Hi, I'm Anonymous. I'm a white belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu, and my friend, BJJ, is a blue belt. We've teamed up to bring you BJJ Anonymous.
If you want to share something related to jiu jitsu, but can't take the risk it will be tracked back to you and create conflict or embarrassment, email it to us at bjjanonymous@gmail.com. Please google "email anonymizer" and use one of those free services. We'll screen the postings with a few factors in mind (see below) and post them here as soon as possible, thereafter deleting the email you sent.
The factors we'll take into consideration:
1. NO DEFAMATION (libel or slander): Free Advice (a plain-language, practical legal resource) offers this definition:
"Defamation ...is spoken or written words that falsely and negatively reflect on a living person's reputation. If a person or the news media says or writes something about you that is understood to lower your reputation, or that keeps people from associating with you, defamation has occurred."
Libel is written defamation; slander is spoken defamation. For this blog, we need to be concerned about both.
If you wish to make a negative comment about a specific individual or organization on this blog, that's fine. We don't need to be all sunshine and roses here. However, you must back up that what you say is true. Link to primary sources or very reputable reporting, or demonstrate that you have direct first-hand knowledge or evidence to back up your claim. If you cannot back up your negative claim, then please don't publish it here. You can use your own blog or other venue for that. This blog is no place for rumor-mongering...Of course, we'd also like positive claims to be equally well supported. However, positive claims generally don't present legal risks.
If the negative comment you wish to make is strictly a matter of your own taste or preference (not an assertion of fact) please indicate that clearly. Phrases like "In my opinion..." or "It seems to me..." come in handy here.
2. Please be civil. If you call someone an a**hole here, we reserve the right to edit it. We shouldn't be calling names or picking fights here. Besides, there are always more subtle and effective ways to get your message across, if needed -- and it's always possible to criticize or disagree strenuously with someone while remaining civil.
3. What about comments? "Anyone is welcome to add a comment to any posting in this blog. Any comment that includes spam, obscenity, copyright infringement, rudeness, proprietary information, or obvious risk of libel will not be published. We expect all comments to be on-topic and civil -- no flame wars here, please."
4. This blog respects copyright -- which means that you may not reproduce any content here to which you do not hold the copyright or have not specifically gotten permission from the copyright holder.
Here's what FreeAdvice has to say on the issue of what can be protected by copyright: "Copyright protection is available only for 'original' works that are 'fixed' in a 'tangible medium of expression.' ...All that it takes for a work to be regarded as 'fixed' is that it must be able to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."
...Therefore, you should assume that anything published online or elsewhere is protected by copyright and therefore not available for you to republish entirely or mostly on this blog.
Welcome! We look forward to helping you get things off your chest.
