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Post by mrclondon on Aug 2, 2016 19:02:47 GMT
I think that you'll find that the topics are provide far broader discussions than you appear to believe will happen, with so far none of the nature that you have suggested concerns you. Agreed. However that will not necessarily remain the case.
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james
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Post by james on Aug 2, 2016 19:11:02 GMT
I think that it's unlikely to be a major part of the discussions there, since there's far more to discuss than the aspects about which you have expressed concerns. Due diligence material is likely to be the dominant part that might identify borrowers and it's extremely unlikely that that would be defamatory since it'd almost certainly be factual and probably public record material.
Fortunately the Dafamation Act provides extremely strong protection to posters in England, Wales and Scotland who might do that sort of thing, while the previous defamation law provides strong protection for truthful statements and opinions. Really hard for public records to be a problem in either case. I also expect that the FCA would have words with any platform that tried to prevent investors from having due diligence related discussions about investments on that platform.
Whatever the location I'm personally opposed to any "naming and shaming" approach, since I dislike any deliberate attempts to shame people or firms.
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locutus
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Post by locutus on Aug 2, 2016 20:17:37 GMT
I think that you'll find that the topics are provide far broader discussions than you appear to believe will happen, with so far none of the nature that you have suggested concerns you. Agreed. However that will not necessarily remain the case. With greatest of respect, that sounds like the slippery slope logical fallacy to me. I think the mods need to revisit this policy so as not to neuter the forum. Posting links to publicly available info should be fine and I still don't see the issue. After all, Google is not held accountable for indexing links on torrent sites.
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cooling_dude
Bye Bye's for the PPI
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Post by cooling_dude on Aug 2, 2016 22:44:26 GMT
I'm going to push the MODs here a bit, and I apologise in advance...
Leaving aside links that ID the borrower that is speculative (i.e. tabloid newspaper articles)...
Why do the rules enforce a blanket ban on naming the borrower? What is wrong with posting cold hard facts; Is this by request from the platforms or just a personal judgment from when the forum was started?
I.e. If John Joe Ltd has a loan with SS, why can't we mention that, and then subsequently link that to the (factual) companies house page?
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ilmoro
Member of DD Central
'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Aug 2, 2016 23:08:19 GMT
I'm going to push the MODs here a bit, and I apologise in advance...Leaving aside links that ID the borro that is speculative (i.e. tabloid newspaper articles)... Why do the rules enforce a blanket ban on naming the borrower? What is wrong with posting cold hard facts; Is this by request from the platforms or just a personal judgment from when the forum was started? I.e. If John Joe Ltd has a loan with SS, why can't we mention that, and then subsequently link that to the (factual) companies house page? Because the fact that JJL has a loan and that loan is with SS isnt public knowledge and posting it on here you put it in the public domain and Googable.
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Post by mrclondon on Aug 2, 2016 23:12:48 GMT
I'm going to push the MODs here a bit, and I apologise in advance...Leaving aside links that ID the borrower that is speculative (i.e. tabloid newspaper articles)... Why do the rules enforce a blanket ban on naming the borrower? What is wrong with posting cold hard facts; Is this by request from the platforms or just a personal judgment from when the forum was started? I.e. If John Joe Ltd has a loan with SS, why can't we mention that, and then subsequently link that to the (factual) companies house page? Its a breach of most platform's T&C's as otherwise it would be a breach of the platforms duty of care with respect to the borrower's privacy. If you borrowed £1,000 off a mate to pay off gambling debts, you wouldn't be happy if your mate published the fact you had borrowed the money on facebook where your gf or employer for example could see even if you were on time with any repayment agreement. The forum rules are designed to protect all stakeholders in the p2p sector as we want all parties to thrive and not be subject to legal claims against them. So the rules were framed for the benefit of borrowers, platforms, loan introducers and lenders.
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Post by mrclondon on Aug 2, 2016 23:37:00 GMT
Where there is scope for discussion is whether this forum should be open for guests to read the forum and the content indexable by google etc. or whether it should be a necessity to login to the forum to see any of the the thread lists and hence to read any content.
The view of the platforms I have discussed this with is that an open moderated forum is preferable to a closed forum as it encourages growth of the lender base from casual readers who arrive here via google searches on random subjects. The stats for the last 24 hours are also informative (343 Members, 1867 Guests) so 1867 IP addresses viewed the forum but didn't login, some of whom will be forum members but I suspect the majority aren't.
The forum is designed to serve the whole of the p2p community, and restricting the forum visability to a small group of registered people is perhaps not the best route forward for the long term growth of the p2p sector.
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cooling_dude
Bye Bye's for the PPI
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Post by cooling_dude on Aug 2, 2016 23:37:32 GMT
I'm going to push the MODs here a bit, and I apologise in advance...Leaving aside links that ID the borrower that is speculative (i.e. tabloid newspaper articles)... Why do the rules enforce a blanket ban on naming the borrower? What is wrong with posting cold hard facts; Is this by request from the platforms or just a personal judgment from when the forum was started? I.e. If John Joe Ltd has a loan with SS, why can't we mention that, and then subsequently link that to the (factual) companies house page? Its a breach of most platform's T&C's as otherwise it would be a breach of the platforms duty of care with respect to the borrower's privacy. If you borrowed £1,000 off a mate to pay off gambling debts, you wouldn't be happy if your mate published the fact you had borrowed the money on facebook where your gf or employer for example could see even if you were on time with any repayment agreement. The forum rules are designed to protect all stakeholders in the p2p sector as we want all parties to thrive and not be subject to legal claims against them. So the rules were framed for the benefit of borrowers, platforms, loan introducers and lenders. I understand. However, it would be nice to have the rule relaxed a tad...Please bear with me with this one. Make the forum private (i.e. no non-member can browse the forum without being a member), and as such, any links will not be indexed. New members can still sign up, but nobody can directly search the borrowers and find this forum. EDIT: mrclondon ; you beat me to my post! I still think this is a possible scenario, and hope it is considered... maybe a poll by the ADMIN to gauge the opinion of the current members?
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Post by jackpease on Aug 3, 2016 6:32:57 GMT
Why do the rules enforce a blanket ban on naming the borrower? What is wrong with posting cold hard facts; Is this by request from the platforms or just a personal judgment from when the forum was started? Because the post you make might be fine but the posts beneath yours may not be fine! Bear in mind that few libel cases get to court. It is for person(s) and publisher (this board) to prove that their post is not defamatory, not for the subject to prove it is defamatory, which is virtually impossible, very expensive so best just to pay up and better still not to get caught. If the subject is up to dodgy things then they are highly likely to try it to get a nice libel settlement. Jack P
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Aug 3, 2016 7:13:07 GMT
Please bear with me with this one. Make the forum private (i.e. no non-member can browse the forum without being a member), and as such, any links will not be indexed. New members can still sign up, but nobody can directly search the borrowers and find this forum. EDIT: mrclondon ; you beat me to my post! I still think this is a possible scenario, and hope it is considered... maybe a poll by the ADMIN to gauge the opinion of the current members? There's still a problem. Unless you go down the pink-AC-pages route, and have the platform compare an access list for each platform forum with a list of known investors, then you still have nothing more than the most basic entry hurdle (two seconds to sign up) for non-investors to find out information that is likely to be investor-only. I'd be against making every subforum available to known investors only, not only because of the sheer admin footprint (and what happens where platforms don't play ball?), but because I use a platform's forum as a large part of my DD before signing up to it. Sorry, I don't think there's a way to square this circle. It's simply inevitable that we have to accept we cannot name borrowers, directly or indirectly.
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locutus
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Post by locutus on Aug 3, 2016 7:22:05 GMT
mrclondon why is it not possible to share publicly available links to news articles, companies house etc but without actually naming the borrower on the forum. If we insisted that everyone must refer to the borrower as "the borrower" on the forum, then google wouldn't index any directly identifying information. That would make these discussions much simpler to have and would satisfy the principle of not identifying the borrower.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Aug 3, 2016 7:30:43 GMT
mrclondon why is it not possible to share publicly available links to news articles, companies house etc but without actually naming the borrower on the forum. If we insisted that everyone must refer to the borrower as "the borrower" on the forum, then google wouldn't index any directly identifying information. That would make these discussions much simpler to have and would satisfy the principle of not identifying the borrower. It's very simple. If the link allows the borrower to be identified, then that post identifies the borrower.
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locutus
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Post by locutus on Aug 3, 2016 7:56:44 GMT
mrclondon why is it not possible to share publicly available links to news articles, companies house etc but without actually naming the borrower on the forum. If we insisted that everyone must refer to the borrower as "the borrower" on the forum, then google wouldn't index any directly identifying information. That would make these discussions much simpler to have and would satisfy the principle of not identifying the borrower. MOD hat off. Because every thread about loans/borrowers on here has a reference to the item in question on the platform like PBL1234 or "The highland cottage" and doing so is very handy for all since we all know what we are talking about. C_D and ilmoro make an industry out of it and I am grateful they do. Talking about "the borrower" without saying what loan it is is just the same problem but the other way round. Someone is sure to blurt out PBL1234 at some point. People should realize that people from all over the world travel to England specifically so that that they can sue for liable because it's so much easier to do so successfully here. I don't fancy losing this forum nor do I as a mod wish to expose myself and my family to far worse just because something has happened for one loan in the world of P2P. Is that not a bit of hyperbole though? There is risk in everything but the risk of being sued here is tiny and the chance of success even smaller still. This is the only forum I have ever participated in that didn't allow the use of hyperlinks to publicly available information.
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locutus
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Post by locutus on Aug 3, 2016 8:01:31 GMT
mrclondon why is it not possible to share publicly available links to news articles, companies house etc but without actually naming the borrower on the forum. If we insisted that everyone must refer to the borrower as "the borrower" on the forum, then google wouldn't index any directly identifying information. That would make these discussions much simpler to have and would satisfy the principle of not identifying the borrower. It's very simple. If the link allows the borrower to be identified, then that post identifies the borrower. This is about not identifying the borrower from the other angle. i.e. putting the borrowers name in a search engine and then coming across our forum which links them to a loan.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Aug 3, 2016 8:06:04 GMT
It's very simple. If the link allows the borrower to be identified, then that post identifies the borrower. This is about not identifying the borrower from the other angle. i.e. putting the borrowers name in a search engine and then coming across our forum which links them to a loan. They are two sides of the same coin.
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