Counter552 Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 (edited) Given recent events, the members of UKDirt General Admin (those still willing to carry out their responsibilities) would like to give the UKDirt members information on how we arrive at decisions and what we are doing now as consequence of some recent decisions. Firstly, we no longer have a Head Admin/Chairman and the remaining General Admin team will share this burden on an interim basis until we can find someone willing and able to take on this responsibility. There has been a lot of criticism and accusations made in recent posts on the forum that we have been acting unfairly and targetting individuals to be banned. This is entirely untrue and if anything we are too lenient if we were to apply all the rules rigidly. We would encourage more members to take the time to read the rules of ukdirt and the forum. For those that are unaware, we have "Admin Only" sections of the forum where we can sort out things within individual mods or for ukdirt as a whole. Many of us have never met each other in person and we need this facility to discuss options about the future and reaching decisions before announcing things. Some of the sections are to discuss disciplinary issues. In these sections we are usually quite blunt and direct and always have opposing views expressed about each incident or event. After a lot of debate, often too much, we come to a decision (sometimes by majority) and announce it. There is an appeals process as we would prefer members were able to race. Most of our rules are designed to give the bulk of the membership enjoyment, therefore bans are a feature to try and make some individuals think more about the impact of their actions on other members enjoyment. Let us try and explain the rationale behind the bans handed out by General Admin (Not Banger Admin) to Nath and Steve. Nath - Along with a few others, was warned by PM at the start of the season that he was being watched carefully based on incidents the previous year that had nearly led to bans. - He was actually banned from Legends for a 2 week period for breaking rules in that formula. - He was proven to be deliberately targeting another member in both bangers and saloons. - He has also admitted driving as his brother Steve on at least one occassion. (this has resulted in bans for others, no action was taken against Nath or Steve) The 6 month ban was to reflect the build up of these incidents. Steve - Was proven to be deliberately targeting another member in Saloons and Legends. - He has also admitted to leting Nath race as him on at least one occassion. Whilst Steve's ban appears harsh, he has been known to let Nath race his car, and we believed we had no other option. These Bans were made under the "Unsportmanship Conduct"rule, brought in to protect the enjoyment of members. Had these incidents been against a non-Admin member, the bans would have been issued in August. We debated long and hard about the Bans and reached a majority (means not everyone agreed) decision that just because the incidents were against a member of Admin we shouldn't shy away from it worried about the backlash from a minority of Admin bashers. Another thing some members may not appreciate is that all of the Admin team pay their annual fees just like everyone else and deserve a fair chance to enjoy their racing. As most members will be aware if they read the forum, the ukdirt site and forum have been hacked. The facts we have are that the databases were completely deleted on 2 seperate occassions and some members of a Banger team seemed to be aware of things that they could only have obtained from the private Admin section of the forum. It is very unlikely that we will ever be able to find out/prove who actually hacked the accounts and databases without spending a lot of the members money on forensic IT consultants. When the appeals for Nath and Steve were lodged by Woka Snr, it was obvious that they had information that could only have been obtained from the Private Admin section of the forum. We then received the anonymous screenprint of Rikards discussion and were faced with a huge dilema. Again we came to a majority decision that we could not ignore the information and believed the only option we had was to publish this and ban those in possession of information that had come from the hacking of the ukdirt sites. This decision was taken to try and protect the wider UKDirt members and rightly, some have expressed concern over what risk there is over their Personal Information contained in our databases. As a result of this we are investigating ways of further improving the security of our sites which will cost our members money (aswell as a lot of extra unpaid time from the webmaster members of the Admin team). At no time did any of the individuals in possesion of this information feel the need to get in touch with any member of Admin. Their appeals to date confirm they were in receipt of the information from an anonymous source and rather than expose this to try and help find the hacker, thought it would be better to use it to expose Admin as bunch of corrupt muppets whose only objective in spending hours keeping ukdirt operational was to ban members of Team Plonk. Before these incidents, several non-Banger racing members of Admin had no idea who Team Plonk was. In addition, during the time these members were in receipt of this information, the UK Dirt websites and forums were hacked and partially deleted on more than 1 occassion. This was well publicised on the forum and still this did not compel anyone to draw Admin's (or any neutral member of UKDirt's) attention to the potentially vital information they held. Ryans appeal claimed that he was sent the private admin screenshots by an anonymous person. We now know this to be UNTRUE as we have received conclusive proof (ie not from an anonymous source) that he had indeed hacked into an admin members personal and private email account and in doing so gained access to the UK Dirt forum and also the UKDirt database. We have shared this evidence with the Police. After many hours reviewing and discussing all of the information available to us, we have made the following decisions : 1. The bans for Nath and Steve stand as announced on the 20th September, banned until 10/12/08 with a further year suspended. 2. Ryans ban stands - banned from UKDirt for life following evidence of hacking a members email account (prosecution pending) 3. Woka Senior and Rikard banned until 1st March 2009 with a suspended life ban 4. Vinny and Crazy Craig banned until 1st March 2009 with a suspended life ban The bans for Woka Senior, Rikard, Vinny and Crazy Craig is for their admitted knowledge of information received from hacking and their intention to use this for personal gain to the detriment of the UKDirt community. If we become aware of any other members who also had this information, they will receive the same ban. The current members of General Admin are committed to seeing this through to the end of the 2008 season to try and keep UKDirt alive. We thank you for the time you have taken to read this announcement. General Admin Team Edited October 9, 2008 by MC388 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aub Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 good work lads Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big al 515 Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 Thanks to all the Admin who are persevering in their thankless task for our enjoyment/benefit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kruiz 136 Posted October 9, 2008 Report Share Posted October 9, 2008 Well done guys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Budge313 Posted October 9, 2008 Report Share Posted October 9, 2008 (edited) Top work General admin... really nice write up which does explain it all very nicely Edited October 9, 2008 by Budge313 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts