[gambling8nt]

But we're not talking about some tiny community where everyone can be watching for this sort of thing from everyone else. What we're talking about is approximately the moral equivalent of blaming the mayor of New York for someone hanging themselves in Central Park.

[run4yourlives]

But we're not talking about some tiny community where everyone can be watching for this sort of thing from everyone else.

Well I know, but a lawyer can easily argue that community website operators have a duty to monitor their community for suicides the same way that they monitor for all sorts of other things. (I'm sure if I posted a racist rant it would be dealt with harshly.)

What we're talking about is approximately the moral equivalent of blaming the mayor of New York for someone hanging themselves in Central Park.

I tend to agree with you, but you should also realize that many cities have invested a great deal of money in anti-suicide devices - precisely because they recognize that they could be held liable, and because it's just a nice thing to do.

I'm playing devil's advocate here, so don't take this as my particular viewpoint.

[gambling8nt]

Community website operators do have a duty to monitor for suicides to some extent, just as they have a duty to monitor for other things. But failure to meet perfection in the pursuit of a virtue is not morally the same as a vice. Online communities have moderators in much the same way as real communities have police--they're society's protection against something going wrong with the social contract. When they individually fail, they may (individually or collectively) bear some level of moral responsibility for the matter, but the buck stops there. The only way moral responsibility can find its way to the top is if it is clear that the community in vastly under-equipped to deal with such problems to begin with, and there is an expectation that such things will be actively prevented within the social contract. When a murder or suicide takes place in a physical town, neither the city (as a political unit) nor the mayor is personally morally responsible; a virtual town is no different.

I understand that you aren't necessarily saying that you entirely believe the views you're espousing; any debate in a public forum should be as much (if not more so) of a benefit for the observers as it is for the participants. Clearly stating both sides of an argument helps everyone involved understand the precise nature of the issue.