A shame.

Oh well. We could've risen up. But nah....


Oh well:)

"rising up" doesn't mean shit on a digital website, really. What more can the userbase do other than petitioning, boycotting, or abandoning? Then when the administration continues to refuse to make progress, those efforts really aren't worth much at all!

Fire them. Send them viruses, malware. Things!

Gotta use your noggin

Hah, that'd be cute. But no, I'm an artist with a job, not a vengeful internet social justice warrior. :/ Fact is, most people on here don't have the ability nor care to do things like that (and I wouldn't want them to!)

Le sigh.

A shame

You have to recognize the fact that the administration is people, too - People trying to run a business and keep a job, and deliver a product to its users. Overthrowing their entire website would be just as counterproductive as their extremely poor management of it, and it wouldn't solve shit!

When you're offered a product that leaves you dissatisfied, or when you realize the people that deliver it are morally bankrupt, what do you do? You ask the business to change, and then if they don't, you get your product elsewhere from somewhere you trust. You don't throw bombs at the company's warehouse. :p

If only you could upvote comments...

But I guess downvoting them might be harassment?!

(+1)

I fail to find any suggestion in Weasyl's guidelines or TOS about the staff being able to or promising to act in any other way than FA's admins would in a case where the harassment and infringements happen off site.

All in all I think weasyl is technically superior and I endorse people moving over but encouraging people to move over simply out of spite imo only harms weasyl. =(

Ah there's one line under Termination of membership "... or are otherwise not an appropriate user of the Site." which I guess does leave some leeway for them in this situation. =)

Well, it's either stay with the bad or roll the dice.

Very few people will take the former.

I'll never, ever understand how warning people about someone with completely bad intentions is something BAD.

Or how anyone could even COME to that.

Someone could easily use "I was warning people" as a way of being malicious towards another user they don't like, or just to troll someone. This is why these journals are removed, regardless of the real reason that may be behind it. It's unfortunate, but it's fair.

It shouldn't have to come to that, true. The mods do need to act faster and it sounds like they hired a bunch of people on to do that a month or so ago. They're still catching up. It was a mistake to let the trouble tickets pile up that much.

Things could have been done on both sides of users and moderators that would have made this whole thing much less of an issue and a huge drama bomb. But the biggest thing I think people are missing is that banning someone on any site isn't going to make the harassment stop. From what it seemed, most of the harassment wasn't even happening on FA, so that should tell us that even if they were banned here, they could find another way to get to the victim. Like Weasyl.

Blame the mods for not acting quick enough, but not for being immoral. If they acted without being provided evidence, people would be upset for other reasons.

You may think it's fair to remove them outright, but it's not actually. What's fair is people to not get scammed at all, and of course there will always be someone who abuses the system and makes up bullshit about someone. Real moderation gets full details on these things, THEN acts. Deleting everything without a second thought is the laziest approach to moderation possible. Hell, I wouldn't even call it moderation. That's more like sweeping everything under the rug and pretending it's not there.

But it still is.

Also, you are completely wrong on mods needing to act faster. They are already acting as fast as they can by doing this: not looking into shit and just getting rid of it all. Completely impersonal iron fist style. You probably mean 'need to act with more perception' so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt there. If they actually did things like moderate, then things could be done on the user's side, such as giving warnings, and this whole thing wouldn't be a problem.

But right now, helping people out is bad, according to this "moderation."

And seriously, don't take the argument 'we won't do anything because it can happen on any site' as a real excuse to not act. That's just silly.

I read into the situation based on what mods posted on the journal, and they did look into it. The evidence posted on the removed journal in question was not only off-site, it was removed when the mod got around to viewing it (this is what I was referring to by acting faster, not "rushing to conclusions"). And because of the TOS ruling, the mod couldn't do much about it anyway because it was off-site. So even if it was viable evidence to punish them legally, FA had no way to deal with it unless they changed their TOS ruling. Which they could, I'll admit. But it could also lend to bannings for many people who don't deserve it.

The mods were only following the rules that they've set out for the site. It lacks emotional involvement, but it's what has to be done if all users are to be represented fairly, regardless of what someone says about them.

And I never said it was an excuse, I said it was something that people are missing. Forgetting. Stalkers aren't just in the bounds of FA. People need to be wary and take measures to protect themselves just as much as the moderators need to protect them if something goes wrong. No governing system is going to babysit all its users. They can only try to help when called.

In this case, they've banned the user because they found evidence that the user was using another account to circumvent the block that they received. This could have been done without the journal drama bomb if the the moderation team acted faster and got to the trouble ticket faster. But the victim pushed the issue to a different level when they went public with it.

Considering their track record, them saying they looked into it is just them writing it off and dismissing the situation without looking into it. And if they're just 'following their own rules,' then you're saying that the rules are the problem in the first place, and is what's causing people being treated unfairly.

By the way, what you're explaining isn't 'acting faster,' it's 'requiring more moderators.' Which FA did try at one point. Furocity's mods were fed up with FA's mods in so little time. That's definitely saying something, by the way. Which leaves a core issue that clearly isn't resolvable by normal means.

And people aren't missing that. What if they do protect themselves, do form a genuine relationship with another, and then it goes to shit and they flip the fuck out? If some of it happens on FA, moderation on FA should occur instead of rug sweeping. Of course it's not gonna deal with other sites, but then at least whoever is getting abused can actually have a safe haven. When the opposite happens, when the moderation team supports the one harassing people, then you get a mass exodus.

Also, I like how the only times I hear about people being banned is if they were already avoiding a previous ban. There must be something more to that, but I don't care enough to look into it more.

What track record? Is there a written archive of every issue that the admins have had to deal with that people can see? Or are you only referring to the ones that went public with their dissatisfaction? I'm pretty sure I've never seen someone write a journal with how someone got their issue resolved without issue - and that's not because it doesn't happen often - its because people aren't going to say anything if they get what they expect to get.

Yes, maybe the terms of service could be changed, but like I said, changing the rules to be more strict could lend to people getting banned when they don't deserve it. Would you ban someone for doing something 5 years ago on a different site? Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe they changed? Are you the one who is going to be the judge of that?

Having more moderators would help things go faster, yes. And they got more, like I said, not the Furocity mods. FA recruited new ones just a month ago or so to clear the backlog of trouble tickets.

If your personal information is in the hands of someone else because you built a relationship with them that had a falling out, again, going public with it on a website isn't going to help. It might even make matters worse. Even if the mods banned this person because they were posting your private information against your will, They still have it and can still use it against you. The police need to get involved at this point. A website ban isn't going to help.

Again, the mods weren't supporting the abuser, they were waiting for proof within their realm of ruling so they could do something about it.

About the ban evasion, people can make new accounts if they get banned because the admins can't do an IP ban. It runs the risk of blocking users with the same IP and who are totally innocent (I believe).

I'm just gonna come out and say I got bored of this and went to play Skyrim. Sorry about that, but it's obviously not gonna go anywhere. What is, is, and what isn't, won't be. If you wanna keep talking about it, though, you're free to note me. I'll respond slowly but eventually.

I likely won't follow up on your offer, but regardless, I just wanted to say that the system they have in place is perfect. You'd be hard pressed to find that any other place has a perfect system of rules, either. Weasyl is pretty and all, but has its own TOS problems. People have expectations that just can't be met all the time.

Oh well.

isn't perfect. Whoops.

i was about to call you on that, you sly dog.

I have so so many issues with FA but, unfortunately, it's entrenched in the community now. It' the only place where the majority of artists I enjoy post regularly. I'll likely take a much bigger disaster to cause any large exodus.

Okay, I'm finally persuaded. I am, if not disappearing here, joining in your mass migration.

Oh wow that is gross gross gross. I'll try and start doing weasyl stuff instead, the site is pretty much dead ANYWAY so yea...ugh that makes me feel unclean :{