Posted by Coordinator on September 09, 2012 at 18:15:27
In Reply to: Re: To Farmer posted by FH on September 09, 2012 at 14:24:39:
There is no "slander," no legal side to this issue, because no one put any legal name, time, address, etc. to the accusation. Anyone can say anything about anyone on the Internet, unfortunately. As we state in our guidelines, all board users bear full responsibility for whatever they post. We are not law enforcement or a court of law. It is not our job to ascertain the veracity of anything, but to facilitate communication within the rules and guidelines, within the mandate of our site.
The use of hypotheticals is at best "melodramatic." We cannot possibly deal with what-if's. They are limitless and can be twisted in any direction:
What if "Davida" were to come back saying she realized she'd made a mistake, but saw that we had shut her down, censored her?
What if we had decided not let the post through and it was true?
What if we were accused of siding with FGs against SGs?
What if "Davida" had further details to give that would make it apparent who the real perpetrator was, but we blocked it?
What if Farmer's temper makes him look more guilty?
What if Farmer knew of a Davida, but had his own version of the story and needed a chance to set the record straight once and for all?
What if this was all just a provocation and it would soon become apparent who the culprit was and the post had to be left up as evidence of this person's gross violation of our rules?
You still seem to be essentially saying that Farmer is on ice because of this particular provocation. That is not the case at all, as has been explained--he was already well on his way, as he has repeatedly rejected our attempts at moderating him.
If you feel that allowing such posts is a bad reflection of our website, that's too bad. We accept that it comes with the territory. We do not censor or block, until exchanges have run their course and become pointless. We open shop to provide a service, and our "customers" are not easy. We deal with a range of issues from abused trying to get justice, to cult adherents trying to use us for their own agendas, to all manner of deceit and games.
FYI, this post by "Davida" is less than two weeks old. We had meant to allow things to run their course, to give Davida a chance to follow up and would eventually have deleted it as a courtesy to Farmer, had it become apparent that it was a malicious or frivolous accusation.