Third Party Will Decide Fate of Fealk Comments

Well... that's... (0.00 / 0)

Certainly a unique approach.

--Nick
www.RightMichigan.com

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by: Nick @ Wed Feb 20, 2008 at 10:33:19 AM CST

Fealk's comments (0.00 / 0)

The method you are using seems reasonable to me. When you have no prior established precedent, it makes sense to establish one and remove the offensive comments until a third party can evaluate it and create some policy concerning it.

I think you are doing a good and even-handed job in general with this website, Chetly, and you should be commended. Thanks for all the work you obviously put into it

Babs

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by: Barbara @ Wed Feb 20, 2008 at 20:34:13 PM CST

Funny thing though, Chet (0.00 / 0)

I let you and Trent attack me mercilessly on Vote No On Joe and I fought back but never put you through any kind of review process and never considered a warning or banning you from my blog, no matter how outrageous your posts or Trent's posts.  

Even when through private correspondence, I proved to you that my brother's issues with me were not my fault by providing e-mail from the company that runs the web site, you still wouldn't believe my side of the story, I never banned you from my site.  

Besides, no one has said anything in anything I posted was incorrect.

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by: joeshead @ Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 06:11:56 AM CST

Bruce (0.00 / 0)

On Tuesday, you accepted the mediator I proposed.  Are you withdrawing that acceptance?

The difference between my comments on your site and yours in this instance are that you made a factual assertion without sourcing your evidence (well, your evidence is your view of a person's "reputation", which, of course, is pure gossip).

I'm not saying what you posted was correct or incorrect.  I don't have a way of determining that, which is the problem.  It however was inflammatory and if incorrect would be libelous (and maybe a "false light invasion of privacy" even if correct).

As to your brother, the newspapers made public your dispute with him.  I commented on those already public facts.  You sent me e-mail you claimed proved "your side of the story," but in my opinion it did not prove it, for a variety of reasons.  My opinion that you failed to prove your story is an opinion - hardly libelous, hardly news, and hardly something that could be sourced.  The fact that you'd need to "prove your side" in a dispute with your brother, is, in my opinion, evidence that you lost perspective.

I have not frozen your comments because they were "outrageous" - everything you write is outrageous.  I've frozen them because you posted factual claims without evidence (and I can't know they are wrong or right).  And you know from our private exchange here that my objection is only to one very precise bit you published, not the other bits. I have no objection to you telling the world about David Law's DUI (that's up to the voter to decide how important it is, and although I have a clear bias here in that I have a client running against David Law it is not my intention to make this website a large conduit for that information precisely because of my bias) or that Glenn Clark took $10,000 from the McCain campaign (I think knowing where people's money comes from is fair game for reporting, and while it isn't dispositive to an argument (since the argument itself stands or falls regardless of motive), it can show bias and other information that may be relevant in endorsing situations).  Even a blind squirrel gets a nut, and broken clocks are right twice a day.  You filtered the facts you were accurate about in with assertions you had no evidence for (its a nice technique for rhetoric).

There are readers that are wondering what you said.  Obviously detailing it exactly would defeat the purpose.  But the objectionable thing is the type of thing that you'd have to have compelling evidence to publish - or least to publish here in my forum.

There is a difference between fact and opinion.  And "attacks" can be civil or not (although the word attack has an implication - I prefer critique or disagreement).  Of course, I can't control whether you believe my attacks were civil or not, or whether you miss the point about fact and opinion, but I've done my best.

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by: chetly @ Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 15:35:30 PM CST

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