UrbanLAN rebuttal - In reply to "A Message from Ed Linklater"
Our statement
Nathaniel "Ed" Linklater stood down from his positions of director and crew shortly after UrbanLAN 11 (held 26th - 27th June 2010) citing personal reasons and a loss of passion for the job. He agreed to sponsor the LAN as developer/host for the website in exchange for advertising Techlust.
Jase/PinguWaaWaa was voted in as the new director and brought back David/Anthrax to help run events. As part of the transition, UrbanLAN's bank account details were changed.
After some initial uncertainty, Ed attended UrbanLAN 12 in the invite only room so he could not be mistaken as part of the crew. As he was a sponsor he attended free of charge.
Claims of crew requests for him to be no longer involved are untrue and come as a surprise.
Typically we would support new LANs and many of the crew have either attended or helped other LANs in the area. However, given Ed's actions and statements we will not be supporting his new venture (inFLUX at the Meteor - Hamilton).
We hope you continue to support our LANs.
Questions
What's up with Ed?
That's not something we can answer.
Why did the site go down?
Ed took the site down after a disagreement concerning his attendance at the crew meeting for UrbanLAN 13. He invited himself to attend and wished to ask crew for suggestions on improvements to the site.
Given his distancing since UrbanLAN 11 and conflicts with other crew members, crew felt his attendance wasn't required but if he'd like he could email a list of questions to ask about the web-site and an email would be sent back providing answers.
This was taken personally and, as a result, the site was taken down.
David negotiated its return and for it to be moved to a new host in exchange for a one off popup displaying Eds message.
Do you mix personal issues with business?
No. UrbanLAN have always had a form of democracy and with the change in leadership even more so, so such a feat would be difficult to achieve. Attempts have been made in the past but have met stiff rebuttal.
Why speak up now?
We didn't have control of the site before and didn't want another takedown. Those who spoke their mind on the forum had their posts removed by Ed.
Kind Regards,
The UrbanLAN Crew
