Moderators

[spetsa]

Hello, hello...knock,knock...anyone home?

 

[palmerq]

Hello, hello...knock,knock...

who's there?

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Hello, hello...knock,knock...anyone home?

who's there?

You answered the door in the SCA thread - but its Halloween, so maybe you didn't spot under the mask a flicker of the real posters identity

 

[Benotti69]

What it is going on with all the anti LeMond crap being posted and reported but ignored?

No one getting bans anymore?

some obvious returning posters in there!

 

[Realist]

Did the look at it or did they delete the thread?

Did Hardie threaten the company?

Does every cyclist with a Twitter account need to make the issue moot by tweeting XZTT's real name?

This is crazy. They have now deleted two threads, both of which contained a lot of valuable discussion. They also contained a record of Martin Hardie threatening people in a wildly unnecessary manner. Removing those threats in addition to removing the name is a distortion of what happened. Providing no rationale makes it worse. Even if you are being cautious, all that needs to happen is they delete XZTT's real name, not the whole thread.

 

[Cyivel]

Not as important as the above but had a post deleted (as did others) telling someone to ignore the haters after they were getting piled on for starting a thread that some thought should have gone in an existing thread.

Threads got merged and people were threatened with being banned without further warning, not sure who that applies to, need some clarity yo.

 

[M Sport]

We were contacted directly by a legal firm in Australia, not Hardie, and our legal team decided it best to protect Future by removing the thread. So we don't have to chase through this again, and to save us and you all time, can you please refrain from posting the rider's name.

Thanks

Daniel

If it was Coulter Roache that contacted you then they (plus Hardie) can be treated as one and the same for the purpose of discussions about XZTT. One is the Advocate for the applicant XZTT and the other is the Solicitor firm for the Applicant XZTT.

Have both topics both gone now? One was still there last night but appears to have also gone.

And an FYI, you are perfectly within your rights to name him. I already stated the background to the decisions and that the intent is to keep the name anonymous, there is no suppression order as such. The firm is just bulling you in the hope you folded. I guess they played that one well.

 

[Realist]

If it was Coulter Roache that contacted you then they (plus Hardie) can be treated as one and the same for the purpose of discussions about XZTT. One is the Advocate for the applicant XZTT and the other is the Solicitor firm for the Applicant XZTT.

Have both topics both gone now? One was still there last night but appears to have also gone.

And an FYI, you are perfectly within your rights to name him. I already stated the background to the decisions and that the intent is to keep the name anonymous, there is no suppression order as such. The firm is just bulling you in the hope you folded. I guess they played that one well.

Yes, I was trying to make this clear in the discussion in both XZTT threads and put a bit of work into it. That is why I am particularly disappointed after they disappeared.

Do all threads with XZTT's name now get deleted as a matter of course? Would this thread be deleted immediately if I named XZTT?

 

[BroDeal]

This is crazy. They have now deleted two threads, both of which contained a lot of valuable discussion. They also contained a record of Martin Hardie threatening people in a wildly unnecessary manner. Removing those threats in addition to removing the name is a distortion of what happened. Providing no rationale makes it worse. Even if you are being cautious, all that needs to happen is they delete XZTT's real name, not the whole thread.

Yup. It is ridiculous to delete entire threads, especially when it is done on the sly with no announcement. It now looks even more ridiculous that there is no court order and CN just caved in to bullying by the Hardie mafia.

How about a story on the main page about how Hardie and his thugs have suppressed free speech?

 

[palmerq]

You answered the door in the SCA thread - but its Halloween, so maybe you didn't spot under the mask a flicker of the real posters identity

well if you fellows tihnk someone is an old member who has come back, a good way of getting it solved is to pm a moderator with reasons why you think the member is someone else and some links to posts and so on... it would make it a lot easier.. there is a lot of posts just now in there and i opened one of the threads and i just had no idea what was going on :S

 

[Realist]

We were contacted directly by a legal firm in Australia, not Hardie, and our legal team decided it best to protect Future by removing the thread. So we don't have to chase through this again, and to save us and you all time, can you please refrain from posting the rider's name.

Thanks

Daniel

I and many others have refrained from naming the rider at all times. Can you provide the rationale that the firm gave for removing the name? And why you chose to remove entire threads rather than just the few posts naming or suggesting the name of the rider?

 

[skidmark]

It's not a precedent, it's happened before and it's essentially about what's legal and what isn't. In order to avoid a potential legal case we've decided to pull the thread, and that's the measure of it. In general I think the forum is a haven for a lot of free discussion, and that will continue.

Dan

You're right that the forum allows a lot of free discussion, including criticism of the mods here, so I'm grateful for that. I'd like to suggest in the future that if you need to go that route, it might be more effective to delete the offending posts in the thread, lock it, sticky it, and change the initial post to have a note in bold saying 'we've decided to close this because of what we assess as a risk of a legal case. Please refrain from opening new threads'.

If you don't do that, people might not see your message in a 2800-comment thread on an obscure corner of the forums, and might reopen the topic again. Plus, when people feel like their 'rights' have been disrespected or that they have not been communicated with respectfully, it tends to make them more angry and adamant to defy the wishes of the authorities. So doing things the way they have been done here seems to be less effective, in the sense that it will not suppress and potentially encourage discussion around this topic that you guys are finding so sensitive.

Plus, I think that active dialogue and respect of the posters of the forum is a good thing in and of itself, but I suppose that's separate from the tactical side of things.

 

[Daniel Benson]

fair argument from above but we're advised by legal when other lawyers swing into town demanding things. And end of the day we don't want to lose our jobs/get sued, so you have to understand that we're protecting our backs. That doesn't mean we bow to every angry letter, that's not been the case in the past, but please respect the fact that the majority of content we let slide on the forums and in the 1 per cent of situations we do have to act, we do it with the site's best interest at heart.

Dan

 

[thirteen]

and you deleted the entire Kimmage thread WHY?

 

[LaFlorecita]

Disgraced former moderator Barrus says the following:

Since nothing will be done with the Papp situation and this forum will not change, I want to have my entire account and all my posts deleted from this forum, as is provided for by this service. I have tried to make contact concerning this in a different manner, which did not work, so I do this by proxy. If anyone needs confirmation that this is Barrus, I am happy to post some info out of the staff room that I can still recall.

Bump

Barry would like an answer, moderators if you are busy with other stuff ok but at least tell me so Barrus and I know what to expect

Edit: Apparently Fermie is going after it

 

[ToreBear]

fair argument from above but we're advised by legal when other lawyers swing into town demanding things. And end of the day we don't want to lose our jobs/get sued, so you have to understand that we're protecting our backs. That doesn't mean we bow to every angry letter, that's not been the case in the past, but please respect the fact that the majority of content we let slide on the forums and in the 1 per cent of situations we do have to act, we do it with the site's best interest at heart.

Dan

Some friendly advice:

The forum should be moved to another jurisdiction. UK laws regarding freedom of the press are backward, and none of the big press institutions have bothered to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights to get them struck down.

See superinjunctions and trafigura for an example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafigura

Any cost in moving should be minuscule compared to the legal bills incurred by having UK lawyers holding your hands.

 

[BroDeal]

Stll no answer for why a couple of posts in in a thread cannot be deleted instead of the whole thread.

If it was Coulter Roache that contacted you then they (plus Hardie) can be treated as one and the same for the purpose of discussions about XZTT. One is the Advocate for the applicant XZTT and the other is the Solicitor firm for the Applicant XZTT.

Have both topics both gone now? One was still there last night but appears to have also gone.

And an FYI, you are perfectly within your rights to name him. I already stated the background to the decisions and that the intent is to keep the name anonymous, there is no suppression order as such. The firm is just bulling you in the hope you folded. I guess they played that one well.

No answer to this either.

 

[autologous]

and you deleted the entire kimmage thread why?

yes, why?...

 

[Dr. Maserati]

and you deleted the entire Kimmage thread WHY?

yes, why?...

I had not noticed this.

While I can see CNs point in the other threads that were closed (although I object to how those who released snippets then objected to peoples rights to question the case) - I have not seen any reason for closure (let alone removal) of the Kimmage thread.


So..... why?

 

[Benotti69]

Why has Kimmage's thread been deleted?

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

Yeah what's the explanation this time?

 

[Daniel Benson]

Kimmage: I'm looking into it. I have a sneaking suspicion it's my fault. A user asked that his account and details to be removed and with that I removed his posts. If he started the discussion that might have caused the thread to be deleted. If that's the case hopefully I can ask IT to look at this tomorrow and it should be possible to resurrect the Kimmage thread. Apologies, Dan

 

[mewmewmew13]

Maybe because the word 'sue' is being linked now with Kimmage....

 

[thirteen]

Kimmage: I'm looking into it. I have a sneaking suspicion it's my fault. A user asked that his account and details to be removed and with that I removed his posts. If he started the discussion that might have caused the thread to be deleted. If that's the case hopefully I can ask IT to look at this tomorrow and it should be possible to resurrect the Kimmage thread. Apologies, Dan

thank you, Dan.

i'm guessing i know who and, yes, i believe he started it.

eta: my guess was wrong.

 

[skidmark]

fair argument from above but we're advised by legal when other lawyers swing into town demanding things. And end of the day we don't want to lose our jobs/get sued, so you have to understand that we're protecting our backs. That doesn't mean we bow to every angry letter, that's not been the case in the past, but please respect the fact that the majority of content we let slide on the forums and in the 1 per cent of situations we do have to act, we do it with the site's best interest at heart.

Dan

Okay cool, I get that you're being pragmatic and don't always have 'respect for anonymous posters desires to be informed' at the top of your list; I mean, there's a lot of crap on the forum, it's hard to satisfy everyone and running the site should be your main priority. But my main point is that even if you are pragmatic, it also makes sense to be more heavy-handed about it, in the sense of actually advertising that you don't want people talking about it. If you just make it go away, people might wander onto the forums and not see it there and bring it up again. And people who have seen it disappear without explanation will bring it up to be contrary. Or maybe you've thought of that and thought that the risk is less than if you're bringing attention to it by addressing it. I disagree, but hey, it's your site. Do what you want.