Why is Boards.ie like the Ministry of Truth...

Dudess

Kase Bumpy Dew wrote: »

Somebody joined a library.

It's actually the only book I've ever read and I wanted to look clever...

LoLth wrote: »

Dudess, why should there have to be a sticky thread to tell people how to be civil and not behave like there is no consequence for their actions or words? Surely awareness of this should be the default behaviour of users of boards.ie and not something you have to work at maintaining? "celebrity" "insulted" boards.ie users in general ! Quick Lets see jsut how quickly we can get nasty on him! Lets suggest personal assaults in real life because if anyone reads it and follows up on it, anyone at all, then there's no way there'll be any fallout on boards.ie.

That looks kinda disingenuous LoLth - what I'm suggesting be stickied (that sounds so rude :pac:) is a thread specifically advising any threads abusing David McSavage will be deleted, rather than deletion of them without a word. That comes across as a rather unfair and supercilious way to treat members.
Darragh, it's not so much the censorship I'm referencing, but the non explanation for said censorship - thanks for taking it on board anyway.

Darragh wrote: »

At the start of the interview with us, he made a typical (for him) "joke" about the users of Boards.ie. We took it in the humour it was meant in

Yeah I don't think you should have felt compelled to defend Boards users - it seems like it was meant in a humorous fashion, however he has, prior to that, slated Boards users with the oh-so-original internet nerd stuff (time to move on there Davey - anyone uses internet forums now, not just anti-social nerd cliches) e.g. on the thread Degsy bumped recently which just vanished moments later and which prompted me to start this thread. It's not "hurtful" of DMcS, it's hypocritical though, given what he does.
I don't agree with reams and reams of really OTT abuse (while I'm not averse to being sweary meself, I can understand those running the site don't want it on a par with YouTube for abuse either; it has a reputation to uphold) but DMcS should expect criticism - or give up his act.
As for no abuse of celebrities - utterly ludicrous in my opinion. A toning down of abuse, yes, fair enough (hundreds of posts of it starts to look boring and juvenile and there are other ways to articulate one's disapproval of someone) but no negativity at all? Draconian - and unsustainable.
Lots of members act the ass, but most members deserve to be shown a wee bit of appreciation - without them the site would not exist, etc, and I would say it IS a community... well, a group of communities. And out of these online communities, real-life ones have sprung (it's not a mere online, detached-from-reality cyberspace - check out Jackass's recent thread here on Feedback actually) so if DMcS is gonna insult back, he should do his research first.

mike65

oscarBravo wrote: »

I wonder how the Irish Times would get on with an editorial philosophy like that.

They wouldn't, they are the Irish Times (official Ireland and all that) boards.ie is a cluster of increasingly random themed boards under one umbrella. Talk from Darragh of steering this place to be more like rte.ie should fill everyone here with fear.

Nodin

Darragh wrote: »

I do think this website could be like RTE.ie, in being a great resource for its members. .........

...and provided you can leave out the conservatism and excessive deference for 'authority' all well and good. Certainly with regards to the latter, I'm not optimistic.

oscarBravo

TheZohan wrote: »

Read my post from above that:

I read it. I disagree that "sers should be allowed to respond to abuse/jibes aimed at them..." under any circumstances. We don't allow users to be abusive to other users, whether or not in response to abuse aimed at them - retaliation isn't a valid excuse for abuse. The question becomes, should we allow abuse aimed at non-boards users that we don't allow towards boards users? If DMcW had a boards.ie account, would we have to prevent abuse aimed at him that we'd otherwise allow?

mike65 wrote: »

They wouldn't, they are the Irish Times (official Ireland and all that) boards.ie is a cluster of increasingly random themed boards under one umbrella.

If I had a choice between boards.ie being like the national paper of record, or like a foul-mouthed pub conversation, I know which I'd prefer. I recognise that not everyone feels the same way.

mike65

oscarBravo wrote: »

If I had a choice between boards.ie being like the national paper of record, or like a foul-mouthed pub conversation, I know which I'd prefer. I recognise that not everyone feels the same way.

You are indulging in a false dichotomy - boards.ie is neither and should be niether, it should be true to its own spirit, which I would describe as fast moving and sparky (so certainly not like the IT its true).

TheZohanS

oscarBravo wrote: »

If DMcW had a boards.ie account, would we have to prevent abuse aimed at him that we'd otherwise allow?

If DMcW had made the comments that he made in the interview in a post he would have been banned or infracted. As it stands there is no facility to report the comments that he made via his interview. We should have the right to address his comments at the very least.

Darragh

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I view AH like a chat in the pub, if some celeb is a cúnt they get called a cúnt.

The site is a forum, dont try to make it something it isnt, its a forum, dont become a sell out.

The problem with this pub chat analogy is - if you call someone well known (politician, celeb, TV personality or whoever) a c*nt in a pub, they probably won't hear about it. Call someone you're with it and they'll either hit you or laugh it off, depending on context. Even so, depending on your friends or who you're with, you'll probably be asked to explain why you think that and what exactly you think that is.

Boards.ie is not a pub. AH is not a pub. It is a publically accessible website, one of Ireland's most popular ones, with posts by members under aliases calling people c*nts - so anyone on Boards.ie, or Google, looking for information about that person - themselves, their families, their friends, their fans or those that dislike them can find it and see what some forum poster called them, without explanation or recourse.

On a very broad sense, Defamation, as defined in Irish law, is

“ defamatory statement” means a statement that tends to injure a person’s reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society

We can't allow this. We're legally bound not to allow this. It's why we have rules, guidelines and moderators. Without this protection we don't have a site.

Here's Irish law. Read into it what you think it means.

Defamation.

6.— (1) The tort of libel and the tort of slander—

(a) shall cease to be so described, and

(b) shall, instead, be collectively described, and are referred to in this Act, as the “ tort of defamation ”.

(2) The tort of defamation consists of the publication, by any means, of a defamatory statement concerning a person to one or more than one person (other than the first-mentioned person), and “ defamation ” shall be construed accordingly.

(3) A defamatory statement concerns a person if it could reasonably be understood as referring to him or her.

(4) There shall be no publication for the purposes of the tort of defamation if the defamatory statement concerned is published to the person to whom it relates and to a person other than the person to whom it relates in circumstances where—

(a) it was not intended that the statement would be published to the second-mentioned person, and

(b) it was not reasonably foreseeable that publication of the statement to the first-mentioned person would result in its being published to the second-mentioned person.

(5) The tort of defamation is actionable without proof of special damage.

It would be very different if everyone signed their names and addresses at the end of every post. That way they're taking responsibility for what they say. That doesn't happen. Therefore the email address associated with the post becomes ours, not the posters. We become responsible for it.

So you, as a member of this site, me as an employee and everyone take responsibility on the whole for everything that goes up here.

None of this has come to court yet, unfortunately (read a great post here on it), so we don't know how something in court would go. Theoretically one big libel case against Boards.ie for what one person said on the site could close it down. Do you honestly expect us to take that risk?

Yes, Boards.ie is a forum. It's also a website with legal responsibilities. We're not trying to make it something it's not, just making what it is better.

Darragh

mike65 wrote: »

They wouldn't, they are the Irish Times (official Ireland and all that) boards.ie is a cluster of increasingly random themed boards under one umbrella. Talk from Darragh of steering this place to be more like rte.ie should fill everyone here with fear.

Let me clarify/explain that remark. I should have in the original post:

RTE.ie is a fantastic useful resource. It has the budgets and the staff to give great content about a wide variety of subjects and makes otherwise inaccessible content and news accessible. Them and IrishTimes.ie are great websites.

I want Boards.ie to be the same. Useful for its members, with otherwise inaccessible people invited to come along and answer questions put to them. I want the people who use Boards.ie to find interesting information and to have what they care about discussed - and surely we can do that without profanity and abuse? Surely we don't have to offend people to make a point?

Nodin wrote: »

...and provided you can leave out the conservatism and excessive deference for 'authority' all well and good. Certainly with regards to the latter, I'm not optimistic.

You know, I'd like to think we CAN do that and will do that. However, I'm not going to sit opposite someone in an interview - someone who has given their time to answer questions - and insult or offend them on behalf of someone not there themselves. It adds nothing to the conversation, it adds nothing to the information and is just un-necessarily unpleasant.

If you can tell me how we avoid conservatism, excessive deference AND abuse, then we have something we are all happy with, eh?

oscarBravo

mike65 wrote: »

You are indulging in a false dichotomy - boards.ie is neither and should be niether, it should be true to its own spirit, which I would describe as fast moving and sparky (so certainly not like the IT its true).

I don't think it should be one or the other either, but I know which end of the spectrum I'd rather was the norm.

TheZohan wrote: »

If DMcW had made the comments that he made in the interview in a post he would have been banned or infracted. As it stands there is no facility to report the comments that he made via his interview. We should have the right to address his comments at the very least.

I agree completely, in the same way that anyone has the right to address comments (even abusive comments) made by another member of the site.

If everyone who called him a c*nt had instead pointed out that it's predictable and lazy of him to stereotype boards.ie users in that way, would we be having this conversation?

Sparks

mike65 wrote: »

They wouldn't, they are the Irish Times (official Ireland and all that) boards.ie is a cluster of increasingly random themed boards under one umbrella. Talk from Darragh of steering this place to be more like rte.ie should fill everyone here with fear.

There is also the point that under at least one metric (copies sold, which is rather an important metric to them), not calling people names has meant that they rate well below those tabloids which do so on a regular basis.

Mind you, as everyone and his dog is punditing about, online-v-print is a fight that print is losing, badly, because their metrics don't apply well to online and probably shouldn't be applied to online.

So you're back to a rating of content in terms of how accurate, useful and beneficial-to-the-reader it is (hopefully). Problem is, as many forums in here demonstrate daily, people don't always want that. Boards isn't just a reference source of data, it allows discussion, and we keep seeing that the mix of both can go horribly wrong when people are more interested in entertaining themselves by trying to tear strips off one another instead of talking about a specific topic.

And that's not even looking at the problem of users who are actually, provably, actively malicious towards boards.ie and who would gain significantly in personal, social and financial ways were it to cease to be.

And for what it's worth, when those malicious users get highly unpleasant and legal about things -- and they do -- or when a spat starts up for any other reason and blows up to the point where the Mods have to call for help; Darragh, DeVore and the Admins have always done what they thought was right. They'll discuss it, they'll think about it, but when they know what the story is, they've always chosen what they thought was right and if that meant telling people to call their solicitors, or if it meant giving an apology that was personally hard to give, they've always done it. I don't know where boards.ie is going to go in the next few years, or even if I'll agree with it when it gets there, but I do at least trust that it won't drift there thoughtlessly, or that it'll be taken there for reasons of avarice or bullying. That's not a small thing, if we're being honest.

Wolfe Tone

I presume by a "very broad sense" you mean "not at all this" as you failed to mention that such a statement must be in fact be false.

So you, as a member of this site, me as an employee and everyone take responsibility on the whole for everything that goes up here.

So you give celebs a soapbox to insult members? Even though you claim insulting McSavage is a defamatory act?


I would question "Dave McSavage is a <whatever> as he does xyz is a defamatory statement. Calling him a paedophile maybe. Insulting him though?

oscarBravo

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I would question "Dave McSavage is a <whatever> as he does xyz is a defamatory statement.

You're free to question that to your heart's content, on a website of your own that you take legal responsibility for. As long as you're posting anonymously on someone else's website, I'm afraid you don't get to decide what's defamatory (or what runs the risk of being potentially defamatory).

Wolfe Tone

oscarBravo wrote: »

You're free to question that to your heart's content, on a website of your own that you take legal responsibility for. As long as you're posting anonymously on someone else's website, I'm afraid you don't get to decide what's defamatory (or what runs the risk of being potentially defamatory).

If statements of opinion are to be deemed potentionally defamatory like that you may as well shut the site down.

oscarBravo

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

If statements of opinion are to be deemed potentionally defamatory like that you may as well shut the site down.

Yeah, we've heard that a lot over the years. And yet, we still have a site where people still manage to express opinions that are not defamatory.

Again: if you're that sure that it's not defamatory to use deeply offensive and ugly terms of abuse against a public figure, feel free to take legal responsibility for doing so on your own site.

Darragh

TheZohan wrote: »

If DMcW had made the comments that he made in the interview in a post he would have been banned or infracted. As it stands there is no facility to report the comments that he made via his interview. We should have the right to address his comments at the very least.

Except in this case - and in MANY others where he's been discussed and/or abused - he didn't make the comments in a post and he didn't do it as a member of Boards.ie, so we have no "power" to ban him or infract him. I left it in as a reference to those other posts. In one forum it was taken as that, in another, out of context, it wasn't.

You definitely have the right to address the comments, but does this need to be done through abuse? By calling someone a c*nt?

Should I have addressed those comments in the interview? Yes, you're right. i should have. I didn't. I apologise.

But in your earlier post to me, you made some very good points:

98% of the threads in AH don't contain abuse like was seen in the deleted thread, the thread was made in response to a jibe/insult that the interviewee made towards users. Now I probably should have made that thread over here in Feedback

This is exactly it. Most of the users and the users of this site don't contain abuse. It's just the few that do get more attention and talked about more than all the others combined. It's a tabloid culture we live in, unfortunately.

Now I probably should have made that thread over here in Feedback

Honestly, if that original thread had been over here (or wherever) and had been more about the issue of me leaving the abuse in the video and not abuse of him, that would have been better. At least I am here to reply/respond/defend - but McSavage is not and so the invitation to openly abuse him was not the right one to make. Even so, if it had been just about McSavage in relation to his comments, that would have been fine (within reason) but it wasn't. Loads more people were called c*nts and the like, people not involved and just being talked about for the sake of it.

The reason I mentioned the fact that you care more about the advertisers is because you brought it up in the deleted thread.

If you mention advertisers and then delete a thread then yup I'm going to think you care more about the advertisers than users

See, it's comments like that that are frustrating. That isn't a "fact". It's your take on the matter (as you said). Firstly, I didn't delete the thread or even know it had been removed. When I replied to it in AH I did so without locking it and to open a dialogue like this one. Secondly, I brought advertisers up because they pay to keep the site alive and it's my job to work with them. Anything I do with advertisers is for the members. I never put their needs above that of the site, and the admins, Dav and DeVore should be able to confirm that at the very least.

We've brought O2, eircom, Vodafone, ESB, three, Currys and more onto the site to answer Boards.ie member questions, face criticism, get bollocked for doing a bad job and give members special offers onto the site - particularly to avoid just useless complaining and get members' problems sorted quicker and easier than over the phone or email sometimes.

We've done the same with Verified reps - once you verify who you are to us, companies have the right of reply to complaints about them to get them sorted.

I'd love to see politicians - local and national - and other policy makers have to do the same. Not only have to, but want to - but until we stamp out this abuse reputation, we'll never be able to get that.

It's really great you're not a yes man - helps keep me on my toes and grounded - and I never mind discussing this, as long as you're willing to see that there's another side to things too.

Sparks

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I presume by a "very broad sense" you mean "not at all this" as you failed to mention that such a statement must be in fact be false.

Having been on the receiving end of more than one threat to go to court for defamation, allow me to add a caveat to that (otherwise correct) statement:
You have to prove it's true in court.

In other words, you have to go to court, which means hiring a solicitor and a barrister, you then have to prove what you said was true (Irish defamation law takes the view that the defamed person is innocent until proven guilty, even though they're not the defendant in a defamation lawsuit, and you have to cope with all the mental stress that induces for months at a time.

So you give celebs a soapbox to insult members? Even though you claim insulting McSavage is a defamatory act?

Re-read defamation law. Another lovely aspect of it is that you can't defame a group (or more to the point, a group can't take a defamation suit against an individual) so while person A can say "I think all taxi drivers are crooks" and they can't sue him, if a representative of the taxi drivers said "I think person A is a crook", then person A can sue them for defamation readily. And there's no clear limit to the size of the group where that kicks in, from what I can tell (and I've been asking for a while now.

I would question "Dave McSavage is a <whatever> as he does xyz is a defamatory statement.

I think so long as <whatever> is an expletive, it's called "salty language" under the Act, it's when you say "he does xyz" that you get into trouble with the law - however I am not a barrister so I defer to professional judgement on that point.

More apropos to here though, is that we don't really like "salty language" and have a swear filter on the boards because of that. It's circumvented regularly, and some forums don't care, but that's not universal and the fact that you have to go to some effort to swear in here is actually saying something about this place.

Darragh

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I presume by a "very broad sense" you mean "not at all this" as you failed to mention that such a statement must be in fact be false.

You know, I didn't "fail" to mention that the statement must in fact be false. I quoted the Irish statute as it is, that doesn't mention that. Irish law doesn't seem to require that it's false.

Don't believe me? Here's the link and here's the link to their definitions.

“ defamatory statement” means a statement that tends to injure a person’s reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society, and “defamatory” shall be construed accordingly

That's Irish Law for you. Here's the section on "defence on truth"

It shall be a defence (to be known and in this Act referred to as the “ defence of truth ”) to a defamation action for the defendant to prove that the statement in respect of which the action was brought is true in all material respects.

(2) In a defamation action in respect of a statement containing 2 or more distinct allegations against the plaintiff, the defence of truth shall not fail by reason only of the truth of every allegation not being proved, if the words not proved to be true do not materially injure the plaintiff’s reputation having regard to the truth of the remaining allegations.

(For those of you unsure, like I was: The plaintiff - the complainant - is the person(s) or organization(s) who've brought the action against the defendant, who is being sued or accused and is defending the action.)

So that means that Boards.ie, as the defendant has to "prove that the statement in respect of which the action is taken is true" - now, how do we do that, exactly, especially in the case where, say, a member refuses to participate and doesn't want their identity revealed etc? Can you imagine how much time and money never mind anything else goes into that?

So you give celebs a soapbox to insult members? Even though you claim insulting McSavage is a defamatory act?

I would question "Dave McSavage is a <whatever> as he does xyz is a defamatory statement. Calling him a paedophile maybe. Insulting him though?

I'm not sure where I said that insulting someone is a defamatory act. I'm talking about abuse here not being the right thing for the site, not the idea that abuse is defamation. However, we do have forums where people ARE defamed by users signing up to badmouth a competitor's or ex employer's products or services. It happens far more often than you might think or we like.

LoLth

There is a record of a defamation case available that may prove useful as a reference. this case set much of the precedents for decisions on internet law and, while it is based in England, much of Irish defamation law is very very close.

attached is the court report of the judgement in the Sheffield Wednesday vs Hargreaves trial (soccer forum regulars may be familiar with this). Members of the board of management of Sheffield Wednesday sought a Norwich Pharmacal order against the owner of a web forum (this is the order to release IP address details so anonymous poster can be identified for the purposes of legal proceedings).

The read is interesting , primarily because it gives, in point 6 , a listing of the posts that the claimants found offensive. In points 16, 17 and 18, the judge gives his opinion on those posts and the reasoning behind why they can or cannot be considered defamatory. It is also interesting because one of the claimants listed is actually an organisation.

keep in mind though that this is UK law and there are bound to be some differences to Irish , and EU, law. Also, this judgement was from 2007, there has been legislation since then that has expanded on the issues raised.

attached is the .doc version. a google for the case name (Sheffield wednesday vs hargreaves) or the case reference number HQ07X03169 should throw up an online or PDF version if you prefer.

Nodin

Darragh wrote: »

and surely we can do that without profanity and abuse?

O Noes, not 'profanity'......Our reputation as an angelically tongued nation will disintegrate.

Darragh wrote: »

You know, I'd like to think we CAN do that and will do that. However, I'm not going to sit opposite someone in an interview - someone who has given their time to answer questions - and insult or offend them on behalf of someone not there themselves.

I was speaking generally.

I wouldn't expect anyone to insult or offend somebody else on some absent anonymous parties behalf, nor did I suggest such. However in the video interview you did seem overwhelmingly happy to sit there and let the interviewed party (whom I've often defended and whose show I'm a fan of) have a good 'offensive' dig at the 'plebes', put it up on site and then attempt to take the moral high ground when people - many hitherto neutral on that person - respond in kind.

The remark didn't bother me, but the response to the response did. That kind of double standard of expression what I said I feared would result when the thread about this new rule was stickied in AH and lo and behold here we are. I'd imagined it would have been some columnist(s) from the Indo/Sindo - very specifically Myers, Doherty, O'Connor with the bould David Quinn being an outside chance, but there ye go, ye live and learn.

I might add that I thought your specific post on that thread was patronising and arrogant, but that could be memory, rather than reality. I'd have reviewed it before commenting, but - in keeping with the kind of thing the OP referred to - the thread has vanished.

Darragh wrote: »

If you can tell me how we avoid conservatism, excessive deference AND abuse, then we have something we are all happy with, eh?

Stop whinging about "profanity" for starters.

Publish the solicitors letters etc that come in on site whether the thread is locked or not, thus dissuading frivolous threats.

Delete senseless abuse.

Wolfe Tone

Darragh wrote: »

You know, I didn't "fail" to mention that the statement must in fact be false. I quoted the Irish statute as it is, that doesn't mention that. Irish law doesn't seem to require that it's false.

It has to be a false statement, you cannot defame someone with the truth.

So that means that Boards.ie, as the defendant has to "prove that the statement in respect of which the action is taken is true" - now, how do we do that, exactly, especially in the case where, say, a member refuses to participate and doesn't want their identity revealed etc? Can you imagine how much time and money never mind anything else goes into that?

True, but I don't think that insulting someone is defamation. Its an opinion, how can you prove someone is a dickhead? Or vice versa?

I'm not sure where I said that insulting someone is a defamatory act. I'm talking about abuse here not being the right thing for the site, not the idea that abuse is defamation. However, we do have forums where people ARE defamed by users signing up to badmouth a competitor's or ex employer's products or services. It happens far more often than you might think or we like.

This thread is about people insulting McSavage is it not? You brought defamation into this. The thread wasnt claiming he did xyz, it was full of people calling him names.

Darragh

Nodin wrote: »

O Noes, not 'profanity'......Our reputation as an angelically tongued nation will disintegrate.

I'm not worried about the reputation of the nation. I'm concerned with the reputation of the site. If you'd like a bigger debate about whether profanity is permissable on Boards.ie (and I think it'd be an interesting one), feel free to open a new thread.

Nodin wrote: »

in the video interview you did seem overwhelmingly happy to sit there and let the interviewed party (whom I've often defended and whose show I'm a fan of) have a good 'offensive' dig at the 'plebes', put it up on site and then attempt to take the moral high ground when people - many hitherto neutral on that person - respond in kind.

The remark didn't bother me, but the response to the response did. That kind of double standard of expression what I said I feared would result when the thread about this new rule was stickied in AH and lo and behold here we are. I'd imagined it would have been some columnist(s) from the Indo/Sindo - very specifically Myers, Doherty, O'Connor with the bould David Quinn being an outside chance, but there ye go, ye live and learn.

I might add that I thought your specific post on that thread was patronising and arrogant, but that could be memory, rather than reality. I'd have reviewed it before commenting, but - in keeping with the kind of thing the OP referred to - the thread has vanished.

I republished my comment in full this morning on this thread. I didn't feel it was patronising or arrogant, more direct, comprehensive and uncompromising, but you can't please everyone and everyone has their own interpretation of things.

Like my interpretation of people "responding in kind" and your own. If it had been real "responding in kind", people would have done so under their own names, just as he did. My issue is never with the responses, it's with the abuse.

Do we want Boards.ie to be known as a site that condones or encourages abuse?

If you can tell me how we avoid conservatism, excessive deference AND abuse, then we have something we are all happy with, eh?

Stop whinging about "profanity" for starters.

Publish the solicitors letters etc that come in on site whether the thread is locked or not, thus dissuading frivolous threats.

Delete senseless abuse.

I'm hardly whinging. Just in my mind, you don't need to refer to someone as a c*nt to make a point.

I'd love to publish the solicitors letters, but I'm sure I'd come up against data protection issues if we did. Also, what would that achieve? People comment and we still have to deal with the issue of what's happened, gather the necessary evidence and go through the process - all taking time, money and resource that would be better spent educating people who use the site not to post up stuff that will get them into trouble.

Still, I take your points on board.

NeedaNewName

TheZohan wrote: »

If people call boards.ie users **** then boards.ie users should be allowed respond in kind.

In fairness to the guy there was a huge thread calling him all sorts long before that interview. And I don't mean liquorish.

Wolfe Tone

Sparks wrote: »

I think so long as <whatever> is an expletive, it's called "salty language" under the Act, it's when you say "he does xyz" that you get into trouble with the law - however I am not a barrister so I defer to professional judgement on that point.

More apropos to here though, is that we don't really like "salty language" and have a swear filter on the boards because of that. It's circumvented regularly, and some forums don't care, but that's not universal and the fact that you have to go to some effort to swear in here is actually saying something about this place.

By xyz I meant something which is true, ie insult people during his "act" on the street.

The statement "McSavage is a dick" is not one which he can sue under the tort of defamation I believe.

The site doesnt want people insulted, fine, but dont say its for legal reasons.

Darragh

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

It has to be a false statement, you cannot defame someone with the truth.

True, but I don't think that insulting someone is defamation. Its an opinion, how can you prove someone is a dickhead? Or vice versa?

This thread is about people insulting McSavage is it not? You brought defamation into this. The thread wasnt claiming he did xyz, it was full of people calling him names.

Okay, accepting all of that, do you still want Boards.ie to be a site known for threads that are full of people calling names? Big difference between that and proper discussion on someone. This thread is about the issue of threads about McSavage being deleted, but has much wider implications.

As I said earlier

Boards.ie as a whole needs to come to some decision - and make it site-wide - about what sort of post is not allowed. As Almighty Cushion has pointed out to me numerous times, we have an AH policy on no abuse of celebrities, but should we make this site wide? The comprehensive After Hours policy covers a lot of what's allowed in there. The thread in After Hours about McSavage descended into just general abuse about him - and other comedians who were not involved here. Should that be allowed? Is it okay that we host discussions where someone is talked about because they're in the newspapers/media/doing a job/online at all? Do we operate, as some people would have it, where if you insult Boards.ie, Boards.ie can insult you.

Is it okay that we allow people to be called C*nts on our site? Would you like that said about you on one of Ireland's biggest (and most Google friendly) websites? Remember too, it's not your username, but your real name up there.

I don't know that insulting someone is not defamation. All I can do is point to the law and say "that's what the law says".

Neither am I saying that the only reason we don't want people insulted is for legal reasons. We don't want people insulted because it doesn't achieve anything and gives the site and its users a bad reputation. We'd like to think we're better than that.

Once again, because I know I'll be challenged on it:

Should I have put up the video as is? No.
Should the discussion around it have happened? Yes
Was a thread full of insults and abuse for McSavage warranted? Actually in one sense, yes, members could have used that thread to give feedback, no matter how abusive to that interview. However, it's the precedent that set, as well as the abuse of other people in that thread that became the problem, not the thread itself.

The issue here is abuse and what we do with that, not just defamation.

Sparks

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

By xyz I meant something which is true, ie insult people during his "act" on the street.

Again, that caveat - it's not "something which is true", it's "something which you prove true in court". With the specific example of insulting someone during his act, that would be easy enough. In other cases, not so much.

You open the doors on abuse on the site, and it'll take a matter of minutes for the posts to go from "Person X is an <expletive>" to "Person X does <sexual act Y> to <animal species Z>" to "Person X committed <crime Y> against Person Z". It's not a slippery slope, it's a lubed-up cliff.

Wolfe Tone

Darragh wrote: »

Okay, accepting all of that, do you still want Boards.ie to be a site known for threads that are full of people calling names? Big difference between that and proper discussion on someone. This thread is about the issue of threads about McSavage being deleted, but has much wider implications.

I want boards to be known as a place where people can have their say.

I don't know that insulting someone is not defamation. All I can do is point to the law and say "that's what the law says".

I have read the law, and am currently studying it. As far as I can tell insulting someone is not defamatory, its not a false allegation, its an opinion. You dont have people suing each other under the tort of defamation for calling someone an arsehole.

Neither am I saying that the only reason we don't want people insulted is for legal reasons. We don't want people insulted because it doesn't achieve anything.

Fair enough, but I cant help but feel the reason why is that you are afraid more celebs wont do interviews. I recall(I paraphrase) you saying "I dont think we will have many more interviews after this reaction"

Actually in one sense, yes, members could have used that thread to give feedback, no matter how abusive to that interview. However, it's the precedent that set, as well as the abuse of other people in that thread that became the problem, not the thread itself.

The issue here is abuse and what we do with that, not just defamation.

Fair enough if you do't want abuse, but tell us the real reasons why.

Again, that caveat - it's not "something which is true", it's "something which you prove true in court". With the specific example of insulting someone during his act, that would be easy enough. In other cases, not so much.

What you mention there is me accusing him of doing something, it would be that which is defamatory, not the insult itself which is what Darragh is saying.

You open the doors on abuse on the site, and it'll take a matter of minutes for the posts to go from "Person X is an <expletive>" to "Person X does <sexual act Y> to <animal species Z>" to "Person X committed <crime Y> against Person Z". It's not a slippery slope, it's a lubed-up cliff.

Some of those examples are defamatory yes. I cant remember reading them in relation to McSavage. If boards doest want people insulted, grand, but dont hide behind the law.

Darragh

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I want boards to be known as a place where people can have their say.

As do we. The only truly neutral place in Ireland is what DeVore would like it to be known as. I'm just wondering if we need to allow abuse to do that.

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

I have read the law, and am currently studying it. As far as I can tell insulting someone is not defamatory, its not a false allegation, its an opinion. You dont have people suing each other under the tort of defamation for calling someone an arsehole.

See, I think - and I'm open to correction on this - that if you put something on a website without saying "in my opinion", then there's a problem. Can anyone clarify this for me?

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Neither am I saying that the only reason we don't want people insulted is for legal reasons. We don't want people insulted because it doesn't achieve anything and gives the site and its users a bad reputation. We'd like to think we're better than that.

Fair enough, but I cant help but feel the reason why is that you are afraid more celebs wont do interviews. I recall(I paraphrase) you saying "I dont think we will have many more interviews after this reaction"

Sorry I edited my post and added more in since you copied that. As above, I don't want a bad reputation for the site.

I did make a comment about no more interviews, pretty much as you said it. If no more "celebs" (and let me put under that public representatives, politicians, business people, TV personalities and the like) want to do interviews with us, then that's okay. In many ways, it's their loss, since the only times they normally do "press" is when they have something to sell or want to boost their reputation. It also means a lot less work for me. However, it's also a pity that the actions of a few reflect on the whole site.

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Fair enough if you do't want abuse, but tell us the real reasons why.

Because it gives the site a bad reputation and puts people off interacting, reading, joining, posting or being involved. It also paints everyone who uses Boards.ie with the same brush.

Personally, I don't want to work with a company like that. If Boards.ie official policy was "Ah, let people insult, offend and abuse as much as they like and we'll only deal with it when we're brought to court", I wouldn't work for them.

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

What you mention there is me accusing him of doing something, it would be that which is defamatory, not the insult itself which is what Darragh is saying.

No, actually I'm not. This isn't about hiding behind the law, this is being aware of it too.

Say for example someone constantly posted on Boards.ie about "Darragh Doyle" saying "He's some f*cker, some ar5ehole, some c*nt" and that was allowed to go on and on.

Conceivably, shouldn't I (a) be allowed to ask Boards.ie to get that to stop, (b) sign up and challenge the anonymous poster, and/or (c) potentially claim that this was constant harassment, it gave me a bad reputation and could harm any future hopes of me being hired? Wouldn't that constant abuse "injure my reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society"? Wouldn't it also be thoroughly unpleasant for me or anyone related to me, friends with me or just idly reading the thread to read?

Nodin

Darragh wrote: »

I'm not worried about the reputation of the nation. I'm concerned with the reputation of the site. .

....by overly regulating peoples mode of expression and having the arrogance to presume to do so. The normal tack taken is that its 'unsuitable' for certain parts of the site, which is fair enough.

How the reputation of an Irish site is adversely affected by reflecting the common speech of its population may indeed be the subject of a future thread.

Darragh wrote: »

I republished my comment in full this morning on this thread. I didn't feel it was patronising or arrogant, more direct, comprehensive and uncompromising, but you can't please everyone and everyone has their own interpretation of things. .

Ahhh yes. The advertisers and your struggles.

You throw abuse at people, expect them to come back with a retort.

.......remarkable that it contained that, considering.

Darragh wrote: »

Like my interpretation of people "responding in kind" and your own. If it had been real "responding in kind", people would have done so under their own names, just as he did. My issue is never with the responses, it's with the abuse.

Do we want Boards.ie to be known as a site that condones or encourages abuse?.

You seemed to be perfectly content to have abuse come from the interviewee. Given that, I'd imagine similar responses would be viewed as fair comment.

Darragh wrote: »

I'm hardly whinging. Just in my mind, you don't need to refer to someone as a c*nt to make a point.?.

Again, I was speaking generally, more in reference to "fuck", "feck" and the use thereof.

Darragh wrote: »

I'd love to publish the solicitors letters, but I'm sure I'd come up against data protection issues if we did. .

...why not get an authoritive legal opinion.

Darragh wrote: »

Also, what would that achieve? People comment and we still have to deal with the issue of what's happened, gather the necessary evidence and go through the process - all taking time, money and resource that would be better spent educating people who use the site not to post up stuff that will get them into trouble.

Nobody has a clue what "stuff" would get them in trouble from what I can see. This had "abuse" deleted, but was kept locked despite a good deal of accurate criticism. What was "in"? What was "offside"? Does that occur should an article on Libya, Israel or the Dail be subject to the same level of scrutiny

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056086047

I don't see any great effort to "educate" anyone there.

Aidric

I'm genuinely surprised that anyone who watched that McSavage interview came to the conclusion that his comments were made in spite or further an attack on the boards community. They were clearly made in jest as was obvious from the tone in which they were delivered.

I didn't see that AH thread but it sounds like a cringey affair.

Nodin

Aidric wrote: »

I'm genuinely surprised that anyone who watched that McSavage interview came to the conclusion that his comments were made in spite or further an attack on the boards community. They were clearly made in jest as was obvious from the tone in which they were delivered.

I didn't see that AH thread but it sounds like a cringey affair.

...to be honest, I can't think of anyone that could make such a remark and not get that kind of reaction from posters. I'd imagine if it was Tiernan or a bigger name, it would have been worse. Thats just the way of it. The idea that (a) can say something along those lines and (b) can't is what irked me, however.