As most know Kate Buckley wrote an open letter concerning the threads on Namepros that questioned the validity of certain sales Kate brokered.
Tonight Namepros posted their reply to Kate, they sent it to her personally and also decided to share with the community.
Hi Kate,
Excellent letter to the community! Well articulated and supported by credible sources. That’s the way to do it.
The truth is the ultimate defense
We respect that you took the time to respond professionally and open a dialog for everyone to be more mindful when posting questions and doubts.
NamePros has also experienced these things firsthand many times. We have been on the receiving end of more false statements about NamePros than any other domain company we’ve seen, even on our own forums. We like to respond the same way: with history and facts to support our statements.
Although we appreciate that challenging and questioning things is good for our industry, everyone needs to be responsible and careful about how that is done. Everyone should try their best not to state things as facts unless they are certain about them, and even then, it’s possible to believe something is a fact and be wrong. In many cases, the intent is more important than being absolutely right because it’s impossible to be accurate all of the time, even if we all try our best to be.
We also understand that strong opinions often come across as being stated as facts, even if they aren’t intended to be. On the other hand, some people may try to use this as a debate tactic to cause others to think, “I don’t know that I feel as strongly about my opinion as they do, so maybe they’re right.” But that doesn’t make it an appropriate or professional way to express concerns, doubts, or engage in a debate. Everyone can try to do better because no one is perfect.
Here are a few relevant things that may interest you to know for the future:
As a service, NamePros does not decide what is true or false. We are not judge, jury, or executor, or arbiter, of the truth. There are legal systems in place to deal with that, and while we have legal counsel to protect NamePros, our own expertise is in domain names and not law. It would be inappropriate, irresponsible, and impractical for us to behave like a legal system, so we do not. However, that is generally unnecessary because a simple, honest response is all that is needed, as you’ve done.
Given that users are solely responsible for what they post, and although some of our users may appear anonymous to you, it’s helpful to realize that very few users are truly anonymous. Often, public information or contacting people they’ve conducted business with can uncover their identity.
So even though someone’s identity may appear anonymous, difficult to find, or be unknown to you, it does not necessarily mean that it is actually unknown to the public or to others. It may just not be easy to uncover, but it could be publicly available if you took the time to uncover it.
Most importantly, we do have rules that are designed to protect and uphold the integrity of the community. Therefore, if a member is repeatedly questioning your sales that you’ve proven to be true, attacking you, or otherwise harassing you in some manner, then we have rules in place that will enable that to be stopped. The best way to let us know about that is to contact our support or use the Report link on the relevant posts.
Finally, we want to commend you again on the letter you wrote; it is one of the best we’ve seen. Sincerely well done. It’s a great example of how we would respond to such incidents, and it’s exemplary of how others should strive to respond, too.
As always, we’re open to feedback and here to help in anyway we can.
Regards,
Team Bravo
NamePros Moderators
The post that caused the commotion is still up and the opening post was never edited. I take it Namepros believes they are protected, I say that from this wording in their letter to Kate.
“As a service, NamePros does not decide what is true or false. We are not judge, jury, or executor, or arbiter, of the truth. There are legal systems in place to deal with that, and while we have legal counsel to protect NamePros, our own expertise is in domain names and not law. It would be inappropriate, irresponsible, and impractical for us to behave like a legal system, so we do not.“
I don’t pretend to be a lawyer so someone with an actual legal qualification could weigh in on that if they like.
Personally I believe the word fake should have been edited out of the title. The member has no proof it’s fake. Namepros should know the member does not know that and suggest a different title.