• I guess there could potentially be a structure with no "senior management" and all decisions taken collectively but it seems difficult in reality.

    Anarchy forum doors seem apt.

  • Perhaps joint liability as a condition for all members of the forum is the solution. Signing a binding agreement on joining of the forum for amny incidence which would transgress the legislation. Not only does it mitigate Velocio of the risk but also keeps everyone on their toes knowing that they are responsible for everything that they post.
    More thoughts

    1. Contractual liability for all members (as above)
    2. crowd fund for a stautory compliance review (when we are ready)
    3. Management committee
  • Only if I've got somewhere to land my helicopter

  • Sorry that was just me refreshing at work rather doing my job

  • I was so gutted when I read this, couldn’t bring my self to post. I rely on LFGSS. It’s sort of a crutch in a few different ways. This, on one level, is sort of sad really but it is also remarkable and lovely. It is a good opportunity to say thank you to Velocio for all that they have done, LFGSS is a wonder of the world.
    It is so amazing to read there are options for going forward. I was wondering about university and college ‘moodle’ sites. These might work as a format for the forum (for lots of reasons), but obviously the key thing would be they would need an institution to host and enrol the members. It might work in the guise of a ‘practice-based’ research project, which is a thing at my uni in the english, anthropology and art departments. Perhaps this is a shit idea, a result of desperation. Well, anyway. Thanks to @Velocio and everyone on here who’s been so bloody nice.

  • Stop trying to pin this on Velocio by saying idiotic things such as "Velocio have you considered..." and stop invalidating their very reasonable personal concerns by saying shit like "nothing will happen... Ofcom won't care about LFGSS". It's your community you fucking wimps! If you are so gutted about its demise, YOU do something about it!
    From my perspective, there's various fronts we can and should be working on:

    Stop the whole thing

    - is this really unavoidable?
    - can the act still be stopped?
    - can we realistically do something about it (pester MPs, bike pile-up in front of parliament, get sympathetic media talking about this, rally other communities on the same boat)?
    

    Skirt it

    - can we find a solution to exempt ourselves from this (move site abroad, "block" UK traffic, go P2P)?
    

    Deal with it

    - can we find a solution to be compliant (transfer site ownership into LTD / CIC, fundraise to pay / employe someone to do compliance / monitoring work or crowd-source that effort)?
    

    Fucking KILL it

    - if we can't make it, we might as well go out with a Bang
    - organize rides / socials / whatever (looks like there's a thread going)
    

    Endure

    - how do we preserver the data from LFGSS (archive.org is on it apparently)
    - how do we keep going when LFGSS is gone (discord server is up and running but fuck Discord, are there any viable alternatives)?
    
  • I am already talking to https://wiki.archiveteam.org/ about a full site (public facing content) preservation.

  • yowsers, i hope this wasn’t meant at me! i’m not sure i meant to pin anything on anyone but sorry if i am missing the implications of something i put

  • Sorry, I meant "archive.org is on it apparently". Edited.

  • yowsers, i hope this wasn’t meant at me! i’m not sure i meant to pin anything on anyone but sorry if i am missing the implications of something i put

    Not at all. Mere coincidence it came after your post. Scan through the thread and you'll understand where I'm coming from.

  • thanks ☺️

  • Londongravel.life domain is available for those progressive folk...

  • Perhaps joint liability as a condition for all members of the forum is the solution. Signing a binding agreement on joining of the forum for amny incidence which would transgress the legislation. Not only does it mitigate Velocio of the risk but also keeps everyone on their toes knowing that they are responsible for everything that they post.

    Not really. Even with this in place it does nothing to stop a troll from joining, giving false information, signing whatever binding agreement is necessary to be able to post, and then doing everything they can to cause the site to fall foul of the act causing maximum hassle for everyone involved (including Velocio).

    Avoiding the "giving false information" point would require everyone to have to submit significant documentation to prove their identity, and this would need to be held somewhere, which is unworkable for many other reasons.

    That, as I understand it, is the biggest concern. It is very little work for someone to do something pretty much anonymously that can cause an imperial fuckton of problems for the person/people running the site.

    (This has always been the case, but the OSA makes the possible consequences several orders of magnitude larger.)

  • I clicked on the carrot porn thread before noticing the big news in this one this morning.

  • Avoiding the "giving false information" point would require everyone to have to submit significant documentation to prove their identity, and this would need to be held somewhere, which is unworkable for many other reasons

    It also doesn't work for me who operates the site, I no longer use my birth name, and more of my identity is now as Dee. I wouldn't provide my deadname to be in a public register, and yet to not do so is also a crime under the Online Safety Act.

    Being a trans person running a moderately sized platform for forums has unexpected consequences it seems.

    It's my own fault, I put "London" in the name and made it appeal to people within an area, rather than calling it fixieskidders.com and just not having a clue where anyone lived or accessed from.

  • Didn't you say it was quick to change domain name... ?

    fixieskidders.com is taken, but doaskid.com is free 🙃

  • fixieskidders.com appears to be available should anyone want to add it to their collection of unused domain names.

    high potential for unintentional misreadings though... what is this "fix i es kidders"?

  • do as kid you say?

  • Sorry, I meant "archive.org is on it apparently". Edited.

    The Internet Archive lost their legal case and subsequent appeal against Hachette and other US publishers in the New York courts last month, over their "national emergency library" initiative in 2020 (effectively digital piracy of commercial works still in print), and they are going to be liable for considerable costs as a result of that. They decided not to pursue the appeal to the Supreme Court because they knew they would lose there. They fucked up with that one. So I wouldn't rely on them at the moment for any long term preservation / archival requirements.

  • I’m sure someone will say something to the contrary but I invented that phrase and you were witness to its first utterance.
    Location was some bit of pavement near Swiss Cottage at the beginning of a ride through regents and to a hotel near Lancaster Gate.
    Corny and CliveO were there along with the usual suspects, myself and RPM arrived and I said in a loud slightly excitable voice “Hello! Are you the London Fixie-skidders!”
    I think there should be a blue plaque put up.

  • fixieskidders.com

    Yeah this doesn't look quite right to me

    too akin to kiddiefiddlers.com

  • and you were witness to its first utterance.

    I'm not sure relying on my memory is a wise thing.

    But I can't disagree with the need for a blue plaque.

  • I no longer use my birth name, and more of my identity is now as Dee. I wouldn't provide my deadname to be in a public register, and yet to not do so is also a crime under the Online Safety Act.

    Don't know how you feel about letting go of the deadname but you don't need a deed poll to legally have a new name - technically using a new name is all that is legally required and a deed poll/marriage cert/whatever official document is commonly accepted is evidence. So being registered as Dee in the register of services would arguably not be providing information which is false in a material respect.

  • It's a ballache "just using it". I've never considered the deed poll route though.

    I use the shortened version of my first name and so a load of records (birth certificate, NHS) use the full first name, most of everything else (passport, driving license, bank, work, etc) uses the shortened version.

    I have to jump through hoops for various things:

    • I have to admit to an alias on DBS checks (for work and for volunteering with kids sports clubs)
    • Covid time was sometimes tricky as NHS vaccination records wouldn't match my passport name (some countries had automated systems so I was booted into the slower manual process)
  • Post a reply
    • Bold
    • Italics
    • Link
    • Image
    • List
    • Quote
    • code
    • Preview
About

LFGSS and Microcosm shutting down 16th March 2025 (the day before the Online Safety Act is enforced)

Posted by Avatar for Velocio @Velocio

Actions