

Event Cancelled - JacobAldridge
http://pinchingtheostrich.typepad.com/pinching_the_ostrich/2010/03/event-cancelled.html

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dotBen
It's kinda funny and clever. It will fall down if they do it consistently.

People who want to attend these kinds of events will begin to know that the
"event canceled" stickers have been put up by the government and are false
information. Presumably the stickers will look the same, and also who goes and
bothered to put up "canceled" stickers if they genuinely are canceled?

It may even become a cachet - "dude, our event got stickered as 'canceled' by
the government" etc.

~~~
DannoHung
Simple way to defeat that is to just come up with a bunch of different sticker
designs.

Or, you could be even more devious. The town council could start putting up
fake posters in non-designated spots that would mislead people to believe that
something was happening when it wasn't. That way, non-approved locations will
become associated with poisoned wells. A random person wouldn't be able to
trust flyers in non-approved locations.

~~~
tptacek
The problem with this idea is that people who hang concert posters don't
sticker them when there are date changes. People are just going to ignore the
stickers.

Concert posters aren't a lead generation mechanism. They're awareness
marketing. The point of concert posters is to get you to go to a website to
buy tickets. They don't need correct information.

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viraptor
Sure - it might work well. But isn't it against the law to publicly spread
false information that affect someone's business? Whether it's the city, or a
random person, I would expect the same rules to apply - and I would expect to
get sued if I started putting "cancelled" stickers on all posters. Two wrongs
do not make a right...

~~~
timdorr
But it's a catch-22 situation. They would have to incriminate themselves to
file a lawsuit. Or if they make the argument that they weren't responsible for
the poster being put up, the local government can make the same claim. "I
didn't see who put it up there, so it's not my responsibility".

Part of it's brilliance is how easily defensible it is.

~~~
viraptor
Not sure about "easily defensible". If the city doesn't do it legally (as in
police can quickly verify who is doing that), then:

1\. Person A puts up a lot of posters in an obviously illegal area where other
posters are quickly "cancelled".

2\. "Completely unrelated" person B waits for the person adding the
"cancelled" stickers, notifies the police about suspected behaviour. For more
fun mentions "strange equipement" and "patroling the area for a long time".
Bonus points for doing that near/on a government building.

Making it risky for other people to put the "cancelled" stickers would force
the city to either stop this, or make it legal and well known.

Edit: I assumed it was US - not sure how easy it is to scare police in Belgium
with suspected "terrorism".

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ghosttrails
How about printing up a sticker that says "Support Act: Michael Bolton" and
putting it on offending events

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ostrichpincher
A little comment on the Ghent mayor's office intentions:

The normal way of doing things is this: When a police officer notices an
illegally put up poster, he has to do all the necessary paperwork to aid the
public prosecutor in his legal actions against the person or organisation who
put up the poster. That's, if the responsible person or organisation is known.
If not, the police officer will have to do some inverstigative work. After
that it has to go to trial and could cost the defendant 120 EURO per poster,
while costing the community much much more. (cleaning, police hours...)

You can see the means and hours that would have to go into this...for a
poster. Still, the city wants to get rid of the problem. Hence, this idea.

It's true that from a legal point of view, the city itself is culpable of
putting up stickers where it's illegal to do that. They've admitted to that,
but say that it's a choice between doing the 120 EURO fine thing or the quick
and more cost effective way while getting public attention for the problem
they want to address and create awareness for.

And since the story was all over the news...a job well done.

Take care, Karl (pinching the ostrich)

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Or to put it differently, a choice between due process and political
campaigning.

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blumer
I've often wondered if we could deal with graffiti in a similar way. Since it
usually consists of an "artist's" tag that personally identifies him, let's
start appending "has an itty-bitty wee-wee" to tags and see if the broadcast
of one's tiny manhood solves the problem. :P

~~~
lotharbot
This was the subject of a Saturday Night Live sketch starring Rudy Giuliani,
who was at the time Mayor of NYC.

"From now on, every time you write your name in graffiti on public property,
we're going to put the word "Sucks" right under it. That's right. Instead of
being Mr. Cool, everyone's going to think you suck."

Video at [http://hotair.com/archives/2007/02/06/video-rudy-combats-
gra...](http://hotair.com/archives/2007/02/06/video-rudy-combats-graffiti-
artists/)

~~~
makmanalp
No, they're going to ignore it. Rudy wasn't the first person to think of this,
I'm sure.

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tptacek
So, what I'd want to do is find a couple acts I really hate, make a bunch of
fake posters about their show, and get their "events cancelled".

~~~
tome
Presumably you can already do the same thing and get them fined 120 EUR.

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Keyframe
Or they could just, you know, raise fines to absurd heights so no one ever
again will think about putting posters outside of designated areas.

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protomyth
the problem is finding someone to fine and proving they did it (see tptacek's
comment on false poster on acts he hates).

~~~
Keyframe
maybe if every poster, that will get out on a public surface, should get a
city (or whatever legal entity) issued mark/stamp on it... like some products
have already, cigarettes, coffee etc. (for taxation/anti-smuggling purposes).
That could alleviate false poster issue and be cheap to implement. Might as
well earn some cash for the city to keep those surfaces clean / lit or
whatever.

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protomyth
I guess if you can't find the promoter to fine, you should be helpful and
inform your citizens the event is cancelled. :)

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Luc
Here's a video which shows the stickers (warning:ads):

[http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/994/stand-der-
dingen/article/de...](http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/994/stand-der-
dingen/article/detail/1082657/2010/03/20/Gent-overplakt-wildgeplakte-affiches-
met-afgelast.dhtml)

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petercooper
This reminds me of the dunces cap that 37signals were putting alongside stupid
or troll comments on the SvN blog. I haven't seen them do it for a long time
now so perhaps it really worked.. :-)

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Tichy
OK, funny - but they spend money on painting over the posters. Seems to me
simply raising the fines would have been more effective, and better for city
finances.

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bartl
But... Did they cancel the event, or didn't they? I'm confused there. Maybe
they just forbid the organizers to go ahead. Maybe they _really did_ cancel
it.

~~~
jcl
No, the point of the stickers is to ruin the effectiveness of illegal postings
through disinformation; it has no effect on the event itself. (Although, if
enough people _think_ the event is canceled, and no one shows up...)

~~~
isleyaardvark
...and the parent post is a perfect demonstration of that.

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RyanMcGreal
Here's a crazy idea: why not just let people post notices in public places to
promote their events and not bother trying to enforce a bylaw against it at
all?

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pyre
Great idea! I'll paste my poster over top of that stop sign over there! It'll
have _great_ visibility!

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RyanMcGreal
Here's an idea: let's assume most people aren't idiots. That way we don't have
to ban an entire sweep of activities on the basis of a marginal edge case.

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pyre
> _let's assume most people aren't idiots_

That's where you're thinking breaks down though. There are a large enough
portion of idiots to ruin things for 'the rest of us.'

~~~
RyanMcGreal
And yet countless actual cities manage just fine without draconian anti-
postering policies.

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danskil
Wouldn't it be cheaper (stickers aren't free) and more effective to remove the
poster? Nasa made a 1 million dollar pen to write in space, the Russians...

~~~
Sukotto
The Russians were at risk of pneumoconiosis due to breathing graphite dust and
tiny little bits of eraser..

