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Why people are leaving
11 years ago
I have seen people asking this and sadly I've seen people answer this in the most uninformed, belligerent ways.
I'm just going to say something about this once and will state this; both issues that have recently arisen have some grounds in the notes leak from 2012. The evidence is here: http://faleaks.malicelabs.com/
Ready for you to look up at your discretion.
The facts:
- Recently one forum mod was appointed whom in the past has admitted to molesting a dog.
- Recently a coder was appointed whom has been accused of molesting a person.
The latter came to light because the victim contacted the site owner, saying he (he identifies as male now, thanks) believed the now-coder had taken advantage of him. The now-coder has begged, whined, manipulated and pressured this person into having sex with them, until the person was in an emotionally rough spot and came over to where the molestation took place.
Most people are calling the now-coder a rapist because manipulating someone who has been unwilling for years into sex is generally considered rape by people with any amount of common sense. And contrary to what some people are suggesting, it has never been debunked that this has happened. On the contrary, multiple female artists came forth saying the now-coder had been grooming them as well, including when now-coder was in a relationship.
There are some screenshots of this on Encyclopedia Dramatica, apply salt as needed considering the nature of the site, just look at the screenshots.
Anyway, the person had never come forward with this information, it was leaked, to which he was harassed by the now-coder's friends and fanboys, now-coder continues to make jokes at his victim's expense, for example on his twitter account.
When appointed as a coder, at the expense of some skilled coders who were already working on some new front end stuff, people balked in protest. Also because the other coders already had done work towards the new front end. The protests were deleted, what protests weren't deleted and had received the forum equivalent of "likes" were mysteriously losing these likes.
People who protested on their journals on FA had their journals deleted and were suspended.
Even this is not why most people are leaving.
Most people are leaving because they are sick to their stomach of seeing how people are responding to all this.
There's so much victim blaming and shaming, people just making shit up as to what happened, people making excuses for what happened, people sighing that "it's in the past" and just passing it off as furry drama, people saying "Well if he was guilty he'd be in jail."
3% of rapists are convicted and go to jail. http://www.rainn.org/news-room/97-o.....-no-punishment
About 1 in 3 women will suffer sexual abuse in their lifetime, 1 in 5 men suffer the same.
That's why people are leaving. Because it's easier to leave and start over elsewhere away from all the shitheels than it is to try and block them or endure them, because there sure as hell is no educating them.
I'm just going to say something about this once and will state this; both issues that have recently arisen have some grounds in the notes leak from 2012. The evidence is here: http://faleaks.malicelabs.com/
Ready for you to look up at your discretion.
The facts:
- Recently one forum mod was appointed whom in the past has admitted to molesting a dog.
- Recently a coder was appointed whom has been accused of molesting a person.
The latter came to light because the victim contacted the site owner, saying he (he identifies as male now, thanks) believed the now-coder had taken advantage of him. The now-coder has begged, whined, manipulated and pressured this person into having sex with them, until the person was in an emotionally rough spot and came over to where the molestation took place.
Most people are calling the now-coder a rapist because manipulating someone who has been unwilling for years into sex is generally considered rape by people with any amount of common sense. And contrary to what some people are suggesting, it has never been debunked that this has happened. On the contrary, multiple female artists came forth saying the now-coder had been grooming them as well, including when now-coder was in a relationship.
There are some screenshots of this on Encyclopedia Dramatica, apply salt as needed considering the nature of the site, just look at the screenshots.
Anyway, the person had never come forward with this information, it was leaked, to which he was harassed by the now-coder's friends and fanboys, now-coder continues to make jokes at his victim's expense, for example on his twitter account.
When appointed as a coder, at the expense of some skilled coders who were already working on some new front end stuff, people balked in protest. Also because the other coders already had done work towards the new front end. The protests were deleted, what protests weren't deleted and had received the forum equivalent of "likes" were mysteriously losing these likes.
People who protested on their journals on FA had their journals deleted and were suspended.
Even this is not why most people are leaving.
Most people are leaving because they are sick to their stomach of seeing how people are responding to all this.
There's so much victim blaming and shaming, people just making shit up as to what happened, people making excuses for what happened, people sighing that "it's in the past" and just passing it off as furry drama, people saying "Well if he was guilty he'd be in jail."
3% of rapists are convicted and go to jail. http://www.rainn.org/news-room/97-o.....-no-punishment
About 1 in 3 women will suffer sexual abuse in their lifetime, 1 in 5 men suffer the same.
That's why people are leaving. Because it's easier to leave and start over elsewhere away from all the shitheels than it is to try and block them or endure them, because there sure as hell is no educating them.
This is the mindset I've always had when seeing these matters both swept under the rug, and then those who know about it are silenced, all in the name of "FA Peace"
People don't do the endless cycle of something dumb/try to hush it/handle it badly in public.
*OVO*
Personally, I hope more people start using Weasyl as an alternative to this.
I mean ... Folders! Mods that listen to suggestions! A site that can recover from downtime quickly, even after being DDOS'd!
No wonder they say common sense is dead.
Plus, I get my work from here. And plus plus, I do have accounts elsewhere as well. I wanna use them all.
I suppose that the "he's just socially awkward" excuse has been peddled as well.
And I have to wonder about everyone who tries to downplay that kind of behavior.
anyway well written Can't wait to see the journal nuked if the staff see's it :/
humans are imperfect
these are both true statements
Yes rape reporting and actually getting a charge is painfully small. That sadly is a court failing and bloody well sad, but still the court and legal system being a joke like it is in many things.
If and yes I still have to say if this happened then yes said furson deserves to be punished. And currently still is by more then a few folks whipping him to the point I am surprised he has not had a nervous breakdown or worse. Rape does suck yes and punishment is deserved. Are we the ones to appoint ourselves as judge and jury and atm executioner?. That is what worry's the HELL out of me ;/.
Libel laws not with standing keep attacking the guy as a rapist in open commentary really does not lend to later defense of yourself if he does decided to take any legal action, or hell forbid does something really bad *aka hang himself* and its all of US that shoved him to the brink. Yes i know sticks and stones, he deserves it, blah blah blah. Are we hoping something like this happens, or are many folks just bandwagon jumping because its the drama of the week and facts be darned?.
I worry that too many folks are way! too eager to toss stones when more then enough folks have enough glass in their own walls to be worried about, but folks sadly seem to adore a big juicy drama storm, then whine like mad later when it happens to someone they love/respect/mated to. We do not get it both ways folks ;/.
Yes he was a bad choice out of a lot of others, and i respect fully folks wanting nothing to do with a site that has him in it. Just please for the love of sanity remember if you keep throwing rocks and thorns all about sooner or later you WILL cut yourself on all that broken glass you helped make.
Gaia bless
Pakesh_De
Silly ol ChairCritter for Furnal Equinox
That's why a lot of people are leaving. Nobody's condeming him for a crime there's little hard evidence for. They're condemning the site for it's over-all behavior towards the situation as a whole. And for not taking the responsibility to fire this guy because he's friends with administration, despite his misdoings.
Folks we are better then baying wolves. Yes said furson did bad things. yes the legal system failed. yes you are more then free to talk about it as much as you want. Crossing the line into non stop harassment IS where you should be stopping yourself. A well written comment on what happened and why you feel upset and are leaving is wonderful. Acting like said person ripped open your sisters heart and feasted on the remains is just crazy.
Yes im a old fuddy duddy but I am willing to say I hope we all can act a tad more *human* about this. I can hope right?
Gaia bless
Pakesh_De
Chaircritter for Furnal Equinox
PS sadly I have already been accused of *shielding a rapist* by just asking folks to stop attacking or acting like animals. Seems those pesky manners and civility go right under the bridge if the *bait* is juicy enough. Sad that.
And this guy is still joking about it on his Twitter, so. A lot of people will forgive him regardless because they want him to keep drawing porn.
It's the victim that's being torn into, from hundreds of people, most of whom don't know nor care about the facts. I'll stand by them.
How I English.
We are a community, are we not? No, I'm not one to go on his page and harass him to kingdom come because that doesn't solve anything. If people want to know, I'll tell them because I feel that the community SHOULD know of someone with that kind of history so they can at least stay away from them. People go to cons, FA:U, Anthrocon, FWA, Megaplex, MFF, Rainfurrest etc so it's one thing to "not care" about "drama" on an art site and it's a whole different story when so many people here go to these events and more and may or may not run in to the guy and possibly have another "issue" to put it lightly.
All in all, I'm just sick to death about hearing about the "poor accused" because maybe, just maybe, if he kept it in his pants he wouldn't have this.
There's so much victim blaming and shaming, people just making shit up as to what happened, people making excuses for what happened, people sighing that "it's in the past" and just passing it off as furry drama, people saying "Well if he was guilty he'd be in jail."
So much this. And all of this journal. THANK YOU.
Actually unless you say NO, or physically fight back against the person, you consented to sex. There is cases outside of this, say, coercion or blackmail, but he didn't blackmail her at all, she slept with him cause "He was really emotional and it scared me and he was bigger than me and I was afraid if I said no he would rape me", meaning she consented to it, felt bad afterwards, then called him a rapist.
And oh yeah, something like 95% of the men that sleep with woman are bigger than them, are all these men raping these woman now?
I think you need to educate yourself a lot before you go saying things that just are not even remotely true and come off as incredibly disgusting.
They have NO damn clue how very, very, VERY badly they're hurting rape survivors with these comments, or how badly they're infuriating those of us who have friends or loved ones that are survivors (my girlfriend is one such person, as are many of those I count as friends in this fandom). And that's to say nothing of that fact that words like theirs are EXACTLY the reason why rape culture still exists, and why survivors far too rarely find the courage to raise their voice and speak up about what has happened to them. Because gross motherfuckers like THEM frighten them into silence, or try to bully them off the face of the earth when they DO make themselves heard.
Or if I ever go in to surgery and have that one perverted doctor who molests me while I'm under.
Or if I'm walking home alone at night and get a chloroform rag thrown over my face.
Or a million other cases where this comment would be considered full of shit.
But, I mean, I never said NO, sooo...
Never mind countries and jurisdictions like Canada that recognize the necessity of consent and the fact that coercing someone into having sex constitutes sexual assault and rape.
I think you are very VERY unclear on the concept of consent.
Rape through duress is the most common form of rape. In the vast majority of cases, shutting up and going along with it is the wisest thing you can do because you cannot reason with crazy. Most rapes are physically non-violent. That doesn't mean they didn't happen. None of the rapes that I was a victim of were violent, but it was certainly implied that if I didn't shut up and go along with it, that they would escalate into becoming so.
The courts recognize this and take it into account during rape proceedings. Unfortunately, we have a prevalent rape culture, an incredible lack of understanding of what rape actually is, and Jury Nullification. This is why so many rape cases fail.
The saddest thing about the screen caps that I saw was that the victim had been trained so utterly by society long before he* even met his attacker that to believe that his gut instincts were wrong and not to be trusted, and that caring about the rapist's little fee-fees were more important than caring for his own safety.
*Using the male possessive since apparently the victim is a transman
Rapists aren't stupid. They're evil, but certainly not stupid. They deliberately exploit the societal expectation that we train into our children to put other people's needs before their own. This is especially easy to do with women and children, including male children. All they have to do is react in a way that makes the victim believe that THEY are the ones being unreasonable and unfair.
It's called Gaslighting, and it's very, very difficult to see when it's being performed, and it's very, very dangerous.
The screen caps are a classic example of it.
THAT is a systemic problem of society that NEEDS to be routed out.
this is an excellent response.
*puts gun on table between himself and a woman*
"You really don't want to say No"
Hey, look at that, there was no direct, explicit threat, and the partner didn't fight back or say "No", therefore it wasn't rape, right? :D
FA is outdated to hell and wont ever change.
This is central to how our legal system operates and deals with the accused. Unless the prosecution can make it's case that the offending party has indeed committed their crime within a reasonable doubt then they are assumed to be innocent. This is mainly done for two reasons, first off this biases the system towards the innocent accused, and very often it is much harder to prove you didn't do something than it is to prove you did.
However, when it comes to sexual assault we see a disconnect, people are very quick to take the accusation at face value and vilify the accused. I think this comes about because of a confluence of unfortunate facts. First off, we consider rape to be a heinous crime, it actively repulses us. However it's very hard to actually prove. Especially so once it goes beyond simple physical force and it isn't immediately reported. Very often it is one person's word against another. Thus, combined with how we practice justice it results in a very low ratio of convictions to accusations and a lot of people being upset about that.
Sadly, biasing towards the accusation is not a solution here. All it really does is make it easier for the innocent accused to have their lives literally destroyed. This is why I am generally cautious about accusations of sexual misconduct, and not quick to tear apart anyone about it.
It's not unusual for obvious factors and proof to be totally overlooked in investigations regarding sexual assault. The moment that the innocent party, regardless on which side of the case they are, starts to allow themselves to be browbeat by the investigators, then that's when they start to assume they're liars. The trouble with this is that the innocent party is either under the influence of a very traumatic event, or scared witless that they will be falsely found guilty. Bias within the law swings both ways, and the moment someone is presumed guilty, that bias starts to leak into the amount of pressure used and the findings they turn up. As a result of this dramabomb, I actually ended up stumbling into a website that highlights the equal-yet-opposite side to what you're suggesting : http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostd.....ion-statistic/
Although anecdotal, of all the people I have met online and off, I have only known women who have been raped, or raped but then discarded by the legal system. None of the people I have talked to have ever mentioned being targeted by a false sexual assault prosecution. Funnily enough, one of them actually had a situation similar to in the link I gave you, but rather than on a police level, it was through family, where they were treated like dirt for a prolonged period because they broke down and tried to confide in what happened to them, and got constantly pressured to 'confess' it was a lie. They weren't even teenaged. When they finally gave in, believing that the nasty shit would stop? They took the false confession as truth, without even considering how it might be just a plea for mercy.
There are two sides to every coin, and I just find it exceedingly strange that people always revert to focusing on false claims the moment this subject is brought up, like it's some kind of automatic shutdown.
Yes, we need to protect people from being wrongly punished. But we have an equal duty to seek the truth and punish the guilty.
Neither one should come above the other.
The very nature of the crime causes a degree of trauma that often strongly effects the victim's judgement, and that's on top of the proof being extremely time-sensitive. The problem and safeguard are the same. The burden of proof is upon the accuser. A false accusation can only turn up manufactured evidence, which will always have inconsistencies, but a genuine victim can often find themselves unable to clear that same hurdle no matter how horrific their experience was. It's a shitty situation on all sides, but one that places the onus on the person who potentially just suffered a huge trauma that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.