the situation:
I don't know how many of you have visited the Really Useful Group's web site,
but it has a Forum web board there for discussion of musicals. Last year I
think it was closed down after lots of abuse by certain users, and it was
opened again a few months ago.
Since then the abuse has continued, with imposters impersonating regular
posters to cause trouble, people posting rubbish and obscene things, people
purposely starting fights, and people harassing and insulting a few particular
users and in one case someone they had a grudge against from another forum who
never even used the Really Useful Group one. This has been going on for a
long time and the RUG keep saying they will install a password system or
something, but nothing has been done and they haven't traced the imposters or
troublemakers even though the abuse has got pretty serious and nasty at times.
Last week one user discovered how easy it was to set the Forum to show the
domain the posts are coming from or the IP address (as is now happening at
musicals.net). It takes 2 lines more in the CGI script and could be done by a
web/net company in about 2 minutes. They posted this and wrote to the RUG
about it, but still nothing was done, the harassment has continued! They
people being harassed were naturally furious. It was brought up that
harassment is a federal offense and that by doing nothing about it, even
protecting the harassers by making it impossible for the people being attacked
to find out who was doing it, the Really Useful Group could be liable for the
harassment. There was talk of lawsuits.
After only a few incidents like this on the boards at musicals.mit.edu they
set the boards up to display the IP address of users, so why doesn't the RUG
do the same? it would take them minutes, but they appear to prefer to let the
abuse of their Forum and its users carry on. They should have done something
about this ages ago but they are doing nothing.
A lot of people are very angry about this. The RUG actually deletes fromthe
Forum posts discussing this issue even though abusive posts have stayed up for
days before being deleted.
This is a disgrace to the Really Useful Company and it can only blacken the
name of Andrew Lloyd Webber when his company gets threatened with harassment
laws by his own fans!
People who have written to them haven't even had replies. it's been going on
for MONTHS and they have done nothing.
Fiona
I'd like to clarify this, as when it was mentioned on the Forum it
lead to a lot of very ill-informed people warbling on about suing each
other. In fact, no one threatened to sue the Really Useful Company or
bring a lawsuit against them because the laws in question are criminal
and not civil matters - the state would prosecute, not individuals.
Federal laws and the NY State Penal Code cover harassment of this
form.
>After only a few incidents like this on the boards at musicals.mit.edu they
That is what is particularly annoying about it all. It's bad enough
that the RUC have let this carry on so long without blocking the
abusive users or setting up a password system, but at least one can
understand that those solutions might take time and money. Setting a
CGI-based web board like this to display the domain names or IP
addresses of posters is a very, very simple matter. It would take
minutes, as you say. I could do it myself if I had access to their
servers. It would at least be a temporary measure which would cut
down on the troubles - you can't impersonate someone very well when
their domain is cdaae.easynet.co.uk and yours is idiot.netcom.com, or
whatever.
There are clearly quite a few different people taking advantage of the
anonymity of the Really Useful Forum to cause trouble and harass
others for some months. In some cases, we have pretty strong ideas
who they are because they've attacked mailing lists - but with no IP
addresses, and the RUC refusing to co-operate, we have no evidence,
and can't be sure exactly which posts are from those people and which
from others.
If the Really Useful Company can't even manage a simple web site (or
pay someone else to do the job decently), how on earth do they manage
all their shows?
Or should I not bother asking that of a company that lost $10 million
not so long ago?
Christine
On Mon, 08 Dec 1997 21:14:50 -0600, "Carlos M. Nash" wrote:
>Fantome461 wrote:
One thing that has surprised me is how many people there defend the Really
Useful Company, defend them not doing anything to protect its users. I don't
think it is unreasonable to expect a company running a web board to take
simple precautions against it being used for abuse and harassment. One of the
people who often gets singled out doesn't even post to the Forum, so it's not
as if just not using the place is the answer! I have been putting up with the
trolls to enjoy a few worthwhile threads, but I think if I were the one being
called an ugly bitch and similar things, I would be furious with the RUC too.
Beth
On Tue, 09 Dec 1997 Shari Perkins wrote:
>After being horribly insulted the first time I posted on RUG, I wrote a
I don't think they have done anything about individuals. There are some there
who cannot disagree with someone without being rude to them and they are still
allowed to post. I have read some horrendous things there. A poster named
Gavin called a user a bitch twice in one day and nothing was done about him.
I say bravo to Christine for putting pressure on the RUG to do something about
the situation, though I'll bet it simply makes her more unpopular with them
than the imposters and troublemakers are. They don't care if their users are
abused, only if they have a threat of bad publicity.
Fiona
>To maintain a forum requires a lot of work and I wish posters
I don't think people should run a Forum if they're not willing to do
*something* about it though. You monitor your forum and delete posts you
think are unduly offensive, and you say you have detailed access reports on
where the posts are coming from, so presumably you could track down someone
who persistantly posted things of the sort that appeared on the RUC's site.
And if they can't be bothered to track down the people who are constantly
making personal attacks on other users, they should at least provide the
information to the people suffering the attacks.
They are now closing the Forum in the evenings and at weekends, so it is only
open during NY office hours. That means the imposters can't post, or if they
do it gets deleted immediately, but people who can only post from home after
school miss out. It would be a lot more simple to do the few minutes work
necessary to have the board display the origins of posts, surely. I don't see
that there is any privacy issue as it isn't giving out their email address.
It is giving out less information about the posters than people posting here
give out.
It is such a pity some people have to spoil it for everyone else, but it is
also a pity the Really Useful Company provided an open forum for people to
take advantage of like that.
May I ask you a question, V.J? If someone on your board posted a number of
posts which were purely personal abuse of another regular poster, and that
poster asked to know where your logs recorded the posts as coming from, would
you tell them? Do you think they'd have a right to lodge a complaint with
that person's service provider?
Beth
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