The Hidden Paw ([info]hiddenpaw) wrote,
@ 2009-04-30 10:01:00
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A Letter from Jo - Pass the Lama Prod
This morning I received an Email from Whitby Jo (I almost called it a Letter, I'm obviously listening to to way to many period dramas)

It said:


Dear Marcony

I have been forwarded your Live Journal posting this evening.

Not only is it inflammatory, it is also libellous.

Please remove this post within the next 24 hours or i shall take appropriate legal steps


To which My response was to ask her which post and what was untrue. I also suggested that she was more than welcome to respond to my post as it was not locked. I'm making this public as I've been very careful with what I posted on the subject of the weekend with fact's rumours and My opinions all obvious for what they were to the existent that when I did put in a rumour (Later confirmed as fact) I actually put the word "Rumour" next to it.
Further more it feels to me like Jo has decided it is more Politically expedient to Bully decenters in private than put her side of things in public. I don't take bullying so I've no bones about making it public.
I don't deny the facts and My opinions may be inflammatory, but on the Internet everything is, They are certainly not libellous.

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[info]devalmont
2009-04-30 09:10 am UTC (link)
I applaud your standing by your values. I salute you, sir. I await her response, she will go one of two ways, she will either reply to the contents of the journal or continue this bullying tactic, and in terms of PR she could potentially do more damage that way than any rumour mills. You're a well known and very well liked attendee and trader at WGW, exactly the kind of people that she would be wise to keep on side in the event of what appears to be an impending schism.

For the record, myself and many many others have vetoed the Spa for many years, purely because of stuff like this.

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[info]hiddenpaw
2009-04-30 12:53 pm UTC (link)
Thankyou for that it's nice to hear. It promps me to think that if she were to change dates she may be wise to concentrait on younger customers. Prehaps try and get an entierly new pile of Whitby goers in to the habbit. This is often possible during April when there is low attendance. You will have noticed Quite a high proportion of newbies at this Aprils event. She may want to target bands at a New genoration of goth and forget us old guard. I wouldn't know which Bands that would be of course.

This is of course just random thinking and in truth if I were to offer any advice to Jo it would be to sell out now to a decent promoter with the funds and energy to invest Whilst she still has something of the weekend worth selling. Otherwise the April Spa event at least may have to be abandoned in the next year or so on current Spa attendance. If she is making enough of a loss not to pay the performers and staff that have told me they have not been paid. Also if she were to Sell out rather than Drop out to have the reins picked up by the first person to raise the deposit on the spa it would save us from having the event run by Scarborough council or The alternative. It's not that The Alternative don't put on a good event but by having somebody different running the spa event we get a greater choice of bands. Indeed this is the main reason I hope for there to be a continuing spa event of some kind in Aprils of the future.
This is of course based on several Hypothetical.

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[info]felishumanus
2009-04-30 11:22 am UTC (link)
Without stating which parts the objections are too, I think she may find herself on thin ground.

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[info]giolla
2009-04-30 03:23 pm UTC (link)
I don't believe so, as an article as a whole can be libellous and the complaint about it being inflammatory could certainly apply to the entire article. So her communication as quoted is reasonable and certainly not going to cause her any legal harm, responding to the article potentially might. The usual course of action is to send a request to cease publication before initiating further action.

Of course the publisher has the option of complying, offering to amend the article or to stand by it on the grounds of its truthfulness - the burden of proof being on the publisher to prove the truthfulness of their statements. Not taking it down whilst things are resolved increases one's liability if you subsequently lose and the law doesn't currently care if the allegedly libelled person was offered a right of reply or not. Though the publishing of the take down request probably limits the publishers defences somewhat. The libelled person not requesting that publishing cease upon becoming aware of it does affect their standing however.

This is of course just what I recall from my days on an ISP abuse desk and no form of real legal opinion. Equally from such experience publishing the take down request is generally a good way to make sure legal types get involved.

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[info]felishumanus
2009-04-30 03:46 pm UTC (link)
legal this seems in line with our work take down policies..i geuss i was meaning more on a morally..although not stating which post, doesn't in my opinion make the take down request well very helpful..how to comply when you don;t know which post is the offensive one..you might be able to guess, but what if you remove the wrong one?

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[info]giolla
2009-04-30 04:14 pm UTC (link)
As we don't have the entire mail from Jo subject line date etc. missing it seems ambiguous, however as there are only two posts it could be the date on the email may remove the ambiguity.

The sensible thing in legal terms would be to remove both whilst clarifying which was being referred to, or as I've done in the past ask them to clarify before doing anything. Depending on how co-operative you want to be (in my case I was picking a fight with people that had already set lawyers on me).

Morally the argument's different, but depending on how seriously she views the post her actions are the only sensible ones legally.

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[info]hiddenpaw
2009-04-30 07:18 pm UTC (link)
The subject line is "Live Journal"
the Date was 02:16 this morning, some time after I went to bed last night so which post she is referring to is a mystery and she has yet to inform me of which post she is complaining about or why.

I think her accusation of Liable were she to publish it would actualy be liablist in it's self as to the best of my knowledge I have spoken entirely truth and kept very much within the relms of what I know with all reasonable certainty when stating facts. Of course I published her claims to a public forum so I am not complaining that she has been guilty of any liable in my case, Only bullying.

I note from a comment on the Whitby LJ community that she has been publicly slagging off people (specifically Smogo and Infest) on WGW's own boards. I don't believe she will do the same in my case (I don't consider my self a big enough fish and to do so would only draw attention to me) but if she dose I would be grateful if people could inform me.

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[info]arachne
2009-04-30 07:50 pm UTC (link)
The veracity or no of her accusation were she to publish it is irrelevant - she didn't publish it.

It also doesn't legally matter if everything you've said is the truth, to the best of your knowledge, unless you have the money to pay the lawyers to stand up in court and *prove* that it *is* the truth. (and of course, you'd now have the burden of proof that she's bullied you to add to the list of things you'd have to prove).

I'm absolutely not going into the rights or wrongs of any of this - I just really don't want to see you in a position where you're bankrupting yourself with court cases that could easily have been avoided.

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[info]hiddenpaw
2009-04-30 08:22 pm UTC (link)
The Proof of the bullying is simple in that I have on my files the Email she sent threatening me with a liable action. That threat is bullying. As to expensive litigation I will not allow myself to be bullies by somebody just because they have more money than me.
I can think of little I said in fact that was not reasonably widely witnessed, by other stall holders.

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[info]arachne
2009-04-30 08:26 pm UTC (link)
Legally, a threat of libel action is not bullying. Even if you won the libel case, it *still* wouldn't be bullying.

If a simple threat of libel counted as bullying, no libel case wuld ever happen. "They libelled me!" "They bullied me by saying they libelled me!".

You see how daft it would be?

Pru gives very sound advice.

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[info]hiddenpaw
2009-04-30 09:02 pm UTC (link)
Your confusing leagle possition with actual reality. From a leagle point of view every case has to be judged on it's merits a judge can not be drawn by weather such a claim is an attempt to bully me in to shutting up only weather I have the right to say what I said. That's fair.

That I consider this to in actual reality be Bullying is because it is. It's no different from trying to win an argument by threatening to shoot me because She has a gun and I don't.

I've had Genuinely Nasty people Threaten far worse things against me and carry them out because I stood up for what was right. I the law was involved and found in my favor on that occasion but I had to go through hell on the way. I do not give in to bullies.

Still nothing in my inbox saying which post she is referring to.

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[info]arachne
2009-04-30 09:07 pm UTC (link)
A threat of legal action is not bullying.

My repeating it over and over won't make it any more true, and you claiming that it is won't make it suddently be true.

Since you've decided to bury your head so resolutely in the sand, I don't see any point in my continuing this conversation.

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[info]hiddenpaw
2009-04-30 07:02 pm UTC (link)
I stand by everything I wrote yesterday. My writeup of Whitby was an entirely accurate depiction of my weekend. What happened to me, what communications I received and what my friends told me that they should reasonably had reliably known. Even the one fact I flagged up as roumour I was 99% sure of and as it turned out was backed up as truth. As you know I have a strong loathing of the national print Media and having things they do that I hate lead me to avoid committing the same offenses.
The second article I wrote was a fact followed by my opinion. The opinion was obviously an Opinion and was well founded in the fact that Jo had previously threatened to move the Spa event when she lost the Leisure centre and relented when she believed the marketeers were supportive of her getting it back and that it might be possible to get it back. leading to the conclusion that if it appeared she could not get it back she may be again willing to move the Spa event.

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[info]octalbunny
2009-04-30 10:26 pm UTC (link)
While I applaud your principles; if this situation came to court I'd want you to lose. My reasoning is that a bully could easily make online accusations, and then it should be very easy for the victim to put things right. A judge would be faced with (accuser and accusee) rather than (bully and victim), so I'd want the burden to be entirely on the accuser.

I've no legal knowledge here, just considering the way that I'd want the world to be.


But...
To prove several of the statements you'd need to name your anonymous sources.

One of the statements is that someone else is going to do something. While it would mean personally backing down, you can leave that fight to them, and then report the result.

(Edit - removing some info from the comment)

Edited at 2009-04-30 10:48 pm UTC

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[info]hiddenpaw
2009-05-01 07:03 pm UTC (link)
The source for a damn large chunk of it is actually Jo.
Much of it was personally witnessed by me and a lagre group of traders.
The rest is not hard to substantiate.

I will add now at this point to keep folks updated. That Joe has finally got back to me and on her third Email finally said which post it was and it was my My What I did at Whitby Post (I had to actually gleen this from references within the post but that dose at least allow for some sensible communication now.) Although she is still not specifying what it is I said that she considers Liableist.

It's a huge post by my standards but I've gone through it a couple of times now. It is all something I can substantiate reasonably.

Still a conversation is now ongoing. She may yet get confused of course. I've never really been one of the "Jo is evil hand over the WGW now brigade" If she reads the post she will actually see it's a whole lot less one sided than what several people have said. If she actually read some of my other posts she would see that my drive for accuracy of reporting has actually lead to me arguing on her behalf a couple of times over the past couple of days.

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[info]sci
2009-04-30 12:24 pm UTC (link)
Jeez, reasons not to make official decisions while in emotional distress. >_<

She should take a couple of weeks off, then come back to it all with a cooler head.

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[info]hiddenpaw
2009-04-30 06:32 pm UTC (link)
Indeed, If only time was a luxury she had. If she had the Luxury of time I fancy none of this would have happened, but I have to be honest and say that the situation has not permitted her this nor could I see away around that

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call teh internets polis!!!
[info]englisharcher
2009-04-30 08:05 pm UTC (link)
Mind, this is better than the treatment my brother recieved. I'll see if he'll let me link the bullshit he endured as a dissenter of official wgw..

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[info]prosperine
2009-04-30 08:15 pm UTC (link)
Hunny, I applaud your principle.

Now, ask me how much a case about principles cost. Now add a 0 at the end for the fact its libel.

Take it down. (not saying you are wrong, saying dont be stupid for the sake of being right)

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[info]hiddenpaw
2009-04-30 08:45 pm UTC (link)
I promised my self a long time ago I would never again bend to bullies. There was no clause about them having more money than me (The only reason I assume that she has more money than me is that she couldn't possibly have less). Given that as of this point in time she has yet to even clarify what post she is talking about let alone what she find liable about it I don't see anything but threats and bullying.
This is not to say that if she can be a bit more specific I won't concider her greivence but I currently have seen nothing to contradict anything I have said.

Given that several of the things I have said over the last couple of days have either been in her deference of reminding people that the decision has not yet been made this whole thing is even more mind boggleing. I can see why journalists like to come down on one side or another of an argument it is far easier. but then I'd have to live with myself.

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[info]prosperine
2009-04-30 08:52 pm UTC (link)
Oh now, you know what post she means - hunny its linked all over the internet!(might want to consider an ad at the end,, you know.. given the publicity).

Your call, there is lot I could say but your post is public and I never spout law details on Public posts - Ive only ever deal with libel from a company POV and that was enough to hurt.

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[info]hiddenpaw
2009-04-30 09:07 pm UTC (link)
Which post? There is one I linked to from the Whitby forum but if I were to make a guess I would not have thought of that one because it's the one that contains no oppinons at all, just my Whitby right up which is all as it happened.

Is that linked to anywhere else? If so I'm genuinely surprised and a little flattered. I guess facts laid out clearly in a no bulshit way is something people like. Maybe the British press should take a note. Seriously is it linked to anywhere other than on the @Whitby LJ forum?

(Reply to this) (Parent)
And by association
[info]englisharcher
2009-04-30 09:08 pm UTC (link)
This seems familiar.

It is obvious that whoever you are, you simply cannot write what you you would like to on your very own online journal. By sharing what you have written publicly is surely a crime for which you should be punished by some sort of internet police. Lets take the whole web to court and let a man in a wig tell us all what we can and cant write about what we saw, what we said and how we feel.

Thousands of trolls must be quaking in there boots at the retribution that will be meted out!

Sadly I now suspect that people are reading now and attempting to look into my own journal looking for my motives in posting and formulating ways of adding me to a blacklist that surely you yourself are now on.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: And by association
[info]englisharcher
2009-04-30 09:37 pm UTC (link)
Permission was granted
http://smileygoth.livejournal.com/2005/11/07/

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