the great RLeague shutdown later that year, when Ray Hadley threatened to sue them or some such nonsense (can't remember exactly what happened)
It is mostly a myth.
The fable makers blamed testy Easts supporters for ringing up Hadley, but they were ringing about a news article on the main page of rleague, not the forums. The offending article was a tongue-in-cheek piece about Roosters and the salary cap - badly written, but still satire.
In basic terms, the rleague forums, run by matto, were shut down because they had had enough.
They had some dodgy anti-Roosters posts and anti-Gallop posts, but nothing that couldn't be moderated. It was this lack of moderation that was perhaps the real problem. I imagine it became unmanageable in the end, and pulling the plug seemed like the easy option.
The response from Canterbury supporter matto was to shut down the entire rleague forums (not the main news site) and delete ALL the posts.
It is perhaps a coincidence that all this was going on in the wake of Bulldogs being stripped of their 37 points after they were found guilty of cheating the cap. Emotions were riding high.
But it wasn't just rleague. It's often forgotten that quite a few club forums shut down around the same time.
People kept pointing to possible legal action being the reason, but I kept hearing that it was more of an excuse for websites to rid themselves of these high maintenance forums. At the time of the shutdowns, in 2003, I thought it was just a case of forums being on the nose.
And they can be hard work. From a website's owner point of view, it easy to see how people might conclude that any returns from forums are far outweighed by the costs involved.
LU has also received a few legal threats.
Not long afterwards, a few Easts supporters on the fringe, thinking they'd brought down rleague, were in high enough spirits to try the same on LeagueUnlimited.
As you can see, LeagueUnlimited never shut down.
We still do get the occasional legal threat - ironically, a representative from rleague has made a couple of silly legal threats against LU - but all have been easily sorted out.
I have no doubt that some forums felt under threat in 2003. But given the overeactions, it does seem that the main players just needed to step back, and at least one forum owner just needed a holiday.
And millers is evil.
