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Comment by OtomotO | Hacker News Reader

If he can't answer such a question, he shouldn't get to ask.

Agreed, and I think this isn't really about whether he personally knows legal jargon, but about whether he had a clear idea WTF he wanted before making brash demands and threats.

(Or, much less charitably, the intentional use of vague language in bad faith.)

contra proferentem - a rule in contract law that states any ambiguity in a contract should be interpreted against the party that drafted it

Velcro shoes for everyone

> If he can't answer such a question, he shouldn't get to ask

No? If my employer asks me to clarify my employment agreement, I don't have an obligation to be their armchair counsel.

That analogy is backwards: You'd be the one asking your employer to clarify the terms they chose and wrote themselves which they are trying to press upon you.

It's totally reasonable to ask the party introducing "shall not associate with" into a contract exactly WTF "associating" is supposed to cover.

> You'd be the one asking your employer to clarify the terms they chose and wrote themselves which they are trying to press upon you

I’ve made edits to employment agreements. It would be totally inappropriate for the other side to demand legal advice from me. It would be polite for me to clarify. But I’m under no obligation to.

It sounds like there's some confusion here between "hard legal obligation to give non-binding external advice" versus "moral and practical obligation to fix the binding wording if they are actually interested in mutual agreement and understanding."

I suspect most people asking Mr. Mullenweg "what do you mean by X" are doing so with a subtext or next-step of "now go fix the text to correctly capture what you really meant."

I’m reading “he shouldn't get to ask” [1] as distinct from he shouldn’t ask in a hard legal sense.

> with a subtext or next-step of "now go fix the text to correctly capture what you really meant"

That’s unreasonable. An e-mailed clarification is a reasonable ask. (Adding a clarification is nice. But not a reasonable expectation. Especially from a proven nutjob.)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41975496

If you add vague additions in you ammendments and then refuse to clarify when asked about your intentions, potential employers might just decide it's not worth the risk. Same here.

If they can't explain the basic intent of the agreement in the first place, I'd be awfully hesitant to sign.

Matt was just asked if the spirit of the checkbox was to keep out customers and wouldn't answer. That's not really the same as asking him for legal advice.

> If they can't explain the basic intent of the agreement in the first place, I'd be awfully hesitant to sign

This is fair.

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