The mystery of DT's new owner - SOLVED

[Muirium]

Something tells me he’s not exactly focussed…

[webwit]

it's almost like selling out a community to a bunch of dweeby get rich quick blockchain man asset strippers was a terrible idea webwit

I can't comment yet on the details of how the sale happened and my motivations why I picked them over others because of a non-disclosure agreement still in effect.

I find it strange the old directors did nothing with it. The reality of a sale is that to whomever you sell you can't look into the future and future owners after that, it's out of your hands, but the reality is also that so far nothing evil happened. They respected the conditions of the wiki's open source nature, as well as members owning their own content. And they wouldn't do silly stuff like place lots of trackers or ads or disrupt the community otherwise, which they indeed didn't. Most probably by their inactivity, but hey it's something.

[VR20X6]

And they wouldn't do silly stuff like place lots of trackers or ads or disrupt the community otherwise, which they indeed didn't. Most probably by their inactivity, but hey it's something.

Does that same contract term preclude their ability to simply sell it off to someone else who won't honor that agreement?

[webwit]

And they wouldn't do silly stuff like place lots of trackers or ads or disrupt the community otherwise, which they indeed didn't. Most probably by their inactivity, but hey it's something.

Does that same contract term preclude their ability to simply sell it off to someone else who won't honor that agreement?

I can't comment on the exact contract terms and what's included or excluded as just an intention, sorry. For the future, IANAL.

[depletedvespene]

Well, shiRt.

[webwit]

Well I can say wiki and user content was included, it was communicated before. I don't know what happens if a future owner would toss that away. For sure with wiki content if someone would change the license, whether they legally could or not, you can still copy and use the content under the old open source license without problems and make a mirror and take it from there.

[ifohancroft]

I hope the forum can somehow soon go to someone that's actually part of the community.
Anyway, in-case we wake up tomorrow and Deskthority is gone - I want to thank you all for the awesome time and everything learned!

P.S. Perhaps we should make a thread where we can exchange contact information (Discord, IRC, email, whatever) where we can keep in-touch/contact one another if everything goes down the drain?

[VR20X6]

P.S. Perhaps we should make a thread where we can exchange contact information (Discord, IRC, email, whatever) where we can keep in-touch/contact one another if everything goes down the drain?

At minimum I recommend joining the DT Discord and/or Telegram. Those aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

[ifohancroft]

P.S. Perhaps we should make a thread where we can exchange contact information (Discord, IRC, email, whatever) where we can keep in-touch/contact one another if everything goes down the drain?

At minimum I recommend joining the DT Discord and/or Telegram. Those aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

I'm in both DT's Discord Server and IRC channel on Libera, but in-case someone doesn't have Discord, we can exchange emails perhaps.

[zrrion]

DT will live on as a weekly newsletter

[ifohancroft]

DT will live on as a weekly newsletter

Wait! There's a DT newsletter?

[Muirium]

I'm in both DT's Discord Server and IRC channel on Libera, but in-case someone doesn't have Discord, we can exchange emails perhaps.

As you may imagine: live text is much too addictive for me.

We should have some way to keep in touch if DT goes dark, though. Preferably a ready-to-roll full content clone of DT…

[depletedvespene]

I'm in both DT's Discord Server and IRC channel on Libera, but in-case someone doesn't have Discord, we can exchange emails perhaps.

As you may imagine: live text is much too addictive for me.

We should have some way to keep in touch if DT goes dark, though. Preferably a ready-to-roll full content clone of DT…

The NEXT forum to discuss keyboards with auTHORITY?

[Muirium]

I hear you, but you saw how that went.

DT’s relaunch (community owned, hosted elsewhere) would need to clone the entire DT history of posts and especially wiki. DT is its mass of historical content and its continuing userbase. Nexthority was neither of those things.

And yes I write this in complete ignorance of law. Don’t even see those cookie warnings as I’ve blocked them browser-side for years. Can’t recall the damn law’s name!

[darkcruix]

It is a tough one - even if you buy out the current domain/content the real tragedy is the management and cost going forward. Even as kind of a club, you need to have constant inflow of money. With many of us being focussed on historic / vintage stuff, there isn't even a big investor who could be brought in.

[zrrion]

As you may imagine: live text is much too addictive for me.

We will make a bot just for you that mutes you for 30min after every post. Keep that addiction under control somewhat.

[ifohancroft]

As you may imagine: live text is much too addictive for me.

Hahah, yeah.

We should have some way to keep in touch if DT goes dark, though. Preferably a ready-to-roll full content clone of DT…

I know, right?! I'm thinking on it (the phase before working on it)
I agree it needs to be a full on clone, because I fucking hate those new "forum" pieces of software.

[Muirium]

We will make a bot just for you that mutes you for 30min after every post.

3 minutes / day. I’ve no patience. Let me rush then back to the abyss till the next day.

[wobbled]

So long story short, Deskthority is fucked thanks to a shitty sale? Fantastic

[Muirium]

Prospectively fucked. We’re fine just now (besides said lack of admin) but that could change, and then we are as you say.

Nice sale, Webwit.

[zrrion]

We will make a bot just for you that mutes you for 30min after every post.

3 minutes / day. I’ve no patience. Let me rush then back to the abyss till the next day.

This is perfectly achievable lol. Whether or not this is a joke depends entirely on you

[HKG]

Well I can say wiki and user content was included, it was communicated before. I don't know what happens if a future owner would toss that away. For sure with wiki content if someone would change the license, whether they legally could or not, you can still copy and use the content under the old open source license without problems and make a mirror and take it from there.

From what I understand, the wiki content and user generated content is under public domain as none of us agreed to a terms of service when we signed up and submitted content. Thus, all he really has ownership of is the brand and domain.

[VR20X6]

Well I can say wiki and user content was included, it was communicated before. I don't know what happens if a future owner would toss that away. For sure with wiki content if someone would change the license, whether they legally could or not, you can still copy and use the content under the old open source license without problems and make a mirror and take it from there.

From what I understand, the wiki content and user generated content is under public domain as none of us agreed to a terms of service when we signed up and submitted content. Thus, all he really has ownership of is the brand and domain.

The wiki is kind of a rights nightmare rather than simply public domain. Images are mired in licensing issues and are only given explicit terms by those that bothered to enter them here: wiki/Help:Contents#Copyright

Outside of those images explicitly specified, it's unclear what the license is for anything. Other images can range from anything between public domain and straight up copyright infringement (e.g. pictures taken from ebay without permission, which is rather common). Text content is/was probably public domain, but it was vaguely stated by webwit on Discord right before the ownership transfer that all content is "CC" (no version specified):

The wiki content was regarded open source (CC) but we lazily never formalised it

(Source: https://discord.com/channels/3182629118 ... 2255214632)

Obviously this can't possibly be true for images. Those are kind of screwed no matter what, unless rights were expressly granted. For text, it's probably more bound to be public domain (so long as submitters were not violating the good faith agreement that it wasn't copyrighted/stolen content they were uploading), vaguely implied as such:

Please note that all contributions to Deskthority wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Deskthority wiki:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

(Source: Wiki create new page template)

EDIT: Expanding on a couple of things.

The wiki's text content is only leaning toward public domain. The stickler, even for the text, is that last sentence: "Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!"
This implies copyrighted content is fine so long as permission is given. Unless the permission was explicitly that whatever content could enter the public domain, it's not public domain. The same goes for any form of Creative Commons, not that it was ever communicated by the time the grand majority of it was contributed.

And for the forum content? The general understanding is that users own their own submitted content. That unfortunately does not give you carte blanche to copy anything another user wrote/uploaded to use anywhere else -- only your own and that of users that expressly agree to it.

Yes, realistically you could copy all of it and I doubt anything would happen to you, but if you want to get into the actual details, they don't look good in general. Regardless, it should be said: Nothing is stopping you from making a copy of everything for your own private use. In fact, if you care about this information being preserved, you probably should. The more redundancy, the merrier.

[pandrew]

Text content is/was probably public domain, but it was vaguely stated by webwit on Discord right before the ownership transfer that all content is "CC" (no version specified):

The wiki content was regarded open source (CC) but we lazily never formalised it

For text, it's probably more bound to be public domain (so long as submitters were not violating the good faith agreement that it wasn't copyrighted/stolen content they were uploading), vaguely implied as such:

Please note that all contributions to Deskthority wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Deskthority wiki:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

I am not a lawyer, but I think characterizing the text as CC, Public Domain, or Open Source (does that even make sense?) is wrong. All I see when trying to edit a Wiki page, is what you already quoted:

Please note that all contributions to Deskthority wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Deskthority wiki:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

Assuming that this is the message that has always been in place, there is NOTHING here that says CC or public domain. And there is nothing here that says copyright is transferred to the owners of Deskthority. Therefore webwit, at the moment of sale, could not have really set any kind of copyright terms on this content, cause he did not own it. Everybody who submitted text owns the copyright on that text. And the only thing we know about it is that it may be modified, and that there is permission for it to be on the deskthority wiki. As it is Deskthority does not own the copyright, but may be the only licensee of the text. Again I am not a lawyer, all I'm doing is speculating, but I think even deskthority.net being a licensee is questionable. Can licenses really be transferred by selling a brand and a domain? There's been recently lawsuits about something similar where a company bought another company, and the licensor sued, that no, you can't keep using the license that the company you bought had.

I really think clearer licensing requirements should have been put in place for contributions.

In any case, if someone decides to host a copy, as long as you don't reuse the brand, or the logo, or graphics that Onecommerce actually owns, I guess you are probably safe from being sued by Onecommerce (IANAL), but the individual contributors could still sue you. Perhaps someone hosting a copy of the wiki would be willing to endure that risk, and perhaps manage it by honoring DMCA-type requests to remove specific content (IANAL).

This is just my thinking, and I think it's all a mess, so I would personally not want to continue the mess. I would want to have a new wiki with extremely clear licensing terms from scratch, maybe similar to Wikipedia's rules. Some stuff from the DT wiki could be included if we succeed in contacting the original authors and have them agree to the new licensing terms. It would probably be a lot of work. Until licensing terms are clear I am personally not comfortable with contributing new stuff.

The wiki's text content is only leaning toward public domain. The stickler, even for the text, is that last sentence: "Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!"
This implies copyrighted content is fine so long as permission is given. Unless the permission was explicitly that whatever content could enter the public domain, it's not public domain. The same goes for any form of Creative Commons, not that it was ever communicated by the time the grand majority of it was contributed.

I wouldn't even call it leaning toward public domain.
I don't think it's legal to have people contribute to a website (without signing away ownership), and then later unilaterally communicate to them, that oh, btw, everything you contributed is now CC.

And for the forum content? The general understanding is that users own their own submitted content. That unfortunately does not give you carte blanche to copy anything another user wrote/uploaded to use anywhere else -- only your own and that of users that expressly agree to it.

Agreed, I don't see any text asking me to agree to anything when I submit new content.
Although I think wiki text is almost in the same boat. Wiki text may or may not be in a slightly better shape from the point of view of Onecommerce. But from anyone else's perspective, wanting to host a copy is about the same.

Another interesting thing to look at is what you have to agree to when signing up for an account:

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “deskthority” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us. The IP address of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that “deskthority” have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should we see fit. As a user you agree to any information you have entered to being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, other than through a transfer of ownership of Deskthority, neither Deskthority nor phpBB shall be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.

It's interesting to look at how this text evolved by looking at archive.org.
The part "other than through a transfer of ownership of Deskthority" was added sometime between Mar 6 2021 and Apr 23 2021. People who signed up before Mar 6 2021 did not agree to have their information transferred, at least not at the time they signed up!

@webwit, I signed up on March 2020, how come my information was transferred without my consent?

[soyuz]

Oh well, I guess OneCommerce added that, which tells you all you need to know about the future pump and dump

[webwit]

@webwit, I signed up on March 2020, how come my information was transferred without my consent?

OneCommerce isn't a third party, they became the new first party.

[soyuz]

most of the time, when terms change for a service you're usually given the opportunity to say "no thanks, cancel my account"

[webwit]

This is a silly conversation. First people worry Deskthority might be shut down. Yeah right according to the same principle I guess when you lose interest in a keyboard, you don't pass it on for value but destroy it and trash it. Why? Then people complain about boilerplate terms and conditions like they are surprised with hands thrown up in the air that when ownership changes, ownership changes.

[Muirium]

The fear is they flip it, looking to cut their losses, and the new owner is some real bottom feeder who actively exploits the place.

[soyuz]

This is a silly conversation. First people worry Deskthority might be shut down. Yeah right according to the same principle I guess when you lose interest in a keyboard, you don't pass it on for value but destroy it and trash it. Why? Then people complain about boilerplate terms and conditions like they are surprised with hands thrown up in the air that when ownership changes, ownership changes.

shit analogy. when you lose interest in a keyboard and sell it with no regard to who you sell it to, it's entirely possible you sell it to (or it ends up with) some weenie who then later destroys it for switches and puts them in some generic traycase 60%, thereby achieving the "just destroy it and trash it" by proxy.

the only difference is that in one of those cases you end up with some money in your pocket.