[lucky 2]

Hi to all EB members ,

As you are probably aware it is important for Essential Baby to avoid publishing potentially defamatory material about any individual or business.
This is to protect members as well as Essential Baby.

Defamation occurs when published material, identifying a person, conveys a meaning that:
- Lowers/injures the person’s reputation
- Leads people to ridicule/avoid/despise that person

Large corporations cannot be defamed, but small companies and not-for-profits can be defamed.

A person may be “identified” other than by their name (eg. by relationship, where they work, etc)

Both the client and the person who has posted the offending material can be liable, which must be kept in mind at all times.

Because this forum focuses on Hospital and Birthing Centres and also Doctors, Midwives and other health practitioners we need to be particularly careful.

We hope that the following guidelines will assist members to post within the site rules and remove the risk of defamation.

Guidelines for posting in the Hospitals and Birthing Centres Forum:-

1. Discussion of individual doctors, specialists, midwives or other health practitioners is not permitted.

- Any opinion, whether positive or negative, is considered discussion and must not be posted within the forum.

- If you wish to ask for opinions on a specific Health Practitioner (eg. Obstetrician) you may post a topic and request responses via the Private Message (PM) system.

- If you wish to ask for recommendations regarding a Health Practitioner you may post a topic and request responses via the PM system.

- Any topic asking for opinions on a specific Health Practitioner or requesting recommendations will be closed to prevent public discussion.

- As per EB Site Rules the contents of a PM must remain private and not be posted within the forum.

- If sharing a negative experience with a Health Practitioner you must not in any way identify that person.

and

2. We ask all members to take great care when posting opinions about organisations and hospitals and to avoid making comments that could have a negative impact on reputation.

You will find the complete site rules here:
http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/forums/ind...?act=boardrules

We appreciate your co-operation in this matter,

Regards,

luckytwo,
Moderator

Reason for edit: Guidelines updated 16/05/11