Followup to last night's post...

[lance_sibley]

I got a response today from Yahoo regarding the message I sent last night about the QC group being deleted:

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Groups.

I understand that the group that you are moderating has been deleted. I apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused you and I'll be glad to assist you on this matter.

I have personally checked your Yahoo! Group "Queer_Continuum", and it shows that it was recently deleted by Yahoo!.

Please be advised that Yahoo! may, in appropriate circumstances and in its sole discretion, terminate Groups that appear to have violated the Yahoo! Terms of Service (TOS).

Please feel free to visit the Yahoo! Terms of Service at:

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Lance, I realize that this may pose an inconvenience, and for this I apologize. I appreciate your utmost patience and understanding with regard to this matter. If you have any other concerns, do not hesitate to get in touch with us.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Groups.

How a group that has had maybe three messages in the past six months, all of which are along the lines of "Gee, it's quiet. What's everyone up to?", can be in violation of their terms of service, I'm not sure... anyhow, I took advantage of that "I'll be glad to assist you on this matter" to follow up:

Thank you for getting back to me.

My major concern is that this group is the one way for a number of us who are geographically diverse to communicate to plan for the science fiction convention that we all attend every year. It's also a group intended to promote LGBT-themed science fiction and related events such as Gaylaxicon and the Spectrum Awards. It is not an adult group - in fact, I recall sending
someone a cease-and-desist email a year or two ago when they posted something
inappropriate. We also take care to ask potential members for information about
themselves and their interest in the group prior to approving their membership.

Since it has been quiet recently (the convention is coming up in July), there's no way we could have violated Yahoo's Terms of Service.

I hope that the group can be restored, as it is important to us.

We'll see what happens now.

---

On a happier note, I can announce that voting for the Constellation Awards is now open! The voting process is explained here. Feel free to spread the word - and if you're Canadian, attended TT20 or are pre-registered for Polaris 21, feel free to vote!


1) Best Male Performance in a 2006 Science Fiction Television Episode.

- Anthony Michael Hall, The Dead Zone, "Independence Day"
- Ben Browder, Stargate SG-1, "Company of Thieves"
- David Tennant, Doctor Who, "The Girl in the Fireplace"
- Jared Padalecki, Supernatural, "Croatoan"
- Jensen Ackles, Supernatural, "In My Time of Dying"
- Masi Oka, Heroes, "Genesis"

2) Best Female Performance in a 2006 Science Fiction Television Episode.

- Billie Piper, Doctor Who, "Doomsday"
- Billie Piper, Doctor Who, "School Reunion"
- Claudia Black, Stargate SG-1, "Memento Mori"
- Elisabeth Sladen, Doctor Who, "School Reunion"
- Hayden Panettiere, Heroes, "Genesis"
- Katee Sackhoff, Battlestar Galactica, "Torn"

3) Best Science Fiction Television Series of 2006.

- Battlestar Galactica
- Doctor Who
- Heroes
- Stargate SG-1
- Stargate: Atlantis
- Supernatural

4) Best Male Performance in a 2006 Science Fiction Film, TV Movie, or Mini-Series.

- Brandon Routh, Superman Returns
- Clive Owen, Children of Men
- Hugh Jackman, X-Men: The Last Stand
- Hugo Weaving, V for Vendetta
- Nathan Fillion, Slither
- Peter Krause, The Lost Room

5) Best Female Performance in a 2006 Science Fiction Film, TV Movie, or Mini-Series.

- Elle Fanning, The Lost Room
- Julianne Moore, Children of Men
- Kate Beckinsale,Underwood: Evolution
- Kate Bosworth, Superman Returns
- Keira Knightley, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
- Maribel Verdú, Pan's Labyrinth
- Natalie Portman, V for Vendetta

6) Best Science Fiction Film, TV Movie, or Mini-Series of 2006.

- Children of Men
- Pan's Labyrinth
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
- Superman Returns
- V For Vendetta
- X-Men: The Last Stand

7) Best Technical Accomplishment in a 2006 Science Fiction Film or Television Production.

- Battlestar Galactica, Visual Effects (Zoic Studios)
- Children of Men, Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki)
- Doctor Who, Music (Murray Gold, Composer)
- Supernatural, Cinematography (Serge Ladouceur)
- Supernatural, Visual Effects (EntityFX)
- X-Men: The Last Stand, Visual Effects (John Bruno, Eric Saindon, Craig Lyn & Michael Vezina: Visual Effects Supervisors)

8) Best Overall 2006 Science Fiction Film or Television Script.

- Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J.Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, & Hawk Ostby)
- Doctor Who, The Girl in the Fireplace (Steven Moffat)
- Heroes, Six Months Ago (Aron Eli Coleite)
- Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro)
- Stargate SG-1, 200 (Brad Wright & Robert C. Cooper)
- Supernatural, In My Time of Dying (Eric Kripke)

9) Outstanding Canadian Contribution to Science Fiction Film or Television in 2006.

- Battlestar Galactica
- Doctor Who
- Evangeline Lilly
- Michael Shanks
- Stargate SG-1
- Supernatural

Comments

[elizard100.livejournal.com]

Yahoo makes mistakes like that sometimes and it's just random as I've heard of it before. Hopefully the group can be started up again with little hassle.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

I hope they can just restore it from a backup. If not, I have several emails from group members saved in my personal email folders, so I might be able to recreate it with a little help from other members.

In other words...

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Fuck you very much...

Re: In other words...

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, we'll see if I get a response to my followup email. If not, I should be able to recreate a large part of the membership with the help of others.

And if they did shut it down because it's an LGBT group, well, we have laws against that here. ;)

Re: In other words...

[indydark.livejournal.com]

I know that we have laws here but they may not apply. Was this group on Yahoo.ca or Yahoo.com? If it's based on the U.S. domain, I wonder if our, more liberal laws would apply.

They are being twits, but all us rational and sane people know that. Hope it gets resolved, to your liking, rather quickly.

Re: In other words...

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

It's .com, but I don't know what the law would say. It's a good question. I'll have to have a look at what their terms of service say about legal applicability.

Re: In other words...

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Let's hope they're dumb enough to say so. They may have minimum traffic requirements that they can claim...

[alpinemaps.livejournal.com]

I'd be curious - and I'd press them for this - to know exactly HOW it violated it's TOS. A little explanation (more than 'it did, so we killed it') is in order here.

To a certain degree, Yahoo! can do whatever it wants. But, if it wasn't violating their terms of service, then there's definitely something fishy.

See if they give you a reason, and see how willing they are to restore it. If you ask nicely, and they refuse - then see if you can get a lawyer to write them a nice little letter.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine what we might have done - but bcholmes, who owns the group, seems to be a target. All of the groups she owns were deleted, and she was unsubscribed from all of the others she belongs to. I don't know what she might have done - I can't imagine her doing anything in particular that would have been a problem. Someone suggested that some other Yahoo user filed a complaint against her.

See if they give you a reason, and see how willing they are to restore it. If you ask nicely, and they refuse - then see if you can get a lawyer to write them a nice little letter.

That's the plan.

[minotaurs.livejournal.com]

I love how they don't actually say anything about *why* it got deleted, or *how* it violated the TOS. Idiots.

[boywhocantsayno.livejournal.com]

I know. the_siobhan has also been getting the runaround - they're telling her that they can't tell third parties anything (despite the fact that she's bcholmes' partner).

I'm hoping that I'll get a little further, being a mod.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That makes me even more suspicious that they have targetted BC, but they won't respond to her queries at all.

This is just one big mess.

Where would you want to host a new list? There's Google Groups, but the interface is pretty clunky.