Update on the Gina Ford legal situation

no moderators because of problems arising that is editing for publication

I thought it was interesting that the lady concerned is also watching India Knight in the Times (IK said in a recent article that she was giving the lady's lawyers a "cheery wave"). I don't understand why someone so successful should be so sensitive.

I do think that MN needs to look at the type of forum this is. There are some very nasty personal comments on here from time to time and there needs to be a facility to edit comments.

Maybe we do need some moderators? The board does not work as a self-moderating forum - especially when the subjects are contentious like BF or MMR or working mums.

I have posted a message on the Daily Mail website this morning - wouldn't normally touch the bloody rag with a bargepole but this is too important

Interestingly, I posted on the DM comment section under the article last night, using my RL name. It's not appeared, and reading through this thread, there seems to be others who have done the same.

It would be interesting to do a role call, to see who else has not been able to express their view on the DM comment section.

utterly ridiculous - the mail on sunday has hardly cooled the situtaion by quoting the claimant as saying 'my site is nothing like mn' in a 'sniffily' way.

Each to their own, as we all know

If the lawyers acting against MN are reading this please understand that as a user of mumsnet I have a brain. I'd never heard of your client before. I have now and as a result would know what I'm looking at in a bookshop. It wouldn't stop me buying one, even if just in curiosity. I honestly think that your client has gained publicity from this and should take the rough with the smooth. We are all adults.

I urge you to mediate on this rather than make your client alienate her audience further. I'm happy to write these comments in a non-anonymous way, perhaps by letter to the lawyers offices if this would allow me to stand up & be counted.

Just to add my good luck wishes to MNHQ for the 7th in this sad embarrassing squabble, not for you but the opposing party.
Surely controversy is better than no publicity at all, and as market share does not seem to be a problem in this case, what is the fuss about? A forum that permits people to share very private and embarrassing stories to cheer up others should certainly be allowed to permit the exchange of private opinions on anything to do with kids.
Bringing up kids is such a personal thing anyway. If one way works for some mothers, no amount of snide comments will spoil that, and other ways will work for other people, and all the kids will grow up, no need to start a jihad and mess up freedom of speech on the entire internet.

mediation is an attempt to achieve whatever you could hope to achieve in court, bt quicker and much much cheaper and far less risk.
in any event, it is to a greater or lesser extent required that the parties attempt to mediate before going to court - the new court rules work very strongly to encourage people to stay away from court except as a very very last resort

AC, if it settles that's success for both sides in view in almost any and every case. It is hardly ever worth the risk and cost of going to court on anything. Sometimes you even get enough success if people can save face, get press releases agree. Doesn't even matter if money is paid sometimes and it would usually be confidential except for an agreed press release in certain cases like this so don't expect to know anyway. This is why law is rarely clarified because people are too sensible to be guinea pigs.

I've commented too - ohhhh, really hope mine makes it

Good point Peachy Clair - perhaps people are just jealous of the power of MN

Good luck MN.I'm on the side of free speech.

PC - 110%!!!

completely off topic but has anyone else noticed their purchasing of baby specialist type guidebooks dipped when they joined MN???? Just musing

have sales of any books gone down in the last 6 months? How can one prove that anything written has damaged their reputation? Especially if it were a ridiculous comment eg. Jampot has no fingers" which would be rubbish as I am a prolific poster.

How does one value their damaged reputation?

If for instance an author's book sales increased would that prove that indeed no damage to reputation was done?

Just wanted to add "Good Luck"

If someone can answer this without getting into trouble, is it possible to say exactly what it is the complainant sees as a successful outcome from the mediation? I'm not trying to be inflammatory, and if this post is contentious please report it so it is deleted, but I am genuinely at a loss as to what is the expectation.

Actually it's very unusual to issue a claim form (sue) and then mediate. Usually the defendant would want to put in their defence and then try to mediate so the person suing you can see they don't have a leg to stand on and the defendant might win. Instead looks like here you have claim form - i.e. huge worries caused to recipient because of risk of big legal fees, damages etc and not seen brilliant defendant's defence yet and most pressure on defendant or you mediate before either sues.

Doesn't matter. You can be really unfair in whom you choose to sue. You can have 1000 people you can choose and pick any or all.

I have posted a comment, you see I am not sure that MN memebers said anything worse than have been published in the DM article. Only she couldn't really sue Penelope Leach who used the word 'torture' could you???

It's trying to distinguish between whether a business is just making the technical means available to let people do things like selling paper or letting people use phones or host their web sites with a provider when there's no liability and those who truly "publish". The company that hosts my web site for example would never be liable for anything I put on it as long as if I libelled someone on it and they were told they took it straight off because they are "hosting" whereas I would be. Query whether public bulletin board is in which category but it might have been decided somewhere else in a case or something and the only argument then might be about whether there was libel or not of course. I don't know.

ah something quite different then

I was just thinking of the simple view that if one law ie relating to distance selling regs said a website was in its nature temporary (despite the existence of caching)then if a libel had to be present in a permanent form then it didn't count

lol I would not make a lawyer

The EU brought out a directive which deals with liability if you host web sites and if you cache (or catch) information or are a "mere conduit" of the information but I don't know if that applies here. It certainly means you coudlnt' sue for libel someone who hosts a site which is covered in libels as long as they take the offending words down when asked.

"Question 20. Is there a general obligation for ISP?s to monitor information?

The Regulations do not address the imposition of a general obligation on service providers, when providing the services referred to in Regulations 17-19, to monitor the information that they transmit or store or to actively seek facts or circumstances indicating illegal activity. No such obligations exist in UK law, and their introduction would be incompatible with the requirements of the E-Commerce Directive. "