Moderator resignation

[Heather]

Briefly. Matt is not a financial member of the ABPA, David and as such can no longer post his poems on this site. Our loss.

Secondly. owly, storeyteller, mummsie, alongtimegone, warooa - all long term contributors and valued members of the forum - all with psuedonyms. We know who they are, it doesn't matter what they call themselves.

I have loved this forum and the people on it. We have had a lovely friendly little community for quite a few years and welcomed with open arms many new people to the world of poetry. It's been about the poetry - sharing and learning, debate - and friendship. There has never been a need for politics and none of us were interested in politics - and still aren't.

The forum has bubbled along happily with rarely a need for a moderator - until recently when we had people who have never used the forum, have no idea of the people, the poetry, the dynamics or the relationships, start calling the members names in public. It's a sad day when the moderators have to edit the executive committee and a very bad reflection on the ABPA.

As Sue said, the long term users of the forum have developed strong loyalties to our forum friends. I have made many treasured friends here and we will continue to share our poetry. It may come as a surprise to some, but we don't actually need the ABPA to do that.

Heather

[Terry]

Afternoon All

I’ve been a member of the ABPA forum for 8 or 9 years, and I‘ve been watching with growing disappointment the discussions that have taken place in recent weeks.
While I have no wish to get into a heated discussion with anyone, I thought I might be able to help clear up a couple of points about the forum.
As Neil and others have already stated, you have never needed to be a member of The ABPA to participate on the forum.
The two main areas for posting poetry were the Members poetry section where anyone could access but only ABPA members could post.
On the Other section (Other People Poetry) everyone could access and post, I have no doubt that as stated by others that this has helped recruit members over the years,

Having served on a couple of committee’s myself I’m well aware of just how thankless a task this can be at times, and sometimes unpopular decisions have to be made. I also understand the need to be a diplomat and use language that doesn’t offend people, especially if they’re friends as I can assure you all members of this forum are.
I have no wish to bang on about this, but this would like to make one small suggestion - and that is for the committee to immediately reopen the section of ‘other people’s poetry’ to all registered visitors be they members of the ABPA or not - It's time to start mending fences.

Regards

Terry

[Shelley Hansen]

Hi Terry

Thank you for your support and your input as a valued ABPA member and forum contributor.

What you say about the two sections of the forum is what all of us have always believed - that there is a "Members' Only" (ABPA) section and a separate section for other registered users who are not ABPA members. Like you, I have stated this belief on more than one occasion.

When the technical assessment of the forum was done, we all found out that we were wrong. Although the Board Index stated otherwise, our IT expert informed us that there is no firewall on this forum. Anyone may post anywhere - and in many cases, this has occurred.

Therein lies the problem and the related legal liability risk to ABPA - requiring that a decision be made on the future direction of the forum and its contributing participants.

I wish it could have been otherwise.

Regards
Shelley

[Terry]

Hi Shelley

This same forum has operated for years without a major problem, why the sudden panic now?
I dare say Bush Verse is the same, and apart from a few spammers there’s has been no real problems.
If we’re suddenly worried enough now, why not just give all current registered members (that is current up until this all this took place) the same rights as ABPA members until the problems fixed. (that’s if they can be contacted again)
I’m sure we can err on the side of generosity for the short period in question.
Poetry is in decline, and I think we need to be a little more compassionate.

It just seems to me that we have been very mean spirited about this.

We’re all supposed to be Bush Poetry Comrades, not at each other’s throats all the time.

Cheers

Terry

[Heather]

So, the way I see it, the executive have this bizarre idea that non-financial contributors (although they register to contribute) are in some way a legal liability. Can someone please point out where in the past use of the forum, a non-financial ABPA member of the forum has created a legal problem? And how would it be different if a contributor is a financial member? The ABPA does not have control over what a financial member says any more than non-financial. From time to time there have been difficult customers, - and they have been financial members of the ABPA.

[David Campbell]

Some words (in fact, quite a few!) of caution about the legal liability issue. Despite Heather’s comment about a “lovely friendly little community” and Terry’s reference to the forum operating for years “without a problem” it could be argued that the lack of any legal action is more good fortune than anything else. In registering for this site it is necessary to agree “…not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws…” Can anyone seriously say that every post on this site has obeyed that rule?

For example, over the last few years a certain contributor has mounted a number of highly personal attacks, some against our members, and one in particular against a free verse poet who had won a major book prize. All manner of extreme claims were made in highly inflammatory language and focussed on one poem from the book. Not only was the author blasted, but so was the body granting the award. With regard to this particular outspoken individual, Heather quite correctly wrote at one point: “No one has the right, or should think they do, to charge on in to this friendly place and make rude, tasteless, groundless and unreasonable statements about someone's character…”

Which brings us to the subject of defamation. According to media reports, the number of legal cases involving online comments has been increasing, particularly with regard to Twitter and Facebook. According to The Law Handbook: “Anyone who has had damaging material published about them can take legal action against authors, publishers, broadcasters and distributors to defend their reputation.” Anyone can sue for defamation “if damaging material that identifies them was published”. So if someone had been offended by the comments on the ABPA website, the ABPA (as publisher) could presumably have been sued for defamation. In addition, if the author of any such comments was not a member and was only known by a pseudonym and an email address (which could be bogus), then identification would be difficult and the ABPA would be the only entity that could be sued. Could the ABPA afford to defend itself against even one such case?

So, despite the comments that all has been OK in the past, that is no guarantee of future plain sailing on the legal front. Of course, it’s impossible to forestall any defamation problem completely unless all comments are moderated before they’re published (which some websites do)…but we can’t operate that way. Therefore it seems to me that the committee is simply doing the best it can to protect what independent investigation has revealed to be a fairly vulnerable website.

Note: I have neither technical nor legal expertise, nor any direct knowledge of the committee’s deliberations, so I’m simply looking at the situation as it has been presented here and trying to make sense of it. The basic question is: what steps should be taken to minimise the future risk factor when faced with these issues? What happened in the past is not necessarily a reliable guide.

David

[tom mcilveen]

Over the last few days I have read the posts on this thread with increasing concern, but have refrained from participating until now. However as APBA President I believe I need to address the comments being made.
Firstly, I must stress that the risk of ABPA legal liability is not one to be dismissed. Just because nothing has occurred in the past, doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future. Ignoring that possibility is like cancelling your insurance because your house has never caught fire.
As David so eloquently said in his post, unfortunately for all of us, times have changed with regard to legal matters. This Forum, like all other Association forums, is for the benefit of the ABPA Membership, people who have all their details officially registered with the Association and who have paid membership fees which also enable costs such as the running of the Forum, to be covered. Our Webhost does not provide it for free.

Every effort was made over a number of weeks to contact each registered forum user who was not an ABPA member, and the changed situation was explained to them. Because of the unique circumstances, they were offered the remaining six months of this year free if they undertook to join ABPA. Some did join, and thanked us for this generous offer. Those who elected not to join are still able to read the Forum – but do not have access to post. Almost all of these are not regular contributors.

Heather has reiterated her displeasure at the loss of Matt’s posts. As our Secretary Rhonda has already mentioned, this was simply a case of human error. Despite our best intentions, we are not perfect. Efforts are being made to retrieve and reinstall these posts. All other posts are intact and will remain that way.

Several members have again reported problems with accessing the forum. Like all websites, this could be a temporary issue with a user’s browser or an intermittent glitch on the Webhost’s server. The Webhost is, and has always been iPower, which like many of its kind, is located in USA. Apparently it was initially chosen and subsequently used due to the relatively low cost and there have been no changes to this arrangement since the forum’s inception, however this will need to be addressed early in 2017. As stated on the Public Noticeboard back in May, due to the age of the system it is relatively obsolete and the version the Forum now has will not be supported by the company phpBB who owns it after early next year.
The Executive, through the Forum Administrator, is currently considering viable Australian options.

I urge all of you to support the hardworking Executive and wider Committee, all of whom are committed to the preservation of the ABPA and its endeavours. Necessary decisions are not always easy – but I can assure you they are never taken hastily or lightly – and are always made with the welfare of ABPA members in mind. Unfortunately it seems that over the past three years some Forum users have taken any opportunity to write misleading statements about the (supposed) actions of Committee/Executive Members. Such accusations are hurtful and just drive good people away. The Executive has made a commitment not to respond to these statements in order to move forward. Give us a fair go! It is worth noting that, particularly due to the hard work of the Executive and wider Committee, forty new members have joined the ABPA this year.

Please – let’s put this temporary disruption behind us and get back to what we do best – bush poetry!

Tom McIlveen.
ABPA PRESIDENT.

[Heather]

Dear Tom,

Could you please advise of the progress of reinstating Matt's poems and all his posts for the past 5 years?

Secondly, has anyone else been inadvertently deleted or is Matt the only person to suffer from this unfortunate and catastrophic inadvertedness?

Thirdly, I find it ironic that user-members (non financial ABPA members) who were behaving appropriately, have been barred, whilst both the president and vice president resorted to name calling of forum users, which was inappropriate, unseemly, inflammatory and clearly defamatory and those comments had to be deleted by the moderators.

Are you and the Vice President going to publically apologise to those concerened and to other forum members for those inappropriate comments?

Heather

[keats]

What a bloody mess!

[tom mcilveen]

Dear Forum Users



We have noticed many ABPA Forum members have moved to another forum site which is co-administered by Manfred Vijars. We wish them all the very best for this venture as anything that promotes bush poetry has to be of benefit to the genre. Obviously posting on the other site will not preclude ABPA Members from continuing to be valuable contributors to this official ABPA Forum.



Thank you Heather for your work as a site Moderator. As per your request we have taken you out of this role.

Tom McIlveen.
PRESIDENT ABPA