Unconditional Surrender of our Boards to every Gun of every Lawsuit
The above, amounts to an "unconditional surrender" to anyone who choses to challenge anything on your board.
We are seeking ways (methods - "tricks of the trade" as in the Free Press) that will allow us to speak freely without having to surrender to anyones threats and without the person threatening the board, almost becoming the real owner of your board because he can scare you into removing anything that he wants to terrorize you with, by merely the threat of a Lawsuit.
If you run a board that usually avoids controversy about people or companies, then when you run into one such case, once a year and you choose to surrender to the terrorism threat of a Lawsuit (who may indeed be totally wrong, but trying to MUSCLE you into removing their true guilt online), then, if you choose to allow this Wild West Tactic (Rule by the Gun - Threat of a Lawsuit), that is your choice.
However, many of us run boards which may be ENTIRELY Political in nature and then, if you choose a policy of "Unconditional Surrender" to the Gun of anyone who dares to threaten you with a Lawsuit, then you have no board left at all, because every Politician would love to see you remove every potential opponents negative comments against them.
Likewise many boards are designed to evaluate Products and Services, even Software reviews by the Public and by the Publishers/OWNERS of the site. If your policy is "Unconditional surrender to any Gun who threatens you with a Lawsuit, why shouldn't every single company with less than desirable software (negatively reviewed) dare to threaten you, and have all the negative comments removed "just for the asking"?
Likewise, those amongst us, who have suggested that if the board is not moderated, (or not that MUCH Moderated) then this gets you off the hook or at least protects you a little better - This too is a cop-out to the opposite of Real Law and Order and True Justice and Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press.
It's like saying if you don't want to get Mugged, quit everything your doing and stay home and never walk the streets. We then give up all our freedom of our great country, the USA,(or the UK,) if we don't fight for our Freedom. If we surrender and turn over Washington to the hands of the Terrorists, we will never ever have to worry about Terrorist Bomb threats, ever, again.
Not moderating a Board, is restricting the freedom of speech of the owners of the board that don't want to have a Non-Moderated board, which could/would result in total anarchy but they do want to post the owners/publishers opinions about software (reviews), sometime Positive and sometimes Negative.
The same would be for a board about opinions about Political or Elected Officials, Book reviews (Amazon?) Software Reviews (CNET?) or even VBulletin.com own reviews on this board of "Best Hosting Companies for VB (some companies are reviewed as being very problematic) and this board, VBulletin.com is certainly very well Moderated.
It's one thing to say that X company or person are "thieves" because they Rob people (take their money and Run). I can understand, that perhaps that should be at least somewhat substantiated. However if someone says that the companies software is creates problems on their computer (how can anyone prove if it's the software or the users computer or users error) or if someone claims that a certain Politician is not doing their Job right, or is suspected making "deals" with X Y and Z (something all Politicians Do every day but) but no one likes it, to be said about them. How can the Moderator of a Board know if it's true or Untrue, should be posted or deleted, allow to be Muscle/Gun Threatened to remove it or not.
I believe that we have a lot to learn from what we see in the way this is handled in the Printed Press and Radio and TV Talk Shows, who do all of the above, while weiring some kind of "(Legal) Bullet Proof Vest" to protect themselves against Lawsuits (no one wants to or can afford to be in court every day).
Whatever the "Tricks of the Trade" are to protect the standard Media, we, online, can use the same protection - we don't have to "Recreate the Wheal" - (Plus perhaps MUCH more because the courts sometimes have ruled that we are not responsible for Posters comments). So we may have MORE protection but certainly NOT LESS than the Free Press (which does not remove and delete everything as soon as someone "threatens them").
Originally posted by bhd
We are seeking ways (methods - "tricks of the trade" as in the Free Press) that will allow us to speak freely without having to surrender to anyones threats and without the person threatening the board, almost becoming the real owner of your board because he can scare you into removing anything that he wants to terrorize you with, by merely the threat of a Lawsuit.
If you run a board that usually avoids controversy about people or companies, then when you run into one such case, once a year and you choose to surrender to the terrorism threat of a Lawsuit (who may indeed be totally wrong, but trying to MUSCLE you into removing their true guilt online), then, if you choose to allow this Wild West Tactic (Rule by the Gun - Threat of a Lawsuit), that is your choice.
However, many of us run boards which may be ENTIRELY Political in nature and then, if you choose a policy of "Unconditional Surrender" to the Gun of anyone who dares to threaten you with a Lawsuit, then you have no board left at all, because every Politician would love to see you remove every potential opponents negative comments against them.
Likewise many boards are designed to evaluate Products and Services, even Software reviews by the Public and by the Publishers/OWNERS of the site. If your policy is "Unconditional surrender to any Gun who threatens you with a Lawsuit, why shouldn't every single company with less than desirable software (negatively reviewed) dare to threaten you, and have all the negative comments removed "just for the asking"?
Likewise, those amongst us, who have suggested that if the board is not moderated, (or not that MUCH Moderated) then this gets you off the hook or at least protects you a little better - This too is a cop-out to the opposite of Real Law and Order and True Justice and Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press.
It's like saying if you don't want to get Mugged, quit everything your doing and stay home and never walk the streets. We then give up all our freedom of our great country, the USA,(or the UK,) if we don't fight for our Freedom. If we surrender and turn over Washington to the hands of the Terrorists, we will never ever have to worry about Terrorist Bomb threats, ever, again.
Not moderating a Board, is restricting the freedom of speech of the owners of the board that don't want to have a Non-Moderated board, which could/would result in total anarchy but they do want to post the owners/publishers opinions about software (reviews), sometime Positive and sometimes Negative.
The same would be for a board about opinions about Political or Elected Officials, Book reviews (Amazon?) Software Reviews (CNET?) or even VBulletin.com own reviews on this board of "Best Hosting Companies for VB (some companies are reviewed as being very problematic) and this board, VBulletin.com is certainly very well Moderated.
It's one thing to say that X company or person are "thieves" because they Rob people (take their money and Run). I can understand, that perhaps that should be at least somewhat substantiated. However if someone says that the companies software is creates problems on their computer (how can anyone prove if it's the software or the users computer or users error) or if someone claims that a certain Politician is not doing their Job right, or is suspected making "deals" with X Y and Z (something all Politicians Do every day but) but no one likes it, to be said about them. How can the Moderator of a Board know if it's true or Untrue, should be posted or deleted, allow to be Muscle/Gun Threatened to remove it or not.
I believe that we have a lot to learn from what we see in the way this is handled in the Printed Press and Radio and TV Talk Shows, who do all of the above, while weiring some kind of "(Legal) Bullet Proof Vest" to protect themselves against Lawsuits (no one wants to or can afford to be in court every day).
Whatever the "Tricks of the Trade" are to protect the standard Media, we, online, can use the same protection - we don't have to "Recreate the Wheal" - (Plus perhaps MUCH more because the courts sometimes have ruled that we are not responsible for Posters comments). So we may have MORE protection but certainly NOT LESS than the Free Press (which does not remove and delete everything as soon as someone "threatens them").
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