Discussion On Slander, Forums And Censorship

[lingeringsoul]

A rating thing would be ok right?

Like rate particular workshop from 1-10, like a poll.

Then it wouldnt be slander, since its just a number rating. Just like news polls.

One vote per member and eventually it stacks up and the numbers speak for themselves.

So member can get a general idea of the particular company without the worry of being sued.

Im just throwing ideas. =]

wouldn't that still count? since 0 rating means no one thinks much of your workshop at all therefore it's assumed shit.

[Swiper the Fox]

bit like this site does SNWS!!

http://www.ratemyrack.com/

[-FIGJAM-]

bit like this site does SNWS!!

http://www.ratemyrack.com/

LMAO... seems like a good idea tho... since it remains confidential as to who votes and if nothing is said, just have like "two thumbs up" "two thumbs down" "bad experience" or something... So we wouldnt be saying anything bad about them, just giving an opinion to he service they provide?

[smasha]

LMAO... seems like a good idea tho... since it remains confidential as to who votes and if nothing is said, just have like "two thumbs up" "two thumbs down" "bad experience" or something... So we wouldnt be saying anything bad about them, just giving an opinion to he service they provide?

It's the owner that would get in trouble as technically, it's being published on his site and him being the publisher as he's providing the means for the libelous material to be accessible by a "third party"

[Sl!m]

bit like this site does SNWS!!

http://www.ratemyrack.com/

and I also think the difference is the owner of the "rack" is asking for peoples feedback.

if workshop a came on to SAU and said "SAU members tell me what you think of my workshop and provide me with examples" it might be different as the workshop has specifically asked for the information and has the ability to defend themselves; like the person publishing the picture of their rack and offereing it to a voting system.

just my thoughts.

[scathing]

My suggestion is to have a whitelist for workshops. There's no charge to the company. They waives SAU's liability, as a publisher, to any comments that may be said and do so in writing in case it ever turns to litigation. PranK emails the form out, it gets signed and mailed back, and he hangs on to it and updates the whitelist.

Its the company's responsibility to monitor the forums to see what people are saying, and if they want to respond they can create an account to do so. Any litigation can be taken with the member posting it as per their legal rights, but SAU is considered an innocent (and neutral) party caught in the crossfire.

SAU then provides a list saying, "These fine people have said we can say how we feel about them. Despite anything certain members may say, their open-ness should be commended". Maybe have a sticky somewhere, so anyone interested can examine a single thread.

As a corollary, SAU also sets up a blacklist. "These companies have refused to allow us to comment on their products and/or services" and any post about them, good or bad, is removed. If people provide generic feedback on them and someone PM's them asking for specifics, then the current forum rules should apply.

Companies that have yet to contact SAU to be put in either list get treated as blacklisted.

Whether SAU chooses to email/approach the companies (say if a member PMs an admin asking to talk about a certain company), or they have to approach SAU management asking to be listed, I don't know. The former sounds like a lot of work considering the lack of financial gain.

This should sit below a sponsor's deal, where a company makes a financial commitment, so there's no trading permitted. Sponsors should, however, have to agree to whitelisting as a part of sponsorship. They have a presence and thus have the facility for complaints handling, and as much as sponsoring SAU bolsters their reputation for giving to the community the conduct of SAU's sponsors also reflects on the club's reputation.

An arrogant sponsor with bad service makes the club look just as bad. "Oh, I found out about XYZ through SAU, and after I got burnt and I brought it up they deleted all my posts and SAU didn't care that I got ripped off".

[adgey]

Or when posting simplify it so much that it can't possibly be slander.

Topic heading : Should I go to this workshop Yes or No?? No details

Subject: Please discuss

WIN

edit: Oh and btw although I totally disagree with this censoring crap and not being to bad mouth workshops that people could be potentially spending tens of thousands of dollars at and have an obvious bad record but I'd rather have this forum rule than lose SAU

[Merli]

This should sit below a sponsor's deal, where a company makes a financial commitment, so there's no trading permitted. Sponsors should, however, have to agree to whitelisting as a part of sponsorship. They have a presence and thus have the facility for complaints handling, and as much as sponsoring SAU bolsters their reputation for giving to the community the conduct of SAU's sponsors also reflects on the club's reputation.

An arrogant sponsor with bad service makes the club look just as bad. "Oh, I found out about XYZ through SAU, and after I got burnt and I brought it up they deleted all my posts and SAU didn't care that I got ripped off".

Excuse me?

I'm not sure where that last paragraph came from... We don't delete ANY posts, in fact we hand out warnings, suspensions and permanent bans for people who delete For Sale information from their threads.

Half of the time spent by the volunteer moderators on SAU is spent chasing up and arbitrating both private and business trader deals that go awry for one reason or another. You should see the Moderator's section. It's FILLED with threads helping SAU'ers out when deals go wrong.

We also keep a log of ALL complaints against Business Traders and SAU sponsors, and revoke said status after too many complaints, as we don't want to facilitate sub-standard product sales to our member base.

[Duncan]

I don't see the point of this thread? Christian owns SAU and appoints mods to enforce his rules. Unless his rules change I will delete posts and warn or ban people that post negative comments about workshops

You are very welcome to make your negative opinions clear in private. Eg "I had a bad experience with XYZ, pm me for details"

You are just as welcome to set up your own forum if you don't like Christian's rules. That's where free speech comes into it

[scathing]

I'm not sure where that last paragraph came from... We don't delete ANY posts, in fact we hand out warnings, suspensions and permanent bans for people who delete For Sale information from their threads.

Funny, because when I ripped in to someone in another thread for being a "retard"; I got a warning (fair enough, sometimes its not polite to point out the truth) and a whole bunch of posts in that thread were deleted. This forum has a track record of deleting posts; whether you limit it to non-business posts now doesn't mean you'll continue to do so in the future.

That you'd delete personal attacks regarding individuals, who are less likely to litigate, while not deleting negative feedback regarding businesses seems a bit counter-productive to "preserving" the club from risk.

For the record, I was using that as a hypothesis and not an example.

[Liz]

yeah.. f**ken hell.. i love a good slander

nothing like kicking someone when they're down.

[dan_the_man]

*gets down*

oook i'm ready for teh boot kicken in

[Merli]

This forum has a track record of deleting worthless, immature posts.

Fixed.

Perhaps I should have been clearer. We will NEVER delete any business related posts unless they contravene forum rules.

Personal attacks however will be moderated. That's what moderators are for. To babysit immature kids on this forum who feel the need to denigrate others from behind their keyboards, and attempt to turn SAU into a cesspool of pre-pubescent bullying.

Just FYI, no posts are ever "deleted". They are simply moved to a forum where only moderators have access.

[Abo Bob]

My suggestion is to have a whitelist for workshops. There's no charge to the company. They waives SAU's liability, as a publisher, to any comments that may be said and do so in writing in case it ever turns to litigation. PranK emails the form out, it gets signed and mailed back, and he hangs on to it and updates the whitelist.

Its the company's responsibility to monitor the forums to see what people are saying, and if they want to respond they can create an account to do so. Any litigation can be taken with the member posting it as per their legal rights, but SAU is considered an innocent (and neutral) party caught in the crossfire.

SAU then provides a list saying, "These fine people have said we can say how we feel about them. Despite anything certain members may say, their open-ness should be commended". Maybe have a sticky somewhere, so anyone interested can examine a single thread.

As a corollary, SAU also sets up a blacklist. "These companies have refused to allow us to comment on their products and/or services" and any post about them, good or bad, is removed. If people provide generic feedback on them and someone PM's them asking for specifics, then the current forum rules should apply.

Companies that have yet to contact SAU to be put in either list get treated as blacklisted.

Whether SAU chooses to email/approach the companies (say if a member PMs an admin asking to talk about a certain company), or they have to approach SAU management asking to be listed, I don't know. The former sounds like a lot of work considering the lack of financial gain.

This should sit below a sponsor's deal, where a company makes a financial commitment, so there's no trading permitted. Sponsors should, however, have to agree to whitelisting as a part of sponsorship. They have a presence and thus have the facility for complaints handling, and as much as sponsoring SAU bolsters their reputation for giving to the community the conduct of SAU's sponsors also reflects on the club's reputation.

Not too bad an idea, but I doubt many companies would put their hand up to be whitelisted. It would also probably scare off potential sponsors of the club if it was a requirement.

I don't see the point of this thread? Christian owns SAU and appoints mods to enforce his rules. Unless his rules change I will delete posts and warn or ban people that post negative comments about workshops

You are very welcome to make your negative opinions clear in private. Eg "I had a bad experience with XYZ, pm me for details"

You are just as welcome to set up your own forum if you don't like Christian's rules. That's where free speech comes into it

It's my fault Duncan. I just wanted to give them a place to vent.

Funny, because when I ripped in to someone in another thread for being a "retard"; I got a warning (fair enough, sometimes its not polite to point out the truth) and a whole bunch of posts in that thread were deleted. This forum has a track record of deleting posts; whether you limit it to non-business posts now doesn't mean you'll continue to do so in the future.

That you'd delete personal attacks regarding individuals, who are less likely to litigate, while not deleting negative feedback regarding businesses seems a bit counter-productive to "preserving" the club from risk.

For the record, I was using that as a hypothesis and not an example.

Most forums I'm on delete posts far more often than we do. A lot of places don't even tell people what's going on or allow discussion on it. Stuff just gets deleted and if you ask questions you get banned. The mods here are a fairly sane and normal bunch. We are conservative because we think it's necessary on here. It doesn't mean we don't hold private views that are slightly different from those we post. We just act conservatively to protect Prank, the forum and the club. They are important; we as individuals are not as important.

[mid life crisis]

bloody hell there are a lot of simpletons on here it's not that hard some of you are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill . all you have to do is say ive had a bad experince with a workshop pm me for details ffs how hard is that .

must be bloody school holidays somewhere

Edited April 15, 2008 by mid life crisis

[D_I_F]

bloody hell there are a lot of simpletons on here it's not that hard some of you are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill . all you have to do is say ive had a bad experince with a workshop pm me for details ffs how hard is that .

must be bloody school holidays somewhere

Haha agreed.. You'd be surprised the amount of tosspots on here!

[Sinful]

bloody hell there are a lot of simpletons on here it's not that hard some of you are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill . all you have to do is say ive had a bad experince with a workshop pm me for details ffs how hard is that .

must be bloody school holidays somewhere

Agreed also

[DRD-00F]

wow... it IS actually school holidays too...

[scathing]

Not too bad an idea, but I doubt many companies would put their hand up to be whitelisted.

Hence my "If you don't want anything bad said about you, don't expect anything good". Its no loss for them to not agree to be whitelisted; they just never get mentioned for any reason.

It would also probably scare off potential sponsors of the club if it was a requirement.

That was something I'd considered as a negative for such an idea.

However, I'm told the current policy is that no business-related posts are ever deleted so, if I had a problem with a sponsor and vented my spleen, it would apparently still stand. In other words, my suggestion is practically the current policy anyway. My suggestion just formalises it, and they know what they're getting into.

Most forums I'm on delete posts far more often than we do.

Agreed. Most of the forums I'm on are about as liberal as you guys are here (threads locked rather than posts removed, unless someone goes way overboard) but I have seen/heard heavy-handed moderators coming down on dissenting opinions.

Its a big reason why I'm on this forum.

Fixed.

...

To babysit immature....

And adding words to change the tone of someone's post while retaining it as quote, and calling it "fixed", is your idea of maturity? Cool. At least now I know what level I should be posting at.

Anyway, I somewhat agree with what mid life crisis says. The rules are there, and like the rules or not the idea behind them is to protect people who donate their time and energy into making this place an enjoyable experience (that includes the mods as well as the site owner, who expose themselves to liability when taking this role on as they have the responsibility of sanitising the forum). You agreed to comply with them when you signed up. If you forgot the rules and get pulled up on them, take it gracefully and don't do it again. Or leave.

I've clearly got no problem with people questioning the rules if you don't think they're right, but until you can convince the moderators / admins to change the rules then comply with the existing ones.

[Merli]

And adding words to change the tone of someone's post while retaining it as quote, and calling it "fixed", is your idea of maturity? Cool. At least now I know what level I should be posting at.

Sometimes you have to cater for the lowest common denominator

edit: btw, I NEVER edited your post

P.S. Your white/black listing idea has merit, but constitutes WAY too much time and effort from our volunteer community of mods

The whole "ratemyrack^H^H^H^Hbusiness" idea is interesting though. Perhaps some of the lawyers on this forum can comment?