csn-uk
CSN-UK | Charlie
As providers and for some, designers and others, the user it's always enjoyable to watch and assist others with various open source systems and it's nice to see watch such sites grow or recommend ways to forward growth.
CMS's, Forums, Blogs and many more allow the user to take control of what to most would seem a professional, well formatted and hopefully well written website with ease or without the learning curve involved of the traditional hard coded approach.
In most cases these sites thrive in their own individual ways however as many of these sites are managed by for example 1 or 2 webmasters sharing the roles of a traditional web development team, things can slip through the net.
Where the Provider Steps in?
From a hosting point of view, we monitor as companies, the hardware and software via various means that makeup our service, as well as usage information and various logs. However bar the traditional virus scans and security techniques we don't vet each file uploaded by hand for example which is acceptable and would be avoided for obvious reasons.
Instead as providers we rely on DMCA acts and complains in order to "police" the sites we host, as well as for some, visual site checks (site visits) to ensure the content is not in contravention to our TOS, Privacy, AUP and similar agreements.
However for most the ability to view each and every user's site by hand is daunting, costly and time consuming as such the above "relying on other users" mentality is used in the most part.
An Example?
Let's start with an example that unfortunately spurred the writing of this topic, a recent example id used on HD to two portfolios for new and old versions of a site, one traditionally hardcoded and vetted by our design team and the other a new implementation using wordpress to give the user the power they had requested.
After the site had been handed to the client and after receiving a number of in person walkthroughs to the operation of wordpress, the client continued alone to add content and images to the portfolio with the occasional request to our design team for reminders or suggestions.
All sounds fine?
With the background out of the way, we all or most are aware that there are laws regarding the use of images containing people, more specifically faces, as such blurring faces is a common step or discounting those images.
Number plates on vehicles is another due to fraud (creation of fake plates), and again the same steps are taken, however despite the client understanding these precautions, 3 images where uploaded as to the client the 3 thumbnail views did not show the full number plate only in part. Though the user failed to notice the full number plate was easily visible with any combination of 2 of the images.
What could the provider do? What should they do?
As a user, our design client had missed the images... fortunately one of our support techs had noticed the images when referencing the site and subsequently suspended the account followed by a call to the user immediately.
For most this would seem extreme and for most providers, ourselves included this isn't usual practice or defined in our TOS (specifically) however for those who have been effected by fraudulent experiences as a result of similar action would argue differently.
The Point?
Essentially, is there now too much power to the one man band webmasters, things slip through the net with bigger teams, granted, however this is mainly down to negligence rather than mistake, and many webmasters don't check their content thoroughly or work with offline or restricted versions before going live.
CMS's, Forums, Blogs and many more allow the user to take control of what to most would seem a professional, well formatted and hopefully well written website with ease or without the learning curve involved of the traditional hard coded approach.
In most cases these sites thrive in their own individual ways however as many of these sites are managed by for example 1 or 2 webmasters sharing the roles of a traditional web development team, things can slip through the net.
Where the Provider Steps in?
From a hosting point of view, we monitor as companies, the hardware and software via various means that makeup our service, as well as usage information and various logs. However bar the traditional virus scans and security techniques we don't vet each file uploaded by hand for example which is acceptable and would be avoided for obvious reasons.
Instead as providers we rely on DMCA acts and complains in order to "police" the sites we host, as well as for some, visual site checks (site visits) to ensure the content is not in contravention to our TOS, Privacy, AUP and similar agreements.
However for most the ability to view each and every user's site by hand is daunting, costly and time consuming as such the above "relying on other users" mentality is used in the most part.
An Example?
Let's start with an example that unfortunately spurred the writing of this topic, a recent example id used on HD to two portfolios for new and old versions of a site, one traditionally hardcoded and vetted by our design team and the other a new implementation using wordpress to give the user the power they had requested.
After the site had been handed to the client and after receiving a number of in person walkthroughs to the operation of wordpress, the client continued alone to add content and images to the portfolio with the occasional request to our design team for reminders or suggestions.
All sounds fine?
With the background out of the way, we all or most are aware that there are laws regarding the use of images containing people, more specifically faces, as such blurring faces is a common step or discounting those images.
Number plates on vehicles is another due to fraud (creation of fake plates), and again the same steps are taken, however despite the client understanding these precautions, 3 images where uploaded as to the client the 3 thumbnail views did not show the full number plate only in part. Though the user failed to notice the full number plate was easily visible with any combination of 2 of the images.
What could the provider do? What should they do?
As a user, our design client had missed the images... fortunately one of our support techs had noticed the images when referencing the site and subsequently suspended the account followed by a call to the user immediately.
For most this would seem extreme and for most providers, ourselves included this isn't usual practice or defined in our TOS (specifically) however for those who have been effected by fraudulent experiences as a result of similar action would argue differently.
The Point?
Essentially, is there now too much power to the one man band webmasters, things slip through the net with bigger teams, granted, however this is mainly down to negligence rather than mistake, and many webmasters don't check their content thoroughly or work with offline or restricted versions before going live.
