*Gets Blocked Anyway* lol

This is upsetting....

YOu ain't gonna get blocked . There's too much of an uproar for neer to have any gall to do anything smart

Insults are really not necessary.

Well folks are near their breaking points. It's time to make MASSIVE changes. Sorry for being blunt, but I don't fluffy things up.

Massive changes have been taking place, actually. Maybe not visible, but the trouble ticket backlog has been cleaned up dramatically, and support has increased tenfold.

Also it's still possible to be blunt and be tactful at the same time.

This situation is quite dire, 'Neer. On one hand, by the rules as written for this site, the journal was taken down and the individual was suspended/banned as it was warned about. That is entirely acceptable, as they really should have read the CoC.

But on the other hand, it looks like the situation itself still requires a look into. Now, while I'm certain you and the administration staff are likely still trying to get your heads wrapped around all the reports and general issues in addition to managing your lives? This kind of situation has cropped up somewhat often it would seem.

I'm not going to demand- That leads nowhere, and heaven knows it doesn't make things go any faster! But I would appreciate it if there was a way in which people who are being harassed like this could be given an option to halt such malefic actions against them, without the opportunity of it being abused by those with ill-intentions themselves.

What options if any, are there in situations like this?

So why lifetime ban someone for activity entirely off FA, and then turn around and ban someone for criminal activity against the banned that took place on FA?

Congratulations on catching up on the work you weren't doing. *applauds*

^this

and not to mention the constant removal of artwork without rhyme or reason, or explanation, and the complete ignorance of peoples' contacts for explanations or reasons behind removals.

Oh yeah, and everyone waiting for the next banned artwork category. Will Zoo go? How about Disney-style characters? are they gonna ban smaller chars like some weasels, mice, and otters i know who play realistic size range(2-3 feet for smaller species)?

I've already had an artist/commissioner i watch have their gallery wiped because they had a small(not young, SMALL) character as their main.

Let us hope so

Yes. It is possible.

Don't worry, 'neer. Some of us appreciate evenhanded restraint in community admins. Some things really do belong in the hands of the police, not the public.

I've witnessed "The Stalker Issue" here on FA before and I think I have to stand with you Dragoneer when I say I think you did the right thing.
you've had the policy of "Do Not Air Dirty Laundry In Public" for a VERY long time. the young lady violated that when she posted the journal that you had taken down. had she blocked the jerk, and sent a trouble ticket and WAITED, I doubt she would have been the one to be banned.

that being said, I think she should get a Gun for self defense and IF that jerkface shows up at her door to make sure the cops find the body Inside the house.

just my opinion.

I agree with you completely.

I don't see why admins won't just ban people who behave like this. Even if they do it off site, they're still going to bring that same behavior wherever they go.
What's the worst that will happen? Some guy can't access a free site. Much better than making many people uncomfortable and want to leave, IMO.

Then where does the banning stop?

"Person X called me a fag on site Y! Ban him here!"

(I know that that example doesn't come close to what happened here, but I hope you get my point)
We can't just ban anyone that does something worn outside of FA.

No. But this is a case where someone should be banned for doing something illegal outside of FA so as to not allow them to continue to do that. Through inaction, FA allowed the behaviour against the victim to continue just because it 'didn't happen on FA' despite being presented with evidence that such behaviour was going on.

He's banned now, actually.

Yes, but the damage has been done. If admins had acted when they were made aware of this person's activities against the victim, all of this could have been avoided.

at the end of the day I'd have to say what needed to happen in the first place ended up happening. It just took you guys pissing off a large number of people to get it done.

This could have been solved differently.
The user posted a callout journal before submitting a ticket, or before even blocking the harassing party.

Blocking offending parties is the -first- thing one should do when harassed.

Instead, she made a callout journal, which was removed, resulting in what's happening now.

This didn't have to explode like it did. If the user would just have submitted a trouble ticket, or contacted a admin if that took too long, this whole mess could have been prevented.

I believe she did submit a trouble ticket... for an entire week before hand.

she submitted a journal before she gave the admins time to even investigate there has been a ticket backlog for some time if you did not know by now to alow a few weeks for them to get to your ticket and a few weeks to investigate fully then you have been living in a hole for the past year and call out journals are strictly against site rules the user ha sno right to feel betrayed when she blatently did not block the offender or give admins time or even read the rules of the site before posting a journal about it not to mention as soon as acall out journal gose up people start making more and more tickets so try and "help" there friends no all you do is increase the back log so when the next person has to report harrasement they will have to wait even longer to get there ticket read cuss the admins have to read though all the bitching non relevant tickets made for a case thats alreday been seen to and resolved

I've had a ticket answered within a day. This was BEFORE FA had additional staff. There were no excuses.

then you where lucky but neer has freely admisted they have only really gotten the back log under control so you may have gotten your ticket done before the most resent back log hit its the same with any sites there are high and low times with back logs

I have not seen any of the evidence people keep talking about. Is it online some place?

No. Because the journal the evidence was in was deleted by an FA admin for being a 'call out' journal and nothing was done to address the issue the journal was about until it was too late.

so she did not bak up her evidence? cuss deleting a journal dose not remove evidence only the copy on the site she could have made a tumblr account and posted the evidence there with a link not to mention call out journals are against site rules

I'm sure the evidence still exists, just not on this site. Also, it wasn't a call out. It was a warning to others to watch out for this person.

thats a call out she bassically put a giant neon sign over the stalkers head if that is not her going OMG OVER HERE THIS PERSON IS A STALKER I HAVE NO EVIDENCE OF HIM STALKING ME ON FA BUT ITS MY WORD SO ALL GIVE HIM SHIT FOR IT because clearly people are all so nice and kind and won't give people shit and drama when some one eles makes an acusation its kinda like in RL and accusing some one of being a pedo with supposed evidence only to find out it was never them well to late you have embedded the rumor now that person's life is just ruined


call outs warnings accusation journals all destroy lifes and reputations there against site rules for a freaking reason because if you get it wrong the person you call out accuse or warn about has alreday had there reputation shatterd


and yes i am taking this personaly because on anouther site a journal that supposedly warned about some one was written about a friend of mine warning people that my friend had done some very horrible things which i knew was untrue cuss said friend had been in hospital for surgery the times she supposedly did these things she then comes back to an email box and private mail box filled with so must hateful comments and spite that she tried to kill her self so call that journal what ever you want warning call out accusing its still a horrible spitefull thing to do you block people you let the site admins investigate and you gather as much evidence as you can copy and paste links to pages on the site with comments that are stalker in nature you don't just blatently tell every one this person is doing this when you may have the wrong person

now this subject is upsetting me to much so i will not be replying to any more comments about this is done its over with both parties got what they deserved the stalker was found to be a stalker and banned and the accuser had her journal deleted and warned about rule breaking she over reacted and left the site her decision she was not forced to leave

i am just glad the so called stalker was a stalker and not some innocent person who was falsely accused or they may have very well done what my friend had done and tried to and may have succeded in commiting suicide


( please no replies to this i have had enough of having to see over 20 jornals about this issue i don't need any more comments i am done with it i have said my piece and i leave you all to continue with out me also i know my spelling and grammer suck i am sorry but i no longer even bother to try and get my grammer right just to spite the grammer nazi's)

That may work in some cases - but when one talks 'Legal' is that Legal in the US?, Australia, Indonesia?
FA is not only for one country, it is worldwide. Lets consider something

What if I write a story where a 16 year old female has consentive sex with a 18 year old male. Yes - many of these storys or artwork abound on many furry sites. And what might be permissible for M/F might not be permissible for M/M?

But WHAT is the age of consent in your part of the world. The story might be perfectly legal in country XXX, but qualifies as child pornography in location YYY

Likewise each country can have a different definition of Stalking, or Defamation, etc

Again this fandom often runs on rumors. We might come in partway thourhg an arguement and get one view, however by reading the full arguement (which might be listed and travelled through many sites) and get a totally different picture.

All that the admins can do is to set the rules for the site and enforce them when they are broken only on this site.

For your consideration
Marc

My understanding is that FA uses the laws of the US, where it is hosted, as a benchmark but takes the laws of countries its users are from into consideration where reasonable. Hence why users must be 18+ to view adult content on the site.

> http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:31841971

" If a person in any public place behaved this way, they would be asked to leave. "
Actually they would be fined/charged and possibly a possible restraint order.

This is very upsetting as it also has happened before to myself.

Apparently, the stalker has been arrested according to this journal: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/ and his sockpuppets banned. This is a step in the right direction I believe.

No he wasn't, at least we don't have proof he was. The person who posted he was? Was the sockpuppet of the stalker. Chances are he said that to get people to get off his ass.

Whoops. My bad. Still, I hope this stalker guy gets banned. Been stalked myself on other sites...its a real downer to say the least.

He has been banned.

he was caught C:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4345191/

That journal links to the journal in the comment string just above yours, suggesting that the "stalker was caught" journal was posted by a sockpuppet of the stalker.

Are you kidding me? Click on the blasted link in the journal you moron im not a sock puppet account. Journ<link<link to journal showing where drqgoneer permabanned him<I've had my account for a year and im not a guy get your facts straight. Smh.

I am referring to a comment 3 or 4 up from this one.

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:31844701 <-- that comment

I am not going to go to the effort myself to figure out who is a sock puppet and who isn't because I don't give a rat's ass.

Lol so you just accuse anyone then ok XD

er, no, you kinda assumed he was talkin' about you being the sock puppet, when he wasn't meaning that at all..I think he didn't understand that you were linking to the comment on that journal to show that 'Neer had found that the person had made another account and eventually blocked that IP address, and was only referring to the journal itself before reading where your link goes directly to. all in all a misunderstanding between ya both. Maybe just copy-paste the important parts, and link it also, next time, to avoid confusion. o-o (I had to look around to see what you meant as well, so it wasn't really clear what we were supposed to see)

yeah ugh just grumpy today *furry drama and less than 3 hours for sleep is not good for the brain* XP i dropped the link off before going to bed last night :U

Ere ill make it easier on you. Ill even just give you the link from that journal? *nods*

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:31844139

That comment does not say that the stalker was caught.

DEAR GOD I NEVER SAID THEY WERE CAUGHT BY POLICE I said they were caught as in they got evidence to ban him etc. Oy vey. I haven't even been on for an hour and I've already had to much internet today *slaps her forehead*

i understand what you're going for, but i think its a bit too late. the person i believe has left and maybe upset that she wont come back to the site. your actions are justified, but now we are aware of the situation. i'm not an admin, but i'm all for trying to end this but this is now in the hands of fate and what happens happens.

It's a bit too late to solve this particular instance, maybe, but that doesn't mean the TOS can't be modified to make sure it doesn't happen again in the future. Plus it could bring back some of the artists that have jumped ship.

that maybe but i highly doubt it. to my understanding, once this sort of things happens only once is enough to keep people from coming back.

This is very upsetting and straight up horrific the actions (or lack of) the admins took. Quarezzel (sp?) Is one of my favorite artists as well. That's such a shame...

well, here's my view on this. Think about it for one moment if you will. As 'neer said he's looking into the 'facts' of the matter right now. Should the TOS be updated to vigilantism, you'd have to make SURE this person is a stalker/what-have-you and act as their own little police force for their website. I for one think "for a free fucking website that most furs don't pay for" that's asking a bit much.

Clear and simple. If you don't like the site or the TOS don't associate yourself with it. It's free. Run by normal people with normal people with jobs. I for one would not want a full time job as well as managing full time online drama that you are in no way connected to. Get the REAL police to handle it. Don't put your personal information online in the first place with people you don't trust to keep it to themselves. And above all be smart when dealing with online issues. Don't make your problems other peoples problems.

There's nothing wrong with change, by members of a community. Saying that a site's TOS should remain stagnant is a bad plan for ANY site. As members of this site, shouldn't we work together to make this place better? Asking someone to leave because they don't like the TOS seems counter-productive to running a site FOR a community. That's like saying any ruling body shouldn't listen to its' people. Plugging your ears to the issues affecting the people who make UP your community, (and considering FA is, presumably, made up of people FROM the furry community) is only going to drive away. . . well, everyone, eventually. We should all have a vested interest. Even the people in power. Especially the people in power.

Also, no person on earth can solve all of their own problems without the help of others. What you're espousing essentially boils down to: don't seek out help when you need it. That's not how society, even an internet society, works.

I'm not saying never to change the TOS. However what people are complaining about is the 'current' TOS. I'm not opposed to change in the slightest, yet people expect this to be an instantaneous resolve. There's much that needs to be thought out and done 'should' Neer decide to act on this.

I thought it was clear, however I will polish things up about my statement regarding working out your own problems. As I said. Go to the police for this kind of thing. Don't expect strangers from a website to fix your problems for you. There are people who can help, but the furry community is not one of those places.

Pretty sure all they were asking for was a ban. But then, that's a guess. In any case, all *I* expect of the staff is a ban, as stated above in the journal. I don't expect FA to get involved with the law. I believe it'd actually be illegal for them to help file any kind of a case or report the guy, or at the very least, it would be inappropriate.

But it seems they're on their way to taking the right course of action, which is great :) This is exactly what I was hoping would happen!

Not harboring stalkers should be a 'no duh' admin duty. It wouldn't matter if someone being stalked by users on the website left or not, the stalking of the sort that reportedly transpired here would still remain.

As is the TOS states that ....

"FA staff reserve the rights of the following:

[...]

to suspend or terminate accounts at any time and without notice."

This is basically the reservation of the right to basically kick out folks from their website. Yes things like the code of conduct exist to provide guidelines for what us the users shouldn't do so that we may remain in favorable status with the administration. However, at the end of the day, if there's enough evidence to suggest that someone's being a negative influence to the community, be it because they're stalking someone or what ever, they do have the reserved right to terminate that persons account(s). Does this mean they can arbitrarily do such? Yes it does. (remember, free site means they are the 'law' here) Would such drive people away? Yes. Hence the tendency to act reserved and hide behind the COC.

And there in lies the problem. The main focus is tamping down drama, not making sure everything is on the level. I know folks on both sides of this debacle, but all the same, I'm happy this debate happening as it will hopefully help refocus the way business is done around here. Its better to setup the rules of the site so that people are protected, even if it means that drama happens. Folks need to hear when someone's being a creeper. And if people are making crap up, we should be smart enough to smell their bs. If we're not, that's our fault, not the site's.

As for not putting personal information online... its insanely easy to get people's personal information through fully legitimate means if you only know a few key bits about them. And if you have some skill with making up stories, you can even get help from friends of your target by making claims that seem harmless enough but which provide you with critical missing data. So, to fully keep yourself anonymous online, you either need to crazy paranoid all the time and have the tools necessary to keep your IP under wraps, or don't go online.

....

I'm pondering writing up me own response to this whole debacle... eh, it can wait till morning.

Well as far as i know, not just any dork can trace your IP address to your home address. Your IP only goes to your ISP. I have never put my address online for others to view, and I believe have only given it out to one person in this community whom I trust not to tell another soul for any reason without my consent to share it with others. It's not as easy as you might think if you just keep smart about it.

I really don't see the point in sharing 'this person's a stalker' to the world, as it's simply a he said, she said when it comes to online stuff.....bah I'm not going to get into this, I'm simply making arguments for arguments sake at this point, though I still stand by what I said. :P

Because the alternative is silence. There are some very sick f!cks out there. Because there are so many b.s. stories that no one listens, should we remain silent about the real ones too?

you seem to have missed my point, on both responses you gave to me, and I do not feel like spelling it out for you :p

Your IP goes to any site you connect to. It isn't hard to narrow it down from there (though narrowing it down to the house level is harder)

And house level is all I'm getting at here :p

Unless you have a static IP.. Or use a Dynamic DNS service like DynDNS.

Or run a website registered under your name and home address. IP doesn't even come into it, then.

Not surprising to me, to be honest. I submitted a trouble ticket due to illegal behavior (someone had "found" a whole, FRESH owl, dead from being shot, and was posting pictures and claiming they were keeping it despite the strict US laws regarding pretty much any and every bird species, especially birds of prey where there are high legal ramifications)... not only were they not reprimanded, but FA admins literally told me that there was nothing they would be willing to do about it. After some citations of laws and regulations, the FA admins so graciously "requested the user remove the content" - yeah, great job doing the correct LEGAL thing, FA.
I've quietly been trying to look for another site that has decent traffic, allows mature artwork, and has no arbitrary "if we decide you're inactive for an undisclosed period of time, we'll just dump your account" rule...
Haven't found it so far, unfortunately. :/

I'm having trouble understanding how the admins could possibly find that as acceptable or even tolerable behavior. I have a strong feeling that if this isn't resolved properly and soon, there's gonna be a huge exodus from FA.

On an unrelated note, in regards to "Heretic," is that short comic only gonna be in the hardcopy version and if so when do you expect that to come out?

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:31844139

No, it's drama. This has been handled very poorly, starting with Taran and moving right on down the chain overreaction. Taran openly violated the TOS when she opted to stir up a posse instead of cooperating with the appropriate authorities. It was a violation of the TOS, it was a violation of the law, and it's being passed down the line with every reposting of this llamarific journal.

Let me put it this way: Did you see el-creepo causing trouble, or did you condemn him based on third hand accusations? Guilty or not, nothing about the way the community has handled this resembles justice.

He still has a shout on her page, linked to an image on DA. It's since been taken down, but it was very obviously stalking, as far as I could see. So yes. . . a LOT of people have witnessed the stalking. It happened. There's really no disputing that at this point.

Counterpoint to that (from an admin's perspective), if somebody's linking to public material about the person and going "Hey, I say this video/picture/thing of you" and posts it we have no way of verify if that's stalking. The link to DA didn't really tell us anything from our vantage point. Did it support her argument, or was it something taken out of context? Without being able to see what it was it's hard for us to take action.

Violation of the LAW? I think not. Site policy, yes. But unless she named names, Taran did NOTHING illegal

I can't say whether Taran made any direct accusations, I suppose, but since Quarrezel did and since the journal in question has been hidden by the admin it's pretty strongly implied.

Making accusations isn't against the law.

No, but false accusations can be harmful to the person they are being made against and slandering somebody can definitely get you into trouble. If this was happening offline as well the best course of action would have been to one, report to the police and try filing a restraining order and two, block the person, set their emails as spam (and don't read them). Having posted a journal about it strikes me as nothing but vindictive and hoping to stir shit because of how you feel the person wronged you.

True. I was just pointing out that only site policy has been broken, especially since she never mentioner an ACTUAL name.

I'd find a sample suit for you, but thus far I'm mostly turning up a bunch of loons filing suits against celebrities. Suffice to say that at the very least public accusations flirt with defamation, and possibly engage in a little heavy petting with it.

You give me hope for humanity in your rational and non-rabid attitude.



...except we're furries. More or less a separate species according to humanity. AH well, off I go. :)

Just make sure your shots are up to date and rabies shouldn't be an issue.

I honestly just don't see that it should be admin's duties to deal with stuff that happens off of FA. that is their problem, and theirs alone.
people on here can make up anything they want about another for whatever reason, just to get them in trouble. start a rumor about someone, get them banned. I've seen it happen before on many sites/forums/etc. It is a very, very tricky subject pleasing all sides of such an issue, i think honestly it can only be handled case-by-case, instead of a black-and-white TOS which obviously isn't helping many people.

also, not saying the whole lying/rumor thing is in this case since it's pretty clear they are a legitimate stalker.

Exactly. This is exactly why Neer was hesitant to act in the first place. Everything that had been presented happened OFF FA. Once he abandoned one account and made another one, they were able to permaban both accounts and IP block him. When it happens ON FA, they can and will act, but they need proof.

there was proof but then a mod deleted the journal. i believe the mods can still view it though, just like hidden/deleted comments.
it was a bad move for all parties, but idk, if i was being stalked i think i would worry more about the IRL stuff than FA. they never even blocked them!

The IRL side required legal authorities, and had nothing to do with FA.

They don't NEED it. But if they didn't GET it, we'd have a whole separate lynchmob screaming about abuse of power.

This. Though you said it a lot more eloquently then I could.

It's ridiculous how the admins are treating this situation, in the worst case scenario that has happened to many times around FA, that being more than once, people have committed suicide because of this behavior. It is sick and horrid and it needs to be dealt with, it doesnt matter if this is or isnt FA, if someone is being stalked constantly, harrassed, or even hurt to the point where it is making life unbearable, we need to band together as a community to deal with it! I myself have considered leaving FA numerous times, but then I remember all of my friends and the people who help make my life better and happier every day. We need to deal with this situation, if anything we can set up a petition to take care of this situation, seeing as how the servers and the main admins are based on the East Coast of America, we can create a petition for such a thing. I hate talking like this but I've read over everything I can and I don't see any other options available on the plate. But thank you Rukis for giving us a place to discuss about such things and for being a kind person in trying to help solve this situation, thank you.

It appears the situation has been dealt with, and it looks like things will be getting better.

But how would you like it if someone out of the blue (perhaps someone that is out to get revenge, or just wanting to stir trouble) put in a ticket, saying you were stalking them. Without the policy in place for needing proof, you'd be banned. I certainly wouldn't want that. I believe in the actions taken, they need proof before anything can be done. This protects people from getting banned when they had done nothing wrong.

While yes I can agree with that, but they had all the proof that was necessary to show this person was stalking them. In any case, I was not saying "let's start a witch hunt." I did not say that at all, I said start a petition to gain the admins attention so that they can look into the issue. I am not the kind of person who goes around accusing people of things, but when a member of the community is in trouble, is being hurt, or something bad is happening to them, then we should band together to help that person, not start a witch-hunt. I'm sure you understand what I mean. In the case you presented above, I would not want someone to come after me and accuse me of things, yet if the admins contacted me, I would give them all the information necessary that I know about, and that they need to know. Still it's a good thing that the situation has been dealt with.

I do feel sorry for the victim involved in this recent situation. But we as a community need to see all the facts as a neutral party, just like a Judge would in a Court.
I read that the major event points took place over at dA, not FA. So as far as FA staff's power goes, all they had seen was a "negative call out" journal which is a TOS violation. Tempers flaired, drama was added to the mix and BOOM! Unnecessary rage quit by many.
It's easy for others to say that the admins could have done better. But how? The admins need proof that something is going on IN FA TERRITORY before they can swing the ban hammer around. That's why it is recommended that a victim BLOCK the offender. If the offender attempts to go around that block by using another account or whatever, then the admins can step things up as needed. FA can not take action on what happens on other sites. Sounds harsh but it's true.

How can the site's staff not take action at their own discretion?

Because we can't take action based on what happens off site. All we can say is "Well, we've noted that this happened, but it didn't happen on FA. If they do the same thing on FA we'll step in and stop it, but we need proof of that before." The initial proof we were given was not as substantial as we'd have liked.

It turned up later, and we did take action.

*Tosses confetti*

\o/ YAY! \o/

It's all about the right kind of proof. What usually happens is that it boils down to a he said / she said. Or someone trying to get another in trouble by spreading rumours and such. Taking matters into one's own hands can be just as disastrous when all the facts have yet to be seen. ie: Witch hunt

I agree that there is something legit is happening in this case. However there are rules that still must be followed, just like any other criminal matter in the world. Especially when it comes to gathering evidence and determining what's the truth and what could be an over blown exaggeration.

I guess you probably believe that Patricia Ryan probably should've been convicted. If you haven't heard of the events surrounding her case, then I guess you haven't been paying much attention to the activities of our country.

The problem is that FA is black and white. The ToS is black and white. The idea of professionalism that the staff appears to act upon is black and white.

"Dragoneer
Posted: 6 hours ago
The admin took the right course of action in this case. I don't feel it's something to leave FA over, as if it happened on FA, it will happen on /any/ site. It's unfortunate, but a choice they have made. I'll respect that."

In defence of the admin in question (i.e. the one who deleted the journal, who also resigned today), Dragoneer has stated that there was not concrete evidence of harassment occurring on FA. Although FA is facilitating the stalker's activities, suspicion does not provide sufficient reason for a ban. On the other hand, posting a journal of off-site harassment is a violation of the ToS, which results in a penalty against the victim and protection for the stalker. Dragoneer has repeatedly stated that the actions taken were what the staff believe to be most appropriate.

However, let's be realistic here. If the site admins wanted to act against the stalker on suspicion of a ToS violation, they could. They are very much the police of FA. What would the stalker do if he got banned? Sue the admins? Ragequit from FA? A ragequit would've been nice. It would've given the real victim a safety haven in the furry community. Instead, she got the boot to the face.

It's very, very, very scary when an online stalker has personally identifiable information. It's even worse when this stalker chooses to take action against you and seriously devastate your offline life.

The law in the "real world" isn't black and white like it is here. A Canadian woman was caught by an undercover cop (disguised as a hitman) when she tried to place a hit on her abusive husband, a man who would threaten to kill her and their daughter. This man would hold a gun against her head. She was so scared that she was RELIEVED when the police arrested her; she felt safer in a cell than in her own home.

She got tried by the law and the charges placed against her were released.

Furaffinity, probably the most well-known furry website, would rather hurt a woman in hiding, enrage a significant number of site users, and hide behind a wall of "Terms" than solve a problem without repercussion. Although I was a "furry" for several years, I hadn't begun interacting with other members of the fandom until a little over a year ago. After seeing all that I have, and enduring what I'd rather not have faced, I don't believe there is an actual "furry community." If there really is one and I can't see it, then I guess I'm not a real member of the fandom.

All of this strongly disturbs me. This entire event is not a matter of "FA admins aren't doing their job' but rather one of moral justice, professionalism, and public safety. The fact that a lack of "evidence" warrants a stalker's protection shows how black and white this place really is.



As for a solution for the problem, the damage is already done. Dragoneer and the other admins have put a lot of thought into their decision, and it's what they believe to be correct and appropriate. We make decisions for conscious, sub-conscious, and unconscious reasons. We can't expect the entire staff to change their worldviews, so it's unrealistic to expect anything to change. If this whole scenario was played out again in a month or two, the end result would probably be the same.

And when the admins take action without evidence, we have a different crowd screaming about "abuse of power." Every. Blasted. Time.



I hate to break it to you, but in most of the western world, a "lack of evidence" does in fact warrant the accused go unpunished.

I could accuse someone of drinking baby blood. Does that mean their door should be kicked down by SWAT in the middle of the night and all their juice boxes be confiscated? Because some random guy made a baseless accusation?

That's how Lenin operated. Or McCarthy. It's not how a free society should behave.

I'm not even going to comment on the Canadian case. That's just flamebait.

Almost three other artist I liked including Qarrezel has left over this. I agree something needs to change and be done or more people are going to leave. I'm rather tempted to leave as well.

I posted my side as to why no action was taken initially here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:31841971

In the end, we just needed solid evidence to take action. It turned up in the end (thanks to Synwolf) and the user in question was banned. Sadly, not before all of this happened. I wish it could have been avoided, but we do take proper action so long as we have the evidence on-site.

Have you kept the logs of the deleted post and such? That could be construed as evidence in any criminal case (as he's committed 'terroristic threats' and slander at LEAST), and their loss could be considered destruction of evidence, which is also a crime. I'm not trying to take you to task here, just offering information to protect yourself, and potentially the victim.

We have a screencaps of her journal, but we saw no evidence of "terroristic threats" on the site. From what I understand that happened on Deviantart.

Okay.

Al Quaeda's getting involved in dis shit!

So wait... if i threaten people on other sites, threaten to kill them, or rape them, or stalk them, etcetcetc, so long as i do it on DevArt or Facebook you don't have a problem with it?

If your friend is a messy person, and has a messy house and a messy car...but always cleans up after himself when he visits your house....Are you seriously suggesting that you ban him from ever coming into your house, when he's never caused any problems in your house, but simply because he MIGHT?

I am not trying to defend the admins at all...this isn't the first time they have simultaneously overreacted AND underreacted in the handling of a situation. But still, the rules of FA apply on FA, so long as a member operates within those rules while on FA, they should not be punished here for their behavior on other sites.

no, but if my friend was say... STALKING/being a creep to one of my friends, and was only coming to my house because she was there, then yeah, i'd kick his fucking ass out.

And you act as though the FA admins don't ban people for no reason all day every day, sooo...

LOL...and he'd deserve to be kicked out. But that's the problem here...the call-out journal violated TOS...and when the claims were investigated initially, there was no evidence on FA to verify the claims made in the journal. So only one of the two parties was violating TOS. Interestingly enough, the only action taken was to remove the journal, and continue monitoring the situation.


Banning for any reason is within the TOS of the site...I don't like that clause, but I understand it. One day I might try to log in and find that I have been banned for the most inane reason imaginable, I agreed to that possibility when I signed up.

Exactly. you know theyve banned people for having imaginary sex with imaginary animals, imaginary children, for drawing sonic and co. fucking, and soon they're gonna ban poke-art.

so why can't they ban someone for doing real shit the way they constantly are banning them for imaginary shit?

If I was to murder someone in another country and then flee to one that does not have an extradition agreement with the original country - then I cannot be deported. Likewise the new country that I am in will treat me as a citizen (although the may keep an eye on me) because the crime did not happen in their juridiction.

Likewise - in several recent copyright infringement cases the FBI and other US government entities have tried to prosicute individuals in other countries for crimes that are not in that countries books.

Please read up on Richard O'Dwyer and Kim DotCom - both case are very valuable in considering the borders of justice.

Now - let us put this inter perspective. Deviantart, SoFurry, FurAffinity, and Inkbunny do not have any agreements between them (as I understand) that enables cross site banning. Each is a seperate site, and seperate admins and can be viewed in this context as seperate countries.

But the TOS in each of them is different. Some allow subject matter that others ban and visa versa.

Let us say that artist A produces a picture/story etc on site B that on another site © would invalidate C's TOS.
If C then removed A's account from C's site because of material posted on B then who would be right.

A would be in every instance re right to cry foul on C because that actions happened on B.

So - in a nutshell - Site C can only act upon what has happens on site C. They may not like what is happening on site B.. but until A breached C's TOS then there is nothing that C can do.

Regardless of what is posted on Deviantart - All Furaffinity could do is to keep an eye on it and when it happen on Furaffinity take appropriate action.

Marc

We're not talking about law. we're talking about admins that have the right to get rid of anyone for any reason. This is not an issue of NEEDING cause or excuse. This is simply a question of human decency which we have all known for a long time that the site admins lack

The TOS is the Law of the site.
TOS = Rules = Laws. No matter how you like to phrase it - it is the guidelines of how this site is operated by.

Now with the question of human decency.. Is this the human decency that repects the laws of a land and fights them in court to ensure that they are just..

Or the human decency that arms itself with pitchforks and firebrands and take actions into it's own hands based on rumors and half-truths.

Does the term "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" work here? That is the true value of Human Decency.

So says you. I says that just because somebody did something on the DeviantArt side of the border doesn't mean we can't hang him for it in Furaffinity, especially when the TOS says we can.

It's really great to know you guys are reading this stuff :)

I wanna say again I have no issues with the staff, I know how hard you guys work. I'm just hoping we can do something about the TOS to work on stuff like this a little more aggressively in the future. It would be really great if we had a way to report users engaged in harassment or defrauding artists in the future. Have you guys ever considered an 'Artists Beware'-like section for the site? Where folks can come present proof to admins to have it reviewed, so we can help one another avoid these people in the future, or get their accounts banned?

I'd really love to see more action taken against people who steal and trace art in the future, too. I know a user who was a proven tracer and defrauded a lot of people on this site who still has an active account and takes commissions, for instance. It'd be great if we could take more action against these people somehow.

Thanks for responding!

First off, we actually work hand-in-hand with Artist's Beware. Bazeel has been heading that up, trying to help prevent further scamming by working with communities that specialize in that sort of nature. It's been on the downlow. Behind the scenes the admin teams are forming into small lil' task forces with handfuls of admins focusing on one particular issue to help insure better consistency. Rather than every admin working it, we now have enough staff to dedicate a select few to primarily attack certain subjects.

Second, it's not so much that the TOS is wrong, but more the interface between admins and users and how to best report problems. So, sometime next week you'll see "Trouble Ticket Reporting Guide" pop up that will better instruct users in what sort of evidence we need, what is or isn't harassment, identifying stalking (and first steps users should take in preventing it). We've had in draft form for the update, but I see no reason to get that pushed it out sooner.

sounds good! I'll look forward to it

This all sounds really awesome and I look forward to it. :) I was throwing very similar ideas around in my head for systems to avoid this kind of situation in the future. Just didn't know how to bring 'em up since I currently have no notoriety. :P Can't wait to see what your team does~

I'ma copy-paste this from below so you can see it clearly - I think I have a good idea that you should consider.

"I've read a lot of this now, and I feel badly for the admins. They really are in a no-win situation in this. Logically, I do understand why things happened the way they did, but it's sad that it's going to cause several people to leave/ragequit/whatever about it. Stalking isn't an easy to deal with issue - and it raises my protective instincts when I hear about it. But in the end, I do think some good will come out of this - now that this is such a hot topic, it'll be much easier to deal with it in the future. Now everyone will know that they need to block and report the abuse, and go from there. One thing I will throw out there is that it might be a good idea to put a category or two in the ticket system that have 'SERIOUS' flags from admin's end - something that will red flag potentially legal or personal safety issues for immediate resolution by staff - it would make issues like this very apparent and allow action to be taken before anyone gets up and does something like post the journal that originally caused this disaster. Just a thought. Hope this helps - and I hope 'Neer or someone 'admin' sees this post and considers the suggestion."

K Fox

The artist beware addition to the site is a good suggestion. Also, I am sure like myself there are furries that are part, or were part of Law Enforcement that would be quite happy to help out with anything like this in the future. Also many of us are trained to notice patterns in speech, spoken or written others can easily miss that can point towards a certain behavior. I would be happy to help out, be nice to use my skill set and college degree more than I do these days. Getting injured and rendered unfit for duty sucks.

Personally I don't understand one thing: Why does it matter that most of it didn't take place here on FA?
She was stalked by that guy and stalking does include attacking the victim on as many fronts as possible.
The evidence that it happened was there. It might have been on different sites but he DID contact her on FA as well. That alone would have been reason enough for me to ban that guy and help the victim as much as possible.

She was never banned, warned, slapped or reprimanded in any way.
Only the journal was removed from her page (and archived), that is all.

Please don't post misinformation like that.

I suppose an official statement would help so that people don't have to rely on hearsay O_o

My point still kind of stands though. Instead of taking action against the attacker the staff took action against the victim.

Her only option is to sue. You may think what you want of FA's staff, but in my personal experience this is a bit different, read there, the best way to deal with a problem is just delete journals and comments, and "making the evidence of problem dissapear". Proof of this is that this is not my first ever created FA account.

That said as well, if that extends to out of FA there's little else to be done for us. She will have to sue if she wants to get rid of the problem. And obviously, FA community (and even staff) cant do anything about what does that guy do.

She can't sue to force us to take evidence that occurred off-site. We are only legally responsible for what happens on www.furaffinity.net, not Devianrart or any other site where the original stalking took place. What we need to take action -- all we need -- is solid proof on the site. We didn't have that at the start, hence why what ultimately happened transpired.

And I'm not even going to ask about the "this is not my first ever created FA account" because I'm too tired even ask "Why" right off.

Um, well, that doesn't completely contradict what I was saying; as it's been happening out of FA as well, we as a community and you as a staff can't / shouldn't really do anything unless it's actually going on *in* the site, therefore the recomendation for legal actions.

But if you ban someone without concrete evidence of harassment on FA, then the banned person could sue?

No. We have a clause in our Terms of Service stating we reserve the right to close any account for any reason whatsoever. It's basically an "out" card for that. I think I've only ever pulled that clause twice, and in some extreme cases.

Then why couldn't this site's staff start an investigation before the concrete evidence arrived?

I did a bunch of comment searches earlier looking for any form of stalking on the account. Nothing turned up right away. We did look. And thus the reason this became so convoluted. We looked for evidence to support the claims and didn't find any initially.

If you guys can in the future, full disclosure of what you've done, right down to all actions taken to find evidence and deal with the perpetrator, to the victim in question, would be really great. It'd show them you guys are trying to help her, and that's all any victim being stalked wants to hear. It'd give her a little security, I think.

I've had minor stalking incidents with people on FA before, too, so I know where this chick is coming from. It's very eerie to have that looming over your head.

Then I will apologise in advance if there was a misunderstanding in the exact procession of events, as I'm merely an observer.

I find it a bit contradictory to delete the inflammatory journal with the inapplicable evidence, but not the one that Qarrezel posted, despite all the provocative comments. One of my major issues I had with this whole event was how flip-floppity this place appears to be. This site's staff comes across as being black-and-white "literalists" regarding the interpretation of the ToS. However, now that I think about it, it almost appears that, despite how long this site has existed, that there is no concrete procedure for dealing with issues. A provocative journal is posted. Problem escalates. Journal deleted. But a new journal is posted, and it remains up throughout the entire investigation? I can't imagine this being the most practical method of investigating a case.

I wonder if you realise that taran's journal (and ticket) was a plea for help, and to delete it is pretty much stomping on her hopes. I'm not sure in which context you stated that comment that was quoted in Qarrezel's journal, but it makes me question the consistency of this site's standards. As a past victim of offline harassment by an online stalker, I know how difficult it can be to find help. It's even worse when one's absence is treated as an acceptable (even appropriate) consequence. In many cases, there's more to professionalism than walls of rules that could be temporarily overlooked without any legal consequence.

I don't believe in just ending a discussion with a site admin without typing up loose ends. I have no further questions. Thank you for your time.

I just now learned about this and probably don't know the facts in full so I might be wrong but it seems that on the other side of the coin there are some questions that arise from what I've been reading... for one, why didn't this person block the stalker's account? Secondly why post one single journal explaining everything and showing all the evidence and not making at least one copy of it elsewhere? Why not take such a serious issue directly to the site owner? Has she reported the stalker on DA? If so then she must have presented evidence there as well and surely that info would be safe.

Again I can't be sure these questions haven't been answered but it was what I gathered from what I read. Looks like it was badly handled all around and escalated as things usually do here. I hope everyone learns from this and we can move on.

damn....

Man. This thing has gotten out of hand quickly.

Completely ridiculous.

That's the kind of thing a person needs to take care of on their own. We all know our rights, we all know the dangers of the internet. If said person feels threatened, there are ways to get police involvment. Said person should have been fully aware of how to do this before commiting to an online life style. There's no need to talk to the admins, there's more effective measures one can take on this kind of thing. It's unfortunate that these things happen, but at the same time, it's something that can be handled on a higher power.

I like that you've put a positive spin on a terrible issue and I like that the people whom were originally made to be bad guys have since posted here.

Sadly though it would seem this is now going to be a battle ground.

I hope some things will be edited to better help issues like this in the future.

Wow, this is making the rounds quickly.
I think she needs to go to her local police and get some help form them. But they're just going to tell her to document everything. So she has proof. The key on the keyboard that reads "Print Screen" should be her friend in most of this. That's the only thing I can think of.

The offender's page has been wiped, form what I hear.

I'm sorry but I have issues with the line, "their free time to provide this wonderful, free site."
Its a money maker, what do you think the ads are for?

As for the link, they need to get off there fat asses and do something. To be blunt a website can hide behind there TOS all they like, but still down to it they are providing a service and with a service of this nature like say I don't know twitter, Facebook, deviantART, etc don't tolerate this kind of behavior.

Every man and his dog are pretty much online now, which has opened it up to too many strange people who shouldn't be free to do as they please. Ten years ago, it was another story, but now, sorry nope.

It would be a shame to see a boycott of this site, but if it gets that bad.

What do you know they did do something, the page has been Suspended.

Still the stress from the start is not something anyone should go through.

We have over over $1,900 a month in bills for the site. The ads cost $20 a month flat rate and they're ONLY provided by members of the site. I hate to break it to you, but they're not exactly the "money maker" you think they are.

I really shouldn't ask, but how many users are paying for advertising on any given month?

I often find it laughable where people assume that a site is a 'moneymaker'

Now - if FA was run on a subscription server where people has to pay monthly or year for access then maybe. But so few people have no concept of what it costs to for the resources of a site like FA.

Way back in the early years of furrydom and the internet you might find some kind university willing to host (or even if they were not aware of the traffic) a small furry site.

Now - looking at the bottom of my browser I can see that there are 10754 user's on line. That a pretty large number of people accessing the site at the same time (and the reponse is pretty good so you can assume that the hardware is handling it), add the fact that FA is a very graphically intensive site that means a lot of storeage capability and the bandwidth necessary to hand artwork etc out.

Also - FA has furry adverts for furries. I am sure that they could get car companies, finance company etc to pay for adverts but then everyone would complain about them. So the adverts are set low cost so that furries can afford them. Look under advertising and you will see $20pm, or $100 for 6 month. That is a base price, not for number of Hit's or Views..
So - count the number of diffent adverts on here that that will give you an idea of how much they make for advertising.
IMHO It be about $240 pm, not much.

Lastly the admin's are volunteers who give their time to support something they love. They are only human and have the same frailaties as everyone else so before you start talking about Boycott - ask your self honestly - will you give your time and your money to make a better site?
Or is it easier to complain and expect others to be perfect.
Marc

My question still holds, how many users are paying the $20/$200 price tag?

Because just at the $20 mark you only need just under 100 users to cover the cost of maintaining the servers.

This really is a huge problem, and I think especially around FA people dismiss this sort of stuff as 'what happens all the time' or 'yet another womens' issue' and any number of bullshit reasons not to take action. I think, though, that the best way to change it is to stay and to try and do something about it, not to abandon ship to somewhere else.

Especially in cases where in the opinion of the administrators 'the facts need to be set straight' or gathered, etc., there should be an option to block on a user-to-user basis, or clunkier, a way to suspend someone pending investigation. It's not too often you hear about things like this; and things like stalking, sexual harassment, and similar issues are so severely underreported, so seldom faked, and so seldom taken seriously. When it gets bad enough that someone feels the need to speak out, even if they have committed a violation (which should be addressed, too), efforts need to be taken to prevent enabling a predator.

To be honest if the shoe fits it's not defamation... http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclope.....ple-29718.html

I guess FA doesn't run by the legal definition? >_> <_<

FA is pretty horrible... the only thing it has going is popularity...

We're trying to fix that, actually. Across the board. Just takes time. That said, this definitely did not help.

For now. I see the rats leaving now...

It looks like evidence was found and things were settled the right way, but only after all the shit went down. Is your friend still going to leave Furaffinity even though things have been explained and settled?

I think so, sadly

She's actually just someone I admire. Wish I knew her better personally, but I don't, sadly :( Just love seeing her work.

Does she know about how everything was fixed? I hate to see people leaving over this, especially after all the hell the admins have been through trying to fix this and make everyone happy. I heard one of them even quit.

to be honest she broke the rules and over reacted its kind of like a real life stalker victim suddenly attacking there stalker with a knife then claiming discrimination and unfair arrest when there charged with assult or murder i know extream example but you get the point breaking the rules to try and stop harrasement is not the right way to go the evidence was not on FA it was from other sites which means she should have complained to the staff of those sites and blocked the stalker on this site instead she seemed to think that her word alone and evidence that was not valid for FA was enough to instant ban the stalker she gave the admins hardly any time to even investigate before she made a call out journal and broke the rules of FA she stabbed her self in the foot and then blamed FA for her own stupidity

yeah because victims striking out against their abusers is a bad thing. WTF is wrong with you people.

i said stalker not domestic violence they are not the same defending your self against physical abuse is ok but attacking a stalker who has not physically attacked you is not you report them let the appropriate authorities take action heck if you fell unsafe while the investigation is going then have a friend come pick you up and stay with them safty in numbers

There are no appropriate authorities. Police have no responsibility to defend you.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/n...../1976377/posts

This is occurring in Europe. I can't get the link to open, but seeing as it's from freepers, I assume it pertains only to U.S. court decisions.

Just to make this point -- this is a real life stalker. When the victim's physical location is involved, there is a real threat of physical violence including rape, torture, or murder.

Aye I find this very.. well to put it frankly "Soap opera"

Reason being is that something that isn't handle in the favor of the person who having a problem causes a uproar rather it be what she/he wanted only to spread like a wild fire, and grow at a rate now everyone and their fan base is hearing only bits and pieces of the problem, making a situation worse on everyone who a admin, and having to handle the massive influx of angry "friends" who wanting justice for the "idol" who was shamed in the act of nothing was handled. Once again if people took their emotions out of the problem and read into it clearly see both sides wouldn't have grown to a mass grouping of anger and people making jumps for others sites.

I seen a lot of journals pop up over this so i figure i would read into it and see myself, anyways said my piece.

No.. the term is Furry Drama - about 10 times worst than a Soap Opera

So the authority is hiding behind technicalities, eh? What a shocker~

No.. the authorities are working within the set guidelines. If they exceeded the guidelines then they would be accused of being a dictatorship

their guidline is that they have the right to ban ANYONE FOR ANY REASON they see fit. read the damned TOS.

Ok.
Lets say that you try and log in and find that you are Banned from this site.

You are banned because the admin's know you don't like them
You are banned because your artist information is false and decieving (Potatoes indeed)
You are banned because your gallery shows illegal weapons (Knieves)
You are banned because you like Guns
You are banned because in the past you might have committed a traffic offence, passed wind, had an argurement


Shall I continue? Shall I be just?
What shall I base one's judgement on.
Why do I trouble to fight for what I believe in..


First they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.


For your consideration

nothing on my page is illegal, first of all. I own no illegal knives.

Secondly, i pretty much half-expect any of those things to happen. I've seen it happen to friends of mine. Believe and think as you want. I can't argue you on fact, as we're to the point of debating right and wrong.

Huh that's funny. I was just talking to someone about how in the past 2 years i've noticed an inactivity of a lot of people and more "lurkers" (people faving/watching without leaving comments and such). One point brought up is people leaving due to some creepers and what do you know I see this journal a couple days later. But yeah that's very messed up.

as much as I been reading regarding this is: block person that is "stalking" if they make a new user when this person gets reported they get a ban from admins...

I been blocked from other people's page because I seem to express myself too hard for them and instead of having the courage to say anything like "I don't like when you say that" they just... block first I found it odd and creepy, then sad and now it's just fun to see how fragile is people when I ask why they celebrate something

Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

I feel pretty strongly about the issues involved, and I want to express my disquiet. On considerable reflection, I've decided to do so by taking a month away from FA, and expressing my reasons here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4345445/.

People are free to find that histrionic and/or unconstructive. Fair enough. It fits my own emotional response to the situation.

Inkbunny needs more non-cub artists. It is WONDERFULLY set up, and the only reason it's pretty much exclusively cub is because no one else has joined yet. I personally love the site, and not just for the completely unrestricted content.

Wow - that's the best 'The sky is falling' response I've read so far. Seriously??! Here's the thing - SHE WASN'T PUNISHED. Hard to understand, but it's true. What actually happened was that a rule breaking journal entry was deleted from public view. The artist in question is leaving totally on her own prerogative - she was not banned or suspended in any way. Meanwhile, the offending accused 'stalker' was actually permabanned after proper evidence was found against him. This is actually important information, and needs to be pointed out. So here you go - a freebie for you.

I've read a lot of this now, and I feel badly for the admins. They really are in a no-win situation in this. Logically, I do understand why things happened the way they did, but it's sad that it's going to cause several people to leave/ragequit/whatever about it. Stalking isn't an easy to deal with issue - and it raises my protective instincts when I hear about it. But in the end, I do think some good will come out of this - now that this is such a hot topic, it'll be much easier to deal with it in the future. Now everyone will know that they need to block and report the abuse, and go from there. One thing I will throw out there is that it might be a good idea to put a category or two in the ticket system that have 'SERIOUS' flags from admin's end - something that will red flag potentially legal or personal safety issues for immediate resolution by staff - it would make issues like this very apparent and allow action to be taken before anyone gets up and does something like post the journal that originally caused this disaster. Just a thought. Hope this helps - and I hope 'Neer or someone 'admin' sees this post and considers the suggestion.

K Fox

this seems like something that would be more of a personal legal matter. it's not that it could happen anywhere if they do ban the person they are just going to find them some other way, or register for another account etc.

im glad that the issue itself is solved now :D but sadly that wont stop half the community here for leaving or posting hateful stuff towards the owner here really <:/ god its like 2010 all over again...

I'm glad the issue is solved. I don't think it will change the artists mind about leaving. It makes me sad because they are one of my favorite artists, as well.

I've read up on this so far and am glad it appears to be gaining traction for change in the system.

Is there a public forum post on which constructive discussion is going on about this?

Yours,
Sylvan

The FA Administrators have been notoriously bad since the Site's inception. Poor allocation of resources, turning a blind eye to abuse unless it seems to threaten 'Furidom' as a whole, Drama within the Administrative Board. The fact that you (a presumably a few others) had to make a journal to get such a clear cut issue resolved is criminal.

Easy solution.
Become an admin, help sponsor the site, make a difference.
Please.. If you feel so strongly that you can do better than the FA Admins then step up and take a positin..

*listens to the sounds of crickets chirping in the silence*

I never said I could do a better job. I shouldn't have to, because I was smart enough not to assume a responsibility I didn think I could handle. They did, and they should accept blame where blame is due. Your kind of thinking essentially says that if you haven't done something then it's immune from criticism. Try telling that to a movie critic or politician. Saying, "I bet you can't do any better" is a pretty weak excuse.

The original victim seems to not have acted in her best interests initially. The admin(s) involved seem to have not acted in the best way either. Most other people seem to be getting pretty worked up about it.

If there was no evidence of the allegations at all, then fine. But there was an accusation, a username and another site mentioned in all this. If I was running a site like this, I would check out the easy option - the link to the other website in question, in this case it was DA. If it's obvious that a user is stalking/harassing someone on that site, but the evidence of it on FA is uncertain, I wouldn't have thought 'That didn't happen here, it's out of my control'. I would have put 2 & 2 together, erred on the side of caution (as stalking is potentially a major problem) and banned said user on a pre-emptive basis. To not do so is at worst a an irresponsible cop-out. At best, it's not being thorough.

If the admin doing this got it wrong then the worst that has happened is some dick got banned because they were being a dick enough for it to seem like something more serious. Wow, they may take a while to get over that awful tragedy. *sarcastic*

Yes, FA is free and I am thankful to the mods for what they do. But standing under a bus shelter in the rain is also free. I wouldn't do that if I had reason to think the bus shelter was going to collapse on me.

Good points there.

I just now learned about this and probably don't know the facts in full so I might be wrong but it seems that on the other side of the coin there are some questions that arise from what I've been reading... for one, why didn't this person block the stalker's account? Secondly why post one single journal explaining everything and showing all the evidence and not making at least one copy of it elsewhere? Why not take such a serious issue directly to the site owner?

If I'm wrong in any of these than I'm sorry but from what I've read all parts handled this pretty bad, as you have stated. Hope we can learn from it and move on.

That's my take on it also. It was handled poorly by all parties. Having said that I can see a valid reason for leaving this site. I can also concur with those that say this is typical for the furry community, and the internet in general.

It's internetland. There are many creeps & weirdos about.

Welcome to the Internet, folks!

What's to be done about it?

Join Weasyl, for one. Not that I expect that their mods, in the future, won't make similarly boneheaded decisions like this one.

And there's still SoFurry, and Inkbunny if you like the preponderance of underage/cub smut.

Inkbunny just needs more regular, non-cub artists. It's not like there are thousands of cub artists there, just the couple hundred that used to be on Furaffinity. it'd even out if regular artists would just show up.

i already gave up on FA a long time ago

I'm so glad some action was taken~!
i am one of the people who, no matter what, was gonna stay on this site. i've been on here to long, and made to many fond memories to let it die like this. unfortunately that's not the case with most people on here, most have already left on a near permanent basis.
i love how you put it Rukis, thank you very much~!

Now, that is something totally serious. Why would the admins brush it off like that? It is sad when people leave, but if it to protect themselves, then they have every right to do what is necessary!

I think any sensible person would leave FA after something like this.

Oh wait...speaking of which, why am I still here?

But on a serious note, this is some serious shit...and for whatever reason, I don't think the Admin's taking action so much later AFTER they blew off the victim is a satisfactory response. Honestly, its tragic that they didn't do something sooner. I know they have probable reason and all that...but that doesn't change the fact that instead of cracking down when it HAPPENED, they shielded the abuser and punished the victim, THEN came back after the guy did more and finally cracked down on HIM. I can understand WHY...but that doesn't change the simple fact that it SHOULDN'T have gotten worse before they decided to make it better.

-stares blankly as this is typical in this community-

Only a suspension, not a ban, unfortunately

*shakes his head*

1. Can't accuse someone of stalking when the accuser willingly puts online the address they live. In fact most of this would of been avoided if the main party in question thought for a moment on not putting her own address online. This kind of attitude of the people younger than I bothers me. They think nothing of sharing 'everything' on line then whine like little girls(no offense just an analogy) when an unsavory person actually uses that information.

2. She sidestepped the site's rules and thus she herself violated the t.o.s. It doesn't matter if the other party did something wrong first, two wrongs do NOT make a right. Dragoneer did his job, he only has authority over the site. She broke the rules, she got punished. So did her stalker after the proper channels have been used. Please note these rules are here for a reason, they are to make the site orderly, otherwise you would have the admins drown in a gordens knot of tangled accusations of he/she said.

3. Moving won't help, any decently large site will have the same rules. the same problem of a view that the mods have their head's up their rears. when in fact they are only a hand full of people trying to manage a site of 'thousands' if not 'millions'. and each person with a problem is 'omg i am the only one that matters SOLVE MY PROBLEM NOW!!11!!1'

Now here is what she should of done, instead of whine, then leave.

1. use the site controls to block the user, at the same time take screenshots of his posts.

2. open a trouble ticket with the moderators, use the screenshots as evidence. not break the site's rules by posting an 'outing' jurnal.

3. Contact her local police department of a suspected stalker. Provide documented evidence from above. Stalking with intent to harm is a crime at least in the states.

4. Systematicly remove all personal address information from her sites, if she needs to give her address out for the sake of commision payments. the people commissioning her can get it via pm or email.

5. repeat process 1-2 on any other site this person has followed her to.

How do we know he's banned? I can still see his site. I've been stalked before and this scares me...I'm thinking about leaving FA as well

It's amazing how fast things can change when someone popular has a problem. Thanks for putting this up, Rukis. I do love FA, but it definitely has lots of problems.

To bad pitchforks and torches sometimes have to be brought out to get some simple stuff done

+1 journal. Very well written.

That seriously saddens me that when a matter of someone being publicly harassed, not only, having their own personal name and information being sought out. Even their own personal name being used for a sick, twisted piece of fan fiction or even a tale that condones such violent actions as what was described in the person's journal about the person affected. Its just wrong. Its understandable if, yes, there is cases of people squabbling and bickering like children. We're all adults here, and should learn to handle it as such. Sometimes its between people who know one another or a customer that didn't get what they wanted. And are now trying to rattle the artist's cage. Or whatever the matter is. But when it comes to a matter such as what was being discussed on the journal you linked...that's when its not a case of handling it like adults. That's a matter of having to screen cap what the person has done, and all conversations that have gone on. And finding a way to take outside sources help for the matter. When it seems that those in charge of said affiliated site won't take a matter such as this serious.

Its also understandable if the Administrator's get many many many tickets a week, a day and a month, but turning a blind eye to such a matter as to what is going on. Even having proof. Then that's when people leave.

It seems a lot of people are leaving FA over this stalker business, not because how bad the situation is, just I believe a majority want a new furry area to hang out in with more rules.

Sad but true.

www.sofurry.com
us.vclart.net
e621.net
inkbunny.net (Pedo Site)
www.artspots.com/
furnation.com

All of them went down hill fast.

www.deviantart.com is still friendly but not an idea place to conduct business and do not focus on mature art but is allowable to some civil degree.

Sigh. Look, I know this riles everyone up because it was a grave injustice but the FA mods acted correctly. Everyone is flipping their shit that the "victim" got punished for trying to "fight back" against their attacker, but you have to look at it from this perspective:

What if they were lying?

What if someone posted a journal about you claiming you were stalking them, harassing them, whatever, with real (or fabricated) evidence, when you weren't? Well now your reputation just got dragged through the mud.

This is why FA doesn't allow insulting or "call out" journals.

This user needed to go through the proper channels. They were impatient and broke the rules. Then they cry foul after the rules are enforced making it out like the mods are trying to suppress them when they just did their jobs. FA is not supporting stalkers. There is no grand problem that requires a site exodus. Give me a break.

I'm starting to come around to my first year here on FA and as much as I love it and support it I've witnessed a moment with my dear friend who was wrongly banned from this site. I won't go into detail in this comment but I have a journal which explains it all.

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4239711/

I'm glad that the issue that has been solved, but as much as i do believe the Admins work incredibly hard some of them I have lost a little faith in. I just wish that in some cases a little time to investigate would go a long way in fixing an issue rather than the immediate ban.

Let's say someone starts a fight with you at McDonald's. Should they then be banned from Wendy's and Burger King? My vote lies with "Not until it becomes a problem there."

She didn't block the guy which was her biggest mistake. Nobody likes to get stalked, I sure as hell wouldn't, but calling the "angry mob justice" card isn't a cool thing to do either. He's a creep and an asshole yeah, and it's sad to see her go, but she broke COC rules and so she got banned. Should of handled it differently. Vigilantism is not the way to go. Either follow the rules or GTFO. Should have gone to the real police, not the cyber police. We are not the police, we are artists and retaliating on the guy is not are responsibility.

 quarazel didn't get banned. But you are right--she should've blocked that creep. Probably she has by now.

In any case, the creep--  fredriksam --DID

...DID get suspended!

Why on earth did that comment just up and post itself before I'd even finished typing it?! I'm beginning to wonder if my computer has a virus, because that's the second time that's happened today. Until today it has never happened.

Or maybe I bumped some key combination I'm unaware of. Let's try something....

That's it! Tab + Enter keys.

I was talking about Tarangryph, Quarazels friend whom this happened to...

Well  tarangryph didn't get banned either. She just got her journal deleted, or rather, hidden (it's still available to the admins, I think, but not anyone else), probably to stop drama. Drama has been known to crash the Fur Affinity servers!

And I apologize for the dead link. I meant  quarrezel .

Goofed again! It's  qarrezel

I have a suggestion. Maybe there should be tickets that are marked as urgent, and the ticket must fall in a category to be considered urgent, so dumb folks won't abuse it. If it is abused, a 1-3 day suspension from the site, to discourage derpness. So, these tickets would only be used if the person feels genuinely threatened, and also needs evidence to back up the claim. This way, these matters can be put on the "deal with immediately" list, which should be very very small since, i hope, things like this are uncommon.

I do hate this has happened, and i hope Tarangryph eventually understands why things were handled as the were. At this point in time, there isn't an efficient way to know what tickets should be managed first, (to this urgency level) so there was a time lapse from when she sent it. Being quite nervous and distraught, she took matters in her own hands after it had been a while, thinking nothing was going to be done, then felt betrayed by the journal deletion. Probably at that point no amount of explaining to her of why would have worked..Hopefully she'll come back after calming down and reviewing what's happened and understand the limitations currently for such things on the site. Maybe a well written letter from FA staff would help.

and oh my god, taigitsune, your icon is distracting. >_<

The problem, is we have a certain class of troublemaker who knows how to play the system. They will stalk and otherwise be a douchebag, but when they are attacked head on, they will use the system (including the idea of preemption of innocence to get their victims in trouble with the very people who are supposed to help protect them. The problem is, you can't go at these people head on. What they want, is for the victim to either pretty much surrender, or go at them head on. Both scenarios, the stalker wins. The victim has to be more methodical, and not rush things. The victim should work at building a case, keeping a journal of events, etc, then when the time is right, present the information to the authorities, be it the site administrator, or law enforcement, or the courts to get a restraining order. They rely on fear and they know how to manipulate the system. The victim or such a person needs to know, that a little forethought, a little planning, and even some lateral thinking, can be the stalker's worst enemy.

And no, I'm not defending FA. I'm just pointing out how stalkers and other troublemakers often know how to manipulate the system to their favor, and to their victim's detriment (whether it's FA with FA administrators, or in real life regarding law enforcement).

Thanks for the legitimate journal. I'm going to miss the heck out of Qarrezel, but I respect her decision. Also glad to hear users are finally being banned when appropriate.

Thanks for the responsible message.

This should help: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:31841971

I'ma copy paste this post here form more traction - I think everyone needs to consider my option presented below.

"I've read a lot of this now, and I feel badly for the admins. They really are in a no-win situation in this. Logically, I do understand why things happened the way they did, but it's sad that it's going to cause several people to leave/ragequit/whatever about it. Stalking isn't an easy to deal with issue - and it raises my protective instincts when I hear about it. But in the end, I do think some good will come out of this - now that this is such a hot topic, it'll be much easier to deal with it in the future. Now everyone will know that they need to block and report the abuse, and go from there. One thing I will throw out there is that it might be a good idea to put a category or two in the ticket system that have 'SERIOUS' flags from admin's end - something that will red flag potentially legal or personal safety issues for immediate resolution by staff - it would make issues like this very apparent and allow action to be taken before anyone gets up and does something like post the journal that originally caused this disaster. Just a thought. Hope this helps - and I hope 'Neer or someone 'admin' sees this post and considers the suggestion."

K Fox

FA is run by sociopaths. You can't fix that. They didn't make it in the business world, so this is where they stake their claim to power.