[h=1]UK Vapers is currently unavailable[/h]Update as of Friday 13 July 2012.
Firstly, let me be clear that in this statement I speak for myself, and as the owner of the ukvapers.com domain, only. I have not thus far, taken legal counsel. I would ask that people read through the whole statement carefully before reaching any conclusions, and to keep in mind that there are very real people, with real life consequences, involved in this.
Concerning the future of UK Vapers, I will cut to the chase. Ive decided, for various reasons, to close ukvapers.com permanently in its current form, and I do not intend to stand as owner or administrator or indeed undertake any team role in the future. I have, however, given my blessing to the rest of the moderation team to use the name UK Vapers, but not the domain name. Instead a fresh forum will I believe soon be launched at ukvapers.org. Its my hope that this will enable everyone to have a fresh start but without losing the UK Vapers name, and I wish the team the very best of luck in this endeavour.
I hope the reasons for this will be clearer after reading the rest of this statement.
Regarding the letter I received yesterday via email from the solicitor of Totally Wicked (a copy of which I've published here), I do not find the requests it contains to be unreasonable. Indeed, should ukvapers.com have opened again, I would have met them without problem. It is only the added strains that Im currently under that prevent me from re-opening, as I do not wish to be in the position of having the possibility of legal action being taken against me again (whether by Totally Wicked or any other company or person). Were I planning to open ukvapers.com again, I would address these points individually. However I hope that the permanent closure (which was solely my decision), also serves to fully address all complaints within the letter and that this brings to a close any dispute between myself and Totally Wicked.
May I say that I also acknowledge and have some respect for the passage in the letter which states Particularly, Mr Cropper recognises that certain actions and responses have served to inflame rather than assuage the situation and that a calmer and more considered response would have better served both parties interests.. I believe this to be an indication of good will and have taken it as such.
As Ive previously mentioned, I have had some communication with Jason and Fraser in the past couple of days via email. It has been very amicable, and I appreciate the expressions of concern from both. Although I think perhaps things could have been handled differently, I would not seek to deny anybody the right of complaint. Judging by the emails Ive had, and the content of the solicitors letter, I believe things have now calmed somewhat, and Im appreciative of the reasonable communication there has been between us and what seems a sincere wish to see the continuation of UK Vapers.
My honest and heartfelt hope is that we can all now move on from this peacefully. I know there has been a considerable amount of stress involved on all sides. I do not think it serves anybody, least of all the community, well to be arguing amongst themselves, and that should be kept in mind.
I am not going to go into fine details about who has said what. I feel to do so now may only worsen the situation for all parties involved and at this stage I dont feel that it would achieve anything constructive. There are some points I would like to clarify however.
There are a number of factors involved which have led to the initial and continued closure of UK Vapers, as I hinted at in my previous statement. For the record, I must make it clear that nobody from Totally Wicked has ever requested that UK Vapers be closed, that was entirely my own decision based largely on the immediate thought that I had no funds available to counter any claims of libel. In the UK, the onus is on the defendant to disprove any claims of libel, an often costly process, and I was aware that this left me in a very vulnerable position and felt I needed time to consider my best course of action. It may be that the closure appeared to be an overly cautious move, however when you take the following into account you may understand another factor in this decision.
At the beginning of June my 19 year old daughter was the victim of a serious sexual assault. This event, obviously, has left myself and my family in a horrendous place. (Please note, I have no reason to believe that Jason Cropper was aware of this previously, I dont want to suggest otherwise, and since making him aware he has expressed concern for our wellbeing which was appreciated.) I was reluctant to make this public knowledge, but I feel some responsibility to the community to illustrate exactly how much strain I have been under when taking the decisions that I have. I hope everyone can appreciate, that my first priority has to be my own well being and that of my family, especially my daughter. I have not coped all that well with the events this week, though please dont take that to mean I feel this is necessarily anyones fault, but rather due to a set of extremely unfortunate circumstances, emotions on all sides, and very bad timing.
One other thing I would like to address is the publicly raised suspicions surrounding Tom Pruens (aka Crossbow) role here, particularly with regard to any alleged actions taken with bias. I can only say that to the best of my knowledge I have no reason to believe this to be the case. If I had reason to believe any moderator was biased, Id be gravely concerned by it. I recently became aware that a feature in The Times last month wrongly named Tom as the owner and founder of UK Vapers, despite his attempts to correct them. Perhaps some assumptions were made based on this, I do not know, but this is the only reason I can think of that its been thought Tom was in charge at ukvapers.com. I wasnt aware of this at the time the article was published as I was busy dealing with my daughters situation and largely away from online activities. It is true that he is a member of the administrative usergroup, however this was never agreed to be a leadership role, but merely so that should I need to be absent for any period of time, he could help with any technical issues.
I do not pretend to speak on behalf of Tom, its not my place to do so. He has never given me any reason not to trust him however. He has been a moderator here since the very earliest days of UK Vapers, before anyone had ever heard the name ECITA and long before he formed a personal relationship with Katherine Devlin of ECITA / Decadent Vapours. It is true that he is currently employed by ECITA, and although theres never been a big public announcement regarding this (I understand this could be construed as a naive move on my part), neither was it intentionally held as a secret.
I am also of the belief that the whole moderation team have always done their level best to conduct themselves with neutrality. If there is to be any blame for perceived faults in moderation here, it would in my opinion be down to the considerable growth in membership of late and the teething problems that come with such growth, along with my own absence due to personal circumstances.
I dont wish to dwell on any of this, partially because its wordy enough already, and partly because I am still feeling a fair amount of stress and this is all very difficult for me. So Ill try and bring this statement to a close now.
I hope all Ive said goes at least some way toward explaining my side of this story, and in all sincerity I hope it also satisfies any complaints or concerns that Jason / Fraser / Totally Wicked had or has concerning UK Vapers. If the closure of the forum has caused alarm, I can only apologise, this was not my intent. I was merely protecting my interests as best as I knew how. I also hope the community will in the end be relatively unaffected by these events, especially as a new home, under new leadership, will I hope be online soon. I am sorry for the disruption, but also hope that any blame is not carried over to ukvapers.org. Think of this as a new chapter, one which I hope everyone feels able to lend their full support.
I would also like to thank everyone who has contacted me with messages of support. Ive not been able to reply to each one as Ive been so busy, though I may attempt to once some time has passed. I may be absent from online activities for a while, as obviously I want to be able to give my full attention to my daughter who is into the beginning of recovery but is still in need of support.
I hope everyone reading this receives it in the sincere spirit in which its intended, and that is to enable all parties to move on peacefully and begin rebuilding. Lets end this on a positive note.
Thank you for your time.
Jackie
Owner of ukvapers.com
Firstly, let me be clear that in this statement I speak for myself, and as the owner of the ukvapers.com domain, only. I have not thus far, taken legal counsel. I would ask that people read through the whole statement carefully before reaching any conclusions, and to keep in mind that there are very real people, with real life consequences, involved in this.
Concerning the future of UK Vapers, I will cut to the chase. Ive decided, for various reasons, to close ukvapers.com permanently in its current form, and I do not intend to stand as owner or administrator or indeed undertake any team role in the future. I have, however, given my blessing to the rest of the moderation team to use the name UK Vapers, but not the domain name. Instead a fresh forum will I believe soon be launched at ukvapers.org. Its my hope that this will enable everyone to have a fresh start but without losing the UK Vapers name, and I wish the team the very best of luck in this endeavour.
I hope the reasons for this will be clearer after reading the rest of this statement.
Regarding the letter I received yesterday via email from the solicitor of Totally Wicked (a copy of which I've published here), I do not find the requests it contains to be unreasonable. Indeed, should ukvapers.com have opened again, I would have met them without problem. It is only the added strains that Im currently under that prevent me from re-opening, as I do not wish to be in the position of having the possibility of legal action being taken against me again (whether by Totally Wicked or any other company or person). Were I planning to open ukvapers.com again, I would address these points individually. However I hope that the permanent closure (which was solely my decision), also serves to fully address all complaints within the letter and that this brings to a close any dispute between myself and Totally Wicked.
May I say that I also acknowledge and have some respect for the passage in the letter which states Particularly, Mr Cropper recognises that certain actions and responses have served to inflame rather than assuage the situation and that a calmer and more considered response would have better served both parties interests.. I believe this to be an indication of good will and have taken it as such.
As Ive previously mentioned, I have had some communication with Jason and Fraser in the past couple of days via email. It has been very amicable, and I appreciate the expressions of concern from both. Although I think perhaps things could have been handled differently, I would not seek to deny anybody the right of complaint. Judging by the emails Ive had, and the content of the solicitors letter, I believe things have now calmed somewhat, and Im appreciative of the reasonable communication there has been between us and what seems a sincere wish to see the continuation of UK Vapers.
My honest and heartfelt hope is that we can all now move on from this peacefully. I know there has been a considerable amount of stress involved on all sides. I do not think it serves anybody, least of all the community, well to be arguing amongst themselves, and that should be kept in mind.
I am not going to go into fine details about who has said what. I feel to do so now may only worsen the situation for all parties involved and at this stage I dont feel that it would achieve anything constructive. There are some points I would like to clarify however.
There are a number of factors involved which have led to the initial and continued closure of UK Vapers, as I hinted at in my previous statement. For the record, I must make it clear that nobody from Totally Wicked has ever requested that UK Vapers be closed, that was entirely my own decision based largely on the immediate thought that I had no funds available to counter any claims of libel. In the UK, the onus is on the defendant to disprove any claims of libel, an often costly process, and I was aware that this left me in a very vulnerable position and felt I needed time to consider my best course of action. It may be that the closure appeared to be an overly cautious move, however when you take the following into account you may understand another factor in this decision.
At the beginning of June my 19 year old daughter was the victim of a serious sexual assault. This event, obviously, has left myself and my family in a horrendous place. (Please note, I have no reason to believe that Jason Cropper was aware of this previously, I dont want to suggest otherwise, and since making him aware he has expressed concern for our wellbeing which was appreciated.) I was reluctant to make this public knowledge, but I feel some responsibility to the community to illustrate exactly how much strain I have been under when taking the decisions that I have. I hope everyone can appreciate, that my first priority has to be my own well being and that of my family, especially my daughter. I have not coped all that well with the events this week, though please dont take that to mean I feel this is necessarily anyones fault, but rather due to a set of extremely unfortunate circumstances, emotions on all sides, and very bad timing.
One other thing I would like to address is the publicly raised suspicions surrounding Tom Pruens (aka Crossbow) role here, particularly with regard to any alleged actions taken with bias. I can only say that to the best of my knowledge I have no reason to believe this to be the case. If I had reason to believe any moderator was biased, Id be gravely concerned by it. I recently became aware that a feature in The Times last month wrongly named Tom as the owner and founder of UK Vapers, despite his attempts to correct them. Perhaps some assumptions were made based on this, I do not know, but this is the only reason I can think of that its been thought Tom was in charge at ukvapers.com. I wasnt aware of this at the time the article was published as I was busy dealing with my daughters situation and largely away from online activities. It is true that he is a member of the administrative usergroup, however this was never agreed to be a leadership role, but merely so that should I need to be absent for any period of time, he could help with any technical issues.
I do not pretend to speak on behalf of Tom, its not my place to do so. He has never given me any reason not to trust him however. He has been a moderator here since the very earliest days of UK Vapers, before anyone had ever heard the name ECITA and long before he formed a personal relationship with Katherine Devlin of ECITA / Decadent Vapours. It is true that he is currently employed by ECITA, and although theres never been a big public announcement regarding this (I understand this could be construed as a naive move on my part), neither was it intentionally held as a secret.
I am also of the belief that the whole moderation team have always done their level best to conduct themselves with neutrality. If there is to be any blame for perceived faults in moderation here, it would in my opinion be down to the considerable growth in membership of late and the teething problems that come with such growth, along with my own absence due to personal circumstances.
I dont wish to dwell on any of this, partially because its wordy enough already, and partly because I am still feeling a fair amount of stress and this is all very difficult for me. So Ill try and bring this statement to a close now.
I hope all Ive said goes at least some way toward explaining my side of this story, and in all sincerity I hope it also satisfies any complaints or concerns that Jason / Fraser / Totally Wicked had or has concerning UK Vapers. If the closure of the forum has caused alarm, I can only apologise, this was not my intent. I was merely protecting my interests as best as I knew how. I also hope the community will in the end be relatively unaffected by these events, especially as a new home, under new leadership, will I hope be online soon. I am sorry for the disruption, but also hope that any blame is not carried over to ukvapers.org. Think of this as a new chapter, one which I hope everyone feels able to lend their full support.
I would also like to thank everyone who has contacted me with messages of support. Ive not been able to reply to each one as Ive been so busy, though I may attempt to once some time has passed. I may be absent from online activities for a while, as obviously I want to be able to give my full attention to my daughter who is into the beginning of recovery but is still in need of support.
I hope everyone reading this receives it in the sincere spirit in which its intended, and that is to enable all parties to move on peacefully and begin rebuilding. Lets end this on a positive note.
Thank you for your time.
Jackie
Owner of ukvapers.com
