Well, it's been a long day or two.
What can I say about the banning of GB9BLM at this stage, beyond the fact that it was reinstated - not under any request by me - together with a public and private apology?
Well, QRZ.com's owner has been in touch by direct email. Exchanges have been polite, if rather pointed at times.
I think Fred (I'd never heard of him before this debacle) would not mind me saying he is both accepting having made a series of errors, whilst still trying to blame me for prompting the banning.
This, Fred claims, was by infuriating him in a support ticket complaint (not sent personally to Fred, of course) that I found the unexplained banning of GB9BLM "to be racist" as an act, i.e. not that any individual, none of whom I knew about, were racist themeselves, though that could have been the case, of course.
For the record, and whilst it bothers me not at all, Fred then immediately used the same term against me personally (see earlier posts). At that point, Fred's words suggest he believed I was both black and what he termed a "team" member of BLM, even though simply looking at my parent callsign page would have shown his error.
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| How QRZ.com chose to explain this was not at all about opposition to BLM. |
Fred says the outcome (of considering the banning) could have been different, had I not said that "I found" the banning "to be racist".
OK. If that is a sincere position, then the reason actually given for the banning of GB9BLM - that GB9 callsigns don't exist - should not have been an issue, because that is a fact of licensing alone, independent of any views expressed about racism, racial equality - or anything else at all.
Worse, there is a fatal - and rather obvious - flaw of logic here: the only reason I contacted QRZ.com to ask why it had been banned was, erm, that they had already banned it by then! I could have licked Fred's boots, but without time travel and an ability to change the past, it could make no difference.
Fred, you had banned the callsign before I ever contacted you about anything to do with this callsign, except that QRZ.com had been asked previously to change the country flag, which you did without complaint, identifying a problem, or banning.
You also seem to forget that QRZ.com deleted an earlier forum topic, before I even applied for GB9BLM, that had started with my post asking merely the question: 'why are there no BLM special calls?' That also seems to have happened after an informer - it may or may not have been the one equating black lives to potatoes, demanded it be taken down.
So, the sum experience I have is that, whenever I mention BLM - and it has never involved contentious comment or abuse - whether it be callsign or discussion, QRZ.com have taken it down. It is up to you, the reader, to look at the evidence and pattern, and make your own mind up as to why.
In relation to the changing of the country flag a couple of days before GB9BLM was banned, QRZ.com claim in recent e-mails they didn't know about GB9BLM until the informer came forward, which is clearly untrue, given I raised a support ticket about the country flag before the call was banned, which was diligently acted upon by QRZ.com.
I then asked Fred what 'OFCOM database' he had actually looked at, and when it was released, so that I could figure out how he concluded GB9 calls don't exist. I also asked him how come there were 52 other GB9-something calls on QRZ, none of which had been banned.
It took me two attempts to get the OFCOM information from Fred. He said that he had in fact consulted a "FOIA" response on the OFCOM web site. That is not the same - at all - as "consulting a OFCOM database [of callsigns]", which anyway does not appear to exist. Indeed, QRZ.com itself tells the world exactly that in its FAQ section (accessed 15/6/20):
Just to reinforce this point, in this video, starting at around 36m 45s in, Fred confirms the lack of official information about licenses beyond the US and Canada (in Europe, this is because of data protection laws). The specific assertion is made at 37m 16s.
A little digging would suggest Fred looked at this document, which is in response to someone wanting a list of all callsigns in the UK.
Now, if we bother to read that document, it gives various links that one can follow that can lead you to this page, which is all about UK callsign allocations. I think that this is the document Fred relied upon to assert that no GB9 callsigns exist (Fred, you can issue a correction that I will publish if this is not the case).
Now, the unfortunate part for Fred is in the detail, which is:
Since then, GB9 - as Fred's own database of 52 other GB9 callsigns ought to have alerted him (which he kindly admits is the case, further admitting he was "negligent" in this) - has become available as a standard NoV call. OFCOM, being a much-criticised public body, have of course not updated the document linked to to reflect this.
But even having accepted before and after the banning that no UK database is available to him, making errors and reinstated GB9BLM, Fred then perpetuates the deflection of blame (read: desperately clutches at straws) by expressing surprise that I have not sent him a copy of the OFCOM approval document as yet. He also holds on to the 'OFCOM database' in his 'apology' that the database was "opaque", explaining away his error. Well Fred, I'd love to see which database that actually was, because so far as I and anyone else can tell, there was no such database you could have consulted at all, opaque or otherwise.
Well Fred, you are not a UK (or any other) enforcement authority, and I am not obliged to provide evidence of my authorisations to you. You have already accepted your error, so why keep insisting I jump through pointless hoops? Report me to OFCOM, if you still believe I am doing something wrong. For others who legitimately still wonder about GB9 calls, why don't I show you the approval document:
So, if nothing else, we all have to be careful that information that seems to uphold our view isn't actually wrong - in this case, out of date. We should also be consistent about why a callsign has been banned, rather than conflating that reason with 168 preceding words about Black Lives Matter that are wholly irrelevant to the erroneous, "false" callsign-based ban
There never was a response from Fred or QRZ.com in general (I waited 9 months before using the word 'never') as to why the other 52 GB9-something calls, none linked to racial equality, but some linked to loosely political topics, were not identified as presenting "false information" and not banned by QRZ.com.
I think Fred and I understand one another slightly better, but we certainly are not seeing eye-to-eye. As I put it, we don't have to be friends to avoid being enemies. Despite his best efforts to gently corral me to do so, I won't be accepting guilt for things said after Fred had banned the page based at least partly, if we accept his account at all, on, as he now unambiguously admits, wrong information.
And that is, I think, where this sad story must rest. But thanks to all those who made such supportive comments (and actions), found here.
Minor update, 18/06/2020: Two images I used on the BLM page of QRZ.com, which are used under a well-publicised non-commercial agreement by Getty, vanished during the past 24 hours, which I later reinstated myself, after which they have remained. I do not know if that is a system mistake, as I have seen this happen before, or whether there was an automated or manual decision to remove them.