Britannia Radio

This was prompted by the paedophile thread.

 People are
taking quite unnecessary risks (of getting sued and/or
prosecuted). 

A bit of discipline in dealing with message
replies and forwarding might save a lot of expensive anguish
later...]
-------------------------------
Here are some simple guidelines to help everyone get the
most from this sort of list, and minimise the risk of
lawsuits. "Cyberspace" isn't the Wild West, nor science
fiction - you are potentially answerable in court for what
you write, forward, allow to be sent onwards, and
plagiarise.

Furthermore, by treating other people's messages carelessly,
you can cause them significant problems too, for example
having to defend themselves against allegations, even though
they may be wholly innocent of writing what's been
incorrectly attributed to them.

Forwarding any libellous material is itself libel. The fact
the medium is electronic is irrelevant.

Forwarding any paedophilic, racist or 'hate speech', images
or text, is a criminal matter. It makes little difference
whether you agree with what you forward or not.

Rest assured this forum and others are monitored by police
and security services - it is NOT the same as a quiet
conversation in the corner of a pub. There are no 'first
amendment rights' in the UK, either. Your impending trial
will never have that issue debated. You'll simply be sent
down on the basis of the fact that you wrote or forwarded
something, not the principles of your right to say it nor of
free speech. White chargers will be securely tied up in the
car park.

Finally, remember: as has been the case for centuries,
ignorance of the law is no defence. For what it's worth, I
don't necessarily like anything I've written above. It's the
way things are, and it's on that basis I'm writing.

GUIDLINES
=========

0. One person constructs the message, but hundreds read it.
It is therefore the responsibility of the poster to make
sure what they post is of general value. Your "too busy to
tidy this up" is hundreds of other people's wasted time.

1. For clarity and efficiency, make sure what you post is
concise, and has all the unnecessary bits removed, and that
your comments CLEARLY FOLLOW any text you're replying to (so
it looks like the transcript of a conversation), and aren't
tacked on the top, requiring minutes to wade through to get
to a tiny nugget of useful content. If you don't think your
email package can do this, double check carefully, or switch
to something that can.

Top posting (replying at the top of a message) only makes
sense when both parties are already following a discussion,
or you're making an introduction to something. That's
usually OK in private emails. In discussion lists (such as
Eurorealist) the whole exchange quickly becomes
indecipherable, and pointless as a consequence.

2. If you are forwarding from someone else, REMOVE THE EMAIL
ADDRESSES. You cannot tell where your messages go after you
press 'send', and your earlier corespondent may not want
their email address sent onwards, especially as they have no
control over comments added to something bearing their name.

If you are forwarding to your own distribution list, ALWAYS
use BCC: for your list of recipients, NEVER To: or Cc:. This
prevents the recipients seeing the other recipients'
addresses.

3. Any decent email package will "quote" messages you reply
to (add chevrons or an indent or similar to the beginning of
each quoted line), so that you can clearly follow who said
what. This is important to keep track of discussions. If
your email doesn't do that, find out how to make it work
properly, or find something that does. You may rely on this
functionality in court one day!

4. If you're replying to something or fowarding another
message, you probably didn't choose the message Subject:
line, but YOU can always change it. Thus, please make sure
it's relevant to your content, NOT necessarily the original
Subject: line. Please make Subject: lines concise too, as we
haven't time to tease out the meat from twenty lines of
"subject" (yes, I've really seen this on Eurorealist!). Some
people read lists on mobile 'phones, and long subject lines
are infuriating.

5. We're all on this earth for a limited time. The more
efficient your communication (remember: one person posts but
hundreds read), the more effective other people will be, on
a scale of hundreds to one. If you want your stuff to be
read and valued, make it concise and easy to use.



S.
-- 
Historians will look back and say, "They did it to themselves!"