EduGeek, netiquett and legal consequences

[Disease]

Running EduGeek is tough enough without having to spend half my evening deleting posts and topics for a company we like but now may take a dim view of us because of one of our members did not folow any of the poits above.

 

Jake is right I think it is a shame that Edugeek has become a place where you can no longer express a true opinion for fear that we may upset some company or a sponsor of Edugeek.

 

As Dos Box posts in the bold highlighted section above, it is all about the companies/sponsors opinion of Edugeek, not really a forum any longer where when someone asks for advice on a product or service where you can expect to get a true free thinking opinion anymore and that is just a damn shame.

 

I don't blame Dosbox for it he is just protecting his investment, me personally I would have told them to stick it up their arse and prove that what my members are saying isnt true as for it to be libel the onus is on the person claiming libel to provide the proof.

 

Still I understand why you have felt the need to water down the forums.

[Quackers]

Can we name and shame this company, and not buy their product? I hope it is sophos as i'm down to just 2 stations running it now and hope to say good bye to them soon, the pc's running it grind to a halt when they update, and they are P4 2.8's so not exactly old! Whats the point of Antivirus if it cause's more disruption that if you had a virus.

[_Bat_]

Can we change the BETT fund to Get Dos_Box out of jail fund?

 

Jake is the expert for getting out from behind bars. Still don't know how he gets out of his cage...

[_Bat_]

Can we name and shame this company, and not buy their product? I hope it is sophos as i'm down to just 2 stations running it now and hope to say good bye to them soon, the pc's running it grind to a halt when they update, and they are P4 2.8's so not exactly old! Whats the point of Antivirus if it cause's more disruption that if you had a virus.

 

I believe it is sophos... certain bad posts I knew were in existance about them a couple of months back are no longer there today, so I think that's evidence enough.

[mortstar]

...Jake is right I think it is a shame that Edugeek has become a place where you can no longer express a true opinion for fear that we may upset some company or a sponsor of Edugeek.

 

As Dos Box posts in the bold highlighted section above, it is all about the companies/sponsors opinion of Edugeek, not really a forum any longer where when someone asks for advice on a product or service where you can expect to get a true free thinking opinion anymore and that is just a damn shame...

 

I agree

[Jake]

I think you are all failing to grasp how this works. If a poster says 'Product x is ****' with no valid reasons why or expination behind their commenst then it can be considered liable (especially when mixed in with immature playground profanity).

If, however, you say 'Product x is rubbish because of x y z' givinf a list a reasons yo think are valid then that is acceptable. Afetr all, you would not lie it id someone walked around your neighbourhood telling all and sundry that you are a junkie with zero evidence to back it up, would you?

They are in a multi million pound (dollar, Euro etc) industry and they have a hell of a lot to loes to this kind of comment. As I've said. Keep it relevent and back up your claims with evidance, not heresay and insults.

 

I can understand that, of course I would imagine that for something to qualify as a "rant" it would naturally include more than simply "product x is crap" , which is my mind would not be enough to be called a rant. I myself when being critical of something via this site would give more detail on my reasons why. Having said that, due to issues like this one, I would personally never ever use this site to be critical of anything. Its just far too risky, nice site for messing around on though

 

I just wonder where in society this libel issue ends. If I am walking down the street and a friend asks me what I thought of the film "War of the Worlds", if I turn to him and say "Saw it last night, I thought it was total shite". If someone wanders past at that moment who was involved in the movie, would he then take me to court for libel?

 

Now it could be that he could do that..and its that sort of thing which saddens me, as I say, nothing to do with Edugeek, its just I dont like that idea that I cannot simply speak the thoughts in my head without someone suing me for saying a bad thing about their movie/game/book/whatever.

 

Like I say, you wont catch me being negative about anything/one on this forum anyway. Just better to be safe than deal with any fallout

[russdev]

As said we can often stop things getting this far just in this case we couldn't but anyway...

 

Russ

[GrumbleDook]

The problem is that a number of companies have the funds and know-how to follow it through. At the moment we do not (in spite of Geoff's abilities ... it would be difficult to move the supercomputer that he lives in to a court room)!

 

A number of companies who have had issues or concerns will chat with staff or site admins and resolve things amicably. Some companies may do this but also set the ball rolling down the other route just in case.

 

Sophos seems to have done this and we now have the backlash of it.

 

As with all companies who contact EduGeek.net a certain amount of common sense prevails and in this case a reminder to members that we need to keep comments constructive wherever possible is not a bad idea.

 

Remember that EduGeek.net tries to remain apolitical to allow the freedom of expression that we all enjoy and it is a careful balancing act. For some cases this will mean pushing companies for answers that they don't want to give, in others it is reminding members that companies actually want to work with the technical community in schools.

[Jake]

Jake is the expert for getting out from behind bars. Still don't know how he gets out of his cage...

 

It involves a large amount of slippery substance and alot of squeezing

[Dos_Box]

The company in question is NOT trying to prevent:

 

a. Us talking about problems our faults we find with their products. On the contrary, they were quite praisful on the feedback they are getting from us.

 

b. The free and open recommendation of any other product.

 

AND

 

c. The company in question is not a sponsor or advertisor, so they had no hold over us that way.

 

d. The complaint was about one member and their comments which fall into the legal catagories already discussed here.

 

e. Remember. It is the newspaper which gets sued, (almost) never the reporter.

 

f. You can still complain and moan about peoples products and services as long as you can back up your complaints. I don't like certain computer comoanies and manufacturers, but I don't complain about them as Its a personal thing that has no basis really.

[_Bat_]

...Jake is right I think it is a shame that Edugeek has become a place where you can no longer express a true opinion for fear that we may upset some company or a sponsor of Edugeek.

 

As Dos Box posts in the bold highlighted section above, it is all about the companies/sponsors opinion of Edugeek, not really a forum any longer where when someone asks for advice on a product or service where you can expect to get a true free thinking opinion anymore and that is just a damn shame...

 

I agree

 

I also agree. I suspect though that if Dos_Box allowed it to continue that edugeek would be shut down. We are still allowed to give our opinions on products, just as long as it is... backed up by evidence in effect, I suppose.

[TechMonkey]

 

I just wonder where in society this libel issue ends. If I am walking down the street and a friend asks me what I thought of the film "War of the Worlds", if I turn to him and say "Saw it last night, I thought it was total shite". If someone wanders past at that moment who was involved in the movie, would he then take me to court for libel?

 

/pedant on

 

Well the it would be slander as you spoke it

 

/pedant off

 

 

I think the problem is scales. If one person comes on and says "GRRR this product sucks, I am really having problems" Then I doubt a company will get its knickers in a too much of a twist. If every thread that comes up about a product has the same person say "It just sucks, don't touch it, run away, fleeeeeeeee" Then that is unobjective and repetative and I could see company getting annoyed. Rereading the orignal post it also seems that there is slightly more than a few posts saying a product is a bit rubbish.

 

There isn't any point in crying CENSORSHIP!!! I doubt every bad post from a company is going to be removed. But as someone else said, we need to be professional and grown up about it. I would definitely want to hear if a product causes problems and isn't up to scratch and Edugeek would lose some of its usefullness if everyone is scared to post bad experiences.

[Jake]

e. Remember. It is the newspaper which gets sued, (almost) never the reporter.

 

True, in my mind though even the newspaper shouldnt be able to be sued. Although my mind is not the most stable of things at the best of times

[Jake]

 

/pedant on

 

Well the it would be slander as you spoke it

 

/pedant off

 

 

Good point...erm...ok...if I wrote it on a piece of paper and showed it to him because he is deaf, and someone working on the movie looked over and saw it

[bishopsgarthstockton]

Back in the day, when we first purchased Sophos, it was a reasonable price, for us. But then they have hiked the price up. The management software for the server never worked properly, and despite call after call to technical support we never got any were with it. In the end we switched to another anti virus company eset to use there product Nod 32.

 

At the end of the day, we need to use software that we feel we can use and sleep at night not worrying about weather it is updating/working as it should.

 

I think sophos should take our comments on board and try to work with there clients.

 

is that constructive enough?

[elsiegee40]

Dos_Box, it hasn't been necessary so far, but on other forum sites there is a report button so that posts that may be getting out of hand can be drawn to the attention of the moderators quickly and without the need for large envelopes of legal stuff.

 

Perhaps, it's time for a similar thing here?

[Friez]

I have nothing to say about any slanderous or libellous commenters if they were truely unfounded comments (afterall who would want such an injustice upon them, the company seems fully justified to complain in this case).

 

Any company that threatens to sue a free online service seems a bit unscrupulous to me. I hope it was merely a complaint about an individual on the forum and not a legal threat to the forum.

 

If the comments were pretty well justified and the company complains they should use the criticism to improve their product/service and not threaten a free community with legal action (in this case I consider the company simply as bullies).

 

I seriously hope that it was the former and not the latter as I hold a dim view of anyone who wishes to sue people who provide a service to others for free.

[enjay]

I think that a number of people are missing the point here - the issue is not one of freedom of speech, censorship or companies getting upset when people say bad things about them; it is one of justification.

 

The issue is posts which read simply "product x is pants, don't buy it". Posts which say something like "product x is pants because it requires local admin rights" or "product x is pants because it requires huge amounts of engineer time" are acceptable, and I very much doubt that the company in question are objecting to supported remarks such as those.

 

I agree with many of you - if a product is rubbish, then this is a good place to say that, so long as we explain why. Companies cannot complain about loss of revenue coming from accurate yet critical reviews, but they can (and have) complained about unsupported - note I say unsupported, not unfounded - criticism.

[Jake]

As I say, I see where you are coming from, I just dont like that society is that way. If I want to say/write something is pants without having to justify myself, then I should be able to. Like I say, I have said/written many times in the past to friends that a certain movie, or book or game is pants and then not justified myself. Its merely been my opinion of it and I have voiced/written my opinion to friends and see no reason why I should have to justify my opinion.

 

Make no mistake, I am not criticizing Edugeek or anyone on here, you have to do what you have to do to protect yourself, I just find its a shame that we , as a people, have to protect ourselves in this manner in the first place. As such this post is not related in any particular way to this thread, more a comment on the wider social issue of libel/slander

[Grommit]

I feel I must say something as most of this has got to do with me anyhoo.

 

After my rantings & VERY strong comments - Sophos actually rang me on a number of occasions, missing me a few times but then managing to get hold of me. One of their Development team spoke to me [ at length ] and it was decided that I gather up mine and other people's issues with it etc, [ see a thread in the security section ] I then mail it off to an addresse supplied - which I did - [ about 4 weeks ago ] Thing is I have not heard anything since. Is it worth sending again - after this I'm not sure.

Oh well.

 

It seems they kinda set you up.. maybe the copies of posts that were sent to Dos_Box were the ones that you sent to the development team...

[mattx]

I only sent their development team one E-mail, and that was the one which out lined the postings from the thread - ' Sophos Feedback Required '

 

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=6957

 

Thats why I am somewhat surprised at their tatics now - something which I let Dos_Box know last night.

[witch]

As I say, I see where you are coming from, I just dont like that society is that way. If I want to say/write something is pants without having to justify myself, then I should be able to.

 

But what would be the point on this forum, Jake, when the whole idea is to find out from other techies about good and bad kit, and especially the reasons why stuff is good or bad, so that you can decide if it would work or not on your own network.

If you don't like something because it is mauve, or something like that, why not say so and then we will know not to take any notice!!

 

You can say anything you like as long as you do it professionally and with sufficient reason. I would hate to think that Edugeek could be reduced to a 'chat' forum without any technical stuff - that is why I, and most of us are here after all.

I think as long as we avoid profanity, and continue to offer firm justification for our opinions, we won't have a problem

[Grommit]

Hi

 

I personally think the new Sophos is rubbish.. Why

 

Is hard to install

Many Installations fail

It's hard to manage

When you install it on a local PC and add it to the domain,, you then have to go into Sophos and add the PC to the group (why?)

Why is every old PC that is no longer on the Network listed is Sophos

 

The simplicity of V4 installation has gone and you now have this monster that you have to keep on monitoring..

 

My points...

 

Now is that libellous?

[Geoff]

Well, that's for a court to decide. However you've provided justification for your point of view. So IMHO no.

[Netman]

Back in the day, when we first purchased Sophos, it was a reasonable price, for us. But then they have hiked the price up. The management software for the server never worked properly, and despite call after call to technical support we never got any were with it. In the end we switched to another anti virus company eset to use there product Nod 32.

 

At the end of the day, we need to use software that we feel we can use and sleep at night not worrying about weather it is updating/working as it should.

 

I think sophos should take our comments on board and try to work with there clients.

 

is that constructive enough?

 

I completely concur....

Sophos hiked the price on us in 2005 so I trialled 3 other solutions at around the same price. My concerns with Sophos were the poor management console and the CPU activity on clients. The decision was made for me when I removed Sophos from a test room and installed Panda - it immediately found up to 50 threats on most of the computers which Sophos had not reported for some reason. I have used Panda since and have found it much easier to use and more effective although not perfect on the administration side. They price matched Sophos too, which was a large discount on thier normal prices.

Hopefully someone might gain from my experience and find the information useful - that is why I post it.

 

I think it will be to the detriment of the forum if people don't post their experiences of different technologies and suppliers. The main thing I have gained from using this place is information from the experience of others in similar roles. The sharing of that experience is priceless when it stops you making costly or time consuming mistakes. We all have limited budgets and staffing to work with, and yet most of us see our jobs as somewhat of a service to education in this country. It's all about the kids really... and that's where we differ from the majority of suppliers we deal with, who, like most companies are purely motivated by profit. Learning to deal with them and provide our schools with the best kit at the lowest possible cost is just part of the job and the edugeek community makes that easier for me for which I thank all the sensible members - keep on posting!