Controversy at The High Road

Controversy surrounding The High Road (THR) firearms forum has recently erupted into the public eye, which is very unfortunate, in my opinion. I'm aware of postings about the matter on THR itself; Armed Polite Society; View From The Porch; Xavier Thoughts; Wandering Thoughts; The Armed School Teacher; FreeThinker; Walls Of The City; the AR15.com forum; and Oleg Volk's LiveJournal. I'm sure there are many others.

As one of the founding moderators of THR, I've had many questions directed at me as to what's going on: and in the interests of openness, transparency and honesty, I'd like to take the opportunity to answer those questions here.

First, THR was founded by Oleg Volk, who's a well-known photographer and activist on Second Amendment issues. Oleg is a personal friend, and a man whom I respect highly. I was one of the first people to be invited to serve as a moderator on THR, even before the board "went live" in December 2002. I was honored and privileged to serve as such for several years, before the pressure of other circumstances forced me to scale back my activities there early in 2007. I'm still a moderator there, but "without portfolio", as it were.

Second, the domain name for THR was initially registered (and owned) by Mr. Rich Lucibella, the founder and owner of The Firing Line (TFL), another firearms forum. It was Mr. Lucibella's decision to close down TFL that led to the founding of THR: and, some time later, TFL was resurrected and is again one of the foremost forums of its kind on the Internet. Mr. Lucibella supported Oleg and his moderators in every conceivable way during THR's establishment, and I have the highest regard for him.

Third, the technical support "guru" who helped establish THR's hardware and software facilities is Mr. Derek Zeanah. Startup and ongoing costs were to be met (and, as far as I am aware, were indeed met) by contributions from the moderators, and in one case by a fund-raiser held among the membership. It was not intended or desired that Mr. Zeanah use his own funds and resources to support THR, and to the best of my knowledge and belief this has never happened. Whenever he's spoken of the need for funds in the Staff Forum, arrangements have been made among the Staff to get the money to him.

A few months ago the possibility came up that THR might be acquired by a major outside interest, which would guarantee the board's independence, and by sponsoring it allow Oleg to devote more time to it and to Second Amendment/RKBA issues. Oleg, as the owner and boss of the forum, decided to investigate this option, and advised the staff of its existence. At this point Mr. Zeanah apparently decided that he held co-ownership of THR (something that had never been discussed at all in the Staff Forum, and that had never previously even been mentioned), and objected strenuously.

It also emerged that some time previously, Mr. Lucibella had transferred ownership of THR's domain name to Oleg, sending the details to Mr. Zeanah (as tech support guru) to make the arrangements. Instead of doing as Mr. Lucibella had requested, Mr. Zeanah appears to have transferred THR's domain name to himself, and now claims ownership of it. (Of course, as tech support guru and owner of THR's hosting service, he already physically controls the server, software and database.)

Mr. Zeanah denies that he "stole" or "misappropriated" THR's domain name, and insists that he offered to transfer it to a corporate entity: but the company he established to do so was a sole proprietorship under Georgia State law, with himself registered as the owner. The counter to his assertions is best delivered by Mr. Lucibella, who is on the record as follows:

At no time was I aware that Derek was acting as anything but Oleg's personal agent. Had I been aware that Derek was acting for his own benefit I would never have transferred the domain name to him. It is my position that Mr. Zeanah had fraudulently misrepresented himself to me. If he persists in publicly hiding behind my statements, taken out of context, I will have little choice but to join this legal fray, recover the domain name thru the courts and pursue Mr. Zeanah for my legal fees.

Mr. Zeanah has persistently blocked Oleg's attempts to resolve the situation, insisting that he shares ownership of THR and is owed money. Oleg has finally had to lay the matter before the courts, as the only way to obtain justice. He has posted on his LiveJournal:

In December 2002, I founded The High Road forum dedicated to the advancement of responsible gun ownership. Recently, it was discovered that in 2006, the volunteer forum systems administrator, Derek Zeanah of Statesboro, Georgia, changed domain registration to himself. After he was confronted, Derek locked out all other staff from accessing the Web server administration and would not share even backup copies of its content. After failed attempts to peacefully resolve the dispute, it has become necessary for me to initiate a lawsuit against Derek Zeanah for the return of thehighroad.org domain name and the forum database.

I am seeking and would greatly appreciate donations to help with the cost of litigation. You can use Paypal (olegvolk@gmail.com) or send a check to:

Oleg Volk
3112 Chambley Ct
Hermitage, TN 37076

All donations shall be returned if the lawsuit is ultimately avoided. You can also aid me by re-posting this appeal on your blog, forum or web site. My legal position is already endorsed by almost all of The High Road staff as well as Rich Lucibella, the founder of The Firing Line forum.

UPDATE: Derek's reaction was to disable The High Road forum all together. He also removed most of the staff who opposed him.

I should like to state, for the record, that as far as I am aware, and according to all the information at my disposal, Oleg is in the right on this matter. I confirm that from the beginning, nobody else was ever mentioned as having any ownership interest or rights at all in THR, and I confirm that from the beginning, Oleg has been universally acknowledged by the Staff as the "boss", the "head honcho", and the owner of the board. An examination of traffic in the Staff Forum from Day One of THR's existence will confirm this. If necessary I am willing to appear in court to attest to this under oath.

I should also like to state that Mr. Lucibella is known to me, not in person, but through long association on TFL and on another mailing list to which both of us belong. I accept his statement (given above) unreservedly, and I think it makes the position very clear.

I don't understand what Mr. Zeanah is trying to achieve by first, shutting down THR unilaterally (and, I might add, without any authority to do so) when the news broke (it's since come up again), and second, by banning those members of staff and others who publicly support Oleg's position. He's using his physical control of THR's servers to enforce some form of "thought control" on the forum - which won't last long, of course. I daresay my access to THR might well be revoked by him once he reads this: but I'm confident it will be restored when he loses the now-pending court case (as he inevitably will - the weight of evidence is overwhelmingly on Oleg's side in this matter). I simply don't know what Mr. Zeanah is trying to achieve: and I think that now that things have gone this far, he's on a hiding to nowhere. This might become a very expensive millstone around his neck.

I hope that this makes the position clearer to those of my readers and friends who've asked about it. I'm very sad that this nastiness has affected THR, one of the finest forums of its kind on the Internet: but I hope that it will speedily be resolved, and that THR will soon recover and return to normal.

I trust that any readers who contract out the hosting and/or supervision and/or support of their Internet services and/or operations to another person or company will learn from this very nasty situation, and draw the appropriate conclusions.

Peter

EDITED TO ADD: I've commented further on this matter in this post.