A Public Note to Mark Wieder and the Rev list:

[Brian Yennie]

Marielle,

Mark most certainly did NOT just ask people to carefully check a  
contract. He advised people not to do business with Josh, or  
alternatively demand payment up front. He also suggested that Josh  
would weasel out of contracts. Those are extremely defamatory  
remarks. Furthermore, he named both Josh (by his full name) and his  
business. What this amounts to, I don't know. But that is what he said.

Libel is a serious offense, and I don't think we want to throw around  
that kind of legal term here. That has a specific legal definition  
which includes both intent and purposeful false statements.

I am not a lawyer, and I don't think any of us should speculate on  
whether libel was committed by either party.

I sincerely hope that the two parties can resolve this through  
mediation and that this thread can end. My best to both Josh and Mark  
in resolving this in the best possible way.

> Josh,
>
> I consider your email highly inappropriate.  I believe you are over- 
> reacting. More importantly, I believe that the only thing you will  
> achieve is to have more emails having the potential to damage your  
> business ranked high in Google.
>
> Having had contact with Mark both off and on-list I take him for  
> one of the most righteous person I know.
>
> I believe your reply caused a lot more damage to your business than  
> Mark post ever did.
>
> Indeed, you called his comments defamatory, while you have provided  
> no evidence whatsoever as to the fact that his original email  
> referred to events he didn't suffer from. This puts him in a lot  
> better position to attack you for libel than his orginal post ever  
> did Mark recommended persons to carefully check out the contract  
> before doing business. This is an excellent recommendation to give,  
> in *any* context.
>
> Though I perfectly understand how the mention of the name of your  
> business got you perceive that as a personal attack and something  
> susceptible to put your business in danger, it's not clearly of a  
> defamatory nature to me.
>
> Again, I understand that you wrote this out of sense of threat  
> against your business. However, your email to be over aggressive,  
> something very much akin an attempt to frighten him in order to  
> obtain what you want. To try to obtain something  by threat is not  
> an excellent business practice.
>
> Best would be to accept Richard's invitation to mediate and resolve  
> this off-list. Try to forget about the damage having been done and  
> rather think about the way you can use the situation to reinforce  
> your reputation. Mishaps happen to all of us. All of us end up  
> having one day our reputation comprised despite doing nothing  
> wrong. The difference between the successful ones and the  
> unsuccessful ones is about how we react when this happens. Fear  
> kicks in, yes. But to listen to fear is not wise.
>
> Marielle