why some locked, not others?

VH

Like I said, that constipation thread would not be locked on parenting sites/forums. The only affect it has had here I'm sure is to make the OP, at 8:30pm on a sunday evening, go to another forum. If the other one was locked, again there are plenty of other forums the OP could have posted on that would not have been locked.

tallaght01

Let her go to another forum. They can take the hit if her kid perforates his bowel.

VH

tallaght01 wrote: »

Let her go to another forum. They can take the hit if her kid perforates his bowel.

Or they could share their experiences and offer her practical advice, and generally discuss the problem.

javaboy

VH wrote: »

Or they could share their experiences and offer her practical advice, and generally discuss the problem.

The admins didn't pluck their policies out of thin air. User generated content on the internet is a grey area. Boards.ie can't withstand too many legal challenges even if they are in the right so they have to play it safe. How many Irish based websites do you know that allow medical advice to be dispensed by people who cannot prove their qualifications?

metrovelvet

^ Which is all very fine except the thread about thrush wasn't locked. And Ive seen other too which havent been locked, which had info about all sorts of things including the MAP. And plenty on the long term illness board.

Yeah, I dont know how many babies get perforated bowels, but I know lots get constipated, my own opinion on this is all the iron supplements they put in baby products, but however. I have a friend who's son since a newborn only shat once a week. Doc saw no problem with this.

Even if the child did get perforated bowels how would this in any way be boards ie fault? I cant see how you would get any kind of liability for that.

VH

Firstly, we are talking about people sharing experiences. My youngest child was similar. No-one claimed to be giving out medical advice.

Secondly my understanding of the legislation is that the boards model where content (posts) is not pre-approved by staff prior to being published on the site makes one a distributor (as opposed to a publisher) and therefore not resposible.

javaboy

metrovelvet wrote: »

^ Which is all very fine except the thread about thrush wasn't locked. And Ive seen other too which havent been locked, which had info about all sorts of things including the MAP. And plenty on the long term illness board.

It's a fuzzy line I'll admit and not always consistently enforced. I think the mods and admins judge on a case by case basis which threads might lead to medical advice being given or which threads look like medical advice being sought. With STIs a lot of what I see on boards is just already publicly available information being disseminated.

Even if the child did get perforated bowels how would this in any way be boards ie fault? I cant see how you would get any kind of liability for that.

If you obtain advice from a source (e.g. give your child 3 Senekots every hour for six hours) and subsequently someone gets sick or dies as a result, that source may be liable to some extent. Hopefully the case would be thrown out of court since you shouldn't act on uninformed advice from the internet but Boards can't afford to rely on "hopefully".

VH wrote: »

Firstly, we are talking about people sharing experiences. No-one claimed to be giving out medical advice.

There's a very thin line between someone saying I didn't bring my baby to the doctor when she was constipated and she turned out fine and giving medical advice.

Secondly my understanding of the legislation is that the boards model where content (posts) is not pre-approved by staff prior to being published on the site makes one a distributor and not resposible.

What legislation are you talking about?

IRLConor

metrovelvet wrote: »

Even if the child did get perforated bowels how would this in any way be boards ie fault? I cant see how you would get any kind of liability for that.

There are three options open to boards.ie:

1. Assume that there is a potential for liability and lock/delete threads accordingly.
2. Assume that there isn't a potential for liability and let people post what they wish.
3. Contact a law talking guy for each instance where it's a grey area.

See which one is the safest cheapest option?

VH wrote: »

Secondly my understanding of the legislation is that the boards model where content (posts) is not pre-approved by staff prior to being published on the site makes one a distributor and not resposible.

If that was true there would be one less sticky in every forum.

VH

IRLConor wrote: »

If that was true there would be one less sticky in every forum.

Stickies don't cost anything. While I don't want to drag this thread off topic the proof is perhaps in the pudding: one legal action, ever, while (for example) telecoms companies are named and drubbed daily?

javaboy wrote:

There's a very thin line between someone saying I didn't bring my baby to the doctor when she was constipated and she turned out fine and giving medical advice.

In my opinion that is quite a thick line. "My child did..." is very different from "My (purported) professional advice would be..."

Micky Dolenz

Great response, even when you didn't need to. Well done

Thaedydal wrote: »

Firstly there is a differences between an adult posting about somthing and an adult posting on the behalf of an infant/child.

The infant/child may have other symphthoms which it can not express,
a parent should always seek help/guidance when it comes to a child, be it
thier own ( hopefully) more experienced parents, dr, nurse ect.

IF the parent had of said that the child had already been seen by the dr and it was an on going concern under medical review and was asking about how other parents coped with simple constipation in an infant then the thread would have been left open.

As it stands it was locked to encourage the op to seek out medical aid for her child rather then let what could be something life threatening to an infant happen due to the parent delaying seeking real life actual help.


In the second case which is in a different forum to start with, it was an adult posting, she has already been to at least a chemist to buy cream for thrush.
Thrush can be spread like an sti but it can have other causes, a person can be completely sexually in experienced and still get thrush if that is what the matter is.

There are more issues in play in that thread then just the op possibly having thrush, I left it open due to that after saying she should see the dr and am hoping that others will do so and that she may elaborate on what happened and get some good advice and information as she seems pretty inexperienced.

I have replied in public as you first called to question my mod actions here in public rather then replying to your pm.

IRLConor

VH wrote: »

Stickies don't cost anything.

1195x45 pixels* on every forum on a site with boards.ie's traffic? Good luck getting that for free.

Throw in the wasted time scrolling (small, but multiply by the number of forum views) and the wasted bandwidth too.

VH wrote: »

While I don't want to drag this thread off topic the proof is perhaps in the pudding: one legal action, ever, while (for example) telecoms companies are named and drubbed daily?

I think the telecoms companies are in somewhat of a less sue-happy position than a parent with a dead child. That, and they have to deal with the negative PR of suing whereas the hypothetical parent doesn't have to worry about that. The cost/benefit analyses for legal action for both hypothetical parties are very different.

That said, if you see anything that you think could be actionable feel free to hit the report post button...

And I don't think it's just one legal action either, it's just the only one that has gone as far. The Admins get stacks of legal threats from what I gather.

VH wrote: »

In my opinion that is quite a thick line. "My child did..." is very different from "My (purported) professional advice would be..."

Yeah, but there's a risk that some lawyer might argue successfully otherwise. Best to not take that risk. Boards Ltd's money is better spent on improving the site rather than paying legal counsel.

* May be a different size on other machines

VH

Well, you're being pedantic. Stickies on boards don't cost boards anything.

The telecoms companies don't sue maybe because they know they can't? Especially when for example BT employees might covertly be posting muck about eircom and vice versa?

Legal threats do not amount to legal action. Anyone can write a letter and anyone can pay a solicitor to write a letter.

Anyway I'm done discussing this. It's the law as I was told recently whilst on a training course given by an investment house. Feel free to start a fresh thread if you want to discuss it some more.

IRLConor

VH wrote: »

Well, you're being pedantic.

I'm sorry, I don't come in non-pedantic.

VH wrote: »

It's the law as I was told recently whilst on a training course given by an investment house.

[citation needed]

VH wrote: »

Feel free to start a fresh thread if you want to discuss it some more.

Meh. Don't really care enough. Just figured you had to be wrong given the evidence at hand.

Steve

VH wrote: »

Legal threats do not amount to legal action. Anyone can write a letter and anyone can pay a solicitor to write a letter.

yeeeeeah...

You might wanna read this and this and then consider piping down a bit on the leagal threat stuff.

VH

SteveC wrote: »

yeeeeeah...

You might wanna read this and this and then consider piping down a bit on the leagal threat stuff.

Just because the words are similar doesn't mean the topic is the same;)

IRLConor wrote:

Meh. Don't really care enough. Just figured you had to be wrong given the evidence at hand.

Feel free to prove me wrong on a new thread!

Steve

VH wrote: »

Just because the words are similar doesn't mean the topic is the same;)

There may be a subtle difference but I don't think the people with the carpet bombers are going to care...

javaboy

VH wrote: »

In my opinion that is quite a thick line. "My child did..." is very different from "My (purported) professional advice would be..."

No offence but your opinion counts for nothing in court. If Boards.ie allows posts such as "My child was constipated and I did nothing and he was fine a few days later" then it can be argued that they are endorsing that view.

Precedents are being set daily when it comes to online material. It's still a legal grey area regardless of what you might think or what you've been told on training courses. The law is only finding its feet when it comes to the internet and digital media in general. Boards can't trust its future to the possibility of getting a judge who is familiar with the difference between user generated content and traditional site content.

And you didn't answer my question earlier:

VH wrote:

Secondly my understanding of the legislation is that the boards model where content (posts) is not pre-approved by staff prior to being published on the site makes one a distributor and not resposible

What legislation are you talking about?

VH

No offence jb, but I can chose to believe a paid professional trainer or some bloke I've never met on an internet forum who doesn't back up any of his arguments. And you haven't declared yourself to be an expert, so....

Course was a while back, covered a lot of things, and iirc it was Data Protection that this topic came under, but I may be wrong.

EDIT: this really is the last post, unless you want to start a new thread. I mean it this time

Steve

VH wrote: »

No offence jb, but I can chose to believe a paid professional trainer

You should really get yore money back VH, it didn't work.

javaboy

VH wrote: »

No offence jb, but I can chose to believe a paid professional trainer or some bloke I've never met on an internet forum who doesn't back up any of his arguments. And you haven't declared yourself to be an expert, so....

Course was a while back, covered a lot of things, and iirc it was Data Protection that this topic came under, but I may be wrong.

Believe what you like but I'm sure Boards aren't losing out on the huge volume of traffic that allowing medical advice threads would yield for fun. I expect they took legal advice.
And since you say the course was a while back, I'd be even more surprised if there was legislation in Ireland at the time that took into account the difference between internet sites which contained user generated content and those that didn't.

By the way you haven't backed up any of your arguments either. I could just as easily say I was on a more recent training course that covered this topic and that I'm right. It doesn't prove a thing.

My position is that legislation does not cover this issue. Your position is that it does.

I would like you to link to the legislation in quesiton to back up your position. What evidence would you like from me to back up mine?

metrovelvet

javaboy wrote: »

No offence but your opinion counts for nothing in court. If Boards.ie allows posts such as "My child was constipated and I did nothing and he was fine a few days later" then it can be argued that they are endorsing that view.

Precedents are being set daily when it comes to online material. It's still a legal grey area regardless of what you might think or what you've been told on training courses. The law is only finding its feet when it comes to the internet and digital media in general. Boards can't trust its future to the possibility of getting a judge who is familiar with the difference between user generated content and traditional site content.


What legislation are you talking about?

But equally someone could have responded to the thrush post by advising to take a bath in yogurt and rinse with hydrogen peroxide.

Is it because the constipation thread was pediatric?

javaboy

metrovelvet wrote: »

But equally someone could have responded to the thrush post by advising to take a bath in yogurt and rinse with hydrogen peroxide.

Is it because the constipation thread was pediatric?

I don't know. Only the mods/admins can answer that one. I know that your thread was originally about why one thread was locked versus another but it had gone off on a bit of a tangent with VH about why boards disallows medical advice at all in the first place. That's what I was talking about and I wasn't really defending the different treatment of the two threads.

Orion

VH wrote: »

Secondly my understanding of the legislation is that the boards model where content (posts) is not pre-approved by staff prior to being published on the site makes one a distributor (as opposed to a publisher) and therefore not resposible.

That may be your opinion - but the opinion of the law may be different. Hopefully we'll find out soon that you're right in a specific case.

Orion

VH wrote: »

It's the law as I was told recently whilst on a training course given by an investment house.

VH wrote: »

No offence jb, but I can chose to believe a paid professional trainer

And I'm certain his advice on investments is sound. However for legal advice I'd personally listen to legal professionals rather than professional trainers for an investment house. :rolleyes:

Dades

metrovelvet wrote: »

Is it because the constipation thread was pediatric?

Of course.

Trojan

Run its course.