Union stuff...

[dan_lane]

I've deleted the last two posts and any rules contained within that affected, to my knowledge, no more than three regular users because they were attracting commentary from a wide range of people who have either never used the service or only used it once or twice

Comments

[ruudboy]

You can put any restriction you like on it. Nobody can stop you.

They can criticise you for it though. Is that really such a terrible thing?

[txteva]

I use the service often...
And I fully supported your desicion and even if I didn't its not for me to say what a free service provided by one person should have as its rules.

[major_clanger]

The point is that this is an open service, connected to the public telecommunications infrastructure; it's not your private sandpit. When you connected your gateway to the PTI and held yourself out as providing a service, you took on certain legal duties and obligations

[sethb]

I'd say it's the difference between having a friend to dinner and throwing an open-invitation party. If it's his party, he can decide who to exclude, and when it's over and everybody has to leave.

Suspicions that people harbour are their own problems.

There is no implicit social contract giving people more rights over my property than I choose to give them. Doing a favour for people does not create an obligation to continue doing so.

[dan_lane]

You appear to be confused between laws designed to protect larger carriers from refusing to carry traffic from other telcos (for a recent example look for documentation regarding Software Cellular Network Ltd's issues with T-Mobile UK). Contrary to what you say, the X11 SMS Gateway was built for the exact purposes of being my own private sandpit.

The Regulation of Interceptory Powers Act 2000 arguably covers this service however this is a complete non-issue as privacy is an important issue that has been addressed.

There has never been any contract, implied or otherwise, between myself and the sms_to_lj users, nor will there ever be.

"The opprobrium you've experienced is the natural consequence of breaking that contract"

You'll notice that the reason I deleted the previous post was because the majority of comments were posted by people who had never used the service or weren't current users.

Have you used the service?

[major_clanger]

To take your last point first, I certainly have. I'm not sure I can prove this, as I've tended to include a subject line, but I like to think I'm usually a little more articulate than this when I'm posting via anything other than SMS.

I fully accept your assurances that there is no privacy issue here as you won't be policing your policy (and you've withdrawn it anyway). Nonetheless, I will not that you at least acknowledge that regulatory mechanisms such as RIPA do apply to your service.

I'd also respectfully disagree with your assertion that sms_to_lj is your private sandpit. Is it not open to anyone with an LJ account to use? Does it not interface with SMS, a manifestly public service? If there was some form of closed user community, I'd agree with you - but there isn't.

I think you may have misunderstood my comment about the contract between you and users of sms_to_lj. No, of course there isn't a legal contract - if nothing else, there's a complete lack of consideration (i.e. payment for service). Rather, I was talking about

[sethb]

It's your service, you can put whatever restrictions in place that you want.

Anybody else can say whatever they want about you, your service, or the restrictions.

To the extent that your livejournal is yours, you can control the stuff said there. You can't control the stuff said elsewhere on lj, and even less on other people's private web sites. (Especially people like me: if you complain to my web host about something on my site, I'll tell you to bugger off. If you go upstream, you'll get laughed at.)

[dragonrider7]

It's your service run by you, out of your pocket, so you have every right to impose any restrictions you want.

However, you opened that service to the general public. That means that we have every right to mock you and your restrictions, call you a fascist dictator with a bone to pick, and to encourage other people to break your restrictions simply because they are in place.

I've used text to lj in the past. I like it. But quite frankly by posting such an incendiary and unenforcible restriction, you're opening yourself up for internet-wide mocking and abuse. I heard you've even been nominated on Fandom-Wank. Congrats.

[dan_lane]

You can mock me, because you've actually used the service in the past!

[dragonrider7]

I'm one of the ones who hasn't mocked you. But half my flist has been. I'm totally neutral.