ValueBuddies is back!

[swakoo]

If so, Admin may need help of a different sort... perhaps contribution to insurance premiums against potential litigation (if such exist)? or other ideas?

Yup, This is the most wanted, if any. Thanks.

Was giving further thought to this matter. Am not of a legal background, only studied law as one of many subjects and also have consulted quite a lot with company lawyers. Since there appears to be no lawyers or law students among the forumers, here then is my take on things:

A forum owner is NOT a generator of content except for those postings he makes himself. He is only the facilitator of content. Forumers are mostly the generators of content - the forum postings.

Where the content (forum postings) clearly violates the law eg. threatens racial or religious harmony or is pornographic in nature (in the case of Singapore law), then the forum owner or his moderators should remove such content as soon as is practicable.

Where the content comprises accusations against persons, organisations or institutions, there is no way that the forum owner knows if it is true or not. If he has to remove all such content, then the forum will not have much meaning at all (unless the content is blatantly vulgar or/and offensive). However, in the event that the accused persons, organisations or institutions inform the forum owner that they deem the content (one or more postings) false and malicious, my opinion is that it is only then that the forum owner's responsibility for the content (the postings in question) increases - he has been informed of objections. He can then decide to remove the content (and my opinion is that this action if taken should be sufficient) or bear the responsibility of leaving it there (with potential consequences).

A blogger IS a generator of content - blog postings. A facebook participant IS a generator of content. A forumer IS a generator of content - forum postings. A forum owner IS NOT a generator of content - apart from his own forum postings though he IS a facilitator of content. Owners of blog websites (not the individual blogs) and Facebook are also just facilitators. In my opinion there should be a difference in their level of responsibility for the content. And there have been recent cases where bloggers, facebook participants and forumer have come into the limelight for the contents they wrote. But I don't recall any forum owner having the same predicament.

The above is only my own opinion.

Anyway, I think it speaks a lot for the credibility of this forum that there have been 2 formal requests to remove certain postings pertaining to organisations.

I feel also it is a blessing that this forum owner is very technically talented and hence can administer well this forum with costs low enough to be covered by forum ads.