Forum Request - Regulatory Compliance

[zencoder]

The only good suggestion I've seen is Egaladiests...merge chit chat and cosmos. I mean, what really is the difference? Both are equally non-relevant. My $0.02.

Negative: I agree, legal considerations are paramount in that form of forum...but then, they are across this site as well. I think a big sticky that says DISCLAIMER, READ ME, LEGAL GUIDELINES, what not, and has a general caveat emptor (I prefer the more apropros Caveat Haxor) to indicate that, while you may receive general advice and suggestions, it in no way can be considered legal, accurate, or professional.

But take a look at these:

http://forum.freeadvice.com/

http://www.scottishlaw.org.uk/

http://forums.backpage.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18

http://la-legal.com/forum/

http://community.pensacolanewsjourna...YaBB.cgi#legal


Then read this article, http://www.nfib.com/object/3911546.html
and see that it recommends MANY online legal resources. I think an appropriate disclaimer, reviewed and approved by JupMed's IG or General Counsel or whatever, will cover any issues. You could also explore a function or plugin for the forum software that prepends or appends a short disclaimer to EVERY POST in that forum; overkill, IMHO, but certainly possible.

Ok, that's a bit more than $0.02, but still...valid points.

[Egaladeist]

As zencoder stated, and despite the fact I post in both forums, they are basically irrelevant...and can be easily merged without losing Cosmos...

the members do need a place to talk but they don't need three places...even with the merge the members would still have two forums...the newly merged forum and Addicts...

the same can be said of the other two...it would be easy just to state under the heading...' newbies post here ' or something to that effect...

you could even keep the Newbie and General as they are and just eliminate Chit-Chat altogether and just keep Cosmos and Addicts...

or, as I've read complaints about , you could eliminate Chit-Chat and move Cosmos into Addicts as a sub-forum...that way you reduce the number of irrelevant posts by newbies by making them have to post the required 275 posts before they can post in a non-technical forum...

a legal forum would also provide the difference between international law and national law ( as I'm sure some laws will vary from Country to Country )...or even state to state...which I would find interesting.

Eg

[thehorse13]

Neg, is there a general time frame for the addition of a regulatory compliance forum or is it pie in the sky right now? As stated, many of us, including myself, already have to meet the nifty lil list that Zen posted.

--TH13

[zencoder]

More supporting data:

Source
<snip>
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is a complex piece of legislation that affects all companies listed on US stock exchanges that have a market capitalisation of over USD75 million. Many European telcos are affected, and while their deadline for compliance has been extended to 2006, they can learn from operators in the USA, where the deadline has already passed. Those that are not affected by SOX may soon face similar legislation in the EU.
<snip>

So you can see, it even affects companies across the pond; if it's listed in a US stock exchange and has a market capitalization of > USD$75million, it is affected. And that is just the first of the items I listed above.

[11001001]

I agree with zen...

a blanket disclaimer in the form of a sticky should cover JupM's arse...and anyone else who decides to post.

It should be a basic understanding that if you post or read in the forum that no one is giving out any "legal advice" and you should always talk to your lawyer before making any rash decisions.

[thwhomp]

Ola:

Looks like someone posted this request before:

http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=266185

Doesn't look like anyone wanted to add it then - but maybe because a senior member requested it now...

Gracias.

[nihil]

I feel that this is a good idea. Sure I can see possible legal angles but Jupiter Media should be able to avoid those by a simple statement that the contributions belong to and are the responsibility of the contributors or whatever the stsndard disclaimer is.

What I see positive here is that we have people across the planet who have to deal with subsidiary organisations, OK if you are lucky you may have someone local who knows, but if you never tell them, please do NOT expect them to find out. Aren't local regs enough for most of us?

I say go for it.............and sue my a$$ off if you feel that lucky

[Striek]

Souds like a good idea to me. Just make sure to include in the sticky that regulations may differ from one country to the next and that many Americans may not realize that the rest of the world is not governed by their laws

And as for other forum requests, I think hardware is rather a useless forum contributing nothing to the purpose of this site. Since it's inception I would imagine the number of "my memory is fux0red" posts have almost doubled. I would think that eliminating this forum would trim down the number of these posts which the boards have been cluttered with lately. I do keep it on my front page as I am often able to help with them, but feel that there are simply too many.

The training / conference reviews and the book reviews forums could also be merged into a general reviews forum... they just aren't really active or different enough to warrant individual forums IMHO. Perhaps code review and general computer discussions should be moved to be a subforum of general technology as well (I'm really splitting hairs here, but since you asked...); what exactly is the purpose of the "Special Features" forum anyway?

And I STILL say GCC/Cosmos/Humor posts shouldn't count towards post count.

[Negative]

There's no general time frame for the addition of the forum, no... but it's definitely being looked into.

Striek > the merging of the review forums into one main Review Forum is a good suggestion. Here's a little blueprint I'd like to use to do a "general review" of the forum layout. Feel free to add stuff/move around... italics are forums that have been moved/changed/added...


Security Discussions
- Security News
- Newbie Security Questions
- Antivirus Discussions
- IDS & Scanner Discussions
- Firewall & Honeypot Discussions
- Spyware / Adware
- Wireless Security
- MS Security Discussions
- *nix Security Discussions
- Mac Security Discussions
- Network Security Discussions
- Phishing and Cyber Scams
- Computer Forensics
- Web Security
- Cryptography, Steganography, etc
- Programming Security
- Miscellaneous Security Discussions
- Reviews (product, book, training, conference)

General Technology Discussions
- Web Development
- Hardware
- Operating Systems
- General Computer Discussions
- General Programming Questions
- Code Review

AntiOnline
- Questions About AntiOnline
- Roll Call
- New Features
- Site Suggestions
- Oops! A Bug!
- AntiViews and the AntiOnline Newsletter
- Security Tutorials
- Other Tutorials

General Discussions
- GCC
- Tech Humor
- Cosmos
- Addicts

[Striek]

Actually, thinking about it more, I think the tutorials forums could be split into a few more. There's certainly enough tutorials here to warrant a few more forums for them. It would also help in searching through them. How about

Network Security / Firewall Tutorials
Operating System / IDS / Host Security Tutorials
Virus / Adware / Spyware cleaning Tutorials
Forensics Tutorials
Other Security Tutorials
Other Non-Security Tutorials

It's a list I though of in a couple of minutes. I just had that idea. But definitely the tutorials forum could be split into smaller forums, although I'm not sure how much work it would entail. I'm sure there's a better way to do it. Any ideas?