The demise (or otherwise) of The Polite Discussion Board

[absolutezero]

I don't see quite the same thing happening here as the modding is strict, but the overall effect is similar, in that allowing general politics to be discussed at all is turning out to be damaging the site.

Which, in itself could be a problem.
Moderation could open the site to being Publisher rather than Platform.
Moderation is a double edged sword.

I would suggest sticking to being PURELY a finance forum.

[johnhemming]

I think there are too many who feel they have an entitlement to have the PD board.

I think there is a real difficulty in that there is obviously a relationship between investment and wider political issues.

[johnhemming]

Moderation could open the site to being Publisher rather than Platform.

Section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013 does not take into account whether or not there is moderation. It was previously an issue, but I am not aware of any more recent case which have qualified in any way that Section.

On my blog I operate pre-moderation. When someone was convicted for making death threats against me, in fact they were posted in the comments on my blog. It may not surprise you to know that I did not let them through.

I think for TLF post moderation is sensible and I am not aware of any legal provision which would make the operator(s) more liable - unless they modified the posts in a manner to make them defamatory.

[AsleepInYorkshire]

I think there are too many who feel they have an entitlement to have the PD board.

I think there is a real difficulty in that there is obviously a relationship between investment and wider political issues.

I'm sure you're right John. However, I don't think our moderators would want to take that into consideration. There is a TLF board for Macro & Global Topics which I think I've posted on occasionally which could perhaps absorb some more of the more restrained postings. Clearly the [volunteer] moderators have an issue and as you've pointed out there's also a further admin issue which perhaps has some risk attached to it.

Most of the moderators appear to be suggesting that the "debate" on PD is not constructive. And some have been more frank than others. I can't see a genuine case for PD to remain part of TLF. It's important to note that on balance that's a sad conclusion.

AiY

[johnhemming]

The problem with legal issues is that often they are not an issue until they are and then it can be too late.

Hence I take the view that it is best to ensure that the legal protection is in place.

[chas49]

I still find it hard to see any sense of proportion where anonymous posters see fit to to engage real life lawyers to protect their anonymous on-line reputations. But even so, that seems to be what happened.

(my bold above)
Not all posters and their associated reputations are anonymous though are they? Some members here are are readily identifiable and some have been on the receiving end of actionable slurs before. Were everyone fully anonymous I would agree with you, but that isn't the case on this forum. Perhaps if everyone were identifiable and realised they are responsible for their actions it would lessen some of the keyboard warrior antics.

True, a few here are publicly identifiable myself included.

But this sidesteps the point I was trying (and apparently failing) to make, which is, how can an anonymous profile be defamed at all, when no-one knows who it is?

That's a very good question (and I don't know the answer to it). Can you defame an unknown (to you) person?

I would think it depends on what the potential defamatory words say.

If you posted something saying that UnknownPerson (UP) is a sex offender, and UP says that's defamatory - assuming that they haven't been convicted of such an offence, their claim to be able to pursue you for defamation would appear pretty strong. It seems pretty clear that such a statement would be defamatory about anyone (except a sex offender).

There must be instances though where a particular statement is only defamatory if it's made about a certain class of person. Or are there? Now I've suggested it, I'm struggling to come up with a good example. Any takers (without breaching site rules)?

[johnhemming]

That's a very good question (and I don't know the answer to it). Can you defame an unknown (to you) person?

If the person concerned can be identified by someone who reads it other than the person concerned.

[dealtn]

(my bold above)
Not all posters and their associated reputations are anonymous though are they? Some members here are are readily identifiable and some have been on the receiving end of actionable slurs before. Were everyone fully anonymous I would agree with you, but that isn't the case on this forum. Perhaps if everyone were identifiable and realised they are responsible for their actions it would lessen some of the keyboard warrior antics.

True, a few here are publicly identifiable myself included.

But this sidesteps the point I was trying (and apparently failing) to make, which is, how can an anonymous profile be defamed at all, when no-one knows who it is?

That's a very good question (and I don't know the answer to it). Can you defame an unknown (to you) person?

I would think it depends on what the potential defamatory words say.

If you posted something saying that UnknownPerson (UP) is a sex offender, and UP says that's defamatory - assuming that they haven't been convicted of such an offence, their claim to be able to pursue you for defamation would appear pretty strong. It seems pretty clear that such a statement would be defamatory about anyone (except a sex offender).

There must be instances though where a particular statement is only defamatory if it's made about a certain class of person. Or are there? Now I've suggested it, I'm struggling to come up with a good example. Any takers (without breaching site rules)?

Well I guess there might be instances where an individual has identified him/herself as belonging to a class of people without identifying themselves. I won't use your example, but say "footballer", "company director", "accountant". Then an accusation of "you are all crooks, overpaid, fraudsters" or whatever is levelled at you personally, since all accountants are fraudsters, you are an accountant, therefore you are a fraudster etc.

Somewhat tenuous to expect that to be libellous maybe, but then I don't know the law.

I don't think I can be identified personally here, but previous posts I have voluntarily made here are enough to identify me as belonging to an identifiable group though. (Not a footballer, but close, yes a Director, no not an accountant).

[Gengulphus]

Standards of behaviour should be the same everywhere.

I agree with you about this. There is, however, an argument that either

a) The board needs sufficient information about all posters to provide legal protection under S5 DA2013 ... or
b) The board needs the same information about those posters posting in PD and anything materially contentious is handled there.

Defamatory comments can potentially be made on any board, regardless of whether that board is intended to handle "materially contentious" matters, so your option b) is not sufficient to completely deal with litigation risk to do with defamation (*). It would probably reduce that risk considerably, due to the discussions elsewhere being less likely to become heated to the point that people make defamatory comments, but it won't eliminate that risk.

However, Section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013 does not itself say what information the website operator must have about posters. Instead, it says that it's a defence for website operators to actions for defamation that they did not post the defamatory statement(s) themselves, unless they either acted maliciously or failed to respond as required by regulations to a 'notice of complaint' from the complainant. Those and related regulations are in https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2013/9780111104620, and as far as I can see, they don't actually require website operators to be in possession of any information that personally identifies the poster, nor even any means of communicating privately with the poster. What they say about communicating privately with the poster is basically just that if the website operator doesn't have an email address or other electronic means of doing so, or if they do so but receive no response from the poster, they should take down the statements complained about within 48 hours (disregarding weekends and bank holidays). And what they say about information that personally identifies the poster is basically just that the poster should either consent to the statements complained about being taken down or provide their full name and address to the website operator, plus whether they consent to the website operator passing those details on to the complainant, and accordingly either pass the details on to the complainant or inform the complainant that the poster has not consented to them being passed on.

Or more briefly, provided a website reasonably promptly takes down statements simply because they've been complained about, the website operator doesn't even need posters' email addresses, and even if they don't want to take down complained-about statements that readily, they don't need anything more than posters' email addresses.

Caveats about the above: it's a summary, so I haven't even tried to give every last detail; I really do mean the "as far as I can tell" (I'm a layman with some skill at reading formal documentation, not a lawyer, and even if I were a lawyer, I'd require substantial payment for a proper legal opinion!); I cannot be certain I haven't missed a later version of the regulations.

(*) In case anyone is wondering why various subjects have been relegated to Polite Discussions when that relegation isn't sufficient to deal with that litigation risk, that risk is not the explanation we've had previously of why Polite Discussions exists and is handled the way it is. Instead, that explanation is that it deals with advertisers not wanting their products to be associated with various opinions on contentious issues in internet search results, with the way Polite Discussions is handled removing it from internet searches.

Gengulphus

[JamesMuenchen]

But this sidesteps the point I was trying (and apparently failing) to make, which is, how can an anonymous profile be defamed at all, when no-one knows who it is?

That's a very good question (and I don't know the answer to it). Can you defame an unknown (to you) person?

It's not only directed at member names though.

Some time ago I reported a post where a prominent politician was called, among other things, a prick.

The mod (I think it might even have been Chas) removed it, but the comments in the mod box made it clear that he didn't want to and that the politician was unlikely to see it anyway. Net effect being I am unlikely to report such things here in the future.

There is a lot of name-calling on this site and I think the mods are very indulgent of it. Some even partake themselves.

I think the old TMF moderation was better. Not only the zero-tolerance of abuse, but without the means to edit posts you would lose the whole thing. People generally learnt not to do it, and those that couldn't moved to Investopedia.

I withdrew from Polite Discussions a short while ago, after the pointlessness got to me. The site is better without it IMV.

[BobbyD]

It's worth remembering when considering PD that one of the reason it sometimes resembles a sewer is because any [expletive deleted] which looks like it might get contentious and cause the mods some serious work gets slung in there, to be contained behind closed doors. This makes the rest of the site look a lot cleaner and more orderly than it would otherwise, while disrupting the potential for decent discussion of political topics. To assume that removing PD would have no affect on the comportment of the rest of the site might be unwise.

[quelquod]

The problem with legal issues is that often they are not an issue until they are and then it can be too late.

Hence I take the view that it is best to ensure that the legal protection is in place.

I bow to your knowledge of the law, I’m a fairly ignorant layman. I would never post on a board where my identity is known or likely to be inferred. Similarly I only use Facebook and the like in a private family circle (a considered risk!); there are some strange people around. I routinely use anonymous email addresses and virtual IPs and I’d say it would be onerous in the extreme for discussion board hosts to trace me, including from the phone number I would offer.

Is this really a practical requirement? ISTM that it would obliterate discussion boards at a stroke.

[johnhemming]

Or more briefly, provided a website reasonably promptly takes down statements simply because they've been complained about, the website operator doesn't even need posters' email addresses, and even if they don't want to take down complained-about statements that readily, they don't need anything more than posters' email addresses.

I don't know what case law there is relating to S5.

There are additional complications in that it is possible to take legal action against anonymous people.

I suppose I have a tendency to look for belt and braces on things.

[johnhemming]

Is this really a practical requirement? ISTM that it would obliterate discussion boards at a stroke.

There are routes towards finding out information about people who are using particular web sites.The logs can contain IP addresses and that can point to particular properties. However, it is possible to use unusual routing schemes (such as TOR) to conceal that.

Obviously this would not affect people who post under their own names.

[Lootman]

That said I notice that my "number of posts" tally has declined a bit, which I assume can only happen when topics I contribute to are deleted. So maybe I was there and just have a thick skin for verbal abuse.

It will happen when one or more posts of yours are deleted. That could happen either as a result of the entire topic (thread) that it's in being deleted (the situation you're envisaging) or as a result of your specific post(s) being deleted.

Those aren't the only reasons why a post count can decline, or at least they weren't about 15.5 months ago when I posted viewtopic.php?p=255656#p255656 - it was clear then that whether I was in or out of the Polite Discussions group affected the post counts I could see for other people (quite possibly for myself as well, but I don't think I checked that at the time). So it might be that all the Polite Discussions posts are still there, just no longer visible. Indeed, the same can be true for deleted posts, as various comments made by moderators in the past indicate that posts can be "soft deleted", so that they're still there but no longer visible to non-moderators, or "hard deleted", so that they're really gone - the difference of course being that soft deletion can be reversed, hard deletion cannot.

It looked to me that my count decremented by about 150. That seems too high to be the result of posts of mine being individually reported and deleted, at least overnight! But it is too little to indicate that every post I have ever made to PD has been removed.

That is why I concluded that some topics had been removed in their entirety, but not all. But of course I am just speculating here, and wondering if any other Lemon also had a decrease? (I am fairly certain I am not the culprit here).

There is, of course, an argument to keep PD, but to require that anyone that subscribes to that provides sufficient information to TLF about who they are so that were there to be any legal questions then the website is protected.

Requiring Lemons to identify themselves in real life is fraught with problems as a practical matter, and would require work for the site administrators or moderators. Right now you can join TLF with just an email address, or at least that was the case when I joined. An email address does little to identify anyone. Some sites require a phone number in order to join the site, as a code is texted to the applicant. But again phone numbers can also be throwaway these days. Likewise IP addresses are not much use these days to track someone down with all the use of VPNs and mobile wifi.

So what you propose would require something like what banks do to verify identification. Not only is that an onerous task but it is likely to lead many Lemons to quite simply refuse to be in TLF at all.

And this goes to the related question of how someone can defame an anonymous person? Seems to me that any damage is limited to the TLF persona itself. If someone really felt that their TLF reputation has been ruined then there is still no financial loss that could be claimed. And the person could always shut down their TLF account and start over with a new one in that case.

[Lootman]

So I don't think the answer to your question "how often does anyone have their mind changed on an important topic by a post on a message board?" is at all clear.

From my personal point of view I have learnt things which I think are important from reading posts on TLF. Hence even if I often don't learn anything it is a useful process for me personally because from time to time I do learn things.

At times I learn things from people I disagree with. That inherently has the effect of changing my view on issues as I base my opinions on the facts I am aware of.

Yes, and in fact reading a good point made by someone with a different view can help one develop better counter-arguments for the future. In a sense it is a form of mental preparation for future debates.

So it can be true both that I never have my mind changed on PD (*) AND that I learn things there. You might lose the battle but still win the war.

(*) In my view the reason people rarely change their mind or admit to being wrong on PD is because political matters are not really about facts, but rather about values and preferences. And values are more embedded and structural than mere facts.

[johnhemming]

You might lose the battle but still win the war.

(*) In my view the reason people rarely change their mind or admit to being wrong on PD is because political matters are not really about facts, but rather about values and preferences. And values are more embedded and structural than mere facts.

I approach things differently which is that I am trying to identify what the truth is. There are situations where values and preferences are relevant, but working out what really is going on is a separate process.

Hence I don't see it as a "war".

[Lootman]

You might lose the battle but still win the war.

(*) In my view the reason people rarely change their mind or admit to being wrong on PD is because political matters are not really about facts, but rather about values and preferences. And values are more embedded and structural than mere facts.

I approach things differently which is that I am trying to identify what the truth is. There are situations where values and preferences are relevant, but working out what really is going on is a separate process.

Hence I don't see it as a "war".

Most of the heat, light, sound and fury I have seen in PD is about Brexit, and there it really has felt like a war, with facts and statistics sacrificed on the alter of peoples' structural biases.

That said I have no idea if the offending topic that caused this ruckus was a Brexit topic or not. But if I never see another Brexit post on this site, that might not be the worst thing.

[johnhemming]

That said I have no idea if the offending topic that caused this ruckus was a Brexit topic or not. But if I never see another Brexit post on this site, that might not be the worst thing.

I don't know what has kicked this off. I was subject to some abusive and defamatory posts, but I decided to complain about this and then ignore it. (and ignore people who were rude as well).

[XFool]

(*) In my view the reason people rarely change their mind or admit to being wrong on PD is because political matters are not really about facts, but rather about values and preferences. And values are more embedded and structural than mere facts.

I approach things differently which is that I am trying to identify what the truth is. There are situations where values and preferences are relevant, but working out what really is going on is a separate process.

The key point here, I think, is to differentiate between pure "politics" and "reality" - insofar as that is possible, of course.
Some situations ARE pure "politics", some are, ultimately, about reality. In the latter case, "political" opinions can get in the way. IMO.

I realise this may be too idealistic a view. Also that, in practice, the two may become interwoven. I'm sure we can all think of situations where that is the case. I know I can.