For Whom The Bell Tolls This week.

Impressed that the moderators have been big enough to review their decision in the light of forum members views.
I hope Old Grumpy chooses to return and note that he is required to do nothing more than the rest of us. Old Grumpy did break the naming rules (more than once) and the moderators were right to take action, it is just that the action seemed disproportionate and the environment of the rules rather confused and confusing. Hopefully the message has been sent that the rules must be obeyed. 
The point about libel by jackpease is well made, though Old Grumpy was banned for breaking the rules, not for alleged libel. We should not think that as long as we stick to the rules we can say anything. Identification by loan number (as suggested in the rules) limits knowledge of the lender's identity to those with an FC account, but a libel can easily be committed among that set of persons if they know from the post who is being written about. We must obey the naming rules and then ensure that our posts are not libellous. Strangely the rules do not say thet posts must not be libellous or defamatory - but perhaps that is obvious.
Personally I would prefer the moderators to make more of the soft rules generally, so that people stray into breaches of the harder rules less often. The first rule '•Please be polite and constructive.' should be the standard and if the moderators tried to enforce that, by public comment and by example, then the forum would be a safer place. We do not need to be insulting, let alone libellous, to make a point effectively.

No reply from oldgrumpy so far - have sent another email this morning. Hopefully he's off collecting banana supplies...

I hear oldgrumpy has been found in the banana fields of Cambridge. His account is now unlocked...

The greatest relevance of the Bercow case is that she had provided sufficient information for the friends and acquaintances to identify the individual. If all of the significant people in a person's life know, that's pretty thoroughly potentially damaging their reputation if the content is defamatory.

The rules here were deliberately crafted to limit that potential, by only allowing sufficient information for those who already know the details to know which loan is being discussed. For the platforms I'm familiar with the only people who could go from what is typically allowed here to a loan is those who already lent on that loan. Which means that nobody new will know about it and there is no additional disclosure as a result of publication here. So no additional harm to the individual.

For loan applications, the information is already as public as it can be, courtesy of the platform's own application publishing process, so again there is no additional disclosure beyond what is already public. Unless it's something like saying that a new application has been made by a person with a bad record on a past loan, which is uncommon because a platform would normally reject such applications before making the application available to lend on.

And of course in most all cases, the identifiers used by a platform won't be real names, though there are some notable exceptions for business lending. No real name further limits the potential harm, for how can you defame a random account identifier like those used by isePankur (IP followed by some digits)? Writing that AB12345 is an incompetent doctor isn't going to do the doctor any harm unless someone says who AB12345 is. Of course, if they were known on a dozen message boards using the AB12345 name, that would be a different matter because AB12345 would have a public reputation that could be harmed, even though the real name isn't known.

The biggest risk here isn't the borrowers, who would normally lack money and losses, but the platforms, which both have money and could suffer losses. A right of reply is one of the better defensive measures for this, publishing any corrective reply that a platform requests. I've gone so far as offering to the CEO of a P2x lender that I'd publish their reply to one of my public comments if they wanted to make one. I urge the moderators here to accept such replies as well, whenever it's relevant, and to give them at least the same prominence as the original post.

Bloody hell, Spartacus wouldn't have stood a chance with you lot in the crowd.

What complete rubbish this is. I can't believe it's being left unchallenged. You can't libel a company. Awash with errors, really? If this is so you should be able to point to several specific ones. Or even one? Off you go then.

I think James is right that you can libel an incorporated company, and that a company can libel you.