RISKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Contrary to what is probably believed by most every one not directly involved with the ownership / management of the Yohi web site their are 'risks' that go along with the 'responsibilities'.   Like running any 'business' -- or even a family, there are dangers lurking along the way that will cause a problem, and everyone has been exposed to them in one way or another.

In this case the owner becomes automatically responsible for any and all consequences – good or bad – that result from anything posted or not posted on the web site that becomes an issue to someone else; regardless if that owner was aware that there was something 'wrong' about what was posted, or was wrong for it to not have been posted - an omission or 'mistake' for example.   

Let me just say it this way, ALL CONSEQUENCES fall to the owner!!!!!!  You, as the owner, are personally responsible and liable for EVERYTHING and you cannot avoid that or blame anyone else.

So, if there is to be a law suit against the site for some reason - the owner is the one who will take the suit and go to court -- and rightfully so.

We live in an imperfect world and there are folks in it whose sole purpose in life appears to be to make it uncomfortable for everyone else.   Dangers lurk everywhere, are subtle and sometimes not detectable until a 'complaint' comes in.

So, in this section of this announcement, we want to tell you -- as a prospective owner or manager -- about some of the types of 'risks' and 'responsibilities' involved and so that you will be aware of them should you elect to apply. 

The owner and manager must work together in complete harmony and have the essentially the same talents.  The major difference between them is that only ONE can be the owner and be totally responsible for everything.

The ‘risks’ are varied and range from minor, even laughable, to severe; and have  consequence to ones self, ones family, and the site itself.  They cover such issues as commitment and personal sacrifice by taking on the project itself and devoting the time needed to perform the tasks; ones technical skills and management abilities come into play, and owning the necessary equipment to do the work.  Family priorities also are involved as they must be sacrificed else the resultant impact can be severe.  Then on to such things as to the legal aspect of the web site where accuracy, copyright infringement, privacy, security and ...... all of which could result in law suits and court actions.  

So to explain for your understanding of this very important matter, here are just a couple normal to odd examples from one extreme to another: 

Years ago we began posting a ‘Found’ List to benefit the alumni in contacting ‘classmates’.  Thought it was a good idea -- so did everyone else that we knew of.  In the beginning it included the person’s full name – including married name, alias, ‘nick name, street address, phone number, city state, zip, and e-mail address.  It was a great way for the alumni to keep in touch.   It was all done ‘with permission’, but over the years and based upon subsequent complaints from the alumni themselves, and from our realization that ‘spammers’ were using those lists for identity thefts and or other criminal or nuisance purposes it was necessary to scale back radically the data displayed so as to offer the best protection to the alumni.  Today we only post a fraction of what we did in past years-- and that is the reason.

Other actions taken to minimize the 'risks' to the alumni, and the owner, include the removal of the guestbook.  For years we did not post publicly the guest book for 'security' reasons, but relented a few years back.   Now it is a source of information  for the unscrupulous criminals to perpetuate frauds involving identity theft.  Just to dangerous to manage for the benefit it produces.

Some alumni have recently asked that their ‘bio’ be removed from the site for the very same reason.  And, we may simply remove them all -- under consideration.

Accuracy of the information we display and or maintain in our data base is a 'risky' business as well.  Naturally we want it to be current and accurate.  However because alumni are unable to keep us informed, it is NOT.  We would guess that perhaps 60 percent of it is now invalid.   It takes a great deal of time to maintain lists and data bases, and the question which must be resolved soon is should the web site maintain any list or data base.  Or should we simply let the 'group' POC's do it on a 'group' basis -- under consideration.   Our list and their lists have not agreed in years for a number of reasons.  We identify far more alumni to them than they do for example.  Some lists have not been updated in 3 years. 

If you notice the 'found' and 'POC' list today, you will discover that in the past 2 months they have been revised again -- downward -- the 'bad' guys seems to win, don't they.   Well, when you are the 'owner' you can decide what to remove and what not!

Another risk that is real is from the 'host' [servers] themselves -- who also are 'running scared'!  Along the way, servers devised schemes for their own protection which threatened site owners with ‘site removal’ for bogus infractions of certain ‘host’ rules.   Those infractions were / are being perpetuated by evil people on the ‘net’ – absolutely no connection to us or YOHI -- who simply pretended to be one of the owners or managers and tell the ‘host’ lies.  Those lies, which were automatically  believed by the ‘host’ without debate or investigation have resulted in the removal of our web site from the internet twice.  This caused severe recovery problems.  This perhaps is going to be a trend that will continue .........

We suspect that the greatest risk we have is to protect the alumni from identity theft -- and we are working our way through it, but regretfully there are bad folks out there who are able to cause trouble.  We have some belief that the world in which we live has forgotten what ‘brotherhood’ means, and now supports the concept of ‘law suits’, avoidance of responsibility, and all the other hallmarks which might peg our society as one in which self destruction could be the outcome.

The internet is a very 'public' place and open to a great many problems.  We get a lot of traffic from non-alumni wanting to participate or ask questions.  The site is well known and open to the world for what ever they desire to make of it.

Perhaps all we have done to 'protect' the alumni has been an over reaction to a perceived but not valid risk assessment; but when one is liable for consequences the song quickly changes from -- "don't worry about it" -- to one of deep concern.  You will have your turn.