An apology

[EWS]

I think that every member of this community who chastised the admin and the moderators for the so called 'censorship' should be feeling ashamed this morning. Suprise, suprise, nothing has appeared in the fine upstanding rag about anything other then our match yesterday (which we won, by the way, people seemed to have overlooked that). The admins do a great job here, and the unfounded drivel that was being banded about yesterday is nothing new, but will never become old.

Rumours like these damage our club's spirit, community and support. Whilst we can criticise our team, board and staff, their private lives should remain that, private. Everyone, including myself, enjoys a good scandal, but when it becomes unfounded and detrimental, I lose faith in some.

I hope that there are some people on this forum who woke up this morning, eagerly rushed to the shop, and came back feeling ashamed and red in the face. This is not the place to discuss absolute ***** (pardon) like that, it never has and it never will.

Shame on you.

[Guest Spectre]

Well I didn't see what was claimed, but I do want to correct those posters who seem to believe that it's ok to print something if it's in the "public domain".

This is not the case. It's still a libel if you repeat one, and similarly if it is an invasion of privacy.

Otherwise, for example, it would be quite ok for papers to say "Gerry and Kate McCann did it - the Portugese police say so", but it's not, hence the damages they received.

[SMEE]

I was about to post a thread asking if anything had apppeared in NOTW.

Well...I, for one, am not one of those feeling ashamed today. As I viewed my doubts over the legitimacy of these rumours via PMs yesterday with certain board members.

I still think the mods were a bit trigger happy with most of the moderation going on. Seemed the word Brewster was off limits yesterday. We are all grown ups, and had the topic allowed to have been discussed, i think it would have been handled in a grown up fashion. Its the fact that it was approached in such a "nanny state" manner that resulted in all shennanigans, leading to the mods having a difficult day.

[stevico1]

We are all grown ups, and had the topic allowed to have been discussed, i think it would have been handled in a grown up fashion. Its the fact that it was approached in such a "nanny state" manner that resulted in all shennanigans, leading to the mods having a difficult day.

Smee, if you did see some of the comments before they were pulled they were def not posted in a grown up fashion.

[Guest Spectre]

Well I suggest anybody who wants to post unrestrictedly ensures the site owners/moderators are put in funds to resist any lawsuits.

Lets say:

- Maximum damages per claim ?1m

- Maximum legal costs per claim ?1m

- Compensation for stress, risk of losing your home defending a claim ?250k per moderator.

So just deposit a round ?5m in an escrow account held by a solicitor for each actionable rumour (true or not) you want to start, to be held until the statute of limitations is run (3 or 6 years).

Simple really.

[gillian black]

I was about to post a thread asking if anything had apppeared in NOTW.

Well...I, for one, am not one of those feeling ashamed today. As I viewed my doubts over the legitimacy of these rumours via PMs yesterday with certain board members.

I still think the mods were a bit trigger happy with most of the moderation going on. Seemed the word Brewster was off limits yesterday. We are all grown ups, and had the topic allowed to have been discussed, i think it would have been handled in a grown up fashion. Its the fact that it was approached in such a "nanny state" manner that resulted in all shennanigans, leading to the mods having a difficult day.

What have I missed?

[SMEE]

We are all grown ups, and had the topic allowed to have been discussed, i think it would have been handled in a grown up fashion. Its the fact that it was approached in such a "nanny state" manner that resulted in all shennanigans, leading to the mods having a difficult day.

Smee, if you did see some of the comments before they were pulled they were def not posted in a grown up fashion.

I did see the majority of the posts before they were taken down.

If you re-read what i sed. I am saying, it deteriorated BECAUSE any reference to the subject matter was rapidly taken off the site, regardless of depth of detail. That got ppls backs up, so, it turned into a battle of wills

Edited September 28, 2008 by SMEE

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

This thread has signs of deteriorating already - lets just concentrate on the feckin football - fer fecks sake we were on the feckin floor yeterday, in the proverbial brown stuff and we still managed to come from behind.

[CaleyD]

I did see the majority of the posts before they were taken down.

If you re-read what i sed. I am saying, it deteriorated BECAUSE any reference to the subject matter was rapidly taken off the site, regardless of depth of detail. That got ppls backs up, so, it turned into a battle of wills

As much as it may make me sound like a total b*****d, there's no "battle of wills" to be won here. We have always, where possible, tried to respect the private lives of players/staff at the stadium when it came to unfounded rumours. That will not change and if people want to continue to make extra work for the site moderators when we have made it perfectly clear that we will not allow it then they will simply have their posting privileges removed.

Our stance on this is not open to discussion or any attempts at "Mob Rule" and the situation will not be allowed to escalate to the position it did yesterday when the few moderators who were around spent more time clearing up after people who can't respect a simple request than they did following the match and having what should have been an enjoyable afternoon listening to ICT winning a game in great fashion.

These guys were far more tolerant than I would have been had I not been away most of the weekend and they got no thanks for it from a handful of site users...I won't allow that to continue.

[EWS]

My thoughts the matter responding to someone on P&B.

Quite frankly, it is their ball and they can do what they want with it. Scotty has put money, time and a lot of effort into that site, and quite frankly he can do what he wants with it. He can censor who he wants, he can ban who he wants, and he can moderate and instruct others how to moderate any damn way that he wants.

If you don't like it, then don't visit the site. Instruct others to follow you out, and you will soon see that Scotty has to change. The moderators over there were covering their own backs with regard to this story, they have been a few incidents in the past where they have been threatened by the powers that be with law suits over stuff that had been printed on the site. Remember, unlike a team like Rangers and Celtic - CTO is the only fans website that ICT fans can go to, and as such can be monitored more closely by the club. We also have a small community and people get offended and uppity easier.

Basically, you either respect their rules and their methods or you f**k off.

[gillian black]

I did see the majority of the posts before they were taken down.

If you re-read what i sed. I am saying, it deteriorated BECAUSE any reference to the subject matter was rapidly taken off the site, regardless of depth of detail. That got ppls backs up, so, it turned into a battle of wills

As much as it may make me sound like a total b*****d, there's no "battle of wills" to be won here. We have always, where possible, tried to respect the private lives of players/staff at the stadium when it came to unfounded rumours. That will not change and if people want to continue to make extra work for the site moderators when we have made it perfectly clear that we will not allow it then they will simply have their posting privileges removed.

Our stance on this is not open to discussion or any attempts at "Mob Rule" and the situation will not be allowed to escalate to the position it did yesterday when the few moderators who were around spent more time clearing up after people who can't respect a simple request than they did following the match and having what should have been an enjoyable afternoon listening to ICT winning a game in great fashion.

These guys were far more tolerant than I would have been had I not been away most of the weekend and they got no thanks for it from a handful of site users...I won't allow that to continue.

Caley D, have I upset some one, I have a warn notice under my name al be it, it is at 0%, why is this?

[CaleyD]

Everyone has a warn notice under their name, so long as it's at 0% then you have nothing to worry about.

[gillian black]

Everyone has a warn notice under their name, so long as it's at 0% then you have nothing to worry about.

can you tell me, is this why the match thread from yesterday etc is missing?

[SMEE]

Yesterday was a very busy day for the mods Gillian. Think ad be right in saying the busiest day ever?

I felt a bit bad for them, but they could have made it easier on themselves and still remained on the right side of the law IMHO

[Mee]

Everyone has a warn notice under their name, so long as it's at 0% then you have nothing to worry about.

can you tell me, is this why the match thread from yesterday etc is missing?

Match thread not missing, just sticky? :thumb04:

Back on topic -

I must've missed a lot yesterday, even though I was here at the time

[CaleyD]

Yesterday was a very busy day for the mods Gillian. Think ad be right in saying the busiest day ever?

I felt a bit bad for them, but they could have made it easier on themselves and still remained on the right side of the law IMHO

Although there's certain "legal" aspects which have to be taken in to consideration it has never been the policy of this forum/site to allow unsubstantiated rumours about the personal lives of players and staff at the club....even if no legal issues existed we still wouldn't allow it.

[SMEE]

What would have happened had the story appeared in the papers? Would it have been fair game then? Or would it still be classed as unsubstansiated?

[CaleyD]

As with previous situations we would have had to had looked at the facts (if any) that appeared in any press articles, the sources etc and then had a discussion among the moderation team to see where any boundary shift on what was open for discussion then rested.

We faced similar circumstances with the Hart scenario where we initially banned all discussion, then after the allegations appeared in the press we allowed sensible discussion on it but still removed anything we felt went too far as it was still in the hands of the courts. After the court verdict people were free to discuss the facts which came from that.

The problem we have faced here over the past couple of days is that everyone seemed to think that they could come on here and post as they wished on the subject. When it got to the stage where people were ignoring the requests of the moderators and started being awkward and confrontational then the decision had to be made that everything related to the matter had to be removed as it just wasn't possible to have individual discussions on everything.

Some posts were caught within that which will not have crossed the line, and whilst that's not ideal, it was inevitable given the volume the guys were having to deal with. In effect we had to kick things into survival mode, I even considered taking the forum offline altogether late last night as I could not be certain that I wouldn't come back this morning to find it was just as difficult as it had been yesterday.

Forum moderators are Fans like most other people who use this site and I have to say that I was more than a little disgusted to see that they had been treated with such little regard yesterday. I haven't counted up the posts that have been removed/hidden but I'm sure it's well into 3 figures.

We've had all the accusations in the last 24 hours about moderators being Nazis, Trigger Happy, under the influence of the club...we've been called B*stards, C*nts, Idiots, F*nnies, Tw*ts and a whole host of other things....yet we've been extremely tolerant of that and I believe only 3 people who had been particularly awkward and confrontational have received temporary suspension from posting (so far).

I can understand and accept that some forum users don't agree with our stance and that they should be free to post as they wish....but it doesn't work like that, and I make no apology for that, nor do I have any desire for it to change. Scotty and I have certain "values" that we try to maintain. We want a forum with users who, for the most part, post and discuss things in a responsible manner. Their may have been room for that on this subject if people had followed the initial requests of the moderators, they could have discussed the existence of a rumour but we would not have allowed ANY specifics to be mentioned....however, certain people gave up that right when they started with the nonsense and unfortunately everyone who might have wanted sensible discussion suffered and the stance, for now, is that it is a no go area and it will remain like that until we have time to clear up the mess that's already been created and can discuss among the team where we go and what we allow from there.

Nobody likes zero tolerance, especially me, but that's where we are at for the time being and as we don't have the time nor the inclination to deal with people who wish to be difficult, and if they want to try then they will be dealt with in a manner which is easiest for us right now.

All I'm really asking for is that people show a bit of common sense right now. People may not like the situation or agree with how it's been handled, but they must accept that it is as it is, we are not going to move on it as a result of mob rule and the harder they make it for us the tougher we will be on them.

If the situation changes then we will, as soon as is practicable, give guidance on what is or isn't allowed. We don't have a crystal ball and know no more than others do, so as much as we would like to say "If it appears in the papers then xyz is allowed" we can't.

I'm already a mile behind in getting things like match reports, prediction leagues, stats etc updated because I've had to deal with this, and I would like it if the site didn't suffer any more because of a few people on a witch hunt.

[MrsICTFC]

I think that every member of this community who chastised the admin and the moderators for the so called 'censorship' should be feeling ashamed this morning. Suprise, suprise, nothing has appeared in the fine upstanding rag about anything other then our match yesterday (which we won, by the way, people seemed to have overlooked that). The admins do a great job here, and the unfounded drivel that was being banded about yesterday is nothing new, but will never become old.

Rumours like these damage our club's spirit, community and support. Whilst we can criticise our team, board and staff, their private lives should remain that, private. Everyone, including myself, enjoys a good scandal, but when it becomes unfounded and detrimental, I lose faith in some.

I hope that there are some people on this forum who woke up this morning, eagerly rushed to the shop, and came back feeling ashamed and red in the face. This is not the place to discuss absolute ***** (pardon) like that, it never has and it never will.

Shame on you.

I agree with you.

People have their own lives so let them get on with it and concentrate on ICTFC kicking some ass!!!!!

[Council Juice]

Im sure i was online just after the match and there wasnt anything I noticed. Did i miss something here? Obviously!

But im gonna say

People know the rules, people should also know the law. People should also know it's the site that gets the rap if any claims, rumours etc were to be investigated.

Its a football forum so talk football and transfers and maybe sneak at most to whats going on at boardroom level but surely dont be daft enough to go about sullying peoples names without hard hard evidence.

I was clearly too pleased in the result to notice some numpty comments.

[Scotty]

I just want to add a little to this thread after reading and receiving comments on here and reading comments on a (now closed) thread on P&B.

Until this morning, I have been nowhere near a computer for the last 8 days and was not actively involved in any of the so-called censorship. Having now read the posts that were removed from view, I can however confirm that my reaction would have been similar if not stronger had I been around. I fully back the actions of the moderator(s) who had to hold the fort when the **** hit the fan. There were something like 9 moderators in the Innes pre-game on Saturday so I know those who were on the site had their work cut out !!!

Why would my reaction have been similar? Its simple really and has nothing to do with who is posting the rumour or because I have joined the nationalist socialist party of the 1940s as one defamatory comment made about me on P&B suggested. The reason I would have done the same is that this site has a legal duty of care to ensure that we do not allow postings to remain which may be defamatory to the person involved in any rumour or where the content of such rumours may eventually be used in the legal arena. We also have a rule in place - and most of you are fully aware of this - which does draw the line when it comes to the personal lives of players, management or officials of ICTFC. Other sites may be a little more lax in what they allow, or may draw the line further over and that is their lookout, I dont tell them how to run their sites or do any back seat moderating that is not my job or my right as a free member of their sites. My main concern is for this site and its content.

This is why we moderated discussion about Ross Tokely's personal life a few years back, it is also why the Rockness/Richie Hart incident was moderated and why discussion of the latest rumours have also been moderated. I would however say that the moderation of subjects like these is a constantly changing environment. The Richie Hart situation was probably the best example. We could not allow discussion of the details when the story was not in the public domain. Even though many of the things we had to moderate in that story proved to be true in the long run, we had to watch what we allowed as it was not yet in the public domain. when more details emerged and more things were published as fact the line moved over somewhat and allowed users to discuss a few more of the specifics, the line then retracted when he was charged as restrictions are harsher when a matter is before the courts and when the case was over, people could discuss the details freely. The only thing we really removed after that were comments which called him a "junkie" or made claims that were not established as facts.

We have always had a set of guidelines in place, and we will apply these as the moderators see fit. Sometimes we can allow latitude when the subject is not likely to be "explosive" but at other times, users simply have to realise that we have to stick to them rigidly to protect the people involved and also the site, its owners and its moderators from legal action. How would you have felt if a handful of posters had led to the site being hit with a publication ban at the weekend meaning discussion on every forum and thread was closed down? I know that I wouldnt have been pleased, and I am damn sure that there would have been a long thread on P&B asking what the hell happened at CTO !!!

At the end of the day, we do our best to allow free discussion within the guidelines we have (and we will tweak these from time to time if the situation warrants it or a memebr makes a good case for us to do so) but inevitably we will make mistakes or irritate people when their posts are hidden or removed but I can assure you we dont do this kind of thing for fun, we do it so the site can retain the integrity that I hope we have shown for the last fifteen years.

This is a postscript - I just wanted to add my own response to a couple of comments made on P&B as I dont have the opportunity to do so there as the thread is closed.

1. I strongly object to the term "nazi" when used to describe myself or any member of the moderating team. I am not, and never have been a member of the Nationalist Socialist Party and find this description offensive and defamatory. I am seeking advice on this as the person making the comment has now used the term once too many times to describe me personally.
   
2. We do not have "countless users" banned. On 4 separate occasions we have allowed the handful of banned users to come back with no strings attached and no grudges. Right now we have a total of 4 bans in effect. 2 were imposed in September when a user registered twice and then spammed the board with advertising (some of you might remember the threads), the other two were new users who came on on Saturday and whose only purpose seemed to be an attempt to stir up trouble in the rumour threads.
   
3. I am not "scared" that I will not get any info if the site upsets people with its views. The site has upset people for the last 15 years and if the person who posted that would like to look back on either my posts or CaleyD's posts for the last 12 months even, they will find plenty in both of our postings that riled many people at the club. As I have said before, I will criticise where I think it is due, but I will also praise where it is merited.
   
4. CTO does not have a history of people being banned simply for airing their views. As I said above, on 4 occasions we have allowed the handful of people who have been banned to come back on with no grudges and no repercussions. A few are still here. A few have moved on. This new forum software gives us many more options than an outright ban so I would imagine that amnesties will probably not be needed in the future.
   

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Everyone has a warn notice under their name, so long as it's at 0% then you have nothing to worry about.

I feel that it is worse when ya get 100 feckin per cent beside yer name. :thumb04:

Is it not a bit of a shame that peeple cant stick to sarcastic banter rather than engage in volatile slagging. If this carries on I am going to go to Arbroath or Shrewsbury - at least their grounds are more welcoming.

Hang on a feckin second - how feckin come I have got 30% ?

[PullMyFinger]

I have joined the nationalist socialist party

Selective quoting, gotta love it.

I was one of those who had posts removed, none of them were defamatory but as was explained to me by Yngwie they could have led down that path. So in hindsight I wouldn't have made that post but when you hear rumours about something or someone close to your heart it is difficult to restrain yourself.

I have also posted negative posts about Brewsters tenure here at ICT more to do with his chosen style of play, but he has proven me wrong last weekend and as the season progresses the new players will gel better. Still early days but things don't appear as bleak to me now as they were last week, bring on the Arabs.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Away with ya - ya feckin creep. Brewster is still on a sticky wicket - Ya can have sympathy with his lack of privacy but the players turned it around cos he changed his tactics due to pressure. He still has a long, long way to go - one good result doesnt do it.

[PullMyFinger]

Away with ya - ya feckin creep. Brewster is still on a sticky wicket - Ya can have sympathy with his lack of privacy but the players turned it around cos he changed his tactics due to pressure. He still has a long, long way to go - one good result doesnt do it.

Still early days but things don't appear as bleak to me now as they were last week, bring on the Arabs.

READ MA FECKIN LIPS!

STILL EARLY DAYS.

Get off his back and let him get on with it.