Libel fears - overcautiousness thread closure failed company

Could some threads be set so that they could only be seen once logged on? This would mitigate the concern of search engines reading and caching the contents.

Worth asking proboards pretty please though

I do not invest with AC, but being nosy I took an interest in this thread, and the updates from AH on the AC thread. It was not too hard to break through the asterisk wall and I can see the difficulties faced where a P2P wants to engage fully, but stick to the legalities.  Anyone can sign up to this board so restricting threads to members does not help. There are also minefields regarding public information and private business information.

If there was a press report that 'BargainBuys' has entered administration it should be perfectly acceptable to repeat the information and identify the company. What would not be acceptable would be suggestions that the directors of Bargainbuys had pocketed the cash, or that Bargainbuys had defaulted on repayments to 'loansforshops' (or even that such a loan existed). 

Perhaps in cases such as this there needs to be an acceptance that careless posting creates issues for the moderators and the heavy redaction leads to meaningless conversation threads.

The company referred to was indeed intended to be a fictitious example. Unfortunately the way some postings are made, had it been initially declared as imaginary, some contributors might well have been trying to determine the true identity.

A sensible discussion is what we're asking for. Now we have to define what sensible is. Sensible, in the opinion of the mods, is not speculating on what might happen. Sensible can include reporting established public knowledge matters based on proven facts.
The fact that this distinction has been repeatedly ignored is why we're where we are.
The mods are not prepared to run the risk of being sued so that certain members of the forum can publicly blow off steam or try to out-do each other with speculation.

I suppose it might be useful for the moderators if we compiled a list of places that do or do not make the information available without login. I'll start with a few in alphabetical order:

Assetz Capital: borrower and often guarantor real names available to all including search engines. It appears that all wth an account can get details of status updates of past loans, not just those who lent, though I don't have an account there so someone may want to confirm or contradict this belief.

Bondora: not available without an account. Those with an account can see details of any late but not defaulted loans if they are for sale on the resale market. If a late loan is not for sale the details are only available to current lenders, or some limited information to former lenders who sold a loan. Defaulted loans cannot be sold while in default state so information about them is only available to those who have or had the loan. Contracts provide full real name and date of birth for both borrower and lender.

Zopa: not available except to those who have a loan, even with an account that is logged in. Contracts can provide more information to participants in a loan.

It's also worth remembering that there are other places where things can be discussed, notably including MoneySavingExpert's forum, though at the time I write this I do not see any reference to any matter of concern here in that place. It is likely to be the best place to discuss issues that are sensitive for the moderators here. Unlike this place it has both an actual solicitor with knowledge of this area on staff, very ample financial resources, paid full time moderators and well used and tested procedures for exercising a right of reply and taking down content.