IS reefs.org aiding the sale of cyanide caught fish?

[dizzy]

Tom,
What is a slapp lawsuit? Would the good ******** being suing for libel if someone were actually telling the truth? Or would they be suing because they were not allowed to advertise? Wouldn't a lawsuit bring them more unwanted publicity than financial relief?

 

[Anonymous]

Ask Bob Novak - http://petsforum.com/psw/Default.html

SLAPP - Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation

Yes there is risk and I'm sure the company in question has felt some impact from Novak's lawsuits since the names are similar - however there is no doubt that the simple filing of a lawsuit can cost a defendant tens of thousands of dollars even if it is eventually tossed or settled.

 

[spawner]

Two sponsors, two that is it, you are telling me that you can't operate if you lose two sponsors. Chucker , is that what you are saying.

Shame on all of you for low balling this, shame on you. I have only presented the true facts here I only have opened your eyes. YOU NEED to think about what it is you are saying. I happened to walk in to an importer and see this, other must know about it. There is a paper trail a mile long. Purchase Orders, Invoices, Shipping receipts, etc.

Here your logic.

We know it is wrong,
We know it is bad, hurts the hobby,
We know that we should do something
But we can't because we need the money
But that is ok, cause we really do a lot of good
But that is ok, cause we can provide a disclaimer (please be careful we allow false adverting)
But that is ok, cause I know the difference between good etailers and the bad ones

No buts, no excuses, no other option BUT to TAKE HIGH ROAD.

You want an alternative, here you go. . .

I will find you two other sponsors. . . if I or someone steps up with the sponsors then will you TAKE THE HIGH ROAD? This is not going away. The best way to fix the problem is to remove them and make them change.


This is why I made the statement that YOU (the BB not any person) are money hungry. Not that you are greedy, but that you are addicted to the money, its dirty money, its DRUG money. You are killing the hobby, but you have a chance. Don't worry about others, others will follow your lead, kill the virus. You must.

Ok, I need two sponsors and a lawyer who can sue a company for fraud and false adverting. We must kill the bug now before it is so big that we can do anything about it. And they are trying to get that big, they are trying to get MAC certifed, I don't know how they don't hold any fish. And that will happen, right now there are three companies that I know of that are doing this, tomorrow there will be 10. The ads will grow, the lies will continue to infect. The excuses will continue to come, and the hobby will die. Those 10 companies will have their money that is all the care about.


I might make you mad, I might make you frustrated, but I have made you think and I have opened your eyes. You want reform, here it is.

andy

 

[Len]

Spawner,

While I sincerely respect your opinion and your devotion to the betterment of collection practices, I plead with you to be more pragmatic and constructive in your responses. I mean no offense in saying that what you've suggested (demanded is a more accurate description) is unfeasible for the viability of Reefs.org. If we relied on the member donations, I assure you we wouldn't survive 2 months. And there simply aren't enough vendors willing AND able to sponsor sites such as ours, let alone vendors you’d approve of. There surely isn’t a vendor everyone approves of.

It's really a catch 22, as previously described. On one hand, we'd all like for every vendor to practice all aspects of their business ethically (whether it be livestock or dry goods). We'd prefer to be excruciating stringent on sponsor selection. On the other hand, it's vendor support that sustains our existence and provides you with a place to exchange ideas and knowledge. And the absolute truth is: there simply isn't enough vendors willing and able to sponsor Reefs.org (yes, a reiteration for emphasis). And to answer your question: yes, losing a single sponsor significantly affects our bottom line, no less a premiere sponsor (or multiple sponsors). We’d love to have rich members contribute hundreds of dollars to our resources on a monthly basis. Alas, this world we live in simply isn’t that generous. Besides, someone is likely to have reservations about particular private sponsors, in which case this issue of corruption or tainted money rears its ugly head all over again. And who’s to say you or others won’t demand termination of other sponsors for different issues?

Truth is, Reefs.org appreciates every financial support afforded us (within reason, of course). But by no means should you infer that we approve of everything our sponsors do. And by no means is our decision making process influenced by our sponsors. Rest assured, our site's mission is wholly independent of external influence. Reefs.org does everything with the best interest of our community in mind. While there may be disagreements about certain methodologies at times, be perfectly clear that our motivation and interest is solely for the betterment of our online reef-keeping family.

Again, I respect what you have to say. However, you’ve yet to extend any constructive, feasible suggestions as to how to finance this site in accordance to your code of ethics. Simply rehashing your original demand doesn’t serve much utility for us, and to be perfectly honest. Please either provide viable alternatives or refrain from further comment. This is all merely my opinion, of course (read: not a threat of administrative action).

FWIW, I’ve taken the time to review all our sponsor ads, and I find nothing to be patently false, and surely nothing that you can take to litigation. If you have issues with particular vendors regarding activities outside of Reefs.org’s domain, nothing prevents you from addressing the problem(s) to the vendor(s) yourself. Fight your good right; it’s your right. But please don’t ask Reefs.org to shoulder the financial responsibility/risk for you.

If you truly take the pragmatic approach, you should be addressing these perceived problems to vendors in question, and not Reefs.org. Terminating their sponsorships here hurts Reefs.org – and our members - infinitely more then it does the vendor you have objections to. And it doesn’t address the problem directly. You keep pleading for common sense. Well, this is common sense to me. I respect you for your zealousness, but implore you to employ more logic behind your passion (although in your defense, you really have little idea what’s involved to keep sites like ours running for our members). Remember: Battles are rarely won on rash decisions of the heart.

Thank you Tom, for being sensible about this issue. While everyone may esteem the high road, few realize the real cost required to pave this road. We live in a society governed by money and law, and while our motivation may be of something better/loftier, we’re forced to play within the rules or face extinction. I hope you can appreciate all this. And I hope you agree that having resources like Reefs.org/AAOLM/MACO is more valuable to the advancement of our hobby and industry then whatever administrative disagreements you may have.

 

[dizzy]

andy,
I remember reading (years ago) how Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine did not want to carry mail order advertising because most pet stores did not want to sell it (mag) because of the mail order. They said they were taken to court by the mail order companies and forced to accept it. (Wonder who the MO companies were?) They did work out a deal where the MO was in the subscription copies and left out of the store copies.

As a retailer I am afraid that MAC certification will almost certainly bring unfair trade advantages to the big players with all the muscle. The A-list stuff will go to the guys who spend the most money for sure. I have to agree that the big players are positioning themselves to dominate this industry like never before.

 

[spawner]

I will find you two other sponsors. . . if I or someone steps up with the sponsors then will you TAKE THE HIGH ROAD? This is not going away. The best way to fix the problem is to remove them and make them change.

This is my solution, naesco has suggested one, to.

Read their claims on their web sites and ads if you don't see the lies you are the sponors have blinded you.

Stand behind your sponors that's what you have to do


andy[/quote]

 

[naesco]

Liquid thanks for not closing the thread.
Liquid, Mary M
What do you think of my idea to make it a unified boards approach.
In that way reefs.org cannot be seen to be the bad guy and we reefers get the benefit of truth in advertising.
It is not acceptable for any sponsor on any board to claim that their fish is net caught when that is not the case. Pure and simple.

 

[MaryHM]

Naesco,

I think that from what I've heard and seen here there are points on either side that are valid. I don't think you'd ever get all of the boards to unify and throw out sponsorship money. I think the fraud being perpetrated by certain companies is disgusting, but I'm not sure that it's reefs.org's fight. Man, I'm torn on this one. I love reefs.org too much to put them at risk...

 

[Len]

Andy,

I can't make any commmitments, but feel free to bring in more sponsors if you're able to. Have them email [email protected] for more detail. It'll lend you a bit more credance

Again, it's not that we're necessarily standing behind sponsors in all that they do or whatever perceived bad practices you object to. It boils down to keeping this website running so that these ideas can be exchanged unfettered and honestly (this thread is a testament to that). Please don't ask us to risk this precious resource for your crusade, regardless of however much merit there is in it. It's unfair to Reefs.org, and more importantly, it's unfair to the thousands of members we house under our proverbial roof.

Naesco,

There are legal implications to your suggestion. I'm not knowledgable enough to elaborate, but it amounts to black-balling. Besides, it's improbable to get this consesus.

To All,

My honest suggestion is that if any of you have issues with particular vendors, take it up with them directly. Form grass roots groups and petition if necessary. But I respectfully ask you not to jeopardize this valuable source of information. It really serves no logical purpose IMHO, and the potential for long-lasting repairable damage to reefkeepers as a whole is a risk that I think we would all rather not take.

 

[naesco]

Len you are wrong on the legal stuff.
There is nothing wrong or illegal with all the boards getting together and determining a policy on advertising re net caught fish or anything else that is in the best interest of member reefers.

The issue is too important not to try to get a consensus from all the boards instead of writing it off as improbable. It is is possible or it is not and you can only determine this by trying to get that consensus.

I do however agree that we do not want to do anything create problems for reefsorg and that is why it must be done by a united board effort.

Please quietly make some contact with the other boards on this issue and let us know what happens.
You can be assured of one thing. Because honest sponsor advertising is in the best interest of reefers you will have the support of all reefers of all boards.

 

[King Jason]

What do you consider a "lot" of bandwidth?

A T3 is nice, but this is an OC-192 backbone.....no bandwidth issues at all.


And the next time you need to buy a SQL server for $45,000 please call me....we sell SQL servers for around $8,000


Dave

Yes you have an OC-192 backbone, but you don't get to use the entire pipe! You only get a little section of it. A server that can process all the queries that these types of sites produce is not cheap. Our server at work gets between 10,000 and 30,000 queries per hour. I would imagine this site does between 5000-10000 (estimate based on 500 users clicking a link 10 times in an hour) per hour based on the time of day. I did a long analysis at work on the "muscle" needed for a server with 50,000 queries per hour (anticipated growth). With that said I went with a Quad Xenon 2.0 ghz, 10 gigs of RAM, 73 gig RAID 5, Win2k Adv. SQL 2k, etc. With tax, shipping it came to more then $45,000, that is without the time of my IT staff configuring it and getting it ready for production. No way you can get that for 8 grand. But I don't want to get off topic so I'll stop...

 

[King Jason]

However I would be very interested to see how much bandwidth reefs.org uses per month. I would also be interested to see what Database software it is using and some statistics of users per hour/day/month.

 

[DBM]

Spawner,

You keep saying all the fish from Haiti are drug caught. WHERE IS THE PROOF! I've been looking around, and asking around for a while now and have not found anyone in this industry or from an environmental organization who can verify this. It's just a rumour as far as I can tell. Please point me in the right direction so I can confirm this (I'm still waiting for an e-mail address so I can check into it one more time). I will not mention names but the person who was perpetuating this rumour 8 or 10 years back was and may still be purchasing fish from Haiti. There's lots of evidence pointing to drug use in the Philippines, Florida, Indonesia, and the Red Sea, but I can't find any evidence which points to Haiti.

Anyone out there have a credible link or can show me Haitian fish are drug caught? I JUST WANT THE TRUTH!

Doug

 

[Len]

naesco,

It's a fine line, and whether litigants can win in a court of law or not is not the issue in this scenario. The issue is whether defendants can afford defense.

 

[spawner]

DBM,

I am not saying that they are using Cyanide in Haiti, I am saying that most if not all of the fish coming from Haiti are juiced with Q. Just as in the Florida Keys many collectors use Q, not illegal but not net caught for sure. I know most of you have never been collecting, but if you think a royal gramma or black cap would be as cheap as they are if they weren't drugged. That they would have such a high death rate. Again not cyanide have never heard that, but importers have told me that they are drugged, just as many of the fish coming from Florida are. I am not standing on a soap box here.

I am only saying that making the statement that we ONLY sell net caught fish and that we support reform, when in fact they don't. When in fact they are selling fish that they have no clue about the origin or drugged status is liable, wrong, lying, cheating and misleading. It is wrong, it is setting any reform back years. That is all that I am saying, stop the lying.

Leonard do you think that *** would ever listen to a complaint from one small person, not likely. Would they listen to a small handful, no. An entire BB or entire online community, they would have to.

I know that some of you think that I am only here to cause you head aches and problems. That I am on a crusade. That is just not the case, we have a problem here. I have made that very clear, they are lying, cheating and making liable statements on their web site, the mag ads, and using this BB to influence under-informed hobbyist. By the reaction I am getting almost everyone here was in the dark and didn't know of their lies. Now you know, I only as that you do something about it.

This is not an attack on anyone, not personal. Not an attack on the BB, I am merely posing a question and pointing out a problem. I hope you all see that. I hope that you all really want to do the right thing.

andy

andy

 

[Oldguy]

I have heard of fish from Florida being juiced. You say they use Q its not illegal. But what is Q?

 

[Anonymous]

I have heard of fish from Florida being juiced. You say they use Q its not illegal. But what is Q?

quinaldine, i believe

 

[Anonymous]

Have the laws in this country been so skewed that a company would sue reefs.org for liable just because they have a forum, even though they were not responsible for its content?

Yes

Even if it might be true, do you think reefs.org has the 15-20k to even respond to a frivolous lawsuit?

Great! According to that logic we can Sue the television networks and cable companies for the content of their commercials?

News flash everyone, we can all quit our jobs, We just discovered a way to become millionaires! :roll:

Hmmm another clueless one. Big/medium corporation sues a couple of individuals. What money are they going to use to fight back? It might be a frivolous lawsuit but you still need money to fight them. This is exactly what happened in the Novak case. Your TV example doesnt hold any water.

 

[Anonymous]

I have heard of fish from Florida being juiced. You say they use Q its not illegal. But what is Q?

I am from florida and have used Quinaldine to collect fish for my marine biology class. Every Florida/Carib Collector I have met uses it. In florida you have to get a permit in order to use it for fish collection.

Florida Law
(e) Quinaldine may be used for the harvest of tropical fish if the person using the chemical or possessing
the chemical in or on the waters of the state meets each of the following conditions:

1. The person also possesses and maintains aboard any vessel used in the harvest of tropical fish with
quinaldine a special activity license authorizing the use of quinaldine, issued by the Division of Marine
Resources of the Department of Environmental Protection pursuant to Section 370.08(8), Florida
Statutes.

2. The quinaldine possessed or applied while in or on the waters of the state is in a diluted form of no more
than 2% concentration in solution with seawater. Prior to dilution in seawater, quinaldine shall only be
mixed withisopropyl alcohol or ethanol.

This is pretty much Common practice, especially in countries such as haiti.

 

[Len]

Andy,

Once again, I appreciate your input and your good intentions. But the bottom line comes down to viability of this website (and other resource like ours), and none of the suggestions offered thus far have provided any viable alternatives to financing these resources as you personally see fit. I'm not quite sure how many times I need to repeat this to get my message across. While we may all like to make decisions based strictly on the heart, pragmatism/realism dictates otherwise. I honestly don't think you understand the gravity/implications of your demands.

By all means, I invite you to start your own organization formed, designed, and dedicated solely to your cause using your own finances and time. This issue is evidently important enough to you. But asking us to risk our existance is unfair to Reefs.org, its members, and all reefkeeprs as a whole.

And the funny thing about U.S. courts is they actually require some burden of proof. You throw around the word "liable" (misappropriated word choice and spelled incorrectly) all too often without realizing that your defamatory accusations - without provided evidence - defines libel to a tee. Reefs.org does not have the time nor resources to investigate your claims, and you haven't been kind enough to offer anything resembling support for your stance. I'm not saying anything/everything you've stated thus far is false; But how prudent would it be of us to base decisions on a member's demand for our blind devotion to his cause? This is but one problem (amongst dozens others) with what you're requesting.

Reefs.org's founding purpose is and will always be to provide people around the world a resource in which they can gather and exchange knowledge, experience, and opinions freely and uncensored. We strive for the advancement of our beloved hobby through education, and I think we've effectively done so. We value your participation as we do every one of our loyal members. We only hope you can appreciate the costs (time and finances alike) required to operate our resource for the betterment of reefkeeping. You see but a tiny glimpse of the intricate machine that is Reefs.org, yet feel comfortable making imperative decisions for the viabilty of this resource.

I prefer not rehashing these points again, and prefer you not rehash yours. New ideas, however, are always welcomed.