What should forum policy be on defamatory posts?

It's early days yet... their full nature is not yet out... lol... now that they have been granted power...

We were able to tell that something was wrong with Craig Weiler when he was given a little power and that was fast. And, I'm sure that Alex was the one responsible for taking Dave to the dark side by heavily politicizing everything... He didn't treat us as children early on.

[Laird]

the administration should include a disclaimer to avoid getting dragged into a libel action

My research indicates that forum administrators/owners (in the USA, which is where our forum is hosted) are not liable for the defamatory remarks of their members, so this is not a problem.

I don't know... Max later emphasizing that "IONS is all about meditation" does imply that the original  comment assumes that Radin was actively pushing to get a positive result in favor of the meditators or that he omitted information... Either of which would be something worse than just incompetence. In any case, that particular comment wasn't a "challenge", unlike his long-as-hell argument about sound, it was a comment on character.

Just to get it out of the way, I thought his sound argument was ridiculous.

So you are using a string of posts to point to his intention/motive? Did he make a complete post that outright said that Radin was engaging in fraud?

Also, I reserve the right to criticize studies that have questionable backers, or what I suspect is propaganda masquerading as scientific studies when it's tied to, say, big pharmaceutical or agricultural companies/industries.

I think we should hold psi/paranormal researchers and studies to the same standard. I know it's tempting to cut them some slack because they are so marginalized. But I also don't believe in the "extraordinary claims" argument from skeptics (and current scientific climate) either. They should all be held to the same standard.

My research indicates that forum administrators/owners (in the USA, which is where our forum is hosted) are not liable for the defamatory remarks of their members, so this is not a problem.

That hasn't stopped people from filling lawsuits against Topix and actions being taken to unmask individual users.

My research indicates that forum administrators/owners (in the USA, which is where our forum is hosted) are not liable for the defamatory remarks of their members, so this is not a problem.

Having Googled it, I see what you mean. It's interesting, because the situation seems to be very different in the UK.

Just to get it out of the way, I thought his sound argument was ridiculous.

So you are using a string of posts to point to his intention/motive? Did he make a complete post that outright said that Radin was engaging in fraud?

Also, I  reserve the right to criticize studies that have questionable backers, or what I suspect is propaganda masquerading as scientific studies when its tied to, say, big pharmaceutical or agricultural companies/industries.

I think we should hold psi/paranormal researchers and studies to the same standard. I know it's tempting to cut them some slack because they are so marginalized. But I also don't believe in the "extraordinary claims" argument from skeptics (and current scientific climate) either. They should all be held to the same standard.

Of course, all of them dealt with the same issue (it was a diatribe), it's not like I took the other one from a different thread and placed it there out of context.

And no, I'm not advocating that we should cut researchers some slack, but when Max goes after someone, he doesn't seem to care about measuring himself. Remember the Diane Powell incident (in particular the part when he went to her website). I think that he pushed the envelope back then, especially because she had already admitted that the entire thing was preliminary and flawed, and now he was going that way again before seeing the researcher here and being pushed into focusing more on the methodological.

That hasn't stopped people from filling lawsuits against Topix and actions being taken to unmask individual users.

Anyone can file a lawsuit. There has to be a compelling reason for a judge to subpoena records to, as you say, unmask individual users. (However, this doesn't matter when it comes to actions by the deep state, but we can't talk about that here yet ).

Exactly my point... Bailey turned into a tyrant over a period of time, others turned faster as you say. But Skeptiko certainly had a honeymoon period... which then staggered back and forth under the control of different governors... and eventually ended in rebellion.

Skeptiko had viceroys that monitored the lands that the emperor had forsaken to be festered on by, well, us. That system never works in online communities, you only end up with suck-ups and people that do their best just to avoid the authorities (Wikipedia's fascination with its otherwise unremarkable founder, Jimbo Wales, and his disconnection to all but an arbitration committee is another example). So, naturally, when the emperor went mad and the viceroys chose sides, the dissolution of the community soon followed.

[Laird]

Well, before I came to the thread I had assumed the site owners would be legally responsible for what's on the site, at least if something had been brought to their attention. So I was ready to say "Of course the site owners have to be able to protect themselves by removing defamatory material." And that seems reasonable to me anyway.

But I still think it is obviously very difficult to discuss parapsychology without allowing people to say they think cheating has occurred, even if they have only reasons for suspicion rather than proof. I'm afraid I don't have the answer to the difficulty, but I think part of it would have to be taking into account the circumstances of each case rather than applying an inflexible rule. For example, mathematicians should obviously be given more protection than professional psychics   . (How did you find out all that stuff about me, anyway?)

Seriously, I think the possibility of cheating or fraud in faking paranormal phenomena probably should be treated differently from other kinds of defamation (such as sex offences and so on). And perhaps when it comes to such cheating the line could be drawn between stating it as an opinion and stating it as a fact if it's unproven. But that would probably leave you with difficult decisions, because sceptics often claim fraud has been proven when proponents don't accept that it has.

OK. Thanks for this post, Chris, it's very helpful to at least me. Maybe we could consider in the rest of this thread (aside from whatever else people want to discuss related to the topic) what the circumstances are (if any) under which a moderator should intervene in cases of potentially defamatory content.

I think based on your above post that you are saying: (1) only in allegations such as sex offences ("and so on", which unfortunately leaves a lot out, but then you did say that a strict rule is impossible to formulate), but not with respect to allegations of cheating or fraud in faking paranormal phenomena, and (2) only when asserting as fact a blatant falsehood, and not when offering an opinion (or, presumably, a suggestion or possibility).

I understand that berkelon is saying: only for blatant hate speech - otherwise, moderators should just stay out of it.

Personally, the perspective you guys along with Max are putting is becoming appealing to me, and here's why: we started this forum on the basis that moderation would be liberal. I am not so sure that policing defamatory claims, for which the forum itself is not anyway legally liable, is a particularly liberal policy.

I'd like for us to "get back to basics" in this respect.

Anyhow, there's where I'm at right now.