I understand many of you are not happy with the state of racing especially in Australia at the moment, but honestly we were hoping this forum would become more than a place to vent. Almost daily we receive calls and emails from various parties, often with accompanying legal threats, and if it does come to it we will simply have to shut down as currently the forum is free and not ad supported so there's not much business incentive there.

Even when I edit a name somebody names personally with an accompanying taunt for that person to sue, I get "don't you dare edit this admin", so it's becoming impossible to keep everyone happy.

I'm not sure what the best course of action is from here. In a perfect world I'd allow anybody to say what they liked, but internet being what it is, and racing being what that is it wouldn't take long for everything to fall apart. Easiest course of action for Harnesslink would be to simply not allow any talk of suspension, rule breaking etc. In my opinion this wouldn't make us any better than industry bodies (who I won't name) that don't mention the "dark side" of racing, and want to pretend all is well.

I'm going to repost this in the help/announcements section, and I'd appreciate some feedback. Last time I checked internet law in NZ (where Harnesslink is based) is pretty outdated, meaning that Harnesslink, as hosts, are somewhat legally responsible for your comments. And imo staying out of a court room on your behalf trumps my inclination toward free speech, so something has to change.

I understand many of you are censoring your real opinions on this type of stuff somewhat which I appreciate, but it's not enough at the moment and as the forum grows it gets harder and harder to oversee. If we can't find another way we will need to instigate a hush hush rule where cheating etc isn't allowed to be discussed. I understand most of you won't like this, and you're free to leave, though we'd appreciate you staying and continuing to discuss the overwhelmingly positive aspects of the sport.

Options from here, feel free to suggest your own:

1) Shut forum down - not preferred

2) Ban any negative stuff

3) Private members only forum for negative stuff. This wouldn't really solve the problem, but it would reduce complaints somewhat.

4) Bring more moderators on. This is a little tricky because we have consistency issues, and we would still be editing a lot of posts and threads, which members don't take kindly to. It's also a lot of work.