Bill:
I will take your third point first if I may.
I concede that this could be considered newsworthy, although frankly I don't think so and it is clear from some of the other posts on this thread that I am not alone in this. Also the only reason we got the domain name was because no one else was interested in it!
Your post would have been fine in this sense if you had presented it your opinion or general news or whatever. But you did not do this.
Now to your other points, followed by some points of my own.
Your First Point: The 'announcement' was made by Petr on an internal discussion group used by the group to communicate with each other. This is NOT a public forum and the 'announcement' was not in any way intended to be for public consumption. It was clearly not meant for anybody but us. The ‘we are owners' clearly refers to we (us) as a group and is nonsense in the context of your post.
Incidentally, for puzzled other readers, this is why this is ‘good news' – it is good news for us and was not intend to apply to anyone else! You see we have had big problems with the provider of the web space we use and feared they would pull the plug on our site. Also the available space on the site is not great so for some time we have had to delete things to put new material up which we would rather not do. Finally we urgently need more web space for Lobositz 2006 and various other projects. All of this makes the news very good for us but scarcely of interest outside the group. Hence that part of ‘our' message.
Your Second Point: I don't imagine Petr thought for a second that you meant you would post the news on TMP! It is also obvious from Petr's quote above that we intended to ‘announce' this next week when we have put some content on the site. For us the ‘news' is the content we will put up and not the domain name, as is clear again from Petr's quote.
I also thing that ‘not objecting' to a vague sentence like ‘I will pass the news on' counts as any kind of permission to post what you posted. Especially as you do not appear to have waited for him to reply before posting your message to TMP! At the very least if Petr had realised that you intended to do this he would have got you to put up something a lot better than was posted! But of course as he had no idea that you would do this without permission he did not.
It is not as if we never inform the gaming world of our news. In a way what you have done would be understandable if we never bothered to tell people our news. But we post anything we think people might be interested in all the time. OK it might not be earth shattering stuff, but we are a small group in a country just starting to game so we try our best. So it complete escapes me why you should feel the need to intervene and post for us!
Your Fourth Point: I do not think that you intended to deliberately make us appear foolish but it is clear that you have. A glance through the other posts will tell you this.
It is also clear from the other posts that many people do not realise that registering a domain and putting up a website are 2 different things. This I suspect includes yourself as you have included links to the so far blank site, presumably because you thought something was there! This strongly suggests you thought so, otherwise why bother putting the link to nothing and that added nothing to the ‘story'?
Also because you took some pictures from our private group, without asking the permission of the person who took them, you encourage this idea in others. I would imagine that many people saw these ‘stolen' pictures and assumed from them that there was a website to look at.
Ok on to some points of my own. I will start with a summary of your activities.
1: You took Petr's post from our private forum and put it on a public forum WITHOUT his permission.
2: You have now followed this up by quoting from personal correspondence from Petr, again WITHOUT his permission.
3: You have taken photos from a private forum WITHOUT the permission of the owner (who is neither myself nor Petr but another member of the group).
4: You have posted material claiming that it has been posted by us, when in fact it has come from you.
Petr or the group would have been happy to give you news for TMP if you had asked. But it would have been something sensible and pointed out that content would follow.
I am sure that Petr doesn't mind you using his words, that is if you had bothered to really ask him. He would have of course changed them so that they actually make sense in a TMP context and didn't make him/us look stupid. Surely you could have taken a bit more trouble with the original private group post than just cutting and pasting!!!
It is the same with the pictures. Mark, the person whose photos they are, would be overjoyed at the prospect of his pictures going on TMP. Not that you would know this as you never asked him if it was OK.
We here in Prague really value TMP and the work you do with it. We are flattered that you can be bothered to be part of our small gaming discussion group. We have no ‘great secrets' and are happy to help anyone or have anyone in our group (although be warned it is usually very boring ‘chit chat' if you want to join) . A quick message to the group, or an individual in the group, asking for something to post to TMP on this would have been welcomed with open arms.
This is the second time you have done this to us but we let the first occasion go. You put a post up in our name about some pictures in our files the first time. This caused us a lot of trouble because we are a private group. We had also decided that they weren't good enough to represent the group to the wider public. But you didn't ask you just posted the ‘story'. If we had wanted them to be public we would have posted them to our public showcase – our web site. I know that others have similar experiences.
I could go on but I hope you get the point. I have no idea if any of this is illegal but it is certainly unethical.
If this, or something else, is something that you think is news then post it as yourself and not in other peoples name. If you think it is ‘big news' then you post it as ‘big news'. We don't think it is and so didn't bother. Once we have the site up WE will post what we hope at least some TMPers will be interested in and what we think is ‘big news' (well it will be big news for us at least). Maybe this will appear stupid to some people but then that is up to us isn't it!
I do not think that you would be too happy if I did these things to you. Especially as by doing this you have made Petr and/or the group look foolish. Something I am sure that we are more than capable of doing on our own without your help J. But at least then it will be because of our actions and not yours.
It is now very late here and I am sorry if I have gone on to much.
Nick (Prague Wargamers)
p.s. Please notice that I have not asked for the original story to be removed, although it would be good if you could do a better job of it. I have just pointed out that contrary to appearances this ‘story' is not from US, but from YOU.
