Have the moderators of uk.l.m recently received a writ in the post or
something? They seem to have become awfully touchy about naming
specific companies, to the point that you literally aren't allowed to
mention the company, let alone post anything that could potentially
defame them.

On 2009-06-19, Ste  wrote:
> Have the moderators of uk.l.m recently received a writ in the post or
> something? They seem to have become awfully touchy about naming
> specific companies, to the point that you literally aren't allowed to
> mention the company, let alone post anything that could potentially
> defame them.

You can say rude things about them, *or* identify them, but not both.
We're just applying the moderation criteria as they have always
existed.

Ste wrote:
> Have the moderators of uk.l.m recently received a writ in the post

To our secret offshore base in the Turks and Caicos Islands?   They'll have 
to find it first!

The moderation policy hasn't changed, it's just that there have been several 
relevant threads recently so I thought it was worth explaining our position.

On 19 June, 19:35, "Steve Walker"  wrote:
>
> The moderation policy hasn't changed, it's just that there have been several
> relevant threads recently so I thought it was worth explaining our position.

There was no question that the written policy had changed, but
recently moderators appear to be enforcing it with undue brutality.

After all, the charter says "postings will be rejected if it appears
to a moderator that there would be an appreciable risk that a court
would find the article to be defamatory", and yet now the moderators
appear to be averse to even allowing negative comments to mentioned in
the same *thread* as the company's name, let alone the same post, and
regardless of the accuracy or veracity of those negative comments.

Indeed, the test the moderators currently appear to be applying is
simply "a posting will be rejected it if refers to an identifiable
company, and that reference is negative in character", which of course
has nothing to do with whether a reference is actually defamatory.

I mean, I can understand that the moderators would want to clamp down
on broad, regular, and unsubstantiated generalisations against
specific companies, but where the company name is mentioned in the
course of bona fide discussion, then there surely has to be room for
discretion.

Ste wrote:
> On 19 June, 19:35, "Steve Walker"  wrote:
>>
>> The moderation policy hasn't changed, it's just that there have been
>> several relevant threads recently so I thought it was worth explaining
>> our position.
>
> There was no question that the written policy had changed, but
> recently moderators appear to be enforcing it with undue brutality.
>
> After all, the charter says "postings will be rejected if it appears
> to a moderator that there would be an appreciable risk that a court
> would find the article to be defamatory", and yet now the moderators
> appear to be averse to even allowing negative comments to mentioned in
> the same *thread* as the company's name, let alone the same post, and
> regardless of the accuracy or veracity of those negative comments.
>
> Indeed, the test the moderators currently appear to be applying is
> simply "a posting will be rejected it if refers to an identifiable
> company, and that reference is negative in character", which of course
> has nothing to do with whether a reference is actually defamatory.
>
> I mean, I can understand that the moderators would want to clamp down
> on broad, regular, and unsubstantiated generalisations against
> specific companies, but where the company name is mentioned in the
> course of bona fide discussion, then there surely has to be room for
> discretion.


Thanks for your comments, Ste.  The problem for the moderators is that we 
are in no position to adjudicate the accuracy or veracity of negative 
comments, so we tend to be quite cautious.   If anything has influenced that 
recently, it has been a couple of edgy threads in the group and the shocking 
Simon Singh ruling.

It's also important to note that we do not draw the line where a newspaper 
editor would, eg "Does my professional legal team advise that we are likely 
to win if the subject sues us?".     We draw that line earlier, at the point 
where there is any appreciable risk of a plausible case being brought 
against us - because we do not have the time, money or dedication to defend 
ourselves in the High Court.

We believe that in the majority of threads a generic description ("major 
electrical retailer" or "high street bank" etc) is sufficient for a 
discussion of the legal aspects of a situation.   Recent topics like gym 
membership contracts, returning a defective mobile phone and retail 
shoptheft prevention worked perfectly well on that basis and posters were 
able to express themselves with gusto.

If it's necessary or inevitable that the subject is identified, then we will 
have to ensure that subsequent comments in that thread are appropriately 
phrased (as you will appreciate, there's a big difference between "I was 
disappointed by the reliability of my Ford car" and "Ford's reliability is 
rubbish nowadays").   Obviously that's a lot more work for us, and it upsets 
posters who have their comments rejected by our unduly brutal junta regime, 
so it's in everyone's interests to avoid specificity.

Cheers -

On 19 June, 23:10, "Steve Walker"  wrote:
>
> Thanks for your comments, Ste.

That has the distinct tone of management-speak, which means anything
but that you are grateful ;)


> The problem for the moderators is that we
> are in no position to adjudicate the accuracy or veracity of negative
> comments, so we tend to be quite cautious.   If anything has influenced that
> recently, it has been a couple of edgy threads in the group and the shocking
> Simon Singh ruling.

I certainly have noticed a very recent change in mood, and that is why
I was wondering whether one of the moderators had actually been hauled
before the court. But surely the circumstances of the Singh case, that
is, publicly criticising a quack organisation in the national press,
is not comparable with discussion on a relatively obscure legal
discussion group.


> It's also important to note that we do not draw the line where a newspaper
> editor would, eg "Does my professional legal team advise that we are likely
> to win if the subject sues us?".     We draw that line earlier, at the point
> where there is any appreciable risk of a plausible case being brought
> against us - because we do not have the time, money or dedication to defend
> ourselves in the High Court.

Surely the question is what amounts to "appreciable risk". As I said,
the line now seems to be drawn with regard to the simple criteria of
firstly that an organisation is identifiable, and secondly comments
are made which would tend to reflect negatively on that organisation.
There does not appear to any weighing of whether the risk of a
defamation claim is "appreciable" - the relative obscurity of this
group means that even the most outrageously defamatory and untrue
statements would be unlikely to attract a claim from a corporation of
any significant size.


> We believe that in the majority of threads a generic description ("major
> electrical retailer" or "high street bank" etc) is sufficient for a
> discussion of the legal aspects of a situation.   Recent topics like gym
> membership contracts, returning a defective mobile phone and retail
> shoptheft prevention worked perfectly well on that basis and posters were
> able to express themselves with gusto.
>
> If it's necessary or inevitable that the subject is identified, then we will
> have to ensure that subsequent comments in that thread are appropriately
> phrased (as you will appreciate, there's a big difference between "I was
> disappointed by the reliability of my Ford car" and "Ford's reliability is
> rubbish nowadays").   Obviously that's a lot more work for us, and it upsets
> posters who have their comments rejected by our unduly brutal junta regime,
> so it's in everyone's interests to avoid specificity.

Obviously the decision is entirely the moderators', but even in your
example about Ford I would be surprised firstly if there was any
actual defamation, and secondly whether Ford would think to better
their damaged reputation by immediately issuing a claim against the
moderators of a small discussion group. As I say, discussion in the
group is surely best served if the moderators make a real judgment as
to whether a statement is defamatory, and make an assessment as to
whether there is a *real* risk of a defamation claim arising from that
statement. It surely does not serve the interests of discussion to
disallow every post that mentions an identifiable company, on the
tenuous grounds of "a risk of defamation".

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:26:58 -0700 (PDT), Ste wrote...
> the relative obscurity of this
> group means that even the most outrageously defamatory and untrue
> statements would be unlikely to attract a claim from a corporation of
> any significant size.

Libel actions don't only come from large corporations.  And how do you 
rate the relative obscurity of uk.legal.moderated compared with, say, 
soc.culture.thai ?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_v._Demon_Internet_Service

-- 
Tim Jackson
news@timjackson.plus.invalid
(Change '.invalid' to '.com' to reply direct)

Ste  wrote:

> the relative obscurity of this group means that even the most outrageously
> defamatory and untrue statements would be unlikely to attract a claim from
> a corporation of any significant size.

That's drivel.

The group is far from obscure, it is also fully searchable, pops up in
Google web searches, partly in consequence of the legal banter listing
and even relatively small companies pay legal executives to search for
example of trademark infringement (which will also highlight uses of the
trademarks/business names in a web or usenet forum) and to search for
any actionable material.

This isn't some paranoid delusion, one of the companies that I worked
for made more profit from legal actions than it did from its business
stream. In fact I can recall one year in which the company should have
made a loss, but instead made a multi-million profit purely on the basis
of law suits.

On 20 June, 01:45, Tim Jackson <n...@timjackson.plus.invalid> wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:26:58 -0700 (PDT), Ste wrote...
> > the relative obscurity of this
> > group means that even the most outrageously defamatory and untrue
> > statements would be unlikely to attract a claim from a corporation of
> > any significant size.
>
> Libel actions don't only come from large corporations.  And how do you
> rate the relative obscurity of uk.legal.moderated compared with, say,
> soc.culture.thai ?
>
> Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_v._Demon_Internet_Service

I'd actually already read up on the Godfrey case. It simply held that
an ISP is responsible for removing defamatory posts when required to
do so - which seems uncontentious enough. Beyond that, there is little
analogy between the particular facts of Godfrey, and the circumstances
which the ulm moderators regularly face (i.e. fair comment, as opposed
to malicious impersonation).

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:55:02 
 
uk.net.news.moderation Ste 

>On 20 June, 01:45, Tim Jackson <n...@timjackson.plus.invalid> wrote:
>> On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:26:58 -0700 (PDT), Ste wrote...
>> > the relative obscurity of this
>> > group means that even the most outrageously defamatory and untrue
>> > statements would be unlikely to attract a claim from a corporation of
>> > any significant size.
>>
>> Libel actions don't only come from large corporations.  And how do you
>> rate the relative obscurity of uk.legal.moderated compared with, say,
>> soc.culture.thai ?
>>
>> Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_v._Demon_Internet_Service
>
>I'd actually already read up on the Godfrey case. It simply held that
>an ISP is responsible for removing defamatory posts when required to
>do so - which seems uncontentious enough. Beyond that, there is little
>analogy between the particular facts of Godfrey, and the circumstances
>which the ulm moderators regularly face (i.e. fair comment, as opposed
>to malicious impersonation).

You obviously were not around at the time, Ste

-- 
Wm...
Reply-To: address valid for at least 7 days

On 20 June, 02:06, %ste...@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) wrote:
> Ste  wrote:
> > the relative obscurity of this group means that even the most outrageously
> > defamatory and untrue statements would be unlikely to attract a claim from
> > a corporation of any significant size.
>
> That's drivel.
>
> The group is far from obscure

I meant relative to the Guardian newspaper. The "readership" of ulm
is, what, say 50 people, whereas the Guardian has a somewhat more
diverse readership of more than a million people a year.


>, it is also fully searchable, pops up in
> Google web searches, partly in consequence of the legal banter listing
> and even relatively small companies pay legal executives to search for
> example of trademark infringement (which will also highlight uses of the
> trademarks/business names in a web or usenet forum) and to search for
> any actionable material.

Perhaps we should start using pig-latin then. So for example, ee-Thr
are crooks with crap customer service, shite network coverage, and sky-
high hidden charges.


> This isn't some paranoid delusion, one of the companies that I worked
> for made more profit from legal actions than it did from its business
> stream. In fact I can recall one year in which the company should have
> made a loss, but instead made a multi-million profit purely on the basis
> of law suits.

Be that as it may Steve, I still submit that the chances of any
sustained libel action against the moderators of ulm is vanishingly
small - frankly too small a risk to even mention, and as such it *is*
wholly an indulgence in paranoia.

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:55:02 -0700 (PDT), Ste wrote...
> I'd actually already read up on the Godfrey case. It simply held that
> an ISP is responsible for removing defamatory posts when required to
> do so - which seems uncontentious enough. Beyond that, there is little
> analogy between the particular facts of Godfrey, and the circumstances
> which the ulm moderators regularly face (i.e. fair comment, as opposed
> to malicious impersonation).

One difference is that an ISP is only liable for stuff on its own 
servers, and it does have the means to remove offending posts when 
asked.

The moderators of ulm presumably fear that when they hit the "accept" 
button they are potentially making themselves personally liable for an 
offending post appearing on *every* ISP's newsserver.  That's because 
hitting "accept" is part of the publication process, and publishers are 
liable for any libels they publish.

And since cancel requests usually don't work, the moderators have no 
effective means to remove an offending post subsequently.

The moderators are unpaid volunteers.  Why should they put themselves 
personally at risk?

Your stance is that the mods should look at every post that comes their 
way and assess whether it's fair comment.  The problem is that 
ultimately the arbiter of what's fair comment is a court, on the basis 
of a whole lot more evidence than is available to the mods.  The mods 
don't know how it would play out in court, so they err on the side of 
caution.

For exactly the same reason, since Godfrey most ISPs don't try to 
second-guess how a court would view a post.  If they get a complaint 
they just remove it.  But the ulm mods don't have the luxury of being 
able to react to complaints after the event.

-- 
Tim Jackson
news@timjackson.plus.invalid
(Change '.invalid' to '.com' to reply direct)

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 08:27:32 
 uk.net.news.moderation 
Tim Jackson <news@timjackson.plus.invalid>

>On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:55:02 -0700 (PDT), Ste wrote...
>> I'd actually already read up on the Godfrey case. It simply held that
>> an ISP is responsible for removing defamatory posts when required to
>> do so - which seems uncontentious enough. Beyond that, there is little
>> analogy between the particular facts of Godfrey, and the circumstances
>> which the ulm moderators regularly face (i.e. fair comment, as opposed
>> to malicious impersonation).
>
>One difference is that an ISP is only liable for stuff on its own
>servers, and it does have the means to remove offending posts when
>asked.
>
>The moderators of ulm presumably fear that when they hit the "accept"
>button they are potentially making themselves personally liable for an
>offending post appearing on *every* ISP's newsserver.  That's because
>hitting "accept" is part of the publication process, and publishers are
>liable for any libels they publish.
>
>And since cancel requests usually don't work, the moderators have no
>effective means to remove an offending post subsequently.
>
>The moderators are unpaid volunteers.  Why should they put themselves
>personally at risk?
>
>Your stance is that the mods should look at every post that comes their
>way and assess whether it's fair comment.  The problem is that
>ultimately the arbiter of what's fair comment is a court, on the basis
>of a whole lot more evidence than is available to the mods.  The mods
>don't know how it would play out in court, so they err on the side of
>caution.
>
>For exactly the same reason, since Godfrey most ISPs don't try to
>second-guess how a court would view a post.  If they get a complaint
>they just remove it.  But the ulm mods don't have the luxury of being
>able to react to complaints after the event.

It becomes even more amusing if legalbanter or similar occurs in 
between.

Particularly if legalbanter or similar publishes something that the 
uk.legal.moderated mods choose not to allow.

As far as I know cancels don't generally work on usenet (my news reader 
doesn't obey them and neither does my preferred usenet provider) and 
legalbanter may publish messages that are refused by uk.legal.moderated

So if I really, really wanted to get something said that wasn't allowed 
by the uk.legal.moderated mods I think I'd go via the legalbanter route. 
Except I am not that perverse.

-- 
Wm...
Reply-To: address valid for at least 7 days

Ste  wrote:

> On 20 June, 02:06, %ste...@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) wrote:
> > Ste  wrote:
> > > the relative obscurity of this group means that even the most outrageously
> > > defamatory and untrue statements would be unlikely to attract a claim from
> > > a corporation of any significant size.
> >
> > That's drivel.
> >
> > The group is far from obscure
> 
> I meant relative to the Guardian newspaper.

How odd that this is the first time that you have mentioned the Guardian
newspaper as being the basis of your comparison.

> The "readership" of ulm is, what, say 50 people,

Other than dragging a number out of thin air, where do you get the
number 50 from? I don't considr it being anywhere close to correct as an
assessment of the readership of ulm, nor do I believe that you can put
such a precise, low, figure on it.

The newsgroup is distributed around the world, accessible via Google
groups and via various web interfaces as well as usenet. The potential
readership is in billions.

> whereas the Guardian has a somewhat more
> diverse readership of more than a million people a year.

What is your basis for making the claim that the readership of the
Guardian represents a more diverse user base than Usenet?

> >, it is also fully searchable, pops up in
> > Google web searches, partly in consequence of the legal banter listing
> > and even relatively small companies pay legal executives to search for
> > example of trademark infringement (which will also highlight uses of the
> > trademarks/business names in a web or usenet forum) and to search for
> > any actionable material.
> 
> Perhaps we should start using pig-latin then. So for example, ee-Thr
> are crooks with crap customer service, shite network coverage, and sky-
> high hidden charges.

That would be both foolish and pointless.

> > This isn't some paranoid delusion, one of the companies that I worked
> > for made more profit from legal actions than it did from its business
> > stream. In fact I can recall one year in which the company should have
> > made a loss, but instead made a multi-million profit purely on the basis
> > of law suits.
> 
> Be that as it may Steve, I still submit that the chances of any
> sustained libel action against the moderators of ulm is vanishingly
> small - frankly too small a risk to even mention, and as such it *is*
> wholly an indulgence in paranoia.

I submit that you're talking off the top of your head, and that since
you are not the one who would face legal action it's easy for you to be
brave.

Ste wrote:

> Be that as it may Steve, I still submit that the chances of any
> sustained libel action against the moderators of ulm is vanishingly
> small - frankly too small a risk to even mention, and as such it *is*
> wholly an indulgence in paranoia.

lurk moar

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:59:17  
uk.net.news.moderation Steve Walker 

>lurk moar

scortland?

-- 
Wm...
Reply-To: address valid for at least 7 days

Wm... wrote:
> Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:59:17 
> uk.net.news.moderation Steve Walker 
>
>> lurk moar
>
> scortland?

No, just bastardised chan-slang     :o)

On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:13:09 +0100, Wm... wrote:

> So if I really, really wanted to get something said that wasn't allowed
> by the uk.legal.moderated mods I think I'd go via the legalbanter route.
> Except I am not that perverse.

May I suggest a practical experiment? Let us walk into our friendly
neighbourhood Internet cafes, create anonymous accounts on legalbanter,
and let our creative juices flow on the subjects of, say, chiropractic and
scientology? ;-)


-- 
John Stumbles

The floggings will continue until morale improves

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:25:16  
uk.net.news.moderation John Stumbles 

>On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:13:09 +0100, Wm... wrote:
>
>> So if I really, really wanted to get something said that wasn't allowed
>> by the uk.legal.moderated mods I think I'd go via the legalbanter route.
>> Except I am not that perverse.
>
>May I suggest a practical experiment? Let us walk into our friendly
>neighbourhood Internet cafes, create anonymous accounts on legalbanter,
>and let our creative juices flow on the subjects of, say, chiropractic and
>scientology? ;-)

I know chiropractors have claimed a lot but surely not even they can 
cure Hubbardism for less than GBP1k ?

-- 
Wm...
Reply-To: address valid for at least 7 days

John Stumbles wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:13:09 +0100, Wm... wrote:
>
>> So if I really, really wanted to get something said that wasn't allowed
>> by the uk.legal.moderated mods I think I'd go via the legalbanter route.
>> Except I am not that perverse.
>
> May I suggest a practical experiment? Let us walk into our friendly
> neighbourhood Internet cafes, create anonymous accounts on legalbanter,
> and let our creative juices flow on the subjects of, say, chiropractic
> and scientology? ;-)

Omigod - it's a binary explosive device !

On 20 June, 11:59, %ste...@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) wrote:
> Ste  wrote:
> > On 20 June, 02:06, %ste...@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) wrote:
> > > Ste  wrote:
> > > > the relative obscurity of this group means that even the most outrageously
> > > > defamatory and untrue statements would be unlikely to attract a claim from
> > > > a corporation of any significant size.
>
> > > That's drivel.
>
> > > The group is far from obscure
>
> > I meant relative to the Guardian newspaper.
>
> How odd that this is the first time that you have mentioned the Guardian
> newspaper as being the basis of your comparison.

That's because the Singh case was mentioned. I'm a long-standing Times
reader, incidentally.


> > The "readership" of ulm is, what, say 50 people,
>
> Other than dragging a number out of thin air, where do you get the
> number 50 from? I don't considr it being anywhere close to correct as an
> assessment of the readership of ulm, nor do I believe that you can put
> such a precise, low, figure on it.
>
> The newsgroup is distributed around the world, accessible via Google
> groups and via various web interfaces as well as usenet. The potential
> readership is in billions.

The point I'm making is that, as a forum for distributing a scurrilous
libel, ulm hardly has the greatest audience, and I can't imagine any
corporation would be concerned with anything but the most outrageous
and mendacious defamations of the kind that would also attract
publicity elsewhere. After all, the national newspapers are hardly
going to stop the presses because someone on ulm says the customer
service of a mobile phone provider is rather poor.

As for the figure of 50, I expect that is a generous figure for the
regular posters. Obviously there will be very occasional posters, and
there will be readers-only, but let's face it ulm is not up there with
the national press.


> > whereas the Guardian has a somewhat more
> > diverse readership of more than a million people a year.
>
> What is your basis for making the claim that the readership of the
> Guardian represents a more diverse user base than Usenet?

I didn't say Usenet, I said ulm.


> > >, it is also fully searchable, pops up in
> > > Google web searches, partly in consequence of the legal banter listing
> > > and even relatively small companies pay legal executives to search for
> > > example of trademark infringement (which will also highlight uses of the
> > > trademarks/business names in a web or usenet forum) and to search for
> > > any actionable material.
>
> > Perhaps we should start using pig-latin then. So for example, ee-Thr
> > are crooks with crap customer service, shite network coverage, and sky-
> > high hidden charges.
>
> That would be both foolish and pointless.

Lol!


> > > This isn't some paranoid delusion, one of the companies that I worked
> > > for made more profit from legal actions than it did from its business
> > > stream. In fact I can recall one year in which the company should have
> > > made a loss, but instead made a multi-million profit purely on the basis
> > > of law suits.
>
> > Be that as it may Steve, I still submit that the chances of any
> > sustained libel action against the moderators of ulm is vanishingly
> > small - frankly too small a risk to even mention, and as such it *is*
> > wholly an indulgence in paranoia.
>
> I submit that you're talking off the top of your head, and that since
> you are not the one who would face legal action it's easy for you to be
> brave.

On the contrary, I have a history of putting my money where my mouth
is. And I wouldn't refuse if people wanted me to moderate; the only
problem appears to be that I'm not considered moderate by the
standards of ulm!

Anyway, I don't want this to turn into another long-running polemic.
I'm just stating my view, which is that there is a difference between
prudent moderation, and outright paranoia.

"Steve Walker"  wrote in message 
news:7a2gmtF1sqldlU1@mid.individual.net...
> Ste wrote:
>> On 19 June, 19:35, "Steve Walker"  wrote:
>>>
>>> The moderation policy hasn't changed, it's just that there have been
>>> several relevant threads recently so I thought it was worth explaining
>>> our position.
>>
>> There was no question that the written policy had changed, but
>> recently moderators appear to be enforcing it with undue brutality.
>>
>> After all, the charter says "postings will be rejected if it appears
>> to a moderator that there would be an appreciable risk that a court
>> would find the article to be defamatory", and yet now the moderators
>> appear to be averse to even allowing negative comments to mentioned in
>> the same *thread* as the company's name, let alone the same post, and
>> regardless of the accuracy or veracity of those negative comments.
>>
>> Indeed, the test the moderators currently appear to be applying is
>> simply "a posting will be rejected it if refers to an identifiable
>> company, and that reference is negative in character", which of course
>> has nothing to do with whether a reference is actually defamatory.
>>
>> I mean, I can understand that the moderators would want to clamp down
>> on broad, regular, and unsubstantiated generalisations against
>> specific companies, but where the company name is mentioned in the
>> course of bona fide discussion, then there surely has to be room for
>> discretion.
>
>
> Thanks for your comments, Ste.  The problem for the moderators is that we 
> are in no position to adjudicate the accuracy or veracity of negative 
> comments, so we tend to be quite cautious.   If anything has influenced 
> that recently, it has been a couple of edgy threads in the group and the 
> shocking Simon Singh ruling.
>
> It's also important to note that we do not draw the line where a newspaper 
> editor would, eg "Does my professional legal team advise that we are 
> likely to win if the subject sues us?".     We draw that line earlier, at 
> the point where there is any appreciable risk of a plausible case being 
> brought against us - because we do not have the time, money or dedication 
> to defend ourselves in the High Court.
>
> We believe that in the majority of threads a generic description ("major 
> electrical retailer" or "high street bank" etc) is sufficient for a 
> discussion of the legal aspects of a situation.   Recent topics like gym 
> membership contracts, returning a defective mobile phone and retail 
> shoptheft prevention worked perfectly well on that basis and posters were 
> able to express themselves with gusto.
>
> If it's necessary or inevitable that the subject is identified, then we 
> will have to ensure that subsequent comments in that thread are 
> appropriately phrased (as you will appreciate, there's a big difference 
> between "I was disappointed by the reliability of my Ford car" and "Ford's 
> reliability is rubbish nowadays").   Obviously that's a lot more work for 
> us, and it upsets posters who have their comments rejected by our unduly 
> brutal junta regime, so it's in everyone's interests to avoid specificity.
>

I agree with all that.

When discussing a contractual dispute with a phone company, it shouldn't be 
necessary to name the phone company. I do think the moderators need to be 
ever vigilant and (as the moderator responsible) I think it was a mistake 
for me to allow through a post whose only function was to name the company 
after its T&Cs had already been discussed.

Even if such posts are not defamatory (or actionable) it sets a bad example 
to the group and encourages more posts of a name-and-shame variety.

In relation to the store-detective dispute with Asda, I think in retrospect 
it was unnecessary to name Asda and we'd apply slightly stricter rules next 
time.

On Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:15:42 +0100, The Todal wrote...
> 
> I agree with all that.
> 
> When discussing a contractual dispute with a phone company, it shouldn't be 
> necessary to name the phone company. I do think the moderators need to be 
> ever vigilant and (as the moderator responsible) I think it was a mistake 
> for me to allow through a post whose only function was to name the company 
> after its T&Cs had already been discussed.
> 
> Even if such posts are not defamatory (or actionable) it sets a bad example 
> to the group and encourages more posts of a name-and-shame variety.
> 
> In relation to the store-detective dispute with Asda, I think in retrospect 
> it was unnecessary to name Asda and we'd apply slightly stricter rules next 
> time. 

There are however occasions when naming the parties to a dispute is 
necessary or inevitable.

Steve recognised this in his moderator's note to the "Trademark 
infringement?" thread.  It would have been impossible to have any 
meaningful discussion without knowing what the trade mark concerned was.  
That meant the parties were identified, and it turned out to be an 
aggressive ongoing dispute.

Steve's note asked us to stick to a discussion of trade mark law, rather 
than the moral character of the parties, and indeed I think we did so
(unless some post was rejected that I never saw).

It can be difficult to get it right, though.  We did make comments about 
the strength of the trade mark concerned, and that naturally goes to the 
rights and wrongs of the dispute.

Given that we were doing that, and heeding Steve's warning, I found 
myself in the slightly ridiculous position of commenting on the trade 
mark without identifying it - even though it had been identified earlier 
in the thread.  This would have made my comment difficult to follow if 
you hadn't read the whole thread.  I suspect that I wasn't the only 
person doing that.

In hindsight, maybe I was overcautious.  I guess it's OK to say that you 
think X has a stronger legal position than Y, even where X and Y are the 
identified parties to an ongoing dispute, as long as you steer clear of 
saying that X or Y is behaving badly.

-- 
Tim Jackson
news@timjackson.plus.invalid
(Change '.invalid' to '.com' to reply direct)