People consistently ask; The approach is based upon what I believe to be reasonable.
Negative feedback can usually be split into two areas;
1) Accusation of dishonesty
You may not identify someone you are accusing of dishonesty or a dishonest act. And, by the way, the following would all identify Tesco and would be uacceptable;
The supermarket with advert x.
The supermarket with a name which rhymes with Fresco.
Tesc0 or T3sco.
etc.
An accusation of a dishonest act would be "I paid for two but they only did one", "This company is a rip-off" and other similar comments.
You may know that what you say is absolutely true; I do not know this. Neither am I prepared to put the amount of time, money and effort into the level of investigation which would be required for me to know that you were being truthful.
You may know that they have lost a court case over it - usually I do not know this.
Therefore, I am always working on the basis that I do not know that what you say is true, and will assume that it may not be.
If what you say is not true, then this represents a serious issue for the website. It may be that a case can be won, or indeed that it can be deflected to you rather than ourselves, however either will take time and money even when completely in the right, never mind if in the wrong, and so it is not a risk that we will take.
Even if what you say is true, it will still cost money, time and effort to prove/justify/explain that it is true, and I'm not willing to do that either.
If you wish to give a negative message about a vendor, I find that the following phrase works well enough; "I would not recommend supplier X and will happily supply more details by e-mail".
2) Opinion of Product/Service
You may say that you do not like something. You may even say that you think it is rubbish - my views on the Freelander would be an example. You may say that you find it awful or that you would never buy it. On the whole opinions that are clearly that, opinions, are usually acceptable.
That is not to say that I will not remove the more extreme opinions; again I will err on the side of safety.
Finally, to sum up, anything that I feel will cause the website difficulties or extra work, or even something which I think might do so, will get removed. Generally I follow the principles I've stated above, but if I have a doubt I always err on the side of caution.
I hope that makes it clearer. You may comment if you wish. We'll discuss it a bit and I'll take note of any valid comments. Then it will all get deleted and this will remain.
Mark.
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It seems very reasonable, and wise, to avoid possibility of legal trouble as much as possible. I quote from Jerome K. Jerome's 'Three Men on the Bummel' - that word is German for roaming, by the way.
"If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, I should refuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it by force, I feel I should, though not a fighting man, do my best to protect it. If, on the other hand, he should assert his intention of trying to obtain it by means of an action in any court of law, I should take it out of my pocket and hand it to him, and think I had got off cheaply."
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Your comments are very fair, sensible and reasonable.
It can be quite astonishing just what outlandish diatribes some people are prepared to put into writing/express in the public domain and then claim they are within their rights under the guise of freedom of speech.
There's a fine dividing line and those that step over it deserve to face the consequences.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Mark,
Can I suggest a response to the free-speech advocates?
They are indeed free to say whatever they wish. All they have to do is buy a server, connect it to the web, set up a website on the server, and they may then speak with complete freedom.
At their own risk, naturally.
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Apparently one of the unofficial football fan website had something posted on it that was taken down within 10 minutes but the chairman of the club is now sueing the site for a squillion pounds and the site is trying to raise funds to defend itself.
I think this sort of thing is an attack on free speech but then I wouldn't want to be the person defending the action...
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the only places with free speech in this country are parliament and speakers corner in Hyde park
otherwise you are always open to liable and defamation, incitement, etc charges
Now if the server was owned by an off shore company, in a dodgy third world nation, and the servers were also similarly sited, and anyone who posted spoofed their IP address, then you would be close to a site for free speech, whether you would like it or not is another question
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