That’s nice. We need more of you around here that’s for sure.

Did you know – their scrumhalf – Donald Stevens went to Grey Bloem and was the scrummie to Frans Steyn ! Awesome hey.

He is a good talent lost that one. Nice clean pass, and a good boot.

I contemplated a few principles, and morals………. Not a criminal conviction
Fact remains is the conduct stinks, is not ethical, and someone is paying for it – you and me. I worked for a large corporate and although staff were allowed as a special privilege to send and receive a small number of e-mails, blogging and chatting was not permitted, and strict rules applied.

Some of these individuals spend many hours per day blogging at full pay, which is disgraceful by most standards.

Wow, you make some interesting points, I have to say. But let me take a stab at your question about theft. As far as I can remember, theft as a criminal act (thus theft as a deed governed by the SA law), has many technicalities. It firstly states that one person (subject or legal person) must take from another person that which does not belong to him by right. Then it gets technical, like if you, the victim, had left your lawn mower outside for three days it could be said that you gave the idea that you have given it up. If you go to the person who took it, your neighbor for example, and he tries to keep it from you by force, it is theft. If he returns it under a misunderstanding, it is not. It goes on and on like that. Because of the technicalities and the way that the crim. law is very specifically set out and written, wasting time at work would be difficult to squeeze in this bracket.
You will have a hard time trying to prove that blogging is theft, for many reasons.
Civil law is maybe less and yet more technical. If one person takes from another and causes damages to the other person, the victim can make a civil case for renumeration, return ect.
I think this instance belongs more in the second bracket, since the bloggers does not take anything illegally, but through non-action at work, they may cause income and production flow damages to the company, org. or whatever. Furthermore, unlike in crim law, you do not have to prove that a certain rule has been broken, but only that you have suffered loss and or damages. This is where the more technical part comes in. The basis is more simple, but the proof much harder.
At best though, and clear from public charges, I would say that this is a case of labour law. The employer will have to ask the comp/org. HR to investigate if a person is blogging/slagging, ask them to do a performance check, attempt to rectify the problem WITH the input of the employee. If the employer continues to act in such a way that is harmful and non productive to the company, he or she could be discharged. Technicalities take over once again, but thats not needed here.

Short of it all. Criminal act, no, not likely. Civil law case , probably maybe, but hardly worth the cost and effort. Best scenario, employer should do a performance check, and sort stuff out within his own capacity. This will once again probably take more time and effort than its worth.

Now how many employers will catch you, thats the real question.

My thoughts went to the global financial crisis where markets are stumbling from one scandal to the next. Huge morally questionable bonuses, millions of desperate people losing their jobs, theft of billions of investment dollars, and the list goes on……….

On the issue of theft…….. is there a parallel to be drawn between a fund manager stealing someone’s investment dollars, and a full time employee who works for, say a financial services company or an oil company, and uses internet access provided by the employer for work related functions, and spends many hours of every working day blogging on what is supposed to be a rugby site?

The questions that come to mind are:

1.Are employers happy to remunerate employees for the hours spent blogging every day?
If employers are not aware of blogging activities during paid working hours on company equipment, can such activities be seen as theft?
Whether it qualifies as theft or not, what is the financial impact on the clients of such a company, the broader community and cumulatively on the local and global economies?
Is there any legal, and/or moral argument (civil duty) to be made for exposing such shameful and possibly illegal conduct?

As an investor, I am concerned to say the least!!

Interesting situation, isn’t it?

Usually, it is an irresponsible minority that causes rules to be applied affecting also the majority who acts and interacts in a civil fashion. This site is no different. Although most of us have political, cultural and even racial affiliations, the majority are tolerant of diverse affiliations and opinions, which would make a blog like this one an ideal platform for communication and cross pollination across different affiliations.

Once again however, it is a vociferous minority with an assortment of agendas who clearly cannot function in a free environment without subtly, or blatantly baiting people to respond and when the **** hits the fan, they are all of a sudden sooooo taken aback and even hurt!! I have read some scary racist comments aimed at all races from all sides – recently aimed at Afrikaans speaking bloggers who supported the player 23 campaign ad by Vodacom. This was an obvious next wave of attack against so called Dutchmen and was so misplaced in the first instance as the ad was telling the SA rugby supporters of ALL races, languages, and cultural affiliations that Vodacom was the biggest supporter of them…. But the vociferous haters of Dutchmen managed to twist poor old Jan into all kinds of political, cultural and other contortions which his body shape simply was not intended to accommodate! That is but one example…

Roy, you could do well to read quito carnivale’s posts for insight into the mentality of some of these extreme characters modus operandi of instigating division and even hatred amongst a group of bloggers who are busy debating rugby and enjoying each others company.

As you have now seen, there can never be harmony, respect and tolerance without clear and unambiguous rules displayed prominently, and enforced to the end. You will however need to find a plug for those that simply pop up under a new nick and continue their trouble making and hate speech with impunity…. Skopskiet comes to mind here – he was hit with a red card if I remember and he popped out under a variety of new nicks… Another one is cuito carnevale – previously DaOne (spelling?) who also was banned for racist conduct.

Finally BGS is one of the friendliest and kindest guys on the blog, always willing to share a joke, make people smile, extending a hand of friendship across affiliation divides eg Hater, hell the man even offered help to some people who had abused him. What you see is what you get with him, no pretenses, no agendas, just a friendly guy who likes to chat about rugby and make people smile. But he does see through the agendas and subtle stabs aimed at hurting and discrediting what is dear to him, and being a straight forward guy he reacts forcefully at times. I have NEVER read a post from him insulting other races, or groups. Do not hold the fact that he supports a certain team against him – that is called freedom of association.

Once again, I propose that you post the rules unambiguously and ACT when people go over the top.

That is my opinion

It looks like Dawn started it if you ask me (saying “it’s a black/white thang” – the fact that Willemse announced his retirement, and calling Sheriff GBS’s and Pietmans’ “house n*gga”), ably backed up by WPTID. GBS and Pietman took the bait, and GBS overreacted in an inexcusable way. They are all to blame for being silly.

GBS and Dawn are a bad combo – they were both banned together the last time (if I remember correctly it was the day skopskiet officially got banned).

Sheriff? Well he and Dawn have had a simmering, bickering love hate relationship for some time now… About time they get a room.

A model that surfs? Do you have her phone number?

Just joking, they might throw me out here as well for harassment before too long.

#433 carol:

Cheers Carol, take it easy.

Now June….Grant is getting nervous already!!