I was given a warning for defamation and this thread seems to have arisen in response to how to deal with this issue in a way that is more beneficial to the community. These are my thoughts.
1. The post from which the link was removed:
Since it seems semantics is often a realm favored by some, I will begin with the appeal to semantics and legality:
2. This is the section of the The One Stop Rules Shop from which the warning was determined with the relevant portions in bold:
Jurisdiction: NationStates moderators are responsible for problems and issue with the game and interactions on our Nationstates forum. We have no jurisdiction over any offsite forums, and make no guarantees about their content. While some Mods may also be channel ops on NationStates-related IRC channels, they are not operating in an official NationStates capacity in that role (with the exception of #themodcave on gamesurge.net). Please don't bring non-NationStates business to the NationStates forums, Getting Help page, or #themodcave. In particular, accusations of misconduct outside of NationStates do not belong in NationStates and will be punished as defamatory.
What determines non-NationStates business? Forums and discords and IRCs and etc are all integral extensions of the game and arise from the nature of how NationStates functions. The safety of NationStates players who use these extensions seems to be critical to NationStates business.
The very idea that there is a thread where a players basically states, "I have enjoyed and loved this game but have to leave because of the sadistic behavior of another player who cleverly utilizes the extensions as avenues of psychological and sexual harassment" and respondents cheerfully or sadly or otherwise say "best wishes, have a good life!" to the player is a situation itself that should be impossible. Why are we not questioning the extremely flawed and unjust premise where the victim of a horrific situation is ostracized from the community? Instead of saying "sorry 4 ur loss, gl, enjoy life" we should be asking, "Is it NationStates business to protect its players from predators to the extent that it humanely can?"
That thread, in part, arose from the serious revelations in the Europeia thread in which everyone is obliquely talking about the problem but cannot directly state anything. What are we living under, Voldemort's regime where everyone must say "He Who Must Not Be Named." In this case, the only result from that kind of censorship is that the people who have read the forum thread are talking in circles about a serious issue that impacts people off and on site and that anyone who doesn't have access to that thread is confused and not elucidated on the matter at hand or the threat of predatory behavior.
It seems to me that more drama, investigations, and hoopla was made about the use of a program or script called Predator which was not engaging in torturing victims but when it comes to actual predatory harassment there is a gag order that only benefits those who can continue to use the site unimpeded, under other names, and target people.
2. Then a legal definition of the word defamation from The People's Law Dictionary:
defamation
n. the act of making untrue statements about another which damages his/her reputation.
For one thing linking to an off-site forum in which accusations are discussed is not the same as making an accusation on-site. If you're sticking to some sort of semantic on-site\off-site distinction then technically no accusation has been made onsite. Only a link provided to context to a topic being discussed obliquely.
Finally, to the latter point "Most [states] let's call it moderator jurisdictions "provide for a demand for a printed retraction of defamation." If we are trying to build in some checks and balances to the defamation rule - maybe we can use this. A limit on one thread on the topic and the player must provide evidence that is substantial and accepted by the mod community. If such evidence can't be provided that the OP must issue a retractment that can be placed in the thread OP and then locked.
There has to be a better way then what we have now.