Dear
Friends and Holographers:
It is with
much regret that I announce the closing of the Holography Forum. We created
more than 46,000 posts and helped many new holographers get over the steep part
of the learning curve. We also created new research and made the processes of
creating and diagnosing DCG holography available to the public for the first
time. For every active participant we had about 50 people that would lurk and
read the information. Often I would be contacted by them to thank us even
though they were too shy to post.
In the beginning
of the forum I had an idealistic idea and a need to have a way to communicate
with holographers in order to grow as a holographer. I started the forum with a
sense of hope that it would grow to a lively community. The premise was intentionally
simple. “This is a forum to share experiences and ideas about holography.” The
idea was to have a blank sheet of paper we could all see and comment on freely.
We would allow the community to judge whose advice was trustworthy and whose
was suspect and proceed at our own accord. All posts were un-edited and except
for removing SPAM un-moderated.
This
idealistic goal worked very well to rapidly grow an avid community of
holographers that would help each other selflessly but it also caused some
problems. In the beginning when there was a question I would go through my
library of books and personally research answers. As I did not have much
experience with holography it was the best I could do. When there were
practical questions I could not answer I would send emails to my contacts and
get them to read and post. Eventually we had some great holographers from every
era of holography posting and sharing their expertise.
Over the
last 8 years I have sent 1000s of emails and spent 100s of hours on the phone
resolving conflicts. This has caused a great deal of stress in my life but it
was a service I was happy to provide for the community. In the last 9 months I
have been trying to resolve a conflict for Selwyn Lissack.
HoloDisk aka Jon Dark who has now been identified as
Mark Slater had posted a story about Selwyn all over the internet. One of the
places it had appeared was in the old Network 54 forum and when we copied over the
posts it was contained in the new forum. There were also references to other
places on the web where the story still exists.
The way
internet law is evolving is odd and out of the scope of this letter. However,
if I were to start editing posts then I would be governed under the laws of
Journalism and be responsible for every post on the forum personally. I chose
the other path of leaving all posts unedited. Setting the precedence of editing
another’s words without permission was a liability I was not willing to take. I
edited all the posts that I could get permission from the authors to edit. This
was a very long process. As of the end of April I was convinced I had satisfied
Selwyn’s demands.
At the end
of August Selwyn contacted me saying he was unhappy with the placement of the
thread Bob Hess started supporting Selwyn in Google’s search engine and that he
was still finding “trash” in the forum. He was trying to hold me personally
responsible. I asked him to provide links which he declined to do. After a
couple of emails and many phone calls to my work he hired:
Tony Bhullar & Company,
Barrister and Solcitors,
V5W 2L7,
TELEPHONE: 778 316 4921
In speaking
with Tony I was informed the Selwyn intended to start litigation in any or
every country that had the internet against the forum and there was no way to
stop it. I sent Selwyn the following message:
Hi Selwyn,
I had a long talk with your barrister or at least that is
how he represented himself. While he and I disagree about the laws that apply I
think we all agree on what we want.
The way I see it we have three options.
1. You can provide me links to threads and we can edit them
together.
2. I can write a script that deletes all threads with the
term Selwyn or Lissack
3. I can close the form and leave a page behind saying that
I don't have the man power to edit the forum to Selwyn's satisfaction and thank
everyone for their 8 years of participation.
Let me know if any of these options is acceptable to you. If
you are hell bent to get into court we can settle it there. If you would prefer
to talk on the phone please email me for a good time as the lunch rush at my
work is a really bad time.
Colin Kaminski
The reply I
received was:
'Yes he is a barrister and you can verify,
that for yourself in a minute, on the web.
I choose option number 3.
As far as I can tell, you have done what I have asked of you, just keep that trash off the web
and we will be fine.
Do not write or try to contact me in anyway from now on,
address all correspondence to
my barrister.'
This marked
the end of the forum. While I could have decided to fight or ignore Selwyn’s
option I decided that I need to spend my time on other projects. Getting off
the computer will give me more time to make holograms, finish my Spectro-Helioscope and publish my book on Brewing Water
Chemistry. I also got married in April and am expecting another child this
March.
I have
created a script that removed all threads that referenced Selwyn. I am
packaging the contents of the forum for storage on another server. The
condition is that the threads stay locked. While this will leave a short term
gap in the community I am sure the resourcefulness of the members will quickly
move to fill the gap.
Thank you
every one for all of the effort put into the forum. I have learned a great deal
and made many friends.
Sincerely,
Colin
Kaminski