itf/atp biological passport fully operational sept 2014

[Front242]

I hate all that reduced ban nonsense. its worse in athletics look at sprinting. ok its good that they were caught..Justin gatlin, asafa powell, and Tyson gay in sprinting for a start, somehow they always get any ban reduced on appeal for whatever reason they can dream up. WEAK.

Sure is. They're gutless in all sports although Lance at least got what he deserved.

 

[TFAdmin]

We are in the process of reviewing of our policy with regards to discussing doping and its related topics. In the meantime, we are closing this thread.

---

We are reopening this thread, with the following specific guidelines as to how doping will be discussed on this forum:

- Doping, PEDs, biological passports, etc. can and should be discussed, but within boundaries.

- Restrict conversation to threads specifically set up to discuss these topics, and do not let it become part of other threads.

- Don't name/impune players unless they have been explicitly implicated through failed or refused test(s).

- If a player has had known contact with a doctor who has been caught doping, that fact can be mentioned, but no other conclusions can be drawn from it. No guilt by association.

- Don't accuse any governing organization (ATP, WTA, ITF, etc.) of being complicit in illegal activities (for example, knowing a player is doping, and is hiding it).

- All attempts at spurious innuendo, or any posts outside of these guidelines will be deleted, and could result in a member receiving a warning.

Please respect these guidelines going forward.

Thanks,

The Administrators

 

[Luxilon Borg]

We are reopening this thread, with the following specific guidelines as to how doping will be discussed on this forum:

- Doping, PEDs, biological passports, etc. can and should be discussed, but within boundaries.

- Restrict conversation to threads specifically set up to discuss these topics, and do not let it become part of other threads.

- Don't name/impune players unless they have been explicitly implicated through failed or refused test(s).

- If a player has had known contact with a doctor who has been caught doping, that fact can be mentioned, but no other conclusions can be drawn from it. No guilt by association.

- All attempts at spurious innuendo, or any posts outside of these guidelines will be deleted, and could result in a member receiving a warning.

Please respect these guidelines going forward.

Thanks,

The Administrators

Excellent. I don't think you could have been any more articulate, clear, or precise in laying out these guidelines. My highest respect.

The nest step is to enforce them, if and when the occasion arises.

I think every member of this forum owes the team a big
Thank You.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

The notion that you cannot talk about a specific player possibly indulging in doping before
he/she has failed or refused a test is a huge blow to freedom of speech. As I already
mentioned, I am for equal opportunity in suspecting players. I don't want prohibition against
suspecting only some players.

The basic philosophy should be to let people post whatever they want within reason.
If somebody is just primarily using the forum to slander players with baseless accusations,
the rest of the members will come to know of this and basically put this poster on an
ignore list or put the threads created by this person on this topic as a thread that
they are not interested.

In a discussion board it is customary to discuss evolving situations. Asking for
100% proof or using the standard of "innocent until proven guilty" is way too high.
Just take a look at various threads in "Global News and Events". Don't so many members
accuse so many politicians and even countries of doing various things? Do they have
100% proof of them? Of course not. They are just expressing their opinions based
on their knowledge of the situation and their personal feelings. If you are allowing
it on one thread, why you are not allowing it another thread. Does anyone know
with 100% certainity as to what happened to MH370? How come there is a thread
on it on this forum which discusses various conspiracy theories? Are not these
conspiracy theories slandering various entities?

This is just an attempt to thwart the freedom of speech and expression just
because some people do not like what is being said. It should not happen even
if 99.99% of the members do not like what is being said.

I hope the administrators/moderators come to sense on this issue and
revoke unnecessary prohibitions.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

From the wording of the restrictions ("guilt by association" etc), it looks to me that
the administrators of this forum may be are thinking that we settle the guilt and innocence
of the players by discussing here. We should realize that this is just a court of public
opinion and this is not a court of law.

Even if all members of this forum agree that player X is guilty, X cannot be punished
and even if all members of this forum agree that player Y is not guilty, he will not
be immune from conviction by the authorities.

Why so much fear over freedom of expression? Are we in delusion here?

 

[Luxilon Borg]

The notion that you cannot talk about a specific player possibly indulging in doping before
he/she has failed or refused a test is a huge blow to freedom of speech. As I already
mentioned, I am for equal opportunity in suspecting players. I don't want prohibition against
suspecting only some players.

The basic philosophy should be to let people post whatever they want within reason.
If somebody is just primarily using the forum to slander players with baseless accusations,
the rest of the members will come to know of this and basically put this poster on an
ignore list or put the threads created by this person on this topic as a thread that
they are not interested.

In a discussion board it is customary to discuss evolving situations. Asking for
100% proof or using the standard of "innocent until proven guilty" is way too high.
Just take a look at various threads in "Global News and Events". Don't so many members
accuse so many politicians and even countries of doing various things? Do they have
100% proof of them? Of course not. They are just expressing their opinions based
on their knowledge of the situation and their personal feelings. If you are allowing
it on one thread, why you are not allowing it another thread. Does anyone know
with 100% certainity as to what happened to MK370? How come there is a thread
on it on this forum which discusses various conspiracy theories? Are not these
conspiracy theories slandering various entities?

This is just an attempt to thwart the freedom of speech and expression just
because some people do not like what is being said. It should not happen even
if 99.99% of the members do not like what is being said.

I hope the administrators/moderators come to sense on this issue and
revoke unnecessary prohibitions.

Sorry, you could not be further off the mark. There is no blow here to freedom of speech. Not even close.

It is a victory for common decency and respect. Accusing individuals of illegal activity without any proof, based on uninformed, and unprofessional deduction is wrong. And you would not want anyone to do that to you, now would you.

I think this forum can be held to a higher standard over a political forum where the dregs of humanity battle it out in death cage matches.

The topic has not been banned. It should be discussed, but with class, dignity, and without those totally unqualified to make accusations derailing the discussion.

The rules are clear.

 

[nehmeth]

I think the Admins are making a good attempt at walking a fine line here.

For a long time, Lance Armstrong tested "clean", all the while there were many out there saying he was doping. They were right all along.

I watched the 60 Minutes segment with Anthony Bosch who helped Yankees star Alex Rodriguez dope. The most shocking parts were the detail of how they knew to avoid testing positive - even to the point when to pee into the cup!!

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-case-of-alex-rodriguez/

From being a complete ostrich with the Armstrong case - figuring that he passed the tests and therefore should be presumed innocent - I've come 180 degrees to the conclusion that it could very well be the majority of pro athletes dope. We don't know and we may never know.

Athletes who passed all their tests have been found to be doping. The technology to hide it is ahead of the technology they have to test for it. While some see using players names as posters taking digs at players they don't like, I can also appreciate the perspective that these posters don't like certain players because they believe they are doping.

Admins choice to leave out the names of those who have yet to test positive is an attempt to keep the discourse civil and prevent healthy board friendships from devolving into name calling and further accusations of trolling. Doping is real. All our favorite athletes could be doing it and testing clean. I'm ready to move on and discuss the tennis, even though my Nole left his heart and brain with Jelena and the baby. :nono

 

[nehmeth]

The notion that you cannot talk about a specific player possibly indulging in doping before
he/she has failed or refused a test is a huge blow to freedom of speech. As I already
mentioned, I am for equal opportunity in suspecting players. I don't want prohibition against
suspecting only some players.

When any of us join a board, we agree to abide by its terms and conditions.

Speech can be moderated. Politics stay out of the ATP forum. ATP discussion is not for the WTA forum. I know that's being simplistic, but it is limiting speech. Calling someone names, attacking someone on the basis of their faith, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. They limit that too here.

Thing is, it is their right. Free speech did not suffer from this most recent decision.

 

[britbox]

There isn't really such a thing as "free speech" in absolute terms. Every nation on earth has certain boundaries on what is considered acceptable and what isn't. Scale that down to clubs, communities and in this case tennis forums. There is a reason for laws on slander and libel.

Generally speaking, this forum moderates itself but there are certain topics which are particularly polarizing and sensitive - doping is one of them. From an Admin point of view (and I'm only speaking for myself not other admins or mods) there are occasions when you need to draw a line in the sand and look to find some sort of compromise or things turn ugly.

The consensus was not to allow direct accusations of players based on conjecture. That doesn't mean the mechanics of doping can't be discussed, court cases can't be discussed, doping doctors can't be discussed, drugs can't be discussed, rulings can't be discussed, players who have failed tests can't be discussed ..etc - They all can. (and again, speaking for myself, I believe doping is more widespread than a lot of other people who post on the boards).

Basically, be smart - don't accuse specific players of doping where there isn't any sort of evidence other than conjecture or joining the dots backwards.

The discussion is still live and an interesting topic to a lot of people. If there are posters who don't wish to contribute to that discussion then they don't need to join the conversation. Simply labelling those who do as "trolls" or "morons" isn't going to cut it either.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

The notion that you cannot talk about a specific player possibly indulging in doping before
he/she has failed or refused a test is a huge blow to freedom of speech. As I already
mentioned, I am for equal opportunity in suspecting players. I don't want prohibition against
suspecting only some players.

When any of us join a board, we agree to abide by its terms and conditions.

Speech can be moderated. Politics stay out of the ATP forum. ATP discussion is not for the WTA forum. I know that's being simplistic, but it is limiting speech. Calling someone names, attacking someone on the basis of their faith, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. They limit that too here.

Thing is, it is their right. Free speech did not suffer from this most recent decision.

I agree that the administrators/owners/moderators get to set the rules, whatever
they may be, and if we don't like we should simply leave the form. Having said that
as much as folks like us need the forum to discuss, the forum also needs members.
Hence it is important that the rules be reasonable.

First of all why is there a double standard? If they think that there should not
be any discussion about something unless there is a conviction or formal allegation
out, the same should be applied to all posts in all threads. I can show lots and lots
of posts in "Global News and Events" where members routinely accuse countries,
politicians, governments etc based on their perceived knowledge and opinions.
If anybody wants to examples of such libellious posts on this BB, let me know
and I will provide plenty of them.

So, clearly this not being done based on principles. The action and the
guidelines came because some people did not like what was being said.
If folks only want to hear what they like, they perhaps should not be
discussing things in public bulletin boards and instead should be discussing
things exclusively among people with similar views as themselves.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

The notion that you cannot talk about a specific player possibly indulging in doping before
he/she has failed or refused a test is a huge blow to freedom of speech. As I already
mentioned, I am for equal opportunity in suspecting players. I don't want prohibition against
suspecting only some players.

The basic philosophy should be to let people post whatever they want within reason.
If somebody is just primarily using the forum to slander players with baseless accusations,
the rest of the members will come to know of this and basically put this poster on an
ignore list or put the threads created by this person on this topic as a thread that
they are not interested.

In a discussion board it is customary to discuss evolving situations. Asking for
100% proof or using the standard of "innocent until proven guilty" is way too high.
Just take a look at various threads in "Global News and Events". Don't so many members
accuse so many politicians and even countries of doing various things? Do they have
100% proof of them? Of course not. They are just expressing their opinions based
on their knowledge of the situation and their personal feelings. If you are allowing
it on one thread, why you are not allowing it another thread. Does anyone know
with 100% certainity as to what happened to MK370? How come there is a thread
on it on this forum which discusses various conspiracy theories? Are not these
conspiracy theories slandering various entities?

This is just an attempt to thwart the freedom of speech and expression just
because some people do not like what is being said. It should not happen even
if 99.99% of the members do not like what is being said.

I hope the administrators/moderators come to sense on this issue and
revoke unnecessary prohibitions.

Sorry, you could not be further off the mark. There is no blow here to freedom of speech. Not even close.

It is a victory for common decency and respect. Accusing individuals of illegal activity without any proof, based on uninformed, and unprofessional deduction is wrong. And you would not want anyone to do that to you, now would you.

I think this forum can be held to a higher standard over a political forum where the dregs of humanity battle it out in death cage matches.

The topic has not been banned. It should be discussed, but with class, dignity, and without those totally unqualified to make accusations derailing the discussion.

The rules are clear.

Anytime a person enters public life (whether it is a politician, actor, sportsmen), the standards
of privacy for them are vastly different from standards of privacy for ordinary people. Finally,
nobody accusing in the sense of filing a law suit. People are talking about possibilities and
it should be allowed.

 

[Luxilon Borg]

The notion that you cannot talk about a specific player possibly indulging in doping before
he/she has failed or refused a test is a huge blow to freedom of speech. As I already
mentioned, I am for equal opportunity in suspecting players. I don't want prohibition against
suspecting only some players.

The basic philosophy should be to let people post whatever they want within reason.
If somebody is just primarily using the forum to slander players with baseless accusations,
the rest of the members will come to know of this and basically put this poster on an
ignore list or put the threads created by this person on this topic as a thread that
they are not interested.

In a discussion board it is customary to discuss evolving situations. Asking for
100% proof or using the standard of "innocent until proven guilty" is way too high.
Just take a look at various threads in "Global News and Events". Don't so many members
accuse so many politicians and even countries of doing various things? Do they have
100% proof of them? Of course not. They are just expressing their opinions based
on their knowledge of the situation and their personal feelings. If you are allowing
it on one thread, why you are not allowing it another thread. Does anyone know
with 100% certainity as to what happened to MK370? How come there is a thread
on it on this forum which discusses various conspiracy theories? Are not these
conspiracy theories slandering various entities?

This is just an attempt to thwart the freedom of speech and expression just
because some people do not like what is being said. It should not happen even
if 99.99% of the members do not like what is being said.

I hope the administrators/moderators come to sense on this issue and
revoke unnecessary prohibitions.

Sorry, you could not be further off the mark. There is no blow here to freedom of speech. Not even close.

It is a victory for common decency and respect. Accusing individuals of illegal activity without any proof, based on uninformed, and unprofessional deduction is wrong. And you would not want anyone to do that to you, now would you.

I think this forum can be held to a higher standard over a political forum where the dregs of humanity battle it out in death cage matches.

The topic has not been banned. It should be discussed, but with class, dignity, and without those totally unqualified to make accusations derailing the discussion.

The rules are clear.

Anytime a person enters public life (whether it is a politician, actor, sportsmen), the standards
of privacy for them are vastly different from standards of privacy for ordinary people. Finally,
nobody accusing in the sense of filing a law suit. People are talking about possibilities and
it should be allowed.

There is a huge difference between discussing the possibilities and declaring you are "100% sure" that some one is cheating.

I think the guidelines made it clear that discussing the possibilities are allowed.

Being pro tennis fans, we should respect the rights of ATP players to be treated just like anybody else.

Anyone has the perfect right to be suspicious of any player. But those suspicions should not be able to steer the whole discourse. Secondly, as said repeatedly, the main offenders are no where near qualified to make certain assumptions and have no professional training.

To repeat, I think we can hold Tennis Frontier to a higher standard than the forums you mention.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

The notion that you cannot talk about a specific player possibly indulging in doping before
he/she has failed or refused a test is a huge blow to freedom of speech. As I already
mentioned, I am for equal opportunity in suspecting players. I don't want prohibition against
suspecting only some players.

The basic philosophy should be to let people post whatever they want within reason.
If somebody is just primarily using the forum to slander players with baseless accusations,
the rest of the members will come to know of this and basically put this poster on an
ignore list or put the threads created by this person on this topic as a thread that
they are not interested.

In a discussion board it is customary to discuss evolving situations. Asking for
100% proof or using the standard of "innocent until proven guilty" is way too high.
Just take a look at various threads in "Global News and Events". Don't so many members
accuse so many politicians and even countries of doing various things? Do they have
100% proof of them? Of course not. They are just expressing their opinions based
on their knowledge of the situation and their personal feelings. If you are allowing
it on one thread, why you are not allowing it another thread. Does anyone know
with 100% certainity as to what happened to MK370? How come there is a thread
on it on this forum which discusses various conspiracy theories? Are not these
conspiracy theories slandering various entities?

This is just an attempt to thwart the freedom of speech and expression just
because some people do not like what is being said. It should not happen even
if 99.99% of the members do not like what is being said.

I hope the administrators/moderators come to sense on this issue and
revoke unnecessary prohibitions.

Sorry, you could not be further off the mark. There is no blow here to freedom of speech. Not even close.

It is a victory for common decency and respect. Accusing individuals of illegal activity without any proof, based on uninformed, and unprofessional deduction is wrong. And you would not want anyone to do that to you, now would you.

I think this forum can be held to a higher standard over a political forum where the dregs of humanity battle it out in death cage matches.

The topic has not been banned. It should be discussed, but with class, dignity, and without those totally unqualified to make accusations derailing the discussion.

The rules are clear.

Anytime a person enters public life (whether it is a politician, actor, sportsmen), the standards
of privacy for them are vastly different from standards of privacy for ordinary people. Finally,
nobody accusing in the sense of filing a law suit. People are talking about possibilities and
it should be allowed.

There is a huge difference between discussing the possibilities and declaring you are "100% sure" that some one is cheating.

I think the guidelines made it clear that discussing the possibilities are allowed.

Being pro tennis fans, we should respect the rights of ATP players to be treated just like anybody else.

Anyone has the perfect right to be suspicious of any player. But those suspicions should not be able to steer the whole discourse. Secondly, as said repeatedly, the main offenders are no where near qualified to make certain assumptions and have no professional training.

To repeat, I think we can hold Tennis Frontier to a higher standard than the forums you mention.

I am not talking about other forums. I am talking about tennis frontier only. There
is a off topic section in tennis frontier where people discuss global events and there
the same folks who took vehement objection to whatever prompted this freely accuse
various entities of various things without any proof or qualification. Perhaps TF should
close down those sections completely or the moderators should read all those posts
and check whether 100% proof of the allegations are given by the posters out there.

 

[Luxilon Borg]

The notion that you cannot talk about a specific player possibly indulging in doping before
he/she has failed or refused a test is a huge blow to freedom of speech. As I already
mentioned, I am for equal opportunity in suspecting players. I don't want prohibition against
suspecting only some players.

The basic philosophy should be to let people post whatever they want within reason.
If somebody is just primarily using the forum to slander players with baseless accusations,
the rest of the members will come to know of this and basically put this poster on an
ignore list or put the threads created by this person on this topic as a thread that
they are not interested.

In a discussion board it is customary to discuss evolving situations. Asking for
100% proof or using the standard of "innocent until proven guilty" is way too high.
Just take a look at various threads in "Global News and Events". Don't so many members
accuse so many politicians and even countries of doing various things? Do they have
100% proof of them? Of course not. They are just expressing their opinions based
on their knowledge of the situation and their personal feelings. If you are allowing
it on one thread, why you are not allowing it another thread. Does anyone know
with 100% certainity as to what happened to MK370? How come there is a thread
on it on this forum which discusses various conspiracy theories? Are not these
conspiracy theories slandering various entities?

This is just an attempt to thwart the freedom of speech and expression just
because some people do not like what is being said. It should not happen even
if 99.99% of the members do not like what is being said.

I hope the administrators/moderators come to sense on this issue and
revoke unnecessary prohibitions.

Sorry, you could not be further off the mark. There is no blow here to freedom of speech. Not even close.

It is a victory for common decency and respect. Accusing individuals of illegal activity without any proof, based on uninformed, and unprofessional deduction is wrong. And you would not want anyone to do that to you, now would you.

I think this forum can be held to a higher standard over a political forum where the dregs of humanity battle it out in death cage matches.

The topic has not been banned. It should be discussed, but with class, dignity, and without those totally unqualified to make accusations derailing the discussion.

The rules are clear.

Anytime a person enters public life (whether it is a politician, actor, sportsmen), the standards
of privacy for them are vastly different from standards of privacy for ordinary people. Finally,
nobody accusing in the sense of filing a law suit. People are talking about possibilities and
it should be allowed.

There is a huge difference between discussing the possibilities and declaring you are "100% sure" that some one is cheating.

I think the guidelines made it clear that discussing the possibilities are allowed.

Being pro tennis fans, we should respect the rights of ATP players to be treated just like anybody else.

Anyone has the perfect right to be suspicious of any player. But those suspicions should not be able to steer the whole discourse. Secondly, as said repeatedly, the main offenders are no where near qualified to make certain assumptions and have no professional training.

To repeat, I think we can hold Tennis Frontier to a higher standard than the forums you mention.

I am not talking about other forums. I am talking about tennis frontier only. There
is a off topic section in tennis frontier where people discuss global events and there
the same folks who took vehement objection to whatever prompted this freely accuse
various entities of various things without any proof or qualification. Perhaps TF should
close down those sections completely or the moderators should read all those posts
and check whether 100% proof of the allegations are given by the posters out there.

Ok, thank you for that clarification..I was not aware there was an Off Topic forum.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

The notion that you cannot talk about a specific player possibly indulging in doping before
he/she has failed or refused a test is a huge blow to freedom of speech. As I already
mentioned, I am for equal opportunity in suspecting players. I don't want prohibition against
suspecting only some players.

The basic philosophy should be to let people post whatever they want within reason.
If somebody is just primarily using the forum to slander players with baseless accusations,
the rest of the members will come to know of this and basically put this poster on an
ignore list or put the threads created by this person on this topic as a thread that
they are not interested.

In a discussion board it is customary to discuss evolving situations. Asking for
100% proof or using the standard of "innocent until proven guilty" is way too high.
Just take a look at various threads in "Global News and Events". Don't so many members
accuse so many politicians and even countries of doing various things? Do they have
100% proof of them? Of course not. They are just expressing their opinions based
on their knowledge of the situation and their personal feelings. If you are allowing
it on one thread, why you are not allowing it another thread. Does anyone know
with 100% certainity as to what happened to MK370? How come there is a thread
on it on this forum which discusses various conspiracy theories? Are not these
conspiracy theories slandering various entities?

This is just an attempt to thwart the freedom of speech and expression just
because some people do not like what is being said. It should not happen even
if 99.99% of the members do not like what is being said.

I hope the administrators/moderators come to sense on this issue and
revoke unnecessary prohibitions.

Sorry, you could not be further off the mark. There is no blow here to freedom of speech. Not even close.

It is a victory for common decency and respect. Accusing individuals of illegal activity without any proof, based on uninformed, and unprofessional deduction is wrong. And you would not want anyone to do that to you, now would you.

I think this forum can be held to a higher standard over a political forum where the dregs of humanity battle it out in death cage matches.

The topic has not been banned. It should be discussed, but with class, dignity, and without those totally unqualified to make accusations derailing the discussion.

The rules are clear.

This qualification business is nonsense. If not, one can say, you are only a 4.0 player
and what right you have to talk about Federer's shanks.

Apart from being nonsense, it is simply not enforceable. For all I know, you could
be a 10 year old kid. Are the administrators collecting our resumes when we join
the board and then decide who is qualified to talk about what? Get real.

 

[nehmeth]

Secondly, as said repeatedly, the main offenders are no where near qualified to make certain assumptions and have no professional training.

You don't know the posters personally, you don't know their backgrounds or what they do to even make such a ridiculous statement. One poster works for the ATP, there are others with medical degrees.

You're in the same swamp of those that say they're 110% sure "so and so" is doping. :snigger

 

[GameSetAndMath]

The notion that you cannot talk about a specific player possibly indulging in doping before
he/she has failed or refused a test is a huge blow to freedom of speech. As I already
mentioned, I am for equal opportunity in suspecting players. I don't want prohibition against
suspecting only some players.

The basic philosophy should be to let people post whatever they want within reason.
If somebody is just primarily using the forum to slander players with baseless accusations,
the rest of the members will come to know of this and basically put this poster on an
ignore list or put the threads created by this person on this topic as a thread that
they are not interested.

In a discussion board it is customary to discuss evolving situations. Asking for
100% proof or using the standard of "innocent until proven guilty" is way too high.
Just take a look at various threads in "Global News and Events". Don't so many members
accuse so many politicians and even countries of doing various things? Do they have
100% proof of them? Of course not. They are just expressing their opinions based
on their knowledge of the situation and their personal feelings. If you are allowing
it on one thread, why you are not allowing it another thread. Does anyone know
with 100% certainity as to what happened to MK370? How come there is a thread
on it on this forum which discusses various conspiracy theories? Are not these
conspiracy theories slandering various entities?

This is just an attempt to thwart the freedom of speech and expression just
because some people do not like what is being said. It should not happen even
if 99.99% of the members do not like what is being said.

I hope the administrators/moderators come to sense on this issue and
revoke unnecessary prohibitions.

Sorry, you could not be further off the mark. There is no blow here to freedom of speech. Not even close.

It is a victory for common decency and respect. Accusing individuals of illegal activity without any proof, based on uninformed, and unprofessional deduction is wrong. And you would not want anyone to do that to you, now would you.

I think this forum can be held to a higher standard over a political forum where the dregs of humanity battle it out in death cage matches.

The topic has not been banned. It should be discussed, but with class, dignity, and without those totally unqualified to make accusations derailing the discussion.

The rules are clear.

Anytime a person enters public life (whether it is a politician, actor, sportsmen), the standards
of privacy for them are vastly different from standards of privacy for ordinary people. Finally,
nobody accusing in the sense of filing a law suit. People are talking about possibilities and
it should be allowed.

There is a huge difference between discussing the possibilities and declaring you are "100% sure" that some one is cheating.

I think the guidelines made it clear that discussing the possibilities are allowed.

Being pro tennis fans, we should respect the rights of ATP players to be treated just like anybody else.

Anyone has the perfect right to be suspicious of any player. But those suspicions should not be able to steer the whole discourse. Secondly, as said repeatedly, the main offenders are no where near qualified to make certain assumptions and have no professional training.

To repeat, I think we can hold Tennis Frontier to a higher standard than the forums you mention.

So, is it OK to post a message saying, player X is most probably doping under the current
rules of TF? Just asking.

 

[Moxie]

^ It is not, GSM. "Probably doping" or even "might be doping," is complete speculation and not allowed. Here's an example: you can mention that Sara Errani went to that Dr. del Morral who has been charged with assisting cyclists to dope, because it is a fact, and she acknowledges that. You cannot, however, draw the conclusion that therefore she is "most probably doping," because she has not been charged as such in any official way.

As to freedom of speech, we're pretty liberal about it around here. But you do see there is are reasons to draw lines. On doping, the primary one is that impugning a professional athlete's integrity on an issue so volatile (and illegal) as a matter of "opinion" is unfair and, in fact, libelous. A secondary one is that allowing those opinions causes every thread that involves such talk to go down in flames.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Is it ok to say, for example that, "Sarah Errani is probably not doping".

 

[Moxie]

^ No. Also speculation. And it's a bit like the old question: "Are you still beating your wife?" Note that it is not ok to mention players by name in the context of the doping conversation unless that have been officially accused/sanctioned. Is that all clear now? Then we can actually discuss the topic.