But by the same token that doesn't mean we should tolerate an erosion in our ability to express our opinions and thoughts. The next step will be them.

I am against all forms of censorship. I believe that rubbish, libellous comments, spurious statements of "fact" will eventually be outed or destroyed by good reasoned debate and the support of solid facts. To rely on censorship to quieten the vocal minorities/idiots is failure.

Not true, i had a lovely evening in Mirfield recently, only the abundance of people speaking funny ruined it.

Firstly I entirely agree with the removal or abusive, aggressive or libelous posts and a warning to the individuals concerned. I am a regular visitor to VD as some will know however that does not mean I agree with that type of behaviour.

My only concern is that of immediate banning or not informing the individual and giving them chance to apologise or agree not to post in that manner again.

I also have some element of concern over interpretation of the behaviour and what constitutes inciting behaviour or agression and if this will be treated differently depending on who it is directed at and your acceptance within the club.

I know John quite well and consider him a friend however when I see this



I find it agressive and offensive, however knowing him and his 'jock' :p tendencies means I would just ignore it as it is not intended to be inciteful. However I could not say the same if someone else posted it that I didn't know.

My concern is how this will be enforced and if it will be used to prevent people posting something which may be challenging to individuals or actions under the get out clause that it was 'inciting'?

Can we go for a rideout yet.?

Nah, it's dark here now and there's a thunderstorm banging away.........:lol:

Lilly

I agree that it is important that people be given the chance to take things down, amend their ways etc. Anyone who has a post removed will be advised and it is normally only repeated abuse of privilage that will get someone suspended. It is necessary that we keep things within the bounds that are acceptable to the society in which we live.

There is nothing wrong with constructive criticism or for people to be able to express their views, you just have to mindfull of the consequenses of what you write if you overstep the bounds of acceptability.

With the changes in the law since the Sheffield FC case and in particular an author who has sucessfully sued for damages, the ground rules by which people can use message boards has changed. The Club is reacting to clarification of the law and needs to protect not only the Club but also its members from the threat of being sued.

As Jools has elequently put further up this thread, when have we ever had complete freedom of speech? There are a whole raft of lawyers just waiting to sue people on a no win no fee basis, if you trip over a paving slab. The payouts from that pale into insignificance compared with libel damages.

If we look at how few threads/posts actually get removed each year we are talking about a tiny minority and there should/always be proper justification for their removal.

Thanks Chris, I guess I was just concerned that there would be bannings left right and centre with no chance for the individuals to state their defence or make amends.

Your post confirms that people will be approached and treated with repect and this makes me feel much better about it.

I agree with all of that, but in the context of this thread it depends on whether everybody who uses this board has the ability to employ good reasoned debate in support of their arguement. It is abundantly clear that not everybody has that capability, and some are quite capable of causing a great deal of offence very quickly.

In my view, these offensive remarks are more often levelled by members against other members rather than directly at the webteam or the MT, so to interpret this policy as something for the MT to hide behind, or exert greater control over views expressed by the members is illogical and, in my view, takes 'MT conspiracy' theories to new heights of paranoia.

Failure it may be to exert some form of 'censorship', but the fact remains that control exists over what people say in public to an enormous extent. As a simple example, supposing that you were in a pub with your partner and someone started to insult them in an extremely offensive way. Supposing that you tried reasoned debate, but you were up against the most oaf-ish individual who was quite clearly too thick to understand the eloquence of your arguement. Would you stand behind your principles of using reason or decide that the time honoured censorship of a smack in the teeth would be more appropriate? If you did that the landlord would be entirely within his rights to throw you both out, since causing an affray might have legal repercussions for him.

Pah I'm not travelling to a 3rd world part of the country, I don't have a 4x4 and I like the convenience of electricity :) ;)

:eek: Not my experience recently with one WT member :o