langosta, did you see the original post? it was deleted within minutes, so very few saw it. i just happened to pass by a moment after it appeared.

the original post was not opinion or suggestion. the headline/subject read "Board Fires Williams." it was a bald lie, grotesquely enlarged by being in the subject line.

i'm a journalist. the above "Board Fires Williams" headline was not opinion, slander, suggestion or innuendo. it was libel. libel is false accusations, aka lies, published in a public medium that are damaging to a company's ability to carry on its business, or to an individual's ability to carry on his career or civil status. note that it's not just the falseness of such lies that pushes the allegation into the libel category. it's also the publication in the public media that distinguishes libel from slander.

in the beginning, in the internet, there was no body of law to govern any documentation that appeared. existing jurisprudence from traditional print and electronic media could not serve. however, by now a number of internet libel court decisions have accumulated. one of the most interesting decisions is the one rendered by the Ontario superior court of appeal, i believe in 2004, when madam justice of Ontario found that anonymous internet libel on message boards was even more pernicious and more damaging than traditional signed journalism in traditional media such as newspapers, TV and radio. she found that anonymity added to the power of a libellous message. i'd agree with that.

you can bet every single one of VIT's properties that no newspaper or TV editor would ever have allowed such a bizarre lie as "Board etc ..." to see the light of day.

as for lively discussion, there's nothing i like better than the Gen4 pumpers and bashers. so clever are they, so well-informed about the company they are praising or criticising, so brilliant in their insights, that you'd think they are analysts. heck, maybe they are analysts.