LCU blog discontinued

phnompenhchess wrote: »

I think that's my point on moderating here, anyone could be doing it with any slant they felt like putting on it. For all I know you could be Peter, Jonathan, Colm, John or (God forbid) me.

<--- points to own photo, name and other profile data.
That's rather a lot to fake.
However, again, we're back to the same point - either the LCU/ICU don't want the legal liability associated with the editorial control, or they want the editorial control associated with the legal liability. So long as both publication of news and open discussion are wanted, the two are tied together.

I think I did suggest above that the publication of news and the open discussion don't actually have to be done in the same place or controlled by the same editorial board, if that helps with thinking about a solution any.

At the moment, correct.

phnompenhchess wrote: »

I'll leave it at that.

20 years away from the game, I finally get back into it a few months ago, help start up a club at work, start going to my local club a month or so ago to play there and try out for the league teams come September. I've also gone through the whole "boards or not" meme from both within and without a national governing body, and I've been doing the moderator thing on here for a few years now. But I suppose you're right, what could my opinion possibly be worth?

Interesting, none of the usual.compulsive blog contributor types, from leinster chess blog? Perhaps your all away this weekend ? Is it possible to have a word from anybody on the i c u executive? Anybody there ?

How do you force someone to post under their own name and always know that it's them posting and not someone who guessed/was given their username/password?
And if (say) the ICU sets up such an "unmoderated" (it really is moderated if you've got posting policies, its just not moderated enough to keep you safe from lawsuits) forum, and they don't catch such a thing happening, how open are they to be sued for allowing defamatory postings by the person being impersonated?

I think perhaps you haven't fully thought through what you're proposing.

bernard palmer wrote: »

Both the i c u and the l c u are unincorporated body s

So, (a) that's a horrible way to set up any NGB or RGB (this is a topic that arose in other sports before); and (b) I wouldn't bet my house (and a lot more money, given the state of the property market these days) on a judge in a defamation case saying that the mod of the LCU blog had nothing to do with the LCU and that they can't be sued because they have no assets, when the LCU has them as an officer/member and is setting moderation policy (if they're not setting policy, then there's no liability... but also no control).

edit: none of which explains how you'll force people to post under their own names (and prove that every post in their names was posted by them).

I do get understand the difference between a limited company and an unincorporated association Bernard, I've been the secretary of both at one time or another; I'm just saying that being unincorporated doesn't do what you think it does in terms of legal liability. The defamation suit would just name the officers of the LCU directly and state that they had a public association and that that association had editorial control over the blog and that therefore they were liable for any suit and before you know where you are, you're up to your eyeballs in solicitors and barristers (and from that position, even if you win you lose because of the cost of defence). As a result, the idea that the LCU could nominate some unemployed member to run the blog and have them as the cut-out doesn't really work (not to mention the ethics of the idea, which stink).

bernard palmer wrote: »

give me an instance of a informal body like the i c u being successfully sued in Ireland

I can think of one off the top of my head from the shooting world, but that predates the current Defamation Act (it was however successful and the club involved wound up saddled with both legal costs and a punitive fine in the five figure range). There was Talbot-v-Hermitage Golf Club after the Defamation Act came in. Talbot lost; however, the point is that he dragged the club into the High (and later Supreme) Courts and even though the club won and won costs, they had no real hope of ever recouping the full amount.

Plus, more practically, they had to pay for the solicitors up front and even with winning costs, not all of their legal costs are covered. That's not a position any unincorporated association would want to find itself in unless its officers were all named parties in a legal insurance policy of some kind.

And more practically still, all that represents time, money, manpower and stress that does not one thing to promote chess. Worse, it would be negative PR for chess (and Cork showed how novel that is for newspapers and how fast they'll jump on it).

So really, why risk it?

Sean Coffey wrote: »

Someone could write a letter to the editor of the Irish Times giving your name and address, and you could equally well be sued for that, but I've never heard of it happening.

No, in that case it'd be the Times for not verifying name and address and for choosing the letter (editorial control == legal liability). And I've had that happen to me (with the Irish Examiner and without the lawsuits thankfully, but with a tendered (unaccepted) resignation from the NGB as a result because of the poor PR it represented). It worked out okay in the end, but it could have gone a whole other way entirely.

Hmm. I may have to brush up on my dragon...but a golf club presumably owning some land equipment buildings and not have article of incorporation?

BTW, this is a lot of scary talk about something that's really easily avoided - we're talking worst case scenario here (I've just seen people go there in other sports and it's an absolute disaster when they do).

If you want to avoid it, it's really quite easy - give up editorial control and you no longer have legal liability. It's only when you have editorial control that you wind up in trouble. So basicly, keep the LCU site and post the news there, but talk about it somewhere else that the LCU isn't responsible for (that could be here, but it could also be anywhere else at all). That's it, that's all you have to do to avoid the liability issues (well, assuming you don't actually post defamatory stuff as news, but if you do that, you deserve the lawsuit )