Amy's Opening Post -- 411 Thread

As you are aware, in early March 2008, ownership of The Canvas Messageboard changed hands.

Over the past 24 hours, Casey and/or Koko were on TC claiming that TC had been "stolen" from them.

This post is to advise all our chatters, posters and lurkers as to how the change in ownership happened.

Since Brooke and I, together with the fan fic archivers, were given our positions at TC several years ago, we have always given our posters, chatters and lurkers the opportunity to contact Casey and Koko directly with their concerns, questions, etc. Many posters, including us, have been unable to contact either Casey or Koko via PM or email.

This was not always unusual because Casey and Koko tended to take a very hands off approach to running this board. Months would go by without any interaction from them. We had learned to move forward with the day-to-day operation and fun of this board with limited/no input from them.

In December 2007, we were contacted Yuku advising that they had been contacted by several TC posters about the posters' inability to contact the Casey and/or Koko with questions or concerns. Yuku asked if we had been in contact with Casey or Koko in recent months -- we stated that we had not been contacted recently. Yuku then advised us that they planned to contact Casey and/or Koko with a deadline of 30 days to respond.

Casey and/or Koko failed to respond to Yuku's email and the board was considered abandoned.

Yuku specifically stated to us:

We haven't heard from the administrators, and the emails to some of them bounced, so we need to do a transfer of ownership.

Yuku stated that the board would be shut down in 14 days or two weeks if they did not transfer ownership.

We assumed ownership of the board.

There was no plotting done to overtake the board. There was and is nothing secretive about this situation. Please feel free to contact Yuku if you wish to ask more questions.

We have nothing to hide.

As always, if you have questions, you know where to find us...

Amy & Brooke

Brooke's Post in 411 Thread

I'm going to lay this out step-by-step, and this will be my only post in this thread.

1. I contacted the Yuku Admins after experiencing an issue with the board. It was not about "taking over" the board, it was a personal issue I was having with the site.

2. The Yuku Admins advised me to discuss the issue with the TC Admins, as they would be able to resolve the issue.

3. I told the Yuku Admins that the TC Admins weren't available, and was there something else that could be done to help me?

4. The Yuku Admins said they would try contacting the TC Admins for me.

5. Weeks went by with no resolution to my issue, nor had I heard from anybody from Yuku. Then one day, I received a reply email from the Yuku Admins stating that they had tried to contact the TC Admins via every available method [ multiple email addresses, PMs, etc. ] and that they had been unable to contact anybody.

6. TC was then deemed "Abandoned."

7. Because the board needed a new owner appointed to keep the board "alive," I was given the position because I was one of the Mods at the time.

And there you have it. There was no plot to ever take over TC. Circumstances arose, and Amy and I did what we did to ensure TC would continue to exist. Good decision, bad decision or otherwise, there you have it.

I have been a member of The Canvas since late 2001, first with a local account and later with a global one. I have never posted much, although I lurk regularly. At least I used to. In the past couple of years, the atmosphere of The Canvas has changed. It is no longer is a fun, welcoming place to be. In fact, reading the posts often made me feel uncomfortable because of the way I saw people being treated. I began to lurk more and more often at LU, which I had joined when it first opened as Buzzer's Ballroom. Now, I lurk at LU almost daily. I only ever read fanfic at TC, and I won't be doing that anymore. Although most regular posters do not know who I am, I have been reading their posts for years. I completely support Casey and Koko and believe that the Canvas should be returned to them immediately. They opened the board, they ran it successfully and without assistance for 4 or 5 years, and it should not have been stolen from them, which it was.

BK