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Journeyman Geek

1:35 AM

@SPArcheon-onstrike china is not close to singapore :D

→ 6 messages moved to Chimney

@Jeremy I think its less shutting up and more trying to balance one's mental health, timing things for maximum effect, and dealing with a lot of factors that're out of our hands

Right now, on my very long list of things that need attention are 1) community manager numbers and constitution 2) what the company and their overlords would do if the AI bubble crashes

But I'm also trying to work out the most respectful, for the former (in the sense of I don't want to put the current team down) and the right time (when resources are available) for the former, and the right place for the latter

and a lot of the time your own mental state comes first, I've occationally just taken a week or two off cause things here got too bad

Feeds

2:45 AM

This only makes it more urgent that we adopt my roadmap for the next 10 years, which should put us solidly in the lead.

Journeyman Geek

3:18 AM

@Jeremy I don't think they do either :D

Least we ain't byjus

Journeyman Geek

3:47 AM

also consider

they cut 28 million in costs

I'm vaguely doubtful that was all human resources, even if downsizing is a bit of an antipattern that keeps repeating

SPArcheon - on strike

7:56 AM

21 hours ago, by Journeyman Geek

See, the singaporean solution to that would be...

Journeyman Geek

Well yes, but I don't want it :D

SPArcheon - on strike

16 hours ago, by SPArcheon - on strike

You may however get me one of the Melusine figures I mentioned before since somedog lives so close yet won't do that for moi

seem pretty much what I said :P

SPArcheon - on strike

8:31 AM

so... thanks to a question Franck posted on Laws I stumbled on this..

> Additional restrictions on licensed material
What if I received CC-licensed material encumbered with effective technological measures (such as DRM)?
If you have received material under a CC license that is encumbered with effective technological measures (such as digital rights management or DRM), you may or may not be permitted to break it, depending on the circumstances. By releasing material under a CC license, the licensor agrees not to assert any rights she may have to prevent the circumvention of effective technological measures. (Under the 3.0 and earlier licenses, this is implied …

Journeyman Geek

Well pretty much we got told they can't really stop downstream usage

SPArcheon - on strike

I think it more relevant than ever to assert:
- if the secondary SE license even exist
- to what extend it can be used (to my understanding, it only cover reasonable use to pursuit the site core goal - that is not selling LLM material)
- if they can abuse this loophole to try to detach the CC license from the dump

Journeyman Geek

I think this is literally pretty much 1) just annoying 2) sort of nintendo logos scrapers since if they download the data dump directly, they've engaged in unauthorised access 3) spending goodwill cause clearly they have a lot

@SPArcheon-onstrike the 'secondary' licence is boilerplate, and practically necessary to run the site

SPArcheon - on strike

@JourneymanGeek yes, but the wording seems to imply that they can ONLY use it to run the site.

Journeyman Geek

also don't forget, they're claiming that they're selling LLM material only if the end user agrees to the CC licence

there's no loophole. Technically they can stop doing the dump

SPArcheon - on strike

8:37 AM

@JourneymanGeek it is relevant under WHAT license they can sell the LLM.

Journeyman Geek

I mean, it would be catastrophic but SE hasn't shyed away from footgunning

@SPArcheon-onstrike well the promise is the data has to be used compliant to the CC licence

SPArcheon - on strike

@JourneymanGeek that is an answer to a different question.

Journeyman Geek

@SPArcheon-onstrike well, the API access would be covered by (a? the?) CC licence

SPArcheon - on strike

I want to know if they would still be able to sell the content for LLM use if they had been revoked the CC license.

that because that they may have ALREADY violated the CC license and we may ALREADY be able to revoke said license

at least for all content up to 2018

Journeyman Geek

ah, so, are we talking about the quiet licence changes?

I'd actually chalk it up to an honest mistake, and no one caring about these things back in the day

I think right until some point in Joel's tenure as CEO (and I suspect he lost interest by then) We kinda trusted the people who ran the network

SPArcheon - on strike

8:41 AM

15

A: Last Data Dump is completely missing ContentLicense for Comments

There is an even bigger problem here, and one that extends beyond the comment data's ContentLicense field. Content on Stack Exchange sites is licensed under one of three CC BY-SA licenses, depending on when it was posted. All three licenses require including either a copy of or a URI for the lice...

Journeyman Geek

ah that

SPArcheon - on strike

All the data dump - and I repeat ALL of them - have an issue that may be enough to TERMINATE the license.

For older version of the license this has immediate effect on discovery.

Journeyman Geek

ah but the secondary licence still holds

and I think I'd lean towards it being 'eh, no one thought about it'

SPArcheon - on strike

@JourneymanGeek I don't think so.

Journeyman Geek

So, lets say SO inc had amnesia

SPArcheon - on strike

8:44 AM

The secondary license states

Journeyman Geek

and decides to go full hyphen site

SPArcheon - on strike

> nd you grant Stack Overflow the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to access, use, process, copy, distribute, export, display and to commercially exploit such Subscriber Content, even if such Subscriber Content has been contributed and subsequently removed by you as reasonably necessary to

Journeyman Geek

Its still legal

ah, but who defines reasonably necessary?

and what they do with it

that's really not where you get them, nor arm chair lawyering honestly

SPArcheon - on strike

@JourneymanGeek Depends. Do they really want to explain to the European DPA why they "need" to sell data for LLM use to fulfill the site core business as described by their Privacy policy?

Journeyman Geek

the data dump literally exists cause they can legally go full hyphen site

@SPArcheon-onstrike ah, they define themselves as a "SAAS" company

selling a data API is SAAS

SPArcheon - on strike

8:47 AM

@JourneymanGeek pretty sure they can't since that is neither in the ToS nor in the Data protection plan they gave to their users.

Journeyman Geek

TOSes can be unliterally changed

SE holds almost no PII, and that's protected

SPArcheon - on strike

@JourneymanGeek and those have to be re-agreed upon

Journeyman Geek

@SPArcheon-onstrike if you refuse, then what?

they have a perpetual irrevocable...

at the end of the day, the primary means we have to deal with this is 1) making a fuss 2) striking 3) making sure their plans don't go to plan, in a way they can't really argue with :D

SPArcheon - on strike

@JourneymanGeek As I said, I am not a lawyer. I am still quite sure their wording have them in a very hot place and they may fall horribly if confronted by someone expert enough.

A Jon Skeet of Laws that would be.

The ToS was not made to cover their current business plan.

Nor their other policies.

Journeyman Geek

and?

SPArcheon - on strike

8:51 AM

They are trying to stick the proverbial square peg in the round hole. That probably works against them.

Journeyman Geek

Your recourse to disagreeing with a TOS change is... walking away really

SPArcheon - on strike

@JourneymanGeek pretty sure you missed out that my last message wasn't just about a ToS change.

Journeyman Geek

@SPArcheon-onstrike the AI API is probably the normal API with much higher quotas and a contract

SPArcheon - on strike

IMHO they are walking a thin line - a very thin line, and if they didn't already fall it may only take someone giving them a little push. Then they will fall, and fall catastrophically.

Journeyman Geek

there's no very hot place. Only the prospect of failure

and that's literally in the hands of the markets

Journeyman Geek

2:00 PM

→ 20 messages moved to Chimney

M.A.R.

2:47 PM

@JourneymanGeek "no very hot place"? Says the equatorian

Journeyman Geek

SE wont' go anywhere near the equator :D

M.A.R.

Why don't you go back to your equator and leave us honest 40 degree latitudians alone.

Shadow Wizard

5:08 PM

@Jeremy it's actually really good, I think you better keep it. Though managing it on different sites is huge headache, SE doesn't offer a way to manage it properly. ;(

@Jeremy fair, but don't hesitate to share your opinion just because others raised something similar, you surely have something bit different, and/or things to add. After all, you were inside the system, which gives you something others miss.

@Jeremy yeah endless loop of despair, usually such loops end with cutting the losses and closing whatever cause the money leak. Let's hope it won't happen. :/

@Jeremy hmm... 500 employees means... assuming average salary of $100,000 per employee... $50M only for salaries. So yeah, $160M per year overall make sense.

Jeremy

Employees are expensive!

M.A.R.

5:28 PM

What's going on this time

Everyone is on doomsday mood again

Tinkeringbell

5:48 PM

It's doomsday!

M.A.R.

Andreas moved to Codidact

7:19 PM

@M.A.R. I opened a package of extra hot buffalo reaper nuts and nutted my throat with them. I did not expect true doomsday deep between the canals.

It hurts

Very

What have I done...

Fucking hell, it seriously stings.

Tinkeringbell

7:50 PM

@AndreasmovedtoCodidact dairy!

Andreas moved to Codidact

@Tinkeringbell Stinger missiles with a dairy payload?

Tinkeringbell

Whatever works for you and you have on hand. But dairy products generally help after eating too spicy food ;)

Some weird kind of Molecular Science I don't quite follow

Andreas moved to Codidact

So I need missiles.

Jeremy

8:25 PM

The system still won't let me register on new sites. >_>

> You cannot register at this time. If you continue to find this error, contact us.

I figured if it was caching related to the network suspension it probably would be cleared after 24 hours, but maybe that's wrong. I'll try again in a week I guess.

Oh... I'm not blocked, it's a bug. This worked:

When I tried joining the site before logging in, it went through. However, now that I am logged in again, the same problem is back. On the other hand, this is a good workaround. Just log out every time I wish to join a site -- it's not that often that I need to do it. — Alex Nov 11, 2022 at 19:04

...yeah. I need to log out, then log in on the site I want to create a new account on, for each such site. That's silly, but okay, it works. Maybe I could have actually done that months ago.

Andreas moved to Codidact

8:50 PM

@Jeremy I think it would take more than one bug with a tower shield and a dagger to stop a human.

Also, you have an animated profile picture on Codidact... What a menace.

Jeremy

@AndreasmovedtoCodidact I briefly had one here, too... for a while the old Imgur system behaved inconsistently and if you uploaded an image enough times in a row you'd eventually, I guess, hit a server that was running an old version of their code that didn't properly convert the GIF to remove animations. 🙃 Sadly not possible any more.

Andreas moved to Codidact

@Jeremy Dancing images around the webpage, just the thing you want when ~~reading~~ leasing cars.

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