IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ

First topic message reminder :

Over the last few days, we have been contacted by the UK Athletics board with regards to comments made on our site.

A thread was posted where correspondance of a personal matter was posted on this site - basically a chain of email correspondance was published on here naming individuals personally at the UK Athletics board.

Unfortunately, this was posted on a thread that was not picked up by our moderators and not reported by our members.

In addition to this, a different member posted a comment along the lines of "I think you should visit that lying cow ******* and punch her in the face!".

The person mentioned in this has reported this comment to the police and the UK Athletics board are talking to their legal team about the situation. It is not in regards to the topic in whole.

The member who made this post has been notified by PM on here and we will be cooperating with both the UK Athletics board and police in whatever way we can within data protection laws.

The lesson learnt from all of this, is that no matter how jovial or tongue in cheek a comment is, that when people mention names and threats, it must remembered that text has no tone and can be interpreted in the wrong way. It can also mean severe repercussions for both the site and person who has posted it.

This is now the second time that we have been subject to potential legal action and both incidents have come from the Athletics section which has no current moderator.

Other sections are not specifically moderated but have a people power moderation style - basically the members self regulate and report any issues.

This has not happened in Athletics and as such I am sad to announce that we will be closing the athletics section for the time being.

It is up to every single member to remember to think about their comments AND report any comments they think may be subject to legal action.

We run this site for the entertainment for our members - dealing with lawyers and the police is not "fun" or entertaining.

The admin and moderator teams will need to be more vigilant going forward but we also expect help from members. Please remember not to post any threatening comments, no matter how tame you may think they are and no matter how tongue in cheek.

Debate the issue not the poster.

If you have any questions, please feel free to drop the admin team a PM or comment on this thread.

Thanks for your continued support,

Adam D

UPDATE - Although no names have been mentioned in this post as to who the original thread was concerned with, the person involved has asked for us to mention a few things.

Firstly the thread concerned someone having a dispute with the UK Athletics. This individual goes by the user name of Anthony Treacher (which may or not be his real name - he has contacted us as Anthony Treacher). He posted email correspondence between himself and the UK Athletics board. As we are not party to the correspondence as it was between the two parties, I cannot comment to its legitimacy or content. The correspondence that was published was posted by Anthony Treacher and if any of the correspondence has been changed by him prior to posting, this cannot be confirmed by 606v2. All that can be said is that the post on this site has not been altered by the admin team in any way and should there be any discrepancies in the content, that is not the liability of the admin team.

As a responsible site, we removed the content when we received the complaint from the UKA.

Anthony Treacher has contacted us to inform us that he was the one who reported the threat to the UKA about the "punching in the face" comment. WE cannot confirm this but he has claimed responsibility and has asked us to clarify that he did report it. He has also asked us to clarify that he was not the person who posted the comment containing the threat.

The only thing that the 606v2 can confirm is that he did not post the threat.

All other comments in this additional post are reproduced sentiments from Mr Treacher. 606v2 cannot confirm that the correspondence that he originally posted is unedited and correct and we cannot confirm that Mr Treacher contacted the UKA to report the comment with the threat. Mr Treacher is the one who has asked to state these comments and as a act of goodwill, we are reproducing his comments.

This site has been going for over 2 years and this is the first time that anything like this has happened. We run this site very well and it is a private site that we open up to the public as long as they abide by the rules set out by us. This whole dispute has developed from a personal dispute between Mr Treacher and the UKA - it has nothing to do with this site. WE are caught in the middle and it has been a highly distressing time for the whole admin team. we do not want this kind of attention or the type of members that is going to cause problems for the site.

Mr Treacher is no longer a member of this site and these comments are here to clarify his position. No further correspondence is going to take place with either Mr Treacher or the UKA.

The position for our site is quite clear - Mr Treacher posted comments that he states were email correspondence between himself and the UKA, that have now been removed. He did not threaten anyone. This final comment from us, is the final time we will publicly comment on this matter and should be seen by Mr Treacher as clarification of his absolvement of any threats.

Super, that's true but users need to be sensible and realise we won't take risks with borderline posts given what has happened.

Indeed, I didn't see the post in question so can't comment on that.

Could the person who made the comment in question please check their PMs and/or email - this is urgent.

Hibbz wrote:Already backed The New One coz some bloke on here said to.

Who is this bloke Hibbz!!!

Lets hope the UK Athletics Board took notice of that little nugget.

Bloke on the Horse Racing section called racingnut. Get yourself on there, they know their sh!t.

Sounds like it!

JabMachineMK2 wrote:That disclaimer would stand up in court. You're unlikely to find yourself being hit by any fines etc. You think Facebook gets sued every time someone gets bullied on there? It happens daily. Twitter too. Although providing the medium for such events to occur, you'll find that in all eventuality you cannot be held responsible for the other persons actions without provocation or encouragement. I'm not saying its right, and I'm not saying its justified, but ask yourself - honestly, unless written as the express opinion of the site and its owners do you think it would hold up in court?

I understand your co-operation, but sometimes the whole "please don't make libelous comments" thing gets stuck in my throat as its a forum for discussion, there are on occasion things that could be seen as libelous, yet when thought or opinion, it has very little weight in a court of law. Same as when someone threatens on a forum. You'll notice also, that each email from a company will say something similar, so publishing an email chain is again not something that you can get sued for.

I'm not defending/incriminating anyone or anything here, but I do want to make you guys feel a bit more secure because realistically, they can threaten all they like but it will never come to fruition. Ever.

Oh and if you need another mod, I'm more than happy to step up (think it would be an unpopular choice, but you're unlikely to find anyone with as much impartiality as myself)

The only three problems with this are:

1. We're not the size of facebook or Twitter, while you'd think the law applies the same to them as us, unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case. I have stressed on this thread and to the rest of the admins that we are actually at risk because an admin of a small forum was given a multi-thousand pound fine for a libellous comment because he was warned to remove it and didn't.

2. None of the admins or moderators particularly want to go to court full stop. It doesn't matter whether you think the disclaimer would hold up or that we'd win the case, the fact that we'd have to go to court over this site is unacceptable. We will always fully comply with both the legal teams of certain people and the police (who are now involved with this.)

3. Forumotion have the power to close this site down at any point, and if this site is getting itself into legal troubles and police action, then I have no doubt that they would close the site without warning. We don't want that, and I'm sure none of you would want that. We've had two contacts threatening us with legal action within the past six months I believe, that is not good, and if we don't say something now and we don't take action now, that number would only rise and I am sure that one day it'd get back to forumotion and they'd shut us down.

All we're asking is for you to think before posting things that may not be taken as a joke, or may be seen as libellous...and, if any of you see a post which you believe to be libellous or threatening (either you or any other person outside of this site) then we urge you to report it.

UPDATE TO OP - please read.

I feel that 606v2 is being dragged through mud, for a poster's oversight/indiscretion.

laverfan wrote:I feel that 606v2 is being dragged through mud, for a poster's oversight/indiscretion.

well hopefully it will be soon forgotten about!

I'd like to add a couple of points:

1. Compared to other sites, this site has been the friendliest of its type I've seen. Comments rarely get personal, at least on the sections I frequent. It is a credit that we generally need so little moderation: I can probably count on one hand the number of times a moderator has had to make a serious intervention on the cricket section or other sections that I look at.

2. In this particular case I don't really see what else the admins could have done. Clearly, its impossible to read every post. It looks like the admins have dealt with this in a responsible manner. Temporarily closing the Athletics section is perhaps a bit drastic, but I guess its not a particularly busy section anyway.

3. I do think that we could do with having an admin or 2 put in charge of each section. Not necessarily to police people, but to keep things organised in terms of stickies/ sections/ special threads etc. On the cricket section we haven't really had that since Fists has been contributing a little less and whilst Pete, Linebreaker and Biltong do a great job I think we'd benefit from someone overseeing things. (I would put my hand up, but I'm afraid I've probably put my hand up for a few too many things lately).

also your not admin shelsey....so you couldnt really be put in charge of a section

CF wrote:also your not admin shelsey....so you couldnt really be put in charge of a section

Well, yes. The point was I would put my hand up to help out if people wanted me to if I hadn't already committed to quite a few other things, some of which I'm struggling to keep up with...