h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Tango

If you don't mind me asking (and I do realise it may be a little while before your reply appears), but why are you on Pre-Mod?

Verc

Long story. To summerise: I made an account called "Atled" and with it attempted to join the CAs so i could find out what was going on in there. I made a stupid mistake, and was discovered. In the threads that followed i was a little blunt with a few people, and due to a misunderstanding of what defamation is, that italics decided to hide a large number of my posts and give me an official warning. Then, a little later, i got involved with a thread on Spooks journal on which we were trying to post as fast as possible, and were essentially flooding the site. Most of the people on that thread got warnings, but, as i has already been warned not long before, i was put on premod.

I have exchanged quite a few emails with the italics on the matter, and expect to not be on premod much longer. The italics probably to not expect the same.

Tango

"and due to a misunderstanding of what defamation is...."

Hmmmm, where was the misunderstanding?

<./>HouseRules-Defamation</.>

Defamation is telling lies about someone, it is not just insulting someone. If what you say about someone is true, it isn't defamation.

Tango

No, defamation is not necessarily telling lies about someone, although it usually is.

When person A says something negative about person B that has the potential to harm B's reputation, and person A either:

* knows it for a fact to be untrue (i.e., told a lie)
* did not bother to verify the accuracy of their statement (i.e., acted in willful ignorance).

then it's defamation. In the latter case, the person making the statement may believe their statement to be true, but does not have adequate evidence to back up their claim.

You, for example, have been observed on many occasions here on h2g2 to insist that certain people are "stupid". As has been pointed out to you more than once, while you may have evidence to determine that individual actions of theirs are "stupid", you do not have access to sufficient evidence that the person as a whole is "stupid". Thus, that would qualify as a negative statement, with the potential to cause harm to the person so described, and made in willful ignorance of the veracity of the situation. (Note: there were clearly other statements involved that other people found perhaps even more offensive, but this example is perhaps the simplest to work from.)

However, defamation also has other requirements, which are less clear.

For example, most courts have ruled that defamation needs to involve intentional malice -- by definition, virtually impossible in most cases to prove. On the other hand, if someone persists in making defamatory statements after being informed that the statements were causing harm, some would believe malice to be implied. Myself, I don't think that logically follows, but that's another issue, and not what you claim caused the misunderstanding.

Given all this, I have the impression that you still are less than clear on what defamation is.

I also don't see any evidence at all that the italics misunderstood the meaning of defamation.

I have, however, seen evidence that their approach to dealing with defamation onsite has been uneven at times, which can make it difficult for people to interpret where the boundaries of the rules are. But I still don't see how anything they did was a result of a misunderstanding on their part.

But of course you can't see it. It's been hidden, hasn't it?

Tango