Yes I read the original thread but I honestly can’t remember who poster B is but I know poster A is an monster, possibly immortal, who can say.
I hope I’m not out of line by saying the original OP was one where a certain doper was being asked what the hell was wrong with him/her. That doper was not A nor B though.
Well, heck, if folks are willing to e-mail the IDs of these folks, I’m willing to be part of the clique. Anybody wanna share with the Dark Lord?
Just another doper who really wants to know who these two alphabet people were. E-mail is in profile and would be greatly appreciated!
Yeah, I got that, I thought it was hot air too. In fact, I still think so. I happen to think that Poster A was way out of line, the substitution of an ethnicity for a worldview was inappropriate because what was being criticized was a natural aspect of the worldview, but NOT a natural aspect of the substituted ethnicity. Poster A was clearly being a jerk, but it was in the Pit, where I am under the impression that a certain amount of jerkyness is tolerated. But it WAS clear what poster A was doing, I never thought for a moment that Poster B had actually said the substituted text, and I certainly can see how the SMDB would not appreciate the threat of a lawsuit. (though banning seems to be a bit futile)
What concerns me about this is that Ed seems to be saying that intentionally misquoting someone is now also a bannable offense, but that’s a very broad rule. Just about everyone paraphrases other posters in GD, clearly they don’t mean to shut that down entirely, but we no longer have a concrete example of what is over the line anymore.
Also, what’s the point of having a pit if you have to be polite to other posters in it?
I’m sure it’s more along the lines of “maliciously misquoting someone for the purpose of undermining their posts”. Personally, I’m glad that his new rule came about. One of my pet peeves in debates is when someone misrepresents the opposition’s viewpoint just to score some cheap points.
There’s a difference between parodying someone else’s words for humorous, light-hearted purposes, and deliberately lying about what someone else said in a debate.
I agree that ethnicity != worldview, but if Poster B had used “Musilm” in place of “Jew” would you still think it jerkish behavior? How 'bout Catholic?
The reason I ask that there was a follow-up conversation in that thread where Poster B made it clear that he wasn’t aware that Judiasm was an ethnicity as well as a religion. It’s not common knowledge apparently, given the number of discussions we’ve had on the board about it. (If you do a search, you’ll find a thread where it took several Jewish Dopers some effort to convince me of it, and I’m Jewish!)
So I don’t think that Poster B was jerkish for that post. If he’d used “Black”, I’d feel differently.
Fenris
Subtle. :rolleyes:
Honestly, if we’re restricting the identities of the posters to being discussed off-board, hints like this have no place here either. If you’ve agreed not to talk about the identities of the posters in question, don’t do it. It’s not particularly cute to hint at identities without naming names. Let it go.
I’ve already sent out about 30 of these today, so I repeat my offer: anyone who wants to know the story, just email me and ask. I’m not keeping track of who I have and haven’t emailed about it, so I’m not gonna email people based on requests in this thread (let’s be honest – it’s just too much work), but I’m more than happy to respond to emailed queries.
You may have missed it, Fenris, but I already responded to that point you’re making. It is worse to condemn on the basis of religion than the basis of political ideology.
minty green Although slander requires proof of sepcial damages, libel does not–at least in TX…
I think (this is off top of head) it’s TRPC section 71.003…
The libel just has to tend to damage the reputation in accordance with the statute…
Which SUCKS in my personal opinion…I didn’t realize how easy it is to claim libel…
BBJ
You mean Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code section 73.001:
The trick to that, of course, is that “defamation” is not defined in the statute, so the courts import the common law definition of defamation, which does require proof of damages to reputation. See, e.g., Doe v. Mobile Video Tapes, Inc., 43 S.W.3d 40, 48 (Tex. App.–Corpus Christi 2001, no pet.). Thus, a Texas libel plaintiff still has to come up with proof of damages or prove libel per se.
Now I’m not entirely sure of that conclusion, since I don’t have Dorsaneo or O’Connor’s with me at home, but that’s the way it looks to me after a few case law searches on mytexasbar.
If poster A had used Muslim, and Poster B had replaced it with Jew, that would be an apples for apples substitution. (Jew used as religion/ethnicity).
But the original word was ‘conservative’ which is a philosophy chosen by intellect NOT by either faith or by birth. Furthermore,
while definitely a rant, Poster A was also making a criticism of ideas that ARE relevant to conservative thought. Insulting, yes, but also on point. Switching to Jew substuted ethnicity/religion for governing philosophy, and also removed all of the context that made the rant relevant, thus making it appear to be thoughtlessly cruel.
It was a sleazy debaters trick, and and definitely the behavior of a jerk. But it was also in the PIT, and if you can’t handle being the butt of a mean joke in the PIT, then you should just not go there.
I certainly don’t think that threating a libel suit was an appropriate response.
psst Tejota - I feel confident that what Fenris was saying was:
Poster original post “conservatives are/do blah blah blah”
Other poster (I keep getting A/B mixed up), “well, if you substitute ‘Muslim’ instead of conservative, you get, blah blah blah”
not, had the one poster been talking about Jews and the other substituted Muslim.
My head hurts now.
I’d just like to point out to people than if this threatened lawsuit was a winnable one, then continuing to “publish” the original statements via email or other messageboards would not be a smart move.
The devil with defamation actions is that they are extremely expensive to defend even if the court vindicates you in the end - something which the insurers of media outlets (and the CR is most certainly one of those) take into account when deciding their premiums.
I hate to point out the obvious, but the CR doesn’t consider this messageboard as having enough “goodwill” value to spend money on replacing the server - they sure as heck can’t be expected to regard it as being worth the cost of either legal fees spent on defending defamation actions or increased insurance premiums…
Goody! I’m in! I was there!
And I’m not telling…
Sorry, I guess I wasn’t clear. I think it would have been ok to substitue Muslim if the original poster had used Jew (or visa versa). But it would never be valid to substitute <racial category> or <religious category> for ‘conservative’ in order to make a point. If he couldn’t make a point by substituting ‘liberal’ for ‘conservative’ then he didn’t have a point to make.
Don’t worry about private republication, reprise. Though it was certainly the better part of valor for Ed to place the (nonlibelous, IMPO) thread out of view, libel via republication only works against the people who republish. If I tell you something defamatory about Cecil Adams and you repeat it to Ann Landers, Cecil can sue me for telling you, but he has to go after you for telling Ann.
I’d like to back up tom’s point regarding Fathom. I’d really rather leave this mess here rather than drag it over there. Thanks.
Which is the point I was trying to make minty, that private individuals CAN be pursued for “republication” - although they usually are not because they don’t possess assets or insurance which make it worthwhile…