🚀 go-pugleaf

This posting deals with a number of related issues expressed in
several current or recent threads.

0 summary

1 preface

2 AUP: generally, and/or for volunteers

3 specific bits of nonsense

  3a no duty to assist
  3b self-defence is not a threat
  3c re: legal opinions
  3d "TFN isn't the police"
  3e TFN liability for directors' acts
  3f language of laws/rules


0 summary

Because an Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") is the principal issue and
because the rest of this posting isn't short, here's the summary of
the part on AUP and AUP-like things:

   Draw up and enforce a relatively-permissive acceptable behaviour
   policy for Toronto FreeNet ("TFN")  volunteers/employees, but one
   that does not tolerate some often-*legal* things like swearing at
   and denigrating and insulting TFN members (or possibly others);
   that should get rid of most of the problem.

   NOTE: This policy would not apply to *all* TFN members, but only to
   volunteers and employees and others associated with TFN adiminstration
   and operation (except for directors acting within the scope of their
   role as directors).  There is no *right* to be involved in TFN
   administration/operation (other than as a director), and so TFN can
   freely impose such requirements.  If some people then demand to be
   allowed to be antisocial as a price of volunteering, the fact of
   their being antisocial will become clearer.

   An AUP for *all* members, along the lines of some of the above but *less*
   restrictive, would be fine in principle. It just *might* not be
   needed yet, though. If TFN determines that one is needed now, though,
   adoption of such an AUP would be entirely consistent with the societal
   norm of having such policies.

1 preface

There are many misstatements of laws and legal principles floating
around in this discussion.  Any decisions based on many of the
uninformed (often wrong) guesses at what the correct laws and
principles are, would likely be bad ones.

Few if any posters have cited any external concrete foundations
for their opinions. Only a few have acknowledged that external
things largely determine matters.  By "external" I mean "external to
one's own skull", or "laws and other broadly accepted societal
and organizational norms"; unfortunately many posters equate
their own *internal* pre-conceived notions with such external
things.

Many well-meaning posters, both the few who understand the context
and the many who think that they do but only see the narrow technical
aspects, are simply not qualified to usefully comment on many aspects of the
issues being bandied about. This is ignorance (simply "not-knowing"),
*not* "stupidity".  Those who consider this an insult are encouraged
to read the next paragraph especially carefully.

It would be as unrealistic to expect people untrained in legal or
organizational matters (and especially people untrained in these
matters who have limited experience in the workings of society and
organizations) to be able to have opinions (on such matters) that
are as worthwhile as opinions of those who do have education and/or
experience in these matters, as it would be to expect people untrained
in software internals to be able to have worthwhile opinions about
technical sysadmin matters.

And now, having by my bluntness ensured that those who misunderstand
or do not understand the foregoing will unfortunately (and wrongly)
see insult in it...

2 AUP: generally, and/or for volunteers

Fortunately, the issue of an AUP for *all* members might not need to
be dealt with to eliminate much of the problem.  Likely, most of
the problem can be adequately addressed by having a policy on
acceptable behaviour for only those associated with TFN (volunteers
and/or employees). See below.

bt351@torfree.net wrote:
: Kenneth Edward Smith (cg591@torfree.net) wrote:
: : If it's getting down to personal insults, which I've noted are not
:         welcome to the wonderful world of volunteerism.  i've been

No. Personal attacks are not a normal part of volunteering.
They may, unfortunately, be a common part of volunteering *at TFN*.
And they *are* a common part of simply discussing administrative
or policy (or any) matters publicly, at TFN.

Personal attacks (and such) are the problem. But they are not the problem
simply because of anything inherent in volunteering or in public discourse.
They are the problem because TFN lets it be a problem. At TFN. Specifically.
And supporting rights to interfere with others, is extraordinary.

And bt351 and others who seem to be associated with TFN administration
and operation are notable frontrunners in such personal attacking.

And TFN's continuing to permit itself to be associated with such
persons contributes to its image as a group of unprofessional
untrustworthy nerds with an uncommon sense of what's "acceptable".

Where did this silly notion that "anything that's legal must be
tolerated and accepted" get started?  If something is legal, then
there are no *legal* sanctions (fine, jail, injunction); but this
does not mean that there cannot be, or ought not be, societal or
organizational sanctions short of legal ones for unacceptable
behaviour that is short of illegal.

Few if any organizations allow *everything* that is legal.

When's the last time anyone saw a restaurant waiter insult
restaurant patrons (insults being legal) with impunity?
Or be allowed to walk down the restaurant aisle on his hands, even
though that's legal and arguably (ignoring the issue of dirty hands
contaminating food) innocuous ? No matter HOW GOOD a waiter he is?

Hasn't anyone ever seen a "No shoes, no shirt, no service" sign?
To argue what specifics an AUP policy should cover, is common;
but to argue that an AUP MUST, BY LAW or otherwise, allow everything
that's legal, is not only incorrect, it is utterly without foundation.

If TFN ran a restaurant, would it allow its waiters to walk on their
hands in the aisles and insult patrons, or anybody?

It was recently discussed (as I recall -- forgive me if I misstate)
that TFN management has little *well-founded* information on
how often the system goes down, how long it is between a system
failure and notification of the fixers ("hwsw" or "csas"), how
long between a system failure and a recovery, etc. This is
the most *basic* of information.

If TFN ran a restaurant, would it tolerate a waiter not
keeping track of and telling management how many people they
serve per shift etc.?  No matter HOW GOOD the waiter was?

(The waiter analogy is for simplicity of illustration only; don't
bother pointing out its flaws -- I acknowledge them.)

A second illustration of a quasi-public organization perhaps
a bit more like TFN might be Bell Canada.  Bell is a regulated
government-sanctioned monopoly-supplier of local phone service,
a communication company. TFN is a government-sanctioned charity
and (until recently) funded by the government, and is a communication
company.  Could anyone imagine a Bell operator swearing at and
insulting (both legal actions) callers, and being allowed to do
so by Bell on the grounds of "free speech" or that "there hasn't
been a conviction, and policing is not our job"?

(The Bell analogy is also imperfect; let's not digress to discussion
of validity of analogies, though.)

That many of the TFN-associated people who are the worst offenders
are able to be civil and helpful for periods of time before reverting
to being disgusting when it pleases them, actually makes their conduct
*more* offensive.  Those who are incapable of realizing or controlling
their antisocial behaviour might be pitied, but those who realize it
and deliberately choose to turn it on and off without regard for their
victims, are clearly behaving intentionally and are all the more
responsible.

As an aside:

    By the way, why does the person owning account #bt351 not have
    to follow TFN's rule about having to have the account holder's real
    name appear in all outgoing email and posts?  Do rules not apply to
    some members?  Or can any member now show only their spam-dissuading
    userid, as 'bt351' does?

    Even if the non-identification for bt351 is permitted because it's
    a TFN-work account only and not a normal member-account,
    why is its owner the only TFN member allowed to make *personal*
    postings, unrelated to their TFN work, *through TFN facilities*,
    without showing his name on the posting? For surely some of bt351's
    postings, including all of his postings in the threads on AUP,
    are *not* part of his TFN work: the volunteer duties of the
    individual controlling the account do not include speaking
    on policy matters on behalf of TFN, and the opinions (and, often,
    elsewhere, insults) expressed by him are surely not communications
    of, or approved by, the TFN Board.

Wendy Guy (cq915@torfree.net) wrote:

: Peter Selk (bk078@torfree.net) wrote:
: : Wendy Guy (cq915@torfree.net) wrote:

: : : I tried in my post to take a broader perspective of the issue, to show
: : : that there's more that could be involved here besides a one-dimensional
: : : freedom-of-speech controversy -- something which Colin and Geoffrey seem
: : : to have missed. Have you missed it too?

: : Not at all.  I understand now that you wish to codify regulations to
: : govern not only the speech of others, but other types of behaviour as
: : well.  Your perspective is broad indeed, as is your lust for control.

: Sigh. I'm extremely disappointed and disheartened that otherwise
: intelligent people in this newsgroup seem apparently incapable of hearing
: anything in what I've said on this subject as other than an extremist
: approach to control, power and regulation. To be honest, I think this says
: about those who insist on these all-or-nothing interpretations than about
: me.

Requiring decent behaviour of those associated with TFN administration
and operation, towards TFN members and on TFN facilities (such as newsgroups),
is not overkill; it's the minimum sort of thing that other organizations
require of those associated with them.

Restaurants would not only not tolerate waiters insulting customers,
they would not tolerate *customers* insulting customers.

Marc Bissonnette (dragnet@internalysis.com) wrote:

:    If there were pictures of my wife, daughter, sisters or mother posted
: to the net, depicting rape, murder, abuse, etc, etc, and the Board decided to
: do *nothing* until a judge forced them to, I'd GUARANTEE I'd sue the TFN and
: anything even *Imagined* to be related to the TFN so that the following five
: generations were indebted. And that's just the *legal* stuff I'd do.

: What if someone posted your credit card information, your credit history, your
: bank account numbers, your S.I.N. number, your medical records online (None of
: which, BTW, are all that hard to get, if you're of the mind)? Would you be
: content to allow your most important and vital information to remain online,
: doing God-knows-what damage to you and yours, while the TFN sat around and
: waited for a judge?

And it is precisely because of this that few organizations other than
TFN would seriously consider a non-policy policy of "anything
goes until a court says otherwise", and that organizations always have
the authority (remember those Acts and Bylaws thingies?) to deal with
obvious gross misbehaviour EVEN SHORT OF ILLEGALITY, *regardless* of
whether they would be legally liable *if* they were to take *no* action.

I am not advocating controlling disgusting behaviour by TFN *members*
in general, although this doesn't necessarily mean I would be against
that. But maybe focussing on members in general isn't (yet?) needed.

Having some requirement for civil nonadolescent quasiprofessional
behaviour for TFN *employees* and/or *volunteers* would
not only be in line with the societal norm, it might get rid of much
of the problem, either by having those TFN volunteers who are offensive
tone it down, or by isolating them and making clear that their
continued future insults would be those of fringe individuals and not
of TFN-associated persons.

The "are we a technically-driven organization or a more mature
semi-professional and well-organized organization" question
raised by Wendy Guy is spot on.  The former tolerates dysfunctional
behaviours of its employees/volunteers because it focusses on the
job not the customer. The latter does not tolerate such behaviours,
because it knows the customers (members/sponsors) won't stand for it.

Only tech-driven organizations accept all behaviour short of illegality.
Mature organizations (and make no mistake about it, only mature
organizations survive) have AUP's, or AT LEAST employee/volunteer
behaviour codes of some sort.

As long as TFN has no AUP (and a redundant AUP that allows everything
not already disallowed by laws is virtually no AUP), or at least
no employee/volunteer behaviour policy or code, and as long as it
tolerates public antisocial behaviour within itself (meaning, by those
who work for it, regardless of what it tolerates from members generally),
it will continue to be associated with, and to rightly be seen to be
partly responsible for, such behaviour, in the eyes of members and
(potential) sponsors. And it will continue to be what it is and what
it hopes to grow out of being: a collection, largely, of immature
tech-types surviving only on large government grants, and with little
legitimacy or hope of survival past the weaning stage.

Opinions on organizational matters are not all deserving of equal
respect, any more than opinions on technical matters are all
deserving of equal respect. Wendy Guy's and Jim Butterfield's and
Ken Smith's voices are among the few voices of maturity and reason
(and, dare I say it? -- experience in society) at TFN.  Ignore them
at your own peril. And to those prone to misunderstand: no, that
is not (sigh) a threat.

3 specific bits of nonsense

Next, a couple of specific examples of the sorts of wrong statements
about the law and legal and societal principles that are floating about.
Often these statements are red herrings, or do not serve to justify
the conclusions that they puprort to.  Whatever their relevance,
though, maybe pointing out some specific clearly-wrong things will
help some people realize that so much of what's being posted is
wrong, and help them realize that truly worthwhile discussion
must involve reference to actual external materials, and not
merely exchange of opinion without foundation, nor even exchange
of opinion about what such external materials may be.

Readers should confirm the following, as everything in this posting,
for themselves, before relying on it.

3 specific bits of nonsense
  3a no duty to assist

Marc Bissonnette (dragnet@internalysis.com) wrote:

: Actually, I'd suggest you check your Canadian law. A citizen witnessing an
: illegal act and doing nothing is liable for accessory to the act.

No.

Being a witness, and/or simply doing nothing, is not what constitues
the offence of being an "accessory" after the fact or before the act.
And Canada has no *general* "good samaritan" law (a law requiring one to
render or seek assistance).

I think France might.

I think Quebec recently adopted a *specific* law, dealing with a requirement
to render assistance in situations of *physical* harm or danger of
*physical* harm.

But nowhere in Canada is there a *general* good samaritan law, and
certainly none which applies here.

|Marc Bissonnette (dragnet@internalysis.com) wrote:

|: It's the same thing as witnessing a robbery. If you see someone
|breaking into a
|: house, and do not call the authorities, you are guilty (and can be prosecuted
|: for) being an accessory to the act.

No, as indicated above.

Read Ken Smith's sensible and reasonable posts on industry standards and
their relevance regarding due diligence.

3 specific bits of nonsense
  3b self-defence is not a threat

Kenneth Edward Smith (cg591@torfree.net) wrote:
|I am a director of this Corporation, and charged with
|representing the interests of members.  I am also personally liable for
|acts of commission or omission by the Corporation under Ontario law.

Bruce Becker replied,
        Ah, you are threatening again.  It's free speech
        until you cop out, yes?  OK, show us the gun that's

Kenneth Edward Smith (cg591@torfree.net) replied:
Threat of what?  Limiting my liability?  If I get advice that says I am
at risk, and my colleagues on the board won't listen to it, what the hell
else do you expect me to do?

In *another* context expressed in *another* way, talking about resigning
as a TFN director *might* conceivably be viewable as a threat, and, even
then, merely as a threat to resign. But not here.

Ken Smith was writing about his own legal obligations as a director, and
about how he might avoid liability. He referred to nobody else. His
words were not only not a threat, but it seems impossible to threaten
another when referring exclusively to oneself and, a fortiori, exclusively
to one's own obligations and potential liabilities.

His comments dealt only with defence of himself, not remotely with attack
of anyone or anything.

3 specific bits of nonsense
  3c re: legal opinions

Somebody wrote
:       This is bunk.  If somebody feels a compelling
:       reason to do so they can call in the authorities
:       to make a determination.

fjb replied,
: Have you ever tried doing this?
: What you'll get, if you press for a determination, is "We're not
: permitted to give you legal advice".

There's been some wellmeaning commentary about TFN having to
do things based on, or being free to refrain from doing things
in the absence of, police or court opinions.

Police do not render advice, and any informal thing they do say
is largely irrelevant (with some exceptions in matters involving
due diligence). The law is what the law says, not what a nonjudicial
person (and police *are* NONjudicial) thinks or says it is.

And judges are not in the business of advising or recommending anything
*before* the fact. They deal only with determinations *after* the fact
(with, again, some irrelevant exceptions).

The closest you can come to knowing how the law applies to a
particular situation, short of getting a judgement, is a lawyer's
opinion.  Ken Smith's seeking an opinion for himself personally
is a rational idea, whether it's overly cautious (as might be) or not.

And TFN's NOT getting a legal opinion, and trying to hash out matters
among posters many of whose views are unfounded, and some of whose
views are decidedly weird, is ... well... not too smart.

Someone wrote,
:  From the minutes of the Toronto Freenet board meeting of Febuary 15, 1996
:  >*          2.1.2) T. Pinos' response was that with respect to
:  >*          criminal activity, at the time the TFN becomes aware of
:  >*          "potentially illegal" materials arises the possibility
:  >*          for liability as an accessory to the activity. Therefore
:  >*          prompt and effective action must be taken by the TFN.

Alas, there is a big difference between a legal opinion, either
formal or informal, either preliminary or not, expressed (most often
in writing) by a lawyer in his own chosen words, and a thirdhand
possibly-distorted report of a conversation with a lawyer.  The
reason there is such a big difference is precisely because a slight
rephrasing can dramatically change meaning.

The FIRST senetence in "2.1.2" above is fine, but so general that it
cannot properly be considered determinative.

The FIRST sentence in "2.1.2" says that there is POSSIBLE liability.
Whether in a given situation that would be actual liability, or not,
as an accessory or otherwise, depends on the specifics of the situation
that are not dealt with in that sentence (or elsewhere). A comment on
POSSIBLE LIABILITY is not the same thing as a comment on (ACTUAL)
LIABILITY.

Considering the FIRST sentence as meaning that MERELY becoming aware
makes one LIABLE and/or under a duty to do something in ALL circumstances,
is an *excellent* example of the sort of misunderstanding that is likely
behind many erroneous things stated with conviction in this discussion,
and that makes them tangential and counterproductive.  (Actually many
of the misstaken things stated here likely have much less as a foundation:
mere personal opinion without any reasonable openminded consideration
(much less, investigation) of the factors that have gone into development
of the *actual* principles that *actually* apply.)

The SECOND sentence in "2.1.2" goes far beyond the FIRST sentence and, as
worded, likely was made not by the lawyer but by the note-taker or someone
else; it is far too broad. Read what part of its meaning is: "when TFN
becomes aware of material that is *merely* "potentially" illegal (and
this must include both some LEGAL material as well as illegal material,
otherwise there's no reason to say "potentially illegal" instead of
"illegal"), it "must" take action". This is silly: TFN is of course
not legally compelled to take any action in respect of *legal* material.

NOTE: Some sort of legal advice on what sorts policies/rules TFN may
      or should adopt, would be a wise thing to have.  Adopting AUP-like
      policies isn't as novel a corporate activity as might appear from
      the postings, and so, much time for ground-breaking original legal
      research on the subject (and lots of $$ to fund it), is unlikely
      to be needed.

      Requiring a legal opinion on every complaint made under TFN's
      policies/rules, as suggested by some, though, is an entirely
      different matter; that would be unnecessary, unusual, and
      unworkable.

3 specific bits of nonsense
  3d "TFN isn't the police"

Dmytri Kleiner (dmytrik@syntac.net) wrote:

   (my loose paraphrase):
         a. Don't enforce legal standards because TFN isn't the police.
         b. Don't enforce any other standards because until there's
            a formal determination that something's illegal, that would be
            draconian and, in any event, "vigilantism".

These views are naive and unworkable in the extreme.

The result of adhering to these 2 principles is:
        No standards, and the extraordinary (read: generally does not
        exist at other ISP-like things, nor elsewhere in society at
        large) slimepit that exists at times on TFN newsgroups.

Dmytri Kleiner (dmytrik@syntac.net) wrote:

: As a public service, we have *NO*  right to dictate what you *SAY* via
: our system, or to determine the legality of that speech.
:
: We do however have a right to control *HOW* our system is used, what
: services we make available, and to protect our equipment and
: configuration from being damaged.

The powers of the Board of Directors are stated in the relevant Act and
Bylaws.  Without doubt it has the right to set standards of conduct.
Have I bothered to look at the Act or Bylaws?  No. I'm playing the
"my unresearched preconceived notion of reality is what counts here,
instead of *actual* reality" game, on this, just like almost everyone
else; and so my statement on this is (in some respects) as worthless
as everyone else's. People interested in *true* reality will consult
the applicable laws and bylaws, though, at a *minimum*.

Vigilantism is mass illegal action.  Adoption of an AUP, or a behaviour
code only for TFN employees and volunteers, would be action that is
neither "mass" nor illegal, but rather one of the very sorts of things
that Boards of Directors (or corporate officers) universally do, and
are intended to do.

It would be nice if people realized that what determines such matters is
largely things such as Acts and Bylaws, and not merely their own opinions.

: This has nothing to do with interpreting the law or freedom of speech

90% of the blathering by posters has precisely to do with that.
It is blathering because few have bothered to look to any source
of information or rights or obligations outside of their own
preconceived personal opinions.

Dmytri Kleiner (dmytrik@syntac.net) wrote:

: Stalking and sexual harrassement/abuse is a police matter, not one for
: the Free-Net Board of Directors.

It can be a matter for both, and it is, in all or nearly all organizations.
No company or organization would permit *everything* until a court order
or conviction.  For TFN to do so would be out of line. For TFN not
to *realize* that it is out of line, would be even farther out of line.

: Marc, as I;ve said, *WE ALREADY HAVE A JUSTICE SYSTEM* to look out for
: our safety and rights, the Free-Net Board of Directors does not need
: to undertake this responsibility.

See above.

3 specific bits of nonsense
  3e TFN liability for directors' acts

Marc Bissonnette (dragnet@internalysis.com) wrote:
: Well, folks, here you have it. Dmytri Kleiner, an elected board member to the
: Toronto Free-Net, is threatening extortion and blackmail if he doesn't get his
: way.

: The funny thing about it is, if Dmytri sues or causes harm to the TFN, he,
: himself is liable for it. The Corporations Act of Canada clearly states this.

"Extrotion" and "blackmail" are legal terms as well as common phrases.
Their use here in a legal context may or may not be appropriate.

The Act cited is not the applicable Act, and neither it nor the
applicable one "clearly states" anything of the kind suggested.
Corporations are NOT liable for EVERYTHING their directors do.
They are generally not responsible for acts of directors made outside of
the normal course of their activity as directors.

Using legal terms and arguments to bolster credibility often backfires
when it's clear that they're misused.  Stick to non-legalese and to
stating things in terms of "fairness" or "propriety" and you'll
avoid losing credibility on matters where your opinions are more
reasonable than the legal justifications you claim.

3 specific bits of nonsense
  3f language of laws/rules

bt351 (bt351@torfree.net) wrote:

: Kurt Wismer (cr764@torfree.net) wrote:
:
: : does the government of canada make the criminal code of canada available
: : to the public in each and every language in current use on earth?
:
:         the government of canada doesn't attempt to exceed its
: jurisdiction - which is being proposed by this matter.
:         tfn membership is not the exclusive domain of canadians - nor
: simply those residing in canada.
:         tfn has members with addresses in italy, spain, china, korea,
: vietnam...basically anywhere in the world.
:         tfn would look bad in court if it attempted to inform its
: membership in english only of canadian legal code while knowingly accepting
: foreign memberships.

I'm not sure what this point is being made in support of, but it's a
good example of the nonsense being claimed, based on an improper
understanding of the legal and societal principles we have.

Canadian laws are passed and available in only one or two languages,
English/French, and nonetheless all activities in Canada are subject to
them, regardless of the abilities in English/French of the people
engaging in these activities. Similarly anyone who uses TFN facilities
is subject to TFN's rules even if those rules are not in their language;
any use of TFN's facilities occurs in Canada simply because the
facilities are in Canada. The location of the use/activity and the
location of the user are not necessarily the same, and the latter is
largely or wholly irrelevant.

To claim that someone not knowing the language a law is written in
is not subject to that law, would be wrong and strange. (It would mean,
for example, that most foreign tourists are not subject to the laws
of the country they're visiting, for example.) But to claim that
someone not knowing the language of a mere organizational policy
or rule, is not subject to that policy or rule, is more extreme
and more clearly wrong and strange.

"Ignorance of the law (meaning, any laws/regulations/rules/etc.) is
no excuse".  (Though there is more to this maxim than appears on the
surface, the surface appearance happens to adequately deal with the
situation under consideration.) If ignorance were an excuse, a
different law would apply to each individual, based on their personal
knowledge of the law, and liability (responsibility) for anything could
be avoided simply by being wilfully blind to the law. This would be an
unworkable way to have a society run, and it is *not* how our, or any,
society runs.

bt351 (bt351@torfree.net) wrote:

: Kurt Wismer (cr764@torfree.net) wrote:
:
: : funny... and here i was thinking that the membership agreement (as per
: : it's name) was a legal contract and therefore did communicate at least
: : some legalities involved with the use of the tfn facilities...
:
:         in a very basic, straightforward manner.  communicating
: (potentially) applicable canadian legal code would be another matter.

Merely asserting that rules must be drafted in certain languages to
be binding does not make it so.  And to accept that TFN members are
bound by a unilingual contract (consistent with laws and therefore
valid), but could not be bound by a unilingual policy or rules
(consistent with laws and therefore valid), is inconsistent, and
highlights the silliness, however wellmeaning, of the position.

And by the way, the claim in some posting or other that contracts
must be in English or French to be valid, is patently false (with the
exception of some written contracts in Quebec). Any language is fine.
More than that: *no* language is fine -- a contract can be established
by conduct without language, so long as agreement is clear.

Any "exclusion", such as social exclusion, possibly involved in
having rules or policies unavailable in some language(s), would not
affect the validity or enforceability of those rules or policies.

(Astute readers will note that in the preceding several points, I did
not cite external materials explicitly (by quotes or web-links) myself,
but effectively just expressed my views of what they would say.  This
is, in principle, because I'm commenting here primarily on the discussion
rather than directly on the subject of the discussion, and, more
practically, because those materials are generally sufficiently clearly
described as to allow a qualified person to find them. My interest
simply doesn't extend as far as doing fresh specific research for TFN
to confirm that many unresearched comments of others are of little merit.)

*********
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