{"id":3562,"date":"2005-01-22T23:43:48","date_gmt":"2005-01-23T03:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2005\/01\/22\/implied-disclaimers-made-expl"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:58:02","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:58:02","slug":"implied-disclaimers-made-explicit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2005\/01\/22\/implied-disclaimers-made-explicit\/","title":{"rendered":"implied disclaimers made explicit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following was posted this evening by your Editor in a Guest role at Crime & Federalism<\/span><\/a><\/em>. <\/span>I hope it will avoid future misunderstanding and hard feelings:<\/span><\/p>\n

Notice of Implied Disclaimers<\/span><\/a><\/em> \"trust<\/span><\/h3>\n

A lot of lawyers have gone to <\/span><\/span>great lengths<\/span><\/strong><\/a> crafting their weblog disclaimers — usually to make <\/span>sure the great masses won’t mistake info and opinion for <\/span>legal advice<\/span><\/strong><\/a> or empathy for a client relationship; some want you to know they <\/span>don’t endorse the products<\/span><\/strong><\/a> that appear in those annoying ads that grow like mushrooms in the shade of their sidebars. Over at f\/k\/a<\/em>. I’ve even tried to <\/span>clarify<\/span><\/strong><\/a> that<\/span> my cranky punditry should not be attributed to the many excellent and innocent haiku poets who have agreed to grace the site. <\/span><\/p>\n

It has come to my attention, however, that those of us who offer commentary and criticism on our weblogs are often misunderstood by readers who needlessly take offense — personal, ideological, professional, etc.. This problem is especially true for some of us older webloggers who have steadfastly refused to utilize emoticons. <\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, I’m using the webbully pulpit provided me as a guest at C&F<\/em>, to set forth my Notice of Implied Disclaimers<\/em>. Henceforth, please consider the following disclaimers — unless specifically disclaimed — to be applicable to anything I write on the Web or in any other sectors of cyberspace:<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"trust Notice of Implied Disclaimers<\/strong><\/p>\n

YIKES<\/strong> – “Yes, I Know there are Exceptions and (unfair) Stereotypes<\/em>“. This disclaimer comes in handy when a poor, well-meaning soul — like, say, Harvard President <\/span>Lawrence H. Summers<\/span><\/strong><\/a> — is addressing a topic with politically-correct connotations. A little YIKES! in advance might spare you unseemly <\/span>public groveling<\/span><\/strong><\/a> (or a night or two sleeping on the proverbial academic sofa). However, even a good YIKES! (combined with the TIMID and PMS disclaimers explained below) won’t save you from folks with no sense of perspective or <\/span>humor<\/strong><\/span><\/a>*<\/strong>. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

TIMID<\/strong> – “This Is [merely] My Interpretation, Dear<\/em>” . If you’ve ever been accused of sounding like a condescending know-it-all, a prophylactic TIMID disclaimer may save you yet again from a lonely night on the cyber-sofa. I’ve always thought every<\/em>one knew that every<\/em>thing they said was only their own view of the facts or the truth, but that appears not to be the case, thus causing much difficulty. Please don’t confuse TIMID with the phony humility of <\/span>IMHO<\/span><\/strong><\/a> (or “<\/span>with all due respect<\/span><\/strong><\/a>“).<\/span><\/p>\n

PMS<\/strong> – “Pardon My Satire<\/em>,” “Post May include Satire<\/em>,” or “Pretty Much Satire<\/em>” — a recent run-in, while <\/span>discussing<\/span><\/strong><\/a> <\/span>Anonymous Lawyer<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/a>, with young lawyers and law students who appeared to be unfamiliar with the genre of satire, has <\/span>convinced me<\/span><\/strong><\/a> that prudence requires the PMS Warning. Even <\/span>Prof. Bainbridge<\/span><\/strong><\/a> could recently have used this Implied Disclaimer, and avoided a postscript describing the location of his tongue. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

s\/david a. giacalone<\/strong>,
\na\/k\/a haikuEsq<\/em> and Prof. Yabut<\/em>,
\nf\/k\/a ethicalEsq<\/em><\/p>\n

Feel free to adopt the nomenclature of Implied Disclaimers yourself, since I don’t expect you to waste a perfectly good Saturday night, like I just did drafting your own. Having made this announcement, I’m fairly certain that I’ll no longer have to worry about insulting, miffing, irking or otherwise raising the ire of (thoughtful, secure, mature) readers who may encounter my words here in cyberspace [PMS].<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*<\/strong>Linked image from Best of Callahan<\/a><\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

with apologies
\na cloudburst passes
\nby<\/p>\n

<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"sumo\"<\/p>\n

the sumo wrestler
\napologizing, releases
\nthe sparrow<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

. . . by Kobayashi Issa<\/span><\/a>, translated by <\/span>D. Lanoue<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following was posted this evening by your Editor in a Guest role at Crime & Federalism. I hope it will avoid future misunderstanding and hard feelings: Notice of Implied Disclaimers A lot of lawyers have gone to great lengths crafting their weblog disclaimers — usually to make sure the great masses won’t mistake info […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-Vs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13402,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562\/revisions\/13402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}