FA+
Shop
TaranGryph, Stalking, Drama and FA.
12 years ago
So, here we are.
By now, a lot of you have heard what happened. I've been debating how to address this properly, as this has been nothing short of massive. I recognize some users will go into reading this with a biased frame of mind, be it angered, curious or neutral. My aim is to clarify what we did, why we did it and what we could have done better.
Some of you may be wondering why there was such a delay in getting a response to this. The answer: I've been in the process of moving to a new state and getting caught up with a new job.
A summary of what happened:
1) Feb 6 -- Tarangryph contacted us via TT regarding a potential stalker issue.
2) Feb 13 -- In the meantime, Tarangryph created a journal warning users to beware the stalker, and listed some evidence. We deleted this journal, as we felt it was a call out journal, and we had no way to verify the given evidence (see below). The admin suggested the user block the stalker and that, if the stalker evaded that block, we'd take action.
3) Feb 14 - We responded, asking, "Do you have links to any harassing notes or comments this individual has sent you?" Tarangryph responded to the TT.
4) Feb 15 -- Qarrezel's journal is posted. All hell breaks loose. The admin handling the ticket did not yet have a chance to follow up on the ticket response.
* What We Could Have Done Better -- I will start the journal with this, as I recognize that we could have taken steps to better clarify our position to Taran. We should have clarified what information we need from users in these circumstances (comments, notes or other FA specific information) and what steps users can take to protect themselves in the meantime. Had we done that, I feel we could have reassured Taran we were there to help.
* Our Code of Conduct WILL BE UPDATED to better direct users on what actions they should take if being harassed or stalked, as well as what they can do to protect themselves, as well as what admins need from them to effectively investigate their claims.
We WANT to help, and we want to help users feel safe from harassers and stalkers. To that end, sometimes we need more information from users, and they may need more information from us. We should have been clearer in that message to Taran. At no point did we NOT want to assist her. We were more than willing to help, and were in the process of doing so when this broke out.
* In regards to Qarrezel's now infamous journal, Qarrezel NEVER ONCE contacted the admin team for clarification or to ask what's going on. Much of the journal was speculation in regards to FA's stance. AT NO TIME did I ever endorse stalking harassment as suggested by the journal. Ever.
A quote of mine regarding the admin's actions were taken grossly out of context. I was asked if I supported the admin's actions. From what I could see at the time, and from what I knew of the issue, a callout journal was removed and the admin involved suggested that the user block the stalker so we could attempt to get more evidence against them. The admin told Taran that, if the stalker did anything to avoid the block, we would take action (read: ban). The user was never blocked.
We were under the assumption at the time that, if Taran had any further issues with the user, she would contact us so we could take action against the stalker. She did, but the admin handling her ticket did not have a chance to see her response before Qarrezel posted her journal. In the ticket, Tarangryph states that Qarrezel had also filed a trouble ticket against Fredriksam for harassment. There were NO TICKETS open on this by Qarrezel, nor was there ever contact with the admins on the site regarding the issue.
* The Issue With Evidence -- The evidence of stalking was primarily pointing at actions that occurred on Deviantart.com and Flashback.org. When we are presented with information off-site we /very rarely/ take action on it, and here's why: we have NO WAY to verify the users' identities. We have to give users the benefit of the doubt. Did somebody make an account on Site X to harass the user, and implicate them in the issue? Is it legit, or just an impostor?
We have NO WAY of verifying what's going on behind the scenes.
When presented with off-site evidence, we usually make a note of it. "The user in question has shown really questionable behavior. If they bring that behavior to FA, we'll take action on it because now we've established a clear link between what happened on FA and Site X." So, until someone takes action directly linking their on-site behavior with off-site behavior, we will NOT take action on it. But once they break FA's rules and policies and we can trace that back to what they did off-site, we'll use /all/ of that information and make an appropriate judgment (up to and including perma-ban, even on first offense).
The evidence we had on FA against Fredriksam as a stalker was questionable. We could see behavior on FA that raised eyebrows, but was not enough to say "Yes, this is a stalker, no question." Hence the reason we suggested Taran block the user and to contact us if he tried anything (anything at all) to get around it.
That said, in the end, we did find evidence to support the claims against Fredriksam (and his alt account). If we had found evidence of the alt account up front, we would have banned the user immediately. The alt account was not brought to our attention until a user notified us. Had we had this information up front, we would have banned them on the spot.
We understand many of you are frustrated and upset, but we were ALWAYS willing to help from the get-go. We were always there to help. If we had been given an opportunity to respond to Tarangryph's ticket, this entire issue could have been resolved like any other issue. Instead, Qarrezel got involved and we were not able to resolve this directly with Tarangryph.
The entire site and team has spent countless hours trying to better the site the community. I, along with the rest of the team, regret that this happened the way it did. This could have gone a number of ways, but if we were allowed to resolve this directly with Tarangryph, we could have had a completely different outcome.
On a side note, admins are users of the site as well. We are all volunteers, and none of us are being paid to run the site. We're all here to help, and while you may disagree with our actions or personally dislike us, we ask that you refrain from going out of your way from attacking admins, because they are also fellow users. Verbally insulting the staff does nothing to help the situation and is still harassment.
We encourage users to ALWAYS seek out both sides of a situation before passing judgement. Seek out the facts, hear both sides and make a decision then. Putting this into a visible timeline was revealing in and of itself.
By now, a lot of you have heard what happened. I've been debating how to address this properly, as this has been nothing short of massive. I recognize some users will go into reading this with a biased frame of mind, be it angered, curious or neutral. My aim is to clarify what we did, why we did it and what we could have done better.
Some of you may be wondering why there was such a delay in getting a response to this. The answer: I've been in the process of moving to a new state and getting caught up with a new job.
A summary of what happened:
1) Feb 6 -- Tarangryph contacted us via TT regarding a potential stalker issue.
2) Feb 13 -- In the meantime, Tarangryph created a journal warning users to beware the stalker, and listed some evidence. We deleted this journal, as we felt it was a call out journal, and we had no way to verify the given evidence (see below). The admin suggested the user block the stalker and that, if the stalker evaded that block, we'd take action.
3) Feb 14 - We responded, asking, "Do you have links to any harassing notes or comments this individual has sent you?" Tarangryph responded to the TT.
4) Feb 15 -- Qarrezel's journal is posted. All hell breaks loose. The admin handling the ticket did not yet have a chance to follow up on the ticket response.
* What We Could Have Done Better -- I will start the journal with this, as I recognize that we could have taken steps to better clarify our position to Taran. We should have clarified what information we need from users in these circumstances (comments, notes or other FA specific information) and what steps users can take to protect themselves in the meantime. Had we done that, I feel we could have reassured Taran we were there to help.
* Our Code of Conduct WILL BE UPDATED to better direct users on what actions they should take if being harassed or stalked, as well as what they can do to protect themselves, as well as what admins need from them to effectively investigate their claims.
We WANT to help, and we want to help users feel safe from harassers and stalkers. To that end, sometimes we need more information from users, and they may need more information from us. We should have been clearer in that message to Taran. At no point did we NOT want to assist her. We were more than willing to help, and were in the process of doing so when this broke out.
* In regards to Qarrezel's now infamous journal, Qarrezel NEVER ONCE contacted the admin team for clarification or to ask what's going on. Much of the journal was speculation in regards to FA's stance. AT NO TIME did I ever endorse stalking harassment as suggested by the journal. Ever.
A quote of mine regarding the admin's actions were taken grossly out of context. I was asked if I supported the admin's actions. From what I could see at the time, and from what I knew of the issue, a callout journal was removed and the admin involved suggested that the user block the stalker so we could attempt to get more evidence against them. The admin told Taran that, if the stalker did anything to avoid the block, we would take action (read: ban). The user was never blocked.
We were under the assumption at the time that, if Taran had any further issues with the user, she would contact us so we could take action against the stalker. She did, but the admin handling her ticket did not have a chance to see her response before Qarrezel posted her journal. In the ticket, Tarangryph states that Qarrezel had also filed a trouble ticket against Fredriksam for harassment. There were NO TICKETS open on this by Qarrezel, nor was there ever contact with the admins on the site regarding the issue.
* The Issue With Evidence -- The evidence of stalking was primarily pointing at actions that occurred on Deviantart.com and Flashback.org. When we are presented with information off-site we /very rarely/ take action on it, and here's why: we have NO WAY to verify the users' identities. We have to give users the benefit of the doubt. Did somebody make an account on Site X to harass the user, and implicate them in the issue? Is it legit, or just an impostor?
We have NO WAY of verifying what's going on behind the scenes.
When presented with off-site evidence, we usually make a note of it. "The user in question has shown really questionable behavior. If they bring that behavior to FA, we'll take action on it because now we've established a clear link between what happened on FA and Site X." So, until someone takes action directly linking their on-site behavior with off-site behavior, we will NOT take action on it. But once they break FA's rules and policies and we can trace that back to what they did off-site, we'll use /all/ of that information and make an appropriate judgment (up to and including perma-ban, even on first offense).
The evidence we had on FA against Fredriksam as a stalker was questionable. We could see behavior on FA that raised eyebrows, but was not enough to say "Yes, this is a stalker, no question." Hence the reason we suggested Taran block the user and to contact us if he tried anything (anything at all) to get around it.
That said, in the end, we did find evidence to support the claims against Fredriksam (and his alt account). If we had found evidence of the alt account up front, we would have banned the user immediately. The alt account was not brought to our attention until a user notified us. Had we had this information up front, we would have banned them on the spot.
We understand many of you are frustrated and upset, but we were ALWAYS willing to help from the get-go. We were always there to help. If we had been given an opportunity to respond to Tarangryph's ticket, this entire issue could have been resolved like any other issue. Instead, Qarrezel got involved and we were not able to resolve this directly with Tarangryph.
The entire site and team has spent countless hours trying to better the site the community. I, along with the rest of the team, regret that this happened the way it did. This could have gone a number of ways, but if we were allowed to resolve this directly with Tarangryph, we could have had a completely different outcome.
On a side note, admins are users of the site as well. We are all volunteers, and none of us are being paid to run the site. We're all here to help, and while you may disagree with our actions or personally dislike us, we ask that you refrain from going out of your way from attacking admins, because they are also fellow users. Verbally insulting the staff does nothing to help the situation and is still harassment.
We encourage users to ALWAYS seek out both sides of a situation before passing judgement. Seek out the facts, hear both sides and make a decision then. Putting this into a visible timeline was revealing in and of itself.
However I feel I can keep dreaming. x.x
Hopefully, even though I wish people would see it without something like this happening, that you do care about people's feedback and you DO care about people on your website.
You're a great site owner, no matter what any of the other assholes say.
#ForeverFA
1 week from now on +- ans 95% people who said they leave will be back on FA pretending nothing happened (its not first time such thing happens)
They threw the baby out with the bathwater, rage quit in a overly dramatic huff...and good riddance.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
As for saying "Nothing of value was lost as a result"?
The fact that you wasted your time setting out flame bait like that makes me thing perhaps you should move on with the rest of the Lemmings. (I'm probably gonna get flamed for saying that.) :P
But if, because of that, you really want me to leave FA, I have only six words for you:
TOUGH. TITTAH. I'm not leaving FA.
I can see why FA can't really touch the situation though.
With all the harassment happening off site it's like people saying someone should be banned off FA because they got suspended on Youtube for harassing comments or spamming troll links on Youtube videos. Aka; blacklist someone who was bad on one site, from this site.
As you said though verifying what is happening offsite is someone on here is a very hard to distinguish identities thing. It's like someone going around to streams under persons name and harassing.
- If the person with that name was suspended from a site and they had nothing to do with it, meaning someone was impersonating them it would look bad on the admins. Being this was an ex it would be understandable if Tarangryph was trying to appear as her ex to get him off FA. (not what happened but a possibility.
- If the admins take time to figure out what is going on and wait for something to happen on site then people jump at the admins still for being too slow. Claiming there is plenty of evidence, despite it being all offsite and easily forged with the name.
Though resolved people will hold their grudges as always. People claimed the ticket took way too long...but during this time I still question why taran didn't seek police enforcement and have an injunction placed considering the harassment and claims of rape/bodily harm.
I KNOW TOO MUCH.
But in all seriousness listen to both sides of the story before passing judgment
I'm not sure posting this journal was the best idea, since it resparks the flame and you've already explained yourself...but, I'm happy to hear there will be instructions on how to deal with this in the future so this doesn't happen again, and the effort is much appreciated. I think everyone learned from this.
To put it mildly.
The English major inside of me is crying.
Other posters making these same mistakes online does not equal an excuse if you're aware that you do this.
Just something to work on.
//shot
I'm going to go and hide now.
I am very thankful to have FA, thank you guys for what you do!
This became a knee-jerk reaction that those who already have issues with FA were able to "defect." And the fact of the matter is, the same problems could easily be there, too.
This whole issue just became a massive bomb in many levels.
Whaaaaaaa!
But I side with you completely. I wish people had taken time to learn what was going on and think about it logically. (also not just from an emotional/projected victimization standpoint since that seemed to happen quite a bit this time.)
That said, this whole situation was indeed blown out of proportion by somebody who went "white knight" and jumped in to defend the user in the form of directly attacking the admins. I also heard the admin who was involved in this left because of this incident, is that true?
I really hope this can be resolved completely soon.
I wouldn't want to bother anymore either.
Then people poke me with problems and I go solve them. Then I remember why.
Get it?
Anything that ends up as a call to arms is another.
Never mind, all this arguing is making me depressed.
We allow people to bitch about the site via journal. We don't allow people to attack other people via journal.
Your understanding of "the constitution" is as limited as everyone else's it seems; the internet isn't just the united states, it is ALL countries that have made a connection through satellite or data cable. The united states government doesn't have the capability to enforce its constitution on the internet, nor is it allowed to: if they tried to regulate the WHOLE internet, it would cause a worldwide outrage and pretty much would cut off all communication of the US and other countries.
The internet is anarchy, and private sites range from dictatorships to monarchies and small bureaucracies. Freedom of speech isn't true, kids' game sites that are privately owned will censor "bad words; freedom of the press means that the government can't hide all of it's secrets forever, but if the internet didn't ANYONE could steal information; freedom of religion is null because there are sites like christian mingle where only Heterosexual Christians are allowed.
I suggest you end your argument here or take it to notes instead. And next time you pull something like "freedom of speech" on a privately owned and not profiting organization, remember that it's a load of bull and makes everyone involved look dumb.
For instance, you can say whatever you like (Up to a point, obscenity laws, whole nother topic) in a public square, but not inside a restaurant or store. The Government may not censure you for free speech, but private entities can refuse to support you, or supply the use of their space (be it physical or digital) for those purposes.
then why am i not allowed to bring my pocket knife or gun to work?
your argument is flawed
if it was TAR who was the one posting the giant rage journal...i wouldnt he saying anything but Gar had no knowledge other than what Tar said (before ahe even really knew what was happening i might add) and she took that and blew it out of proportion to get attention.
She sells suits so i wouldnt be surprised if her journal was just a publicity stunt to tey to get more followers.
regardless I hope she stays gone. FA is better off without idiots like her.
The fact remains that if Qer had minded her own business the situation could have been resolved MUCH faster and with way less drama.
Q didn't "poke her nose in," she was directly involved because the stalker contacted her to attempt to get T's address.
I do think it's important to give the admins a little time to handle an issue, but when someone is being stalked and feels unsafe, it's very important for them to feel like their community has their back, and that the admins are going to look into the issue thoroughly, and that their safety is a paramount concern.
This didn't happen in this particular case, which is why there was so much upset about it.
I'm glad that Dragoneer has posted an explanation, but I do think that a vocal, stronger stance against stalking is important on a forward-going basis.
TAREN had a legitimate issue we were in the process of trying to get resolved. At no point can I say her issue was butthurt, without being
A) An ass
B) A dick
C) jerk
D) etc, etc, etc.
Just because you took her words one way, doesn't mean EVERYONE should be expected to translate her words the exact same way. Pretty crass to presume that those who didn't come to the exact same conclusion are "analyzing it a bit too much". =/
As an aside, I find your choice to suddenly start tonguing admin asshole particularly amusing, given the sheer amount of "butthurt", as you call it, you've blithely spewed about in the past, yourself. Pot and kettle much?
i don't know, i just don't think FA should act like police for IRL issues. i think these situations need to be handled better, but there comes a point where you need to at least try blocking someone, something that apparently was something they didnt even try on this site.
i haven't had any problems with this site other than i think it can be way too slow at times. i say if those people needed something this minuscule to happen to justify leaving FA, then don't let the door hit ya on the way out.
i think people these days just.. can't be satisfied with ANYTHING!
This. I've been on here for years now, and never had any problems with the admins or the site itself. ( I actually like how simple and fast the site is, compared to dA, in example. ) That ought to count for something, for a site that's essentially free to use.
We did a ticket search for the users involved, re-examined the timeline. That's when we noticed the original journal -vs- when Tarangryph responded to the ticket. The admin handling the issue was out at the time, and didn't have a chance to follow up before this exploded.
as for harassment outside of the frame of FA, I don't understand what they expected FA to do about it.each site will have to address the issue individually. Block the user on all sites that you share accounts. report to all sites where harassment has occurred. go on about your day. big Whoop Dee Do.
there was really no reason for this situation to get this far, I feel it was really less poor handling on the part of FA as it was poor handling on the part of the person who felt they were being harassed. They never blocked the harasser, the one thing in their own power to stop the harassment. They posted a journal as a "warning", but that warning wouldn't even be necessary if they had taken proper action against the harasser that would result in the harassers ban from the subsequent sites where the harassment occurred.
All FA Users have a right to feel safe with their accounts, but they don't have a right to go stirring up drama without following due process to handle the situation before it even becomes drama.
I sent one note. All of which contains evidence of you stalking, harassing, making alternate accounts, drama mongloring, impersonating, so on and so forth. Enjoy your week long Weasyl ban.
Abuse report filed for ban evasion.
I never even talked to you before and yet you talked about being concerned because I was Veck's friend. All I was going to say is that if you kept up these shenanigans I was going to block you, because I didn't need to be a part of this at all. Instead I found that you had already unwatched me and blocked me, likely because you assumed I was not going to be "on your side."
In fact I don't even think you wanted to have anything to do with me or watching my art. I don't think you even gave a shit about my well being. You're just in this petty internet war with Donro and trying to turn away all the "friends" you can when we're pretty casual acquaintances. None of your motives were pure; why would you warn me about danger and then block me if you didn't think that any of your activity was suspicious?
As for having you blocked you clearly aren't and haven't been if you are responding. Just sayin'
To be honest I had no strong feelings about what went on between you and Donro and it wasn't my business. We could have had a normal relationship and interaction but you chose to drag this drama to my feet, and then block and unwatch me. You've burned your bridge.
Also no we couldn't have. The moment I commissioned you for the icon and it was finished it would have went down with Donro. I did unwatch you though!
Is there a point to continue, other than trying to call me out?
I have a feeling you never really wanted to commission me. I'm pretty sure if something when down between me and Donro over commissions I would just tell him to cool it and block him. The point I was trying to make is I don't think you are sincere with your warnings. You don't care about my well being, you just wanted me to get involved with your spat with Donro when I wasn't going to be part of it. Before I only heard about you in passing and had no strong feelings, but you decided to make me a part of something I had nothing to do with.
I did want to commission you. Though honestly not quite sure how well you could have handled an animated icon of a weapon and comedic firing so I had to choose someone more suitable. Nothing against you. Nor anything to do with Donro/Monglor there.
As I said though you don't have to be involved. In releasing the note you quite clearly wanted to take his side though and cause trouble. There's really no point to this is there?
I gave the note to Donro because it was about him. He's the one who chose to make of it what he would. But honestly I wanted to call you out here because you're being so dishonest and insincere, because I think you don't really care about what I had to say about it. You preemptively blocked me and that should say something. You sent me a message about someone else and that should say something. I didn't even know what to make of half those screenshots cause they were just lulz threads and stuff.
It felt out of no-where given how I didn't really do anything with Donro except talk to him on skype and draw some pictures and stuff. Wouldn't it make you feel antsy if someone came to you, told you not to trust someone, and then blocked you before you could even say something about it?
I feel you (FA in general, not you specifically) spent way too much time trying to justify and defend FA's actions, not enough actually addressing everyone's concerns.
Victims are entitled to their outbursts and are no less victims because there might have been a more "responsible" way for them to react. They are often too terrified to think clearly, and punishing them for acting out of fear--BEFORE any action is taken against the accused perpetrator--is counterproductive. You should have waited until you had more information on the stalker before you took her call-out journal down, and you should have asked her to take it down and explained why before you removed it yourself. You acted VERY fast to punish her, while you saw fit to give her stalker the "benefit of the doubt" and took much longer to deal with him. I hope you see now why this was harmful.
A better response, given your timeline, would have been to wait for the evidence of stalking to come through (or not) and take action on THAT issue (or not) BEFORE acting on the victim's relatively small transgression. Keep in mind that you were weighing the damage done by potential drama stirred up by the journal against what might be potentially life-threatening harassment against the user. One will fade, and the other can only escalate. You can still take issue with the call-out journal, that's fair, but do so in a way that makes ethical sense given the situation at hand. Respond to her concerns first, then ask her to remove the journal and explain why. That way, it's clear you're not shutting anyone down, are dealing with user concerns, but are still enforcing your rules (as you have every right to do).
In hindsight they probably should have waited to take down the journal, but that's because only now do we know that the journal was the truth. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.
I don't think this is a case where the admins simply could not have forseen the results of their actions or could not have imagined that patience with the accuser would yield better results. I do think they did what they thought was right at the time. However, in the future, I hope they are more inclined to carefully consider immediately silencing someone who claims to be at-risk from another site member, before actually doing it. If the end result, rather than the exact process, is more important to the admins (and I assume it is), sensitive situations such as this would seem to call for more thoughtful responses.
It's true that the admins followed the letter of the law (well, rules) in this situation, but rules aren't always perfect, and a community benefits from leaders who are able to recognize when the existing rules can't be directly applied the exact situation. An explanation of "why we didn't immediately delete this call-out journal" would have been much easier to make than "why we didn't respond faster to shut up a stalker than we did to delete his victim's frightened journal about him." A few minutes spent mulling over this would probably have resulted in the decision not to immediately delete the journal. Or perhaps some other course of action I haven't thought of, yet.
As for imagining the kind of vitriol a community can spew at the wrongly accused, I don't have to; I admined a rather large community for over 4 years and we had this exact thing happen--and when the community figured out what was going on, and they did so long before I would have on my own, the anger was immediately redirected at the guilty party, and apologies were made to the real victim. The case of a stalker pretending to be stalked is that a ruse like that is incredibly hard to pull off for long, and the backlash against the offender for being a stalker AND a faker is much stronger for the perpetrator than for the administration who fails to out them in time (I took my fair share of lumps, to be sure, but nothing like the creep who got caught). Falsely accusing someone of stalking on the Internet is much harder than it looks, because there's almost always a trail, and The Internet is very, very good at finding trails. I'm not saying it can't be done successfully, but it's a far less likely situation than straight-up stalking, which relies on people blaming and disbelieving and second-guessing the victim to succeed, a tactic which works surprisingly well, as many of the comments in this very post demonstrate. I still see comment after comment claiming the victim is "butthurt" and "looking for attention." Stalkers depend on this rhetoric to flourish, and the Internet is rife with it. It is statistically safer for all involved to hold judgement on both accused and accuser until the evidence is in. This is almost always the case (although certainly, there are exceptions).
I disagree that the admins explaining why they didn't take down a call-out journal would cause a PR debacle on the order of "Exodus." Assuming it even made a high-profile user angry enough to post an "I'm leaving" journal, there would be discontent, but I sincerely doubt it would have been this bad. I've seen several popular artists depart FA over disagreements with management. Some were even about management failing to adhere to its own rules. Few elicited this kind of response. Then again, I didn't think the Fat Bunny Banner thing would be such a big deal, either, so I could be wrong in my assessment. Still, I think it would have been statistically safer to allow the journal to stay. Your what-if scenarios are far, far rarer than the actual situation that occurred.
TL;DR -- I disagree that the likely results of leaving such a journal up for a short time would be nearly as damaging as the likely results of taking it down. It is technically possible for someone to successfully masquerade as a stalking victim, but it's highly unlikely, usually easily debunked, and frankly the potential for damage to a good person's reputation pales in comparison to the actual damage a perfectly common and likely Internet harasser can do to their victim. Given the frequency that people are shamelessly harassed on the Internet, and the tendency for people to question whether victims of harassment brought it on themselves or are liars, there's very little reason for the perpetrators to risk trickery of their own and every reason to treat all harassment claims as legitimate and dangerous unless and until evidence to the contrary is presented.
I think conversations like this are useful, and intelligent discussion about difficult issues like this should be available to read in their entirety. It's better than watching people call each other names all day.
And I don't entirely agree. I actually was thinking back to a situation that happened here on FA. A rather well-known artist was accused of being a sexual predator. I believe some notes were leaked, and a lot of real life "evidence" was provided. The issue with the evidence was that it was hard to verify, especially the real life evidence. It's well-known that many furries in this community try to seek out sex whenever they can. In a way there's nothing wrong with it. Sexual expression is a normal part of our society. Though it can turn violent or predatory, most of the times it's not. People just want to have fun. This artist sounded like one of these people. So the claims the "victim" was making were hard to disprove, because sexual interest was expressed by the artist. I think the facts that were left out was that the "victim" had been a willing participant, but after a bit of drama between the two the "victim" decided to claim it was abuse, and perhaps even rape. The hatred and rage expressed toward the artist was unreal. And sadly the facts were only very slowly accepted to be false, or just forgotten.
Now my knowledge of the facts is fuzzy, and things may have not happened exactly that way, but it is not an unreasonable situation to find oneself in. You may approach somebody for a good time, they might show they want a good time as well, then suddenly you find yourself on the other end of a rape claim. And sadly you can't really disprove much of it. The only thing you can do is try to make others believe that you were innocent, and that it wasn't rape. It's certainly possible, but not always easy. I think it was cause of that situation that the immediate removal of "call out" journals was put into place. Sometimes the evidence is very hard to confirm or deny. In that situation the admins were blamed for "protecting the popufur" even though he was a supposed predator, and that they were okay with people being sexual predators.
I don't know that there was a mass "Exodus" in that situation, but in this case I don't think there would have been a mass exodus either had Weasyl not entered open Beta. People can't flee very well if there's nowhere to flee to. I don't buy into the Weasyl conspiracies, but I think the timing of it's open Beta and this situation worked together and helped this situation go nuclear. Even through all this though I don't disagree that the situation could have been handled better, but I don't feel I can agree that that admins should have known that deleting the journal would have caused such problems. The deleted journal would have to be brought to light first to see what its contents were. Did it sound like a "call out" journal, or did it sound like an honest plea for help? That's an important element to the situation. If the admin reading it thought for a moment that the information sounded truthful, then yes they should have used better judgment, ignored the rules, and left the journal up while they investigated. And perhaps that should be in the rules so all the admins will do it in the future.
It's a messy topic, to be sure. I tend to view these things from the perspective of "the simplest explanation is the most likely," and the most likely explanation should be the one acted upon first, in my opinion. There are always exceptions to the rules, and it's fair to say that such exceptions should be considered. However, given the option, I would rather address systemic flaws that favor the most culturally privileged party and make alterations to balance that privilege, regardless of the immediate damage it might cause those in charge (in this case, the FA admins). I still am not convinced that damage would be anything other than transient. But I hear you--there are situations where such an approach might cause more harm than good. I just really don't think this was, or was ever in danger of being, one of those situations. And I still think of Qarezzel's response as a foregone conclusion, given the set of circumstances that had already occurred. Although her action caused the outrage to flare up, the spark had already been made and the tinders were burning rapidly. It was a matter of time; the fire was started, and the admins lit it. Qarezzel just happened to be the kindling that caught first.
False rape/harassment claims do happen, but it's a tired and, in my opinion, irrelevant point in this case. It's true that the damage to a wrongly accused individual can be severe, although in most cases where the person is exonerated and the evidence is free to the public and transparent enough, it can be resolved. But even that being the case, the way we handle predators is as much to blame for the damage we do to the falsely accused as the fact people are falsely accused in the first place. That's another systemic problem, and it's a bad one, but it does not change the fact that it is unethical to punish a victim for behaving fearfully, and it is my opinion that the accuser be allowed at least as much leeway as the accused. That means suspending punishment of both parties until evidence rolls in. PR nightmares notwithstanding.
(I have nothing to say about Weasyl; I do have an account there, but have not spent much time on the site, and can't say whether I like or dislike it, and I don't entertain conspiracy ideas no matter how convenient the circumstantial evidence. I don't see the TaranGryph issue as something to leave FA over, although I think it does invite discussion on how harassment claims are handled.)
I did read the deleted journal before it was gone. From my perspective, it was a desperate plea as well as a warning. I detected no malicious intent in it or desire to defame anyone. To anyone who did read it (who was not an admin, I suppose), the idea of hiding it and leaving a note telling TeranGryph to not talk about it in public, I think would seem very overtly aggressive on the part of the admins, if nothing else. To me, it felt speech-chilling. To a lot of others as well, it would seem.
I'll grant that maybe the admins really wouldn't have imagined the firestorm taking the journal down would cause. On the other hand, I don't think it was impossible they could have imagined it. I think now, they can, and as you say, maybe they'll take different actions in the future in cases like these.
However, while I try to consider all the variables in the situation I almost never use them in my solution to the problem. That is when I look to the most simple solution. In this case it wouldn't be what spread the fire, but what started the fire. That is where you and I don't really disagree. The journal shouldn't have been deleted, and everyone knows that. What I really disagreed with was people that accused the admin(s) that did it of "obstructing justice" or being "for the man and against the woman" and all that stuff. I feel the admin just wasn't trained properly for this sort of thing. And why would they? They are just volunteers as well as users. The rules said to delete "call out" journals, and so they deleted it, even though based on what you say they should have had the foresight to see that the journal didn't sound like a "call out" journal, but an honest plea for help.
In my opinion how we treated the admins in this situation is appalling. Yes, they made a mistake and deleted an important journal, but in the end the message and intent of the journal was still successful in its mission. The user and his puppet account were banned. Never at any point were the admins trying to hurt the victim. They were just doing what they were trained to do, and that is to delete "call out" journals and solve the issue in private with the victim. And my previous posts were merely defenses to the way they were taught to handle these situations, based on what I remember from past events. From their perspective their rules and their execution of those rules were the proper way to handle things. Now we all see that this wasn't the case.
But yes, sadly this is a case of learning from one's mistakes. I think this would have inevitably happened at some point based on how the rules are written, and how the admins are taught to treat these situations. Now they know that there was a flaw in the way they operated, they can amend the flaw, and hopefully this won't happen again.
Hopefully things will be better in the future.
It's all about context. =/
Infinite kudos to you.
Personally the matter didn't bother me or anyone that concerns me, Fa is still my #1 Furry site, and more likely always be.
I feel your staff can handle everything on a timely matter, your not gawddamn robots that can handle everything in 10 seconds flat. :/
There be my two cents.
So this person links evidence of a stalker. Your admins delete the evidence because you cannot "verify" said evidence. There were mishaps created by both sides most obviously said user forgot there is a block feature for a reason. However the fact an Admin was so blatant in removing the journal instead of pursuing the problem or the said stalker is a judgement flaw.
Security of users information, confidentiality, and such issues need to be taken seriously. They are YOUR staff. This is YOUR site. The simple reason people flock like sheep and jump ship is simply because nothing happens till after the fact and serious issues are ignored.
Credibility is what is lacking. Users do not want words. They want action and competent staff who know the guidelines themselves. This is not a personal attack on you or various site administration. It is simply addressing issues that have been ignored for far too long.
You used this as your main argument. Users were not ignored, they just acted too hastily or the admins responded too slow. Nothing had happened onsite yet so there was no reason to ban. If you did not notice though when he reappeared he was swiftly banned.
But this is semantics. Stop arguing moot points and picking fights because we don't kiss ass. We question. You should question. Improvements need to be made or this will be another blow to the credibility of this site and it's Admin again.
Quarezel apparently never contacted an admin about that...why not trouble ticket or providing evidence of that?...
ITS ALL A CLUSTERFUCK.
I still think she should have gone to the police about this guy rather than putting full faith into a site as though it was the police. Though if he was asking for personal information I doubt she had enough to go on with him. Aside from /if/ FA cooperated with police to provide IPs.
Yeah...:[
The admin involved already resigned dispite tons of protesting.
Who should REALLY be blamed is a) the stalker, for being the catalyst. and b) qarrezel for blowing everything out of proportion and causing all this drama. The victim and the admin arent anywhere near at fault as much as the other 2.
What you are saying is actually quite insidious and sick. By your logic, a woman who is raped should not attempt to gain help and support dealing with the issue through friends who may have been privilaged to the events surrounding the incident. In the real world, when people are attacked, other people come to their aid. This is something EVER lawyer and EVERY police officer is TRAINED to handle.
If FA needed a clean room sterilized case to act then it serves as proof of their inability to act when it matters and their own ineffectiveness. A journal with evidence was deleted by them even? My god, man!
Look, I actually think less of you for 9insisting what you do, and in classic furry fashion, I see that you are too stubborn and too convinced of your own crap to see another point of view, so why don't you just not respond to me. Honestly, there's nothing that you can say to me to make me consider you a creadible person with respectable ideas now.
*shakes head* Shame on you.
gtfo and take your V for Vendetta obsessed philosophy bs back to 4chan where it belongs. This isnt a "threat to freedom on information" it is an issue of stalking that was already fixed. We dont need the imput of 4chan 12 year olds who happen to have a few genius programmers siding with them.
Here's hoping the next issue that comes along, they'll chill and not make pointless drama over somehing that could have happened/gone better without having all the information.
Personally, I don't see any problems rearding FA or it's current admins, I think they do a good job if anything. So tke a chill pill or something.
What happened a few days ago has given FA a major black eye. This is your chance to to make a difference and develop a policy that not only will give members an avenue to report offenders, but allow admins to look into what is going on by going to the links a member here provides as evidence, whether the evidence is on or off site. Remember, these people don't care what it takes to get to the one they want, even if it means going everywhere their target goes, talks to their targets friends, family, etc., getting personal and sensitive data. I guarantee you that Frederiksam won't stop, he'll be back.
Also, once he realized what was going on, he deleted everything that he had posted about Taran, he will post it again not if he finds her, but when he finds her. And that goes for anyone who is being stalked, trolled, harassed, etc.
Yes, this did hurt FA alot, and from this they are fixing their CoD. But the admins can only do what you can do if it's off site-report to cops of some form. Troll, harrassment and stalking can only be solved this way, as you stated he will be back. Admins can only suspend, ban and IP ban, not arrest a dick.
A proper investigation can prove whether or not that person is stalking someone. But in order for cyberstalking, cyberbullying, trolling, etc to be brought down, site admins have to work together when something like what happened to Taran becomes public knowledge.
For me, I make it a point to make it clear on my front page, what sites I am active on, and what name(s) I logon with as well, that way if someone impersonates me, people will know that the person in question is not me.
Who's to say I can't create an account in your name on twitter, spend a few days using said account to write nasty things to myself and then run to FA to say you've harassed me. Sure, FA can email twitter and request information, but most sites will turn around and say they're not allowed to hand that information out without a warrant.
Stalking, large scale real life harassment, and threatening behavior should be handled by a police department. If someone is going around searching for all your personal, private information in order to find you and contact you after you've made it clear you want to be left alone, then its a job for the police, not a bunch of volunteer furry site admins who (to my knowledge) have no formal police experience and/or training. They're also not lawyers and, as such, should not give out legal advice. All they can do is follow the TOS and AUP in regards to such incidents, which they did.
And, as Neer pointed out and I'll point out again, once they had on site evidence of what was going on? They took immediate action.
What is going on right now is people following the N.I.M.B.Y. principle. Just because what most of what happened to Taran happened off site DID affect her here on FA, thus making it 'Neers problem as well.
But until it happened on FA? Not their problem.
And while we're on the topic: If someone is doing this to the point where you're actually in fear of them showing up at your home of job? That is a job for a police department, not furry website admins.
Yes the admins took action once they were told that Frederiksam had created a sock-puppet account. If it wasn't for a NON-ADMIN member of FA, 'Neer would have never found that account. If someone is harassing you on other sites and follows you here and starts posting links to offsite locations that has your personal info posted, they are violating the sites rules. But the problem here is the N.I.M.B.Y. principle (Not In My Back Yard), if it doesn't happen here, screw you, it's not our problem. No, it is the site's problem if the admins fail to act on the trouble tickets that are submitted with the required evidence.
Know why? There's about 20 admins, well over 60K active users, and this shit isn't Minority Report 2.
And once a ticket with the required information was submitted action was taken, so I'm forced to ask: What in the actual hell is your problem?
You cry "DO SOMETHING!" based on unverifiable evidence, which is laughable because we both know damn well that if actual was ever taken against a user based on unverifiable evidence and that person was later found innocent we'd be seeing the same exact fit we're looking at now. Yet when the evidence required is brought forward and action is taken it isn't good enough? I think you have unrealistic expectations on what website admins have the ability to do. They can't predict the future, they can't be everywhere at once. Some of them have real life jobs and just about all of them require sleep and social interaction time with a group of people not actively trying to drive them towards alcoholism.
And as far as the police go? In terms of cyberstalking and bullying, they are limited in what they can do. Current laws and capabilities of the police to properly investigate these incidents is quite limited. But, if you'd stop pitching a fit and actually read what I posted, I said that if you believed this person was actually going to show up at your home and/or job that you should report it. People showing up at your place is no longer cyberstalking, its real-life stalking, and that's something a police department is actually equipped to handle.
If someone comes to us to report someone on the site, but all their evidence of wrongdoing is stuff that happened on other sites, and there is nothing showing wrongdoing on our site... do we take action, or not?
My answer is no, we do not: We are not responsible for enforcing other site's rules on FA, nor should we punish people for things off-site. There are a few exceptions to this - chewfox, for example, was banned for the hillaribad interview she did... then unbanned less than a day later and apologized to. There is also the occassional ban for offsite behavior when it is mentioned/commented/discussed on FA in such a manner that we could get in trouble. (This is listed explicitly in the rules as being not allowed, as well).
You call it NIMBY, but trying to go further than the borders of the site would result in us trying to be Team Furry: Fandom Police, and nobody really wants that.
We had an accusation, but what was presented to us from the start had nothing. We had the DA stuff shown to us, we had that story shown to us, and we had some awkward shouts shown to us. Awkward shouts, however, are not disallowed on the rules.
Further, we did not say "No, we do not feel this requires administrative action." We did ask for more information. We asked the user to block the harasser.
Once again - this all blew up while we were waiting on further information from Taren. Not after we rejected her claim. While we were investigating it.
But even then - less than 24 hours between admin contacting Taran, and Qazzawhatever posting his third party journal. With no contact back from either Taran or Qazzawhatever during that timeframe.
I'm not certain what else we could have done, shy of taking someone's accusation of on-site wrongdoing at face value.
We cannot divulge information to other sites willy-nilly. The only person who can authorize that is Dragoneer, and even when we implement our internal organization, anything that would viiolate that aspect of our terms of service would have to be authorized by him. If you as an admin of another site want to use information on FA for your internal decisions, that is up to you, but I do not feel in most cases that we can - or would - give out our user's personal information.
Now if you are an admin of another site, and you wish to provide evidence that "Hey, this guy is a bad guy," we can certainly take a look at what you provide us. But, and this is an important thing, evidence of wrongdoing in Location A is not evidence of wrongdoing in Location B. It's usually worth keeping an eye on a person, but without anything wrong on FA being performed, there's nothing for us to take action on.
Imagine two coffee shops. The owners are friends. Different stores entirely, though. Customer goes into Store A and is a difficult customer, and is kicked out. Owner A talks to Owner B about it. Later, same Customer goes into Store B. Owner B will be wary, but generally won't do anything unless Customer does something to deserve action.
Back to your original point, I would love to work with other sites for the benefit of the Furry community as a whole - but I am limited by our own rules with regards to information sharing.
The evidence provided in the original callout journal that was removed consisted of three things:
1) Actions on Deviantart such as posting RL info;
2) Posting a story on another site(I forget which one) that was pretty bad;
3) Some comments on FA that were eyebrow raising, at best.
When the admin handling the callout journal removed it, the message included the instructions to block the user (which had not been done), as well as to please come to us with anything on-site, so that we might handle it.
Neither was done.
my email adress name i used when setting it up is Chief Masters for gods sake.
I knew early on that something wasn't being communicated correctly somewhere. Too many people were getting angry too quickly and too intensely. I feel so bad for Taran, and I'm glad to not only see your effort to make amends with her ... but also an attempt to update your protocols to make sure something like this doesn't happen again. I hope she gets to read this eventually.
I hope nothing like this happens again though. I know harrassment can be serious, but I also know that the admins aren't perfect.
I realize it must be challenging dealing with what must be a large number of complaints and open tickets with limited volunteer staff, but I wish that things could be resolved in a more timely manner.
I have no intention of leaving over this, and hope that FA learns and grows from this expirience.
\o/ YAY! \o/
We now return to your regularly scheduled furryness!
Hopefully we can all finally move forward. What's done is done, all we can do now is learn from the situation and work TOGETHER to prevent something like this from exploding in the future.
*HUGS* to 'Neer, and the rest of the FA Team.
This is my favorite art site YET! And I'm not going anywhere!
I love this site too much to just leave, even because of an incident like this.
Plus, I don't know why many already felt like leaving, stating they don't want to be part of the "site that condones predatory behavior."
I couldn't believe that.
And you've got to have at least a hundred thousand to half a million users, right?
admins needs very specific qualifications, especially dealing with a fandom in which many members have physical/mental disabilities.
nobody wants to hear it, but most people just are not properly qualified to admin on here.
Pray tell, why would the furry fandom have more mentally disabled people than any other? And why would someone with physical disabilities have unsound judgement to begin with? The point is that FA probably has too few administrators for the amount of users it has.
repeated on various other places and the average came down to 72% said yess.
and lets face it...most of us are bipolar or autistic. Its a flat fuck fact.
most furries are bi or gay, have bipolar, autism, or are autistic, have really fucked up kinks, and fap more than the average person.
I accept this fact (because it is a fact) without prejudice. You denying it is just sad.
What you stated about us not having any more than any other fandom is true...most fandoms like ours have a high number of people like that.
im not trying to he rude or anything, but im serious when i say "open your eyes"z
ill leave you to your delusions. have a nice day.
Admins volunteer for a non-paying position, and need some programming background or whatever, and have to WANT to volunteer for basically endless abuse at the hands of the community they're sacrificing time for.
No fucking thanks. You get what you get and you be happy for it.
my post above was to dispute the fact that the person above thinks just bc there are thousands of people on FA, that means there should be hundreds of admins
COMPLAINS ABOUT EVERYTHING AND HOW MUCH BETTER A JOB THEY WOULD DO AS AN ADMIN
oh so you want to admin for the site?
NO FUCK YOU
i'd admin if i was more patient, but...i'm not XD i'd swing the ban hammer then neer would have to give me a time out
'
Frankly, I think everything was handled as it should have been.
A lot of the tech tickets can be debugged by the admins, but the ones that cant get added to the techs workload >.>
This was like hitting a speedbump that caused the car you're riding in to burst into flame.
Guess not in this case.
(Disclaimer: Not serious response)
Most people don't pay attention to the positives and only focus on the bad, especially in a community like FA, where most users have a tendency to go overboard with emotional responses to typical problems. I'd like to know how many of the ragequitters we're seeing at the moment actually attend the Town Hall meeting, or stayed updated with the new admins in training, or paid attention to any of the TT statistics. A lot of them are under the idea that there's this huge team of 100+ people working on FA day and night to solve their petty disagreements and delete the poorly traced anime screenshots that show up everywhere. They don't realize that this isn't a corporation where they can get their money back if they aren't 100% satisfied. I don't think that it's fair to expect a guarantee of satisfaction like that.
Patience is a virtue. Bless you for having it with all of us.
Yeah that's pretty messed up and I can't blame the FA Staff in the slightest. As for the user directly, they didn't follow the steps the site recommends as they should have, and that didn't help any. But in the end the staff did do their job. It just sucks that 3rd parties as you say didn't mind their business.
No other way to stop someone who's really determined.
But.... further, one doesn't even need to be in the same STATE to incapacitate, i should clarify.
People who ARE afraid of these things, know the "alarm bells" to look for. the average person, doesn't think of this. A stalker enjoys the fear and unease. Law & Order and Criminal Minds shows many examples. points out interesting loopholes, gaps, and ..... just outright stupidity the average person has when conducting themselves online. I'll say no more.
[In this case 'reasonable' means the admins asking for evidence and trying to be helpful, not the stalking bit.]
I hope others realize that the admins are only human and can not monitor 24/7
I have come to love this place and it like a home, and I plan to stay on FA. <3
Nothing infuriates me more then people blowing an arguement into 2 extremes and then saying if you're not AGAINST one thing you're FOR something else.
It is like saying if you're not in the streets shooting criminals then you are encouraging criminals. If you're not actively fighting a house fire right now then you are encouraging house fires.
This is called a FALSE DICHOTOMY.
Because you were not blood thirsty enough and because you/the mods wanted to see evidence of the dude stalking clearly you are FOR people getting away with stalking.
Also the most hilarious part of all this is that the dude -wasn't blocked-
I dont know what to even say to that
There's a better chance of me curing cancer tonight.
Unfortunately, sometimes they emotional response outweighs the more logical one that says "Huh... maybe I should look into this and wait for more information before getting mad".
Sadly that train of thought requires thought.
Your first reaction is your most emotional.
Your second reaction is your most logical.
Your third reaction is the one you've official over-thought.
Hasn't been proven untrue to date!
must be why i always giggle after reading mob-riling stuff ^^'
Fund it.
Good luck with this uproar. And I dunno if you'll even see this comment, but if I can provide help of some sort, I'd be happy to.
Uhm... THIS MANY!
It was terrible.
But I'm also not sure if there are levels of administration that you have to be in, and if that job lies on those at a higher level. iunno.
i definitely think that if tickets were responded to briefly, things like this could have been heavily avoided.
i find that whenever you post i am incapable of being mad. i dont know why.
In any case, whomever wrote it cited such anecdotes as, and I'm paraphrasing "someone openly admitting to being a dog rapist and instead of going to the authorities, the 'correct' thing to do is tell the admins"; the problem with that is this lies solely in the hands of the admins passing the information along and there HAVE been times in the past where people ADMIT to crimes on this site and no legal followup happening
The only feelings I get from this is a facepalm at the ignorance and impatience of people. I still have faith in FA and its staff! Good luck with the move 'Neer! We still love ya :D
But there's a reason that I would file a restraining order with the cops... this way this asshole breaks in and I stab him to death the cops go.. "well he DID file a restraining order and he DID break in.. you are free to go."
You can't jump to conclusion without knowing the angles. That's why I said the FA admin did the right thing. They were going through a standard customer service procedure. The issue arose -> Inquiry for further evidence -> Investigation -> Action.
Where are these two in relation to each other?
I am dead serious when I say this if they are in the same city or state (or whatever it is in another country) where they're separated by either feet or less than 100 miles... then it's an issue
but if the person being stalked lives in CA and the person doing the stalking lives in the Ukraine.... ... should you REALLY be concerned?!?
I mean honestly! Do you think this guy has enough money to buy a 1 way ticket to the us, clear customs and all that and stalk this person? (using my above example)
I hiiiiiighly doubt it!
Most furries when they talk about shit like this.. that's all they are doing.. talking shit.
But if you feel that your life is in danger do you go to the cops or do you go to an admin on a porn site..
If you're answer is to think about filing a trouble ticket over going to the police.. there is something VERY fucked up in your head.. and you deserve what you get.
First rule of dealing with psychopaths--trying to define them within the parameters of logic and sane reasoning is impossible.
Because the dead can't sue.
To the future being a better one for fA
Thanks guys, for what you are able to do!
I have no interest in pictures of shirtless drunk me appearing on FA this week. XD
But that's water under the bridge at this point, and we can all breath a bit easier now.
This journal violates the "Call out journal" policy because it mentions users by name.
Don't you see the irony?
I was getting threats, insulted, people asking why I hate women, why I endorsed stalking... and I just had no clue what was going on. Got home, saw the journal, and... yeah. What? It's been a nightmare.
:v
Viva la FA!
Using an example from above. If someone took your name and went into a bunch of livestreams harassing artists who were streaming, and you on FA got banned with no proof it was you other than "They had the same name", wouldn't you be a tad miffed?
Wait--you just said the Administrators don't use off-site material as proof to ban. Are you now saying they do? Also if this happened off-site (as your example is) then why would I get banned on FA? I would've had to harass the users here on FA in order to get banned.
people whiteknight and "fanboy/girl" around here a LOT more than they would seem, smart or not. have seen it happen at least 20 times over the years. (un/intentionally both ways)
the smarter ones are the ones who keep on the sidelines as i generally do, in my opinion. (keep their opinions solitary and not perverting the situation any further more or less)
alas, i feel i'm rambling and not really offering input as intended ^^"
*dook* glad ya like the icon as well ^^
and i didn't even know her prior to this.
That's a flat out lie. You ALWAYS use off-site information. No matter what it is.
We go by what's on your FA page. If you FA page links to your Facebook, and your Facebook states that you're underage, you put that link on your FA page. Likewise, if you put your Skype, we'll check the references you yourself put on your FA page.
So yes, we will check date of birth to see if you're lying, but will only take action if you're lying on FA. If you listed on FA that you're 43, but every other site you've linked to says you're 16, then we've verified through your own sources that you linked to that there is a discrepancy on your own information.
We're just using your information that you put on your own page.
Whatever actions you take off site, that's another story.
Do you really think I sit here and go "Boy, I sure do love when people bash me on my own site. Let me not take action on them, but oh, that one dude who posted shit about me on [OTHER SITE]... that dude's going DOWN!?" Did you see the comments people were leaving on my shoutbox who are STILL on the site? Who I did NOT take action on?
Staff uses Off-site information as potential evidence to verify what they find on-site to make connections.
But they do not act SOLELY on off-site information by itself.
Much like in the case here. You guys had the off site evidence, but couldn't act solely on it until you had cooberating evidence when the stalker began using an alt account to continue his harassing.
Whatever you write, your thoughts, your opinions are off site are not our concern, but we do fact check accusations based on links people provide on their own page.
But I'm saying I've non Dragoneer to solely use off-site information.
You can choose how to run your site how you want to, but this whole thing, this stalker thing? Was stupid. The admin should have informed you more thoroughly. And that admin failed at that. Honestly, you need to either hire new admins, hand control of the site to someone else (That is NOT worse than you), or, like I said, get your stuff straight.
And yes, we're working to make things more transparent and clear. We have been making concerted efforts to improve support, and unfortunately this was not handled to the best it could have been.
Personally I can't really blame you, it was a pretty special moment.
He's endorsing people to outright attack the site. There's a vast difference, and when you go out of your way to cause extreme problems, we will make exceptions. The Wielder has a huge history of trolling and disruption on the site, and encouraging people to attack the site pushes the limits of acceptability.
Meaning the excuse of not pursuing or even glancing at proof of Taran's stalker because it 'happened offsite' as you said all of two days is either complete bull, or you find the threat of a notorious FA troll threatening the website on twitter more important to seek out and act on than a user on your site being stalked and sexually harassed.
Seriously???
If i go out and say Imma haxor FA on funnyjunk and neer reads that then comes back and sees im an upstanding and helpful user onsite hes not going to ban me.
once again...a user has taken things out of proportion and twisted what neer has said...THINK dude. BEFORE you comment.
I'm sorry I'm upset that Dragoneer finds a troll on twitter making statements he knows are exasperated over-exaggerations more important to look into than the sexual harassment and safety of a user on his website.
Yes, clearly I'm simply a no good trouble maker, nothing more and nothing less.
maybe you should take a moment step back from your fanboy pedestal and think about how the real world works and how that fact forced the admins to take the actions they did take.
In fact I'm beginning to question if you've read a single word I've typed here or if you're just pulling what you want to hear from my speach. I have no clue where you're getting anything about user popularity or favoritism towards specific users? And Fanboy pedastal? Fanboy of what or who? I can't stand TheWielder and I don't know Tarangryph nor did I before this entire situation. I guess if you were really reaching you could say I'm a Fanboy of website Admins taking the safety and wellbeing of their users seriously. Otherwise though I have no idea where all these straws you're pulling at are coming from.
I was talking about Dragoneer showing favor to giving his attention to offsite Tweets as apposed to on site altercations. This had nothing to do with who the users were, or who was doing what. This had only to do with actions taken.
The thing I give a shit about is that apparently exceptions can be made to how this site is policed when a person rants on twitter, but not when a user's safety is at risk. That's all I'm upset about here. If you seriously think me being upset about a situation as serious as this makes me a 'troll' then I have little hope for you coming to any level of logical understanding here.
oh and before you come back at me on how they deleted the journal with the Proof I'll just say taran shouldn't have made it an attack journal and then the admins wouldn't have had to take it down.
hmm trying to think of whatever stupidity you'll throw at me next so i can just answer it here... well I guess we can address the "random tweet" which was an attack againt the site, which made it very site related which is why they had to take actions against the wielder.
oh and finally speech is spelled speech not speach.
You're just another one of "those" people who have no actual substance to their argument, so you default to asinine bullcrap like "hurr ur a tr0ll, but also l00k hao cool n edgy i am wiff all mai witty sarcastic cum-bakks! XB".
Seriously. You have NO business arguing with people, because you FAIL at it. Horrifically.
If you're going to crosslink, having a shout or anything else on FA linking to twitter and claiming you said it, you pretty much remove that doubt.
It's not a matter of -where- the evidence is, it's a matter of wether or not it is true evidence and not a misunderstanding, trick or anything else.
The amount of flip-flopping and pick-and-choose enforcement that goes on in the admin seat of this site on a daily basis is staggering.
The scope of potential damage is vastly different.
The most they can do with issues in the physical world is provide the police with evidence to support arrest or even legal action through judges. It's unlikely they can even get support from authorities since they're calling their local police to report on something that may not even be happening in their own country.
They focus on what they can handle, so yes, as distant as it seems, they found site hacking a bigger issue. This isn't the definition of cruelty or carelessness either. This exact same prioritization happens in the physical world too. If you have no authority over something, you triage what you do. Trying to do something about what you have no control over is a waste of effort.
Banning someone here doesn't solve the stalking.
Banning someone here doesn't stop calls for hacking.
But it's all they can do because they have no authority outside this site.
It's the PRINCIPLE that matters. I'm not saying one should be more or less important than the other. They should be EQUALLY important, and treated as such. Especially if they expect any sort of community support in the long-run. I mean, sure, there will always be the brown-nosers who will sing FA's praises no matter WHAT they do wrong, and defend their every mistake like the mindless sheep they are, but much as the administration would like to think these users make up the majority of their userbase, they'd be solely mistaken in thinking so. The vast majority of those displeased with the site will never openly say so. Not everyone feels safe vocalizing that sort of thing, or fears backlash from the brown-nosers. Those of us publicly speaking out in disapproval of FA make up only a VERY small portion of us who share similar mindsets.
So that being said, it VERY much matters the way the prioritize things, due to public image. One way hurts, the other helps.
You're basically asking why FA admins won't proceed to take the law in their own hands and commit possibly illegal actions to punish users outside of the site, going as far as reaching in to the non-digital world. Apply this same rational to other large scale entities with no authority over other areas and see how well that works out. Heck, there's a whole can of worms on whether or not the US should just invade random countries "for their own good", but that's totally off topic. Specifically, we are talking about authority.
The supporters/detractors points are just red-herrings, distracting from the real issue of FA authority and where it stops. FA can only do so much, even if it is only symbolic in situations involving things happening outside of FA (in this case, banning, which is PR too). This isn't the only large scale entity that has no authority over something but does what it can within it's domain, and if you can't understand this then you'll always be upset with any large scale system in place.
When dealing with large scale entities, always approach everything in a bureaucratic, logical, rational, reasoned manner. It's a waste of time to be upset and argue they should do more where doing more would only do more harm.
I never once said I expect the admins to take the law into their own hands. I expect them to take whatever action they CAN take on THEIR site. And as the incident with TheWielder has CLEARLY demonstrated, the whole "most of the evidence we were shown was off-site" excuse no longer holds any water. Not only CAN admins use off-site content as grounds for disciplinary action, they DO.
I never once claimed that I expect the FA admins to somehow become instant FBI agents, track down the stalker's RL address, kick in his door, and slap him in cuffs. What WAS expected of them was to get a stalker OFF their site, which they didn't do until WAY past too late. The damage was already done. They betrayed the trust of a victimized user beyond all hope of repair. They were PERFECTLY capable of acting before I literally SHOVED on-site evidence right under their noses, but they deliberately chose not to.
At the end of the day ... THAT is the REAL issue--they had the means to stop Taran's stalker BEFORE Qarrezel's Exodus journal blew the whole incident wide open, and it wasn't taken. THAT is what the community is having a hard time swallowing. Action was INTENTIONALLY not taken when it NEEDED to be taken. By the time the staff DID respond, the damage was already done.
Off site evidence, as they've even stated themselves multiple times, they do not normally take as evidence pertaining to issues on the site. However, when there is a clear link between the people involved and it is under unique circumstances (such as an external threat to site stability), they will take it into account. Asking for others to cause harm to the site is pretty problematic and rather unique (even if I personally don't think he was serious about it). Had users actually taken it upon themselves to take the site down AND this was a site generating profits (arguable with ads), anyone inciting this could be legally held responsible for damages. It's a serious issue and under such unique circumstances evidence 'can' be taken into account. This happens even in courts where the laws state that normally X shouldn't be accepted, but under extraordinary circumstances a judge can permit the evidence if it has a place in the legal case in question.
Slow response to take action is common in many large scale entities and it's something they all continue to work on. That there are no harsh zero tolerance "suspend everyone involved first, ask questions later" types of rules, you end up with the need to investigate. This requires the victim to present their evidence and the accused to present theirs, either voluntarily or "involuntarily" by their own history such as inflammatory comments they made, journals, etc. This is not a fast process and can take days depending on the situation and how understaffed/busy they are with other issues, as was seen above and constantly complained about. Acting out because it's a slow process will only cause more trouble when it comes to investigations and can easily end up with the victim punished as well because, surprise surprise, causing problems because you have a problem does not make your case get treated any better. I've had problems before with large scale entities, and being nice got me a lot more than being a dick would have. It saved me money too.
Really, you will get this in any institution. You will not, for example, be treated better at a police station if after filing a report where nothing is done and you (or a friend) then proceed to take a loudspeaker in front of the police station and claim they never do their jobs.
As for intentional inaction, do you have evidence of this? Or are you claiming there was negligence from outside observation of the incident?
RL safety issues are not FA's jurisdiction. FA cares about itself, its users and what happens to them on its grounds where it has the power to exercise and enforce it's views of orderly behavior.
Every other place has its own rules and authorities, and issues taking place on their grounds should be sent to them; not furry website admins.
At most FA could have done was to ban the stalker's accounts on FA. How would that have solved anything regarding the accounts of stalking on other sites and most importantly - real life, where, according to your argument, the woman was legitimately threatened? Isn't that kind of way, way more important thing to be taking care of? And you talk of priorities.
Did you expect FA to somehow resolve that situation too?
I find it incredibly selfish of you to put yourself in a position where you declare one person's issue to be more important than the possibility of the entire website full of uninvolved people to lose access to their friends, assets and businesses. How can you even bring these two issues to the same level in order to compare them at all; it goes way beyond apples and oranges.
That said, please stop acting like FA completely ignored Taran's issue and instead "'punished the victim", became "sexist" and god knows what else it was accused of.
Administration was, taking in account FA's ability to process thousands of issues with a dozen people, working with Taran on their report. Up to the point where a third party intervened where it wasn't their place of doing so, and painted an overly saturated, one sided version of the events that incited all this drama.
If you consider replying to this post, please start with clarifying what you meant by "easing the fears", and what you expected FA to do in the first place.
For starters, as requested, I'll clarify. Imagine being the victim of someone who hounds your every step, writes rape fantasy stories about you and posts them online (as well as ALL your real-life personal information), and collects/posts up photographs of suits you own without having taken them him/herself. You don't think, for one moment, that it would have at least demonstrated SOME basic sense of compassion and caring on the victim's end for the FA administration to have at LEAST done what was possible to minimize her suffering from ITS end, and give her stalker one LESS site through which he could harass her? It's like owning a convenience store and adopting the stance of "since I can't stop people from robbing OTHER convenience stores, why bother taking any precautions to stop/prevent robberies at THIS one?" Doing SOMETHING is preferable to doing NOTHING. And even the smallest things matter, when you're the victim of sexual harassment.
If the staff had responded quicker, the off-site evidence would have still BEEN there to be able to assess, for starters. But what's TRULY upsetting is that even if that evidence HAD still been present and intact, Neer, in particular, was ADAMANTLY insistent that off-site evidence was NEVER accepted under ANY circumstances. EXACT verbage used. There was no mention ANYWHERE of there being "exceptions" or "only under specific circumstances". It was a very clearly defined all-or-nothing stance, and this latest stint involving TheWielder CRITICALLY damages any and all semblances of credibility FA still clung to, in the wake of the Taran incident. To us, the userbase, it puts forth the idea that FA's staff gets to pick and choose when and where it wants to use off-site activity as a basis for disciplinary action, which would imply that the protection of FA's community is subject to the individual whims of what each specific admin feels like deciding at any given moment in time. It's as if the AUP and TOS entirely don't matter, because anything is subject to change from one moment to the next. The amount of contradiction that occurs between admin statements on a regular basis on this site is staggering.
Either your AUP and TOS need HEAVY-duty retooling, or your staff needs to better learn how to address its users on these kinds of matters. Because in the end, you only make YOURSELVES end up looking, at worse, like liars and at best, as if you're very indecisive. The amount of damage this ENTIRE fiasco has done to FA's reputation is going to be felt for a LONG time to come, regardless of what you and the rest of your staff might choose to believe.
Picking and choosing which 'threats' to respond to. How professional.
Seriously.
And yet I see there are still people stupid enough to be arguing anything being done here is remotely right or logical.
I could go on.
Between suspending her (for posting a journal about merely ASKING what had happened to TheWielder, mind you) and now the gag order on her shoutbox, it's pretty clear that all they want to do is try and subdue, control and silence opposition at this point, in some sort of flimsy attempt at trying to stem the damage being done to the site's rep. The ironic part.../ Their efforts are only serving to make it WORSE.
Administrators of a site are similar to law enforcement in that one of their duties is to prevent violations/crimes from occurring period. If actions can be taken by law enforcement before an actual crime is committed in response to evidence of similar behavior occurring in other, repeated instances yet not explicitly related to the current one, why can't the same action be applied here?
This is probably just my sentiment due to being raised by a police lieutenant, but the best way to stop a violation/crime is to prevent it from occurring to begin with. To act as a deterrent. Preemptive measures can and have been effective in curbing behavior that is not conducive to an orderly and safe society. If I may make a suggestion, why not make a specific section of administration dedicated to this sort of action? In investigating patterns that have occurred offsite such as stalking/harassment against someone on this site and others, perpetrated by another person who is also on this site and is more than likely to perpetrate said behavior on this site as well?
No exceptions were made.
Removing people who openly incite and support malicious behavior is a long established procedure governed by a different rule and enacted for different reasons that have nothing to do with harassment.
Why? The scope of one issue is two people, the other - the entire website of 780,264.
Yes, TheWielder's actions were just as serious and a criminal offense technically if someone actually did do it. I am not saying that the administration is wrong. What I am saying, however, is that when it was made abundantly clear that offsite content cannot be used to punish a user, and as stated by the administration a few times during the incident, with no exceptions this incident appears to be something that tramples on that concept.
This is the bane of all attempts at logical conversations and is a source of great distress to the administration :(
These cases are different. They are governed by different set of rules, and fall under different jurisdictions.
When it comes to threats of legal or technological attacks against the entirely of FA, and, through service disruption the entirety of it's userbase - the admins are simply told to do one thing: ban people on the spot and notify superiors.
You threaten legal action against FA? Ban. Threaten to hack and take it down? Also a ban.
If one is that far gone that they decide to use those kinds of arguments then they've probably already made up their mind about leaving anyway.
Heat of the moment? Though terribly frustrating to deal with, can be understandable, and even forgivable; unless you've already done that before and have been given a second chance.
Be a man, apologize and appeal your ban.
In case of TheWielder:
* is already a repeat offender with six documented accounts of verbal abuse, callouts, encouraging users to attack others and generally inciting drama on hot topics
* has already been given a "second chance"
* recent conduct towards administration has been all but civil
I can not realistically take action against somebody for what they do off site and do it in good conscious. [sic] http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:31836499
Question: do you legitimately want FA admins banning people for what other users do off site? Do you want admins from ANY site to do that? http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/.....9/#cid:3183626
Yes, the letter of the rules... which apply to FA, and only FA. Not what happens off site. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:31836653
No. Because what happens off site is not my business. Or any admin's business. What you do off of this site is NOT for us to judge you on, no matter WHAT the circumstance. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:31836765
I've just found four separate occasions in which it is either implied or outright stated that off site incidents and evidence cannot be used under ANY circumstances, straight from Dragoneer.
Attacking FA = Permaban
Kind of like reporting a murder in another state to your state police I'd imagine
But hey, that's just what it sounds like
Since admins can access journal entries they've removed, are they able to access shouts left on pages that were removed by the page owner? The stalker guy posted a shout around the end of December (between the 28th and 30th is the best I can narrow it down) on Qarrezel's page which essentially asked her to verify Taran's name and address, both of which he posted where pretty much anyone browsing there could see! It was removed immediately after she was notified about it, since keeping it on display for an unknown extended amount of time until staff was able to notice and respond to a support ticket would have seemed a bit risky.
That *could* be why Qarrezel put so much interest in the situation, along with it starting during a time that Taran was absent from the site for an unusually long amount of time and had no contact even with friends. This part's just a guess though, since other reasons can easily be factored in/out/above/below/potato/etc..
And honestly I think people are a little too quick to just to conclusions to prove how horrible and terrible the site is and give them more justification to leave. They forget that the admins are people too it almost seems like
Simply mentioning people in a journal isn't in itself against the ToS. Getting people to steam roll someone is.
and as we have seen from this, i really don't think it SHOULD be left up too the user. I think the harassment section of the TOS will help greatly in this area, but I do worry that there might still be a lot of grey that could be addressed.
Thank you for all the clarification from FA side of things 'neer; appreciated.
Mob mentality is some scary shit.
I hate that shit. That right there is what makes me angry.
to grab the torches and pitchforks at the first sign of trouble. It's as if
they are afraid of getting to the stake-burning late.
For no real reason other then I want to expand my classic video game collection.
Daddy wants some more Sega games.
Based on what was said here, the site's staff responded appropriately and a brash action on the part of the third party is what allowed this to get out of control.
I read all those comments on Qarrezel's journal wondering why no one even suggested that the admins may have been looking into the issue (because we, as non-admin-types, can't see what they're doing behind the scenes), and not just sitting on their hands. People need to understand that things like this have to be handled gently. Because, while we don't want a false negative (a guilty person going free), we definitely don't ever want to see a false positive (an innocent person being punished unjustly).
I can only imagine the drama that would erupt if anyone was ever erroneously banned because the judgement was rushed just to placate the accuser. *eyeroll*
That's what I got from that statement and that's what I thought was way out of line.
He made no mention of looking into the issue while it was happening, only after the fact in this journal has he actually said it was being looked into.
In this case i did read the journal and she should of blocked the user in question, noted the evidence personally such as screen shots and stuff then when admins were ready to take action report it to her fans. A mistake anyone could make but there is nobody to blame but our selves.
It's frustrating when people make an opinion without reading as much information as they can about an issue.
there's a game i want to see make it on steam's greenlight. (jets 'n' guns) i should just show it to a bunch of popular artists and get one to make a journal telling everyone to upvote it xD
This whole craziness could've gone better, but you (general you. As in everyone. I'm picking no sides) live and learn. We're all human. Shit happens and you move on -- older, wiser, and with an extra few gray hairs. >.>
Hope the move went well, and good luck with the new job!
XD
I honestly suspect very few people who got up in arms about Tarangryph's plight actually did it for her, or even cared much about her. They just were latching on to a new reason to attack staff like the hateful people they are.
1: if i am not mistaken you own\co-own the hard drives and other hardware as well as created this site.
2: You don't charge any user to join this site, hence you and probably some of the admins keep this site running with your own money.
3: If you were really some mean person and all this got to you what is stopping you from just closing the site without notice.
4: You do not respond to all Trouble tickets, you have admins who help(god forbid if you had too)
5: In this case what i got was until the alt account was brought forward you really had no legal right to involve yourself based on something that went on, on another site which has its own staff.
6: finally you and the admin team made rules for this site, and many may disagree with me on this but the person who was being stalked broke a rule before the stalker did, as did the friend. in my opinion no one is is exempt from rules put up on a site. it may be fine to warn others but there are ways of doing it without breaking rules.
That is my take on all this.
Only other thing to add is for me it will be some annoyance for those i watch and left without letting those who watch them know or even those who did because before Fa got more into being the hub for artwork and such, VCL was a place i went, now got artist on Da, sofurry, tumblr, blogspot, and not weasly as well as here. If those who want people to watch them move around and also rename themselves on many sites, its hard for some to really follow them.
It's a shame that people pounce on issues so quickly, sometimes it seems as if there's little admins can do to make everyone happy.
It's very good to know that you're updating the code of conduct, I'm sure the users will feel much safer now :)
This whole hububub was not because you guys didn't react, but because you didn't react instantly/irrationally/fast enough?
Aren't all the staff at FA volunteers for the most part? I don't even see real life police/judges react to stalking claims in less then two weeks unless your life is danger
Can we stop with this sensationalist crap? Please? Everyone is not the be all and center all of their universe, they all got their own problems and things to deal with.
From what I am reading here the FA staff was acting as impartially as they could have -IE- "We need evidence to progress this further" and not jumping the gun here, what do you want them to do, instantly ban somebody the moment somebody goes "They're a meany!"
I'm sure this whole thing as prompted a mass wave of "THAT'S IT, PACK YOUR BAGS, I'M GOING TO X" (X being the flavor of the month new furry art site) crap I see going around, which is just as irrational.
I don't even know how Dragoneer got pulled into this, or the admins involved. I mean, christ, calm down. these people got lives too you know, they all have jobs and personal lives, they can't drop everything the second you have a problem with something or someone. From what I see Dragoneer got pulled into this whole crapfest because apparently his "ADMINS ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" and other crap.
Only immaturity I see here is from qarrezel jumping the gun completely and proclaiming this and that.
Why the heck when is there drama involved it -ALWAYS- has to involve FA or the FA staff? Are people so incapable of handling their own problems and issues? If somebody is following you online and you don't want them talking to you, block them, if they get around the block, report X to staff and -BE PATIENT-, there is not some greater cosmic conspiracy against you to screw you over.
They know they'll get their asses handed to them for jumping the gun on a ban. They also know that they'll get chewed the fuck out if they don't react quickly enough. Why anyone would want to be a volunteer moderator is beyond me. A lot of work, a lot of drama, and no reward. I have respect for the people who do it.
I don't like it either sometimes, cause I'll want to talk about my personal experiences I've had with people in the furry community and its gagged lip time, but I can see why they do it, less work for the mods and it helps keep it civil even when we at the time may not be civil
That said, offsite harassment is exactly that, offsite, what you do elsewhere should be taken into consideration, but not be the rule of dealing with internal problems. The admins gathering information about all of this was the correct action, a mindless ban would not have been.
Again, people need to be patient, there is not some greater cosmic force aiming to screw you over, things take time
From what I am reading off qarrezel's current journal is, she learned nothing from all of this!
Completely jumping the gun, flying off the handle, pointing fingers at the admins and Dragoneer, she still believes she's in the right over all this, and this same irrational hatred.
Even the quote she posted "Out of context" isn't even woefully out of context, its dragoneer stating outright facts:
1) Leaving FA over this is "silly" (My words).
2) If it happens on FA, it will happen on any site.
3) Dragoneer firmly believes in his admins, if they chose not to ban fredriksam at the moment, they probably had good reason to not ban him at the moment.
Then the rest of the journal turns into outright strawman attack against dragoneer "Oh he won't ban the stalker cause he protects stalkers cause it can happen anywhere!"
Get off your damn high horse, this is like listening to something a feminist says, and the second you don't agree with them "Piss off misogynist scum!", just because you didn't hear what you wanted to hear does not make your debating opponent inherently evil, it just means they have a different opinion then you.
This whole blow up is just childish, I see no logic at work here, just finger pointing, screaming and maybe a few tears, I dunno how Dragoneer acts in private but his public face here has been respectable, maybe in the privacy of his home he's punching pillows I dunno but here he's been level headed.
All I see out of this is like, its when I play Planetside 2 and see a hacker, it pissed me off, it boils my blood, it makes me seethe with rage, I want them gone and I want them gone now. I report them, and then I'm forced to sit and wait and watch these hackers play for sometimes WEEKS longer before they finally get banned, but that's how the system works, these admins deal with thousands of problems a day, and I am but a singular issue out of those thousands, and at the moment yeah I am mad I am angry I am upset and I want it fixed -NOW-, but there's nothing I can do but wait.
And yeah it sucks to see somebody having the time of their life by ruining my and everyone else that's not on their team fun, but I suck it up and I keep playing, I don't call all the admins dickbags and "I'M LEAVING PLANETSIDE 2!" statements, if I leave I'll leave, if I stay I'll stay.
I dunno what else to say, this is probably not the last time FA admins don't react at the crack of a whip and we'll all be here again watching people scream bloody murder and favoritism and what not.
Just my two more cents on this issue.
We have NO WAY of verifying what's going on behind the scenes."
Exactly.
People do shit like this all the time to try to ruin people's reputations (create accounts to fool people into believing they're someone that they are not). It's amazing how many people here are ignorant to that fact.
To be honest, I knew that shitstorm journal was written before there was a chance at complete conflict resolution. I am glad you posted the dates so people could see how fast that dramatic journal was created and how little time you guys had to deal with the issue. I personally think that her journal was a call out journal as well and should've been deleted. But at that point it would've been met with so much "oooo da adminz r being boolies" comments that it's almost worth leaving.
The staff has helped me out when I submit tickets. Most of them (sans maybe 4 tickets) have been dealt with same day or within 24 hours. Only once did I have an issue with a staff member that made me feel they were lazy or otherwise uninterested in trying to remove traced clip art. But, eh. It didn't bother me enough to even have ill feelings against them. hell, I don't even remember their name at this point.
Thanks for posting this and for sharing your side of it. If people were that willing to jump ship without seeing both sides, then chances are they really didn't want to be a member of FA anyways. And I'm willing to bet 85% will come back. If not 99%. Because anyone who goes SO FAR out of their way to say they're quitting 4evarr typically is back within a week. If they were serious about leaving, they'd just go. FA is one of the most popular furry websites out there. Whenever I see people linking to furry art (or drama, lol) it's always an FA link. Not Weasyl, not SF, not DA... sometimes Inkbunny... but those drama things tend to be geared towards one thing lol.
I guess the TL;DR here is: Thanks for posting, and for saying what you did to broadcast a better "full picture" of this situation that has run rampant.
Thank you, Dragoneer and all of the volunteers that keep FA running, for putting up with tons of crap you don't deserve so that I can enjoy my furry porn.
Well done Neer, im glad you could set things right.
It's all about perspective. I wasn't there for either case. But the bottom line, Tarangryph felt attacked, posted a TT, didn't feel responded to, posted a journal, journal was deleted which, come on, that feels like just more oil on the fire. I completely agree with Qarrezel's stance, I don't feel she should have been coming to the admins, the admins should have communicated better with Tarangryph from the get-go. And telling her "well if it happens again, let us know" is a horrible thing to say to someone who's been stalked for this long.
...The evidence we had on FA against Fredriksam as a stalker was questionable. We could see behavior on FA that raised eyebrows, but was not enough to say "Yes, this is a stalker, no question." Hence the reason we suggested Taran block the user and to contact us if he tried anything (anything at all) to get around it.
That said, in the end, we did find evidence to support the claims against Fredriksam (and his alt account). If we had found evidence of the alt account up front, we would have banned the user immediately. The alt account was not brought to our attention until a user notified us. Had we had this information up front, we would have banned them on the spot."
Did you not read this, or are you choosing to ignore reason?
Imagine if they had jumped to banning the user only to find out later that it was a hoax. Sounds a lot like the "let's act now and consider the impact of our actions later" thing you weren't too happy about.
and immediately follow it with a negative spiteful comment contradicting the previous one to show just how snarky/edgy I really am.
Yes, feel with a "v", 'cause I don't care about typo's.
Reminds me of how World War I started...and my goodness has this drama war imitated it perfectly as well.
I'm sticking by my original thoughts. If that person was being stalked as maliciously as Q claims, they should have been dealing with the police, not website admins. (Especially if most of the stalking was through DeviantArt. Good god! Shouldn't they have contacted DA admins then???)
A horrid thing indeed but admins can only do so much. So ends another chapter in as the hamster wheel turns..
As for the case, any external evidence raises another kind of issue - identity theft and forgery, in order to harass otherwise legit people. When one can't go though the door, they try through the window or the basement, just for the sake of reaching some sick goals. Blah. Good that the case seem to be solved now.
A lot of people might be moving to Weasyl now, and will probably continue considering how nice it is, but many people (including myself) are fine uploading to and keeping track of multiple sites. I doubt much will be lost because of this happening.
I don't know if it's mentioned anywhere above, but if I may suggest; is there perhaps some chance to create a new rule that would allow for the recognition between a callout journal and a warning journal? I know that there's a fine line there but the differences wouldn't be hard to recognize.
Callout journal: Clear harrassment/bashing/ ect of another user that could be considered harmful to their reputation/name/ect.
Warning journal: Shows accecptable proof/evidence of some kind that warns users against another person of things such as theft/fraud/ect.
I really feel like this would greatly help out the community and would definatly help spread word fast about frauds. I know many people that've sent money for a comission or plush only to not recieve anything EVER. Same goes for artists being comissioned as well; they finish the art only to never recieve their money. This really hurts people that work hard for their earnings but fond out too late about who they're working with.
But it's just a suggestion after all; I just felt it would fit here since there is the mention of what the victim did with her journal.
if drama = false then beer
What if Weasyl fabricated this whole incident
So that people would rush over to their new open beta?
While I think that what happened could have been avoided, the fact of the matter was that the response time was too slow. Understanding that the admins are volunteers, if they are helping someone they need to be able to keep constant update on the issue they are dealing with. While travel and personal lives come into play; when an admin or mod takes the responsibility of helping someone who is making a claim that can potentially be life threatening tabs need to be kept. Personally I believe that the admins first response should have been to encourage the victim to contact the local police while simultaneously contacting the FBI while taking the artists state and town of residence down so that it can be looked into. The FBI have a division specifically for cyber crimes and they take threats seriously. The assailant would have been placed on a watch list and should they have tried anything, the FBI would have done something. Many steps could have been taken to prevent the storm that happened. A life was, and still might be, legitimately in danger.
I respect the admins in that it is hard to run a site and not be paid for it. However, I feel that there could have been more done to help the victim and to prevent the drama that happened. I feel that this post is merely a way to save face. I feel that the journal that had evidence could have been turned over to the proper authorities. There are a great many things that I feel. Though paramount to all of it I feel that this website has so much potential should there be a proper test or requirement for being an admin/mod other than; knowing the right people, being an enthusiastic member of the fandom, or just plain being very out spoken. It takes more than anyone realizes to help others with problems such as this. I personally blame no one for the drama. I only ask that in the future there be a proper test or list of requirements for being an admin that include a basic sense of empathy and social skill that could be used to help the people of this site.
-Shadow
Sometimes we make poor decisions and misconceptions, I can agree by far that everyone needs to sort out their own and get along. There is much to doodle and create than to sit here and cry over spilled milk. At least, until another time you will know how to exactly handle your situation better. Just a little advice, Take your time and draw no conclusions, if that cannot be done at least reach a mutual understanding. In the mean time, we can take a step down to see how we can all get along better okay?
Idk, just something I thought of :3
Point is, never once did I hear anyone say any user involved took any action to protect themselves other than a trouble ticket. Now rumors are flying that "FA protects rapists" ....... I really hope this stops for the sake of how harmful misinformation can be in this digital age.
I personally have been on the receiving side of many in-person stalkers, and every site I have been a member of has gone above and beyond my expectations in helping to protect me from inappropriate or disturbing posts.
Thing is, I followed protocol. First I asked the users to stop. Then I blocked them on all sites. Then I contacted each site's moderators after continued block evasions and linked them to proof (submissions, shouts, etc from stalker) and not surprisingly, all the sites banned or deleted all accounts of the stalkers.
The worst (not involving FA) required a call to the police, after all that was completed. A restraining order soon followed and I felt completely safe again. I do not fool myself into thinking web sites are going to be my holy saviors for all aspects of stalker actions - I see sites as businesses that value customer satisfaction, and I see FA also values a sensation of community.
As a user who experiences in-person and onsite stalking, I would like to state that Dragoneer and FA in general has never once denied or scoffed my personal trouble tickets or communications. Blocking alone has, in fact, fixed 99% of my problems with users, with the remaining 1% involving moderation deleting the offensive or disturbing posts of the stalkers, which has always been the outcome when I link moderators to the posts.
I don't know anybody involved. I watch some artists who weighed in on both sides. Once the shit hit the fan, it took me all of about 5 minutes to get both sides of it and see that the admins were doing what they could based on the lack of actual FurAffinity on-site evidence, and banned the stalker immediately after he did something wrong here.
I must have posted a dozen times replying to people that they need to get both sides before blowing up, but that doesn't let them get their daily dose of drama.
As someone who is usually on the investigative end of things, I don't see any issues with how you and your team conducted this. Issues will always come up, and people will bitch and moan. You continually have my gratitude and appreciation.
They did the best they could.
From my understanding of the situation, there was a problem identified, but instead of allowing the site admins to take care of it, pitchforks and torches were gathered and the mess became a much larger issue than it should have been. People, in general, forget that Site Admins have lives, too. Especially when it is a volunteer effort, real life comes first. So, things take time. Site admins also have the "wonderful" task of being Loss Prevention, as well. Investigating claims, following up on them, and then enforcing site policies. It's not the easiest of roles, and it's one where they have earned my respect on. I do that for my day job; they do it solely on a volunteer basis.
I wrote a post criticising people for being all dramallama...
And I pretty much hit every aspect of what actually happened - without knowing *anything* about what happened.
Dear gods - furries are a predictable lot. :)
Do people seriously expect all evidence to suddenly appear the moment an admin opens a ticket? It takes time.. It also didn't help that Taran did NOT block the user.. and nobody else knew about the alt account aside from someone else volunteering the information...
It bothers me that I see this stuff happening a LOT anymore, and it's not just on FA.. It. Is. Everywhere... and Thanks Dragoneer for taking the time to explain. It hopefully shows people that you have a conscience despite what they might think.. and a heart.
Places like Blizzard and Riot can take up to two weeks to process a trouble ticket, and they're businesses with an entire group of paid staff dedicated to processing issues. (Taken from personal experience with logging tickets)
Postal services can take two weeks to run a full investigation on missing or damaged goods. Once again, this is with a group of dedicated staff who are paid to follow through on these issues. (Personal experience again, I used to work for a postal service)
FurAffinity is run by volunteers who donate their personal time to assist this website and the community.
The ratio of users versus admins is never going to be amazing. There's only so many new volunteers you can bring on at one time and I can imagine that the screening process alone would take ages. It's been previously stated that the admin staff have been working on reducing the number of backlogged support and trouble tickets and they have been succeeding in that fact.
Journals with these statements can be found here http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4288891/ and here http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4230833/
Nobody is satisfied until anything is responded to instantly, but let's face it, even your boss needs a day or two to read over your report before he can sign off on it. Use some brains and maturity, this is the real world. People aren't computers that can process some numbers and spit them back instantly. People aren't robots dedicated day in and day out 8 hours a day to responding to every issue on the site.
And, as always, if you feel the issue is serious and fear for your safety.. since when can a website physically protect you? Call the damned police. If they can't take physical action they will at least give you -advice- on what information they need to follow through.
But I may not see eye to eye on a lot of the AUP with the site and certain actions by site administration but it makes perfect sense to not just outright start banning people purely because of what happens on another site. Victims are very well capable of being vindictive and take things to the extreme as well as others who could abuse someone else they have a grudge with. Evidence on other sites can be easily doctored up since it's quite easy to create an online identity and several of them if needed. People are emotional beings and often react in the heat of the moment... kinda what gets a lot of us in trouble when we hit a bump in life. But when it comes to harassment we all have the personal responsibility to actually BLOCK the user as to not further enable the behavior. When someone works around it then there ya go. At that point I myself would likely just block the person again. Eventually they go away but there's that extra little bonus of a harassment ticket that someone can file. She knew how to file that but... not block the user? I dunno. No point in crying over spilled milk now. It's all done and it's good that something was learned from this.
Anyway, I really do not agree that the admin should have stepped down over this issue. I feel they did exactly what was correct for the situation. Sure as you pointed out there is room for improvement but that's how we learn. I hope the admin that had handled this can be reinstated if he/she desires it because to me it was handled correctly with what everyone involved knew at the time. There was a comment in the journal where it was said Facebook for example would step in and automatically report the crime. To me that goes a bit beyond the scope of a website admin at all but Facebook at the same time Facebook has been used to commit some seriously violent crimes against people including murder and it's not an uncommon occurrence from them. They are also paid and likely do not need to work other jobs to pay the bills so.. there's an obvious difference that the ones who have overreacted to this issue do not seem to comprehend.
But yeah I'm with the administration on this one.
Now I have to jump from FA to Weasyl and back to stay in contact with friends and fave artists.
And Qarrezel I feel didn't really help much, I hope they will read this journal.
Ever D;
It's true that Quarrezel might have been a bit too fast on the trigger, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have the other admins change their ways.
One suggestion would to tell them that they should ask for an explanation for why for example someone posted a journal like that. Taran might already have blocked FredrikSam by the time the journal was posted, which means the journal was meant to warn her friends, so he wouldn't use them to get to her. Stalkers who are that persistent will never just give up.
And for the handling of the case. If there is talk about rape and threats should the off-site rule have less weight on the final decision. It was clear that Taran knew that he was the one, and Quarrezel knew it too, even if most evidence was off-site. Rape and threats are serious issues, and if someone is being subject to them should they get help. That will also make you admins look better. It wouldn't have hurt to tell Taran that you were on the case and that she could remove the journal safely herself.
But I'm not the best critic, and most of my administration experience comes from Minecraft servers and not web pages, but try to get communication between admins better, and the first actions they take less drastic. That wouldn't hurt the site at all.
why are people making a big deal of it?
I just hope the issue with users uploads not showing for themselves, but showing for other people gets fixed.
example; I uploaded a pic, everyone else can see it (the thumbnail / preview ), but I can't until i click on the submission, to view it in it's own page..
well...qarrezel and her white knight armada anyway.
people her seem to think that all sense of decency can be thrown away...even furries.
thankfully among our beloved fandom most people are mature enough to atleast attempt to be nice.
See:
I'm done with this site and I'm going to leave.
I place full blame for this shit storm on Quarrazel, whom, though I greatly revere and respect her work, had ZERO right to post a journal regarding any of these goings on, ESPECIALLY since the investigation was still pending. Knee jerk reactions when angered, especially by people who have large followings or popularity, only lead to larger mistakes, and bigger humiliations. I hope Quarrazel can eventually see the error of what she did, and will return to FA, with apologies ready, since her suits are absolutely stunning, but if not, then in my book it's HER loss, not ours. She removed herself from this pool of customers, and that's her problem.
But, aside from my expressing my opinions on the foolish choice by Quarrazel, I stand by FA, and the admins. As I told you in your shoutbox Dragoneer, I applaud the way you handled this, and you've really shown your integrity through your actions, and those speak louder than words. Though there will be some that say you bungled this, I believe they are wrong, and that you did a bang up job of handling this, once it exploded on your front door step. I truly applaud you, and respect your choices, and decisions in this issue. I can only hope a large disaster like this never darkens your doorstep again.
~Cheers
...but im glad hes gone lol. we dont need NONE o dat...
And since when is a call-out journal a bad thing when it's warning other users about dangerous/scamming/stalking individuals?
I'm glad you're making changes. I really am. Admins need to be more capable of making sound judgment calls, which could have stopped this whole shitstorm before it started.
I don't see the owner of Deviantart getting dragged into every crapfest that happens there, why do we have to keep dragging in Dragoneer?
Whats worse is when it eventually gets to the day of dragoneer going "My X admin will handle it" he'll get called lazy/sloth/asshole etc regardless
People here don't spend a dime and yet think they're entitled to complain about the services
I would definitely not want to be in Dragoneer's place. Not at all.
I also don't see how "ignoring" a situation or being slow to respond to it is encouraging harassment, as was stated in said journal >.>
If I was honestly that scared of the person coming to my house, I'd be onto my local police immediately.
I think that the admin could've handled it better and made the victim feel safer and like they WERE trying to take action, but I feel like the victim also could've taken a bit more action herself before sending the ticket to the FA staff. Perhaps if she had've blocked him beforehand and THEN perhaps discovered his alt account in the first place, the big blow up might not have happened. The evidence of his harassment ON FA would've been there already before she sent the ticket and he would've been banned immediately.
And I don't see how everyone ELSE should decide to up and leave FA because of OTHER people's affairs.
It saddens me that almost everyone involved this entire situation has made these mistakes and it got so out of hand just because of some misinformation on either both sides of the story =/
I hope everyone's learned something about this. I hope the admins have learned to be clearer to harassment victims and do more to make them feel safe. I hope anyone who does get harassed like this has learned that there is a lot of action they can take before they send a ticket, and that if it's off-site the admin can't really do much. And I hope everyone else has learned not to jump to conclusions and erupt over a story they've heard about in various people's journals and comments before getting the facts. It's like chinese whispers or something.
Would these people expect the security guards in Walmart to stop a shoplifter in the CVS across the street?
o.o
It's not the same as what TheWielder (allegedly) did, which was actively threaten the site and encourage users to DDoS the servers (which btw is cyberterrorism under law now, IIRC.)
If Taran's stalker had been stalking them over FA using say...a sockpuppet account, then the admins would have to ban him. I know because it happened to me, and my trouble ticket was contacted within 24 hours, the entire matter resolved in under 2 days. Maybe I just got lucky or maybe the people throwing hissy fits are just whiny crybabies having a pity party. Who knows.
I think there was someone...I forget the name exactly and I don't want to start speculating, or I might accidentally name someone innocent and set off a witch hunt. But they were using FA/Inkbunny like a networking service to look for underage sex partners. They were banned.
On a lighter note thank you and the admins for staying so devoted and making the site better <3.
In most situations it's sensible that we don't want people to get banned for things offsite that come down to he says/she says. Most of the websites I've been to have this policy, including deviantart and weasyl. There's some instances like age verification on outside sites like you mentioned, because someone could lie about their age here. And threats to hack FA? While it could be taken as a joke I don't really think that just because it goes on "outside" the site doesn't mean you can aim attacks directly at the site or at the administration without expecting some sort of repercussion, but that's just me.
I really don't know anything about the other instances but I am aware that Dragoneer has made bad decisions in the past that weren't thought out. I've figured by now that's something that you have to accept as part of being on this site.
As far as TaranGryph goes I don't blame her for how she felt or how she responded. I had stalking and death threats before especially when I was young and new to the internet. Each time it made me feel on edge and antsy and maybe even a little scared. It also didn't make me feel rational, and only in one instance did I feel like getting the police involved, and with enough tracking we found the guy stalking me was overseas so it made me feel safe. It can be one of those things that clenches your heart and torments you to tears, so I can understand the urgency and despair and thinking that nothing could be done or these people aren't helping you. We could cut her some slack
I haven't agreed with all the response to it, or at least how many people made the dramatic exit. Everyone is free to leave the site when they no longer feel comfortable with it. I left for awhile myself after the note-leaking incident. I didn't feel secure and I don't really think things are secure now. But I just left with a little journal. I guess I feel like it's silly people are calling this an exodus and making it out to be a mass movement. You don't need this noble cause to leave; just make it your own preference. It's a furry website, it's not like you're in exile. You can even disagree with how Dragoneer acted, but I just don't see this as a movement or an exodus, maybe a protest.
I guess that's all I have to say about this. I'm staying on this site, but I am not going to look down upon people who want to leave.
Ill intentioned comments left on other parts of the site can still be read (I had someone do that to every artwork done for me), random favs out of nowhere, sockpuppets (fake accounts) to keep the attack.
It can be useful, but sometimes it does not and can be easily avoided by someone that wants to annoy the living shit out of you.
The best thing is to send a Trouble Ticket, block the person, and in case this person persists, send more Trouble Tickets. And report all the fake accounts. Ad nauseum, sometimes.
I live quite close to this stalker IRL, and I've seen him around on various online places for a few years, although he had never done anything like this before (that I know of), but it is easy to see how he could have started doing what he did.
I know that I personally do not have anything to fear from him, but this entire situation still felt a little too close, for me personally.
So... I am very glad that you are learning from this episode, I truly am. I really like FA, for many reasons, and I am glad that you are trying your best to improve it like this.
stay classy furries
Neer, if you read down this far, I support you.
She should not have posted the journal. to the best of my limited knowledge that is against the rules and why she was suspended/banned.
secondly, she should contact law enforcement and get a gun, because Stalkers LOVE Armed Victims. The NRA has many firearms education courses she can take, including defensive shooting.
I find the easiest route to take with these things is to learn all there is to be learned FIRST, then react SECOND. Sometimes it's good to react quickly and suddenly, or to be outraged over something obvious. But this entire situation was anything but obvious, and was something that should have been kept completely private to begin with.
It's about damn time :T
#moresalad
Hey Dragoneer, sorry to hear some of your writings were taken out of context or, otherwise, used against you. Or having to solve all these controversies (furry drama) brought into your Office of unpaid Administrator.
I have, also, experienced these issues with things taken, or placed, out of context or used against me.
Or users deciding to be offended, by a harmless intention, concept, or foreign belief system, by way of their own misunderstanding, ignorance, denial, or CHOICE to have, or find, THEIR 'problem' with somebody ELSE.
Then decide that somebody ELSE, with whom they DECIDED to have a 'problem', must be ignored, blocked, eliminated, jailed, banished, etc.
Even though that somebody else may not have done anything wrong, beyond a personal opinion or empty threat; or even attempted to help solve THEIR problem. . . Only to be condemned for trying to HELP solve THEIR problem(s).
Or they merely think it's 'funny' to play the role of a stalker while the other party plays the role of a victim versus solving their own problems between brothers instead of crying to 'daddy' administrator/referee, or a judge.
Isn't this what court is all about?
Is court an actual room? Or is there such a thing as "court of public opinion"?
Or merely enlisting the assistance of a neutral, third party, judge, or referee-arbitrator, who helps resolve problems between two parties who FAILED to resolve their own problems.
"Court" can merely be a formal gathering, such as a crew, on the bridge of a ship, making decisions regarding the safety of the ship and helping crew members resolve their differences.
And, of course, no matter what the judge, arbitrator, administrator or Captain, decides, regarding a controversy, or 'furry drama', one party is ALWAYS mad at him. . .
I feel for you, Dragoneer, as your duty of presiding over these controversies is difficult, at best, and I have a high respect for your Office of FA administrator. Just remember, you are a the Law Officer of your Law of your Province known as: furaffinity.
You are the Captain of these good vessels, Furaffinity.net, and #furaffinity. And if there is anything I may do, to assist with your Law Officer Duties, to serve and protect these good vessels, please let me know. :)
PS:
I trust things are working out with your move and you certainly have my best wishes.
}:>
all I'm asking is to ease up on the bashing guys its just rude and unhelpful.
As for feeling unsafe...this is the internet. Stalking and harassment happens on EVERY SINGLE community on the internet. This SAME situation can happen to ANYONE on ANY site. Leaving FA to go to another art community for that reason is just as silly as the reason above, if not more. Again, these people had no idea what was going on. They never knew what the admins actually did or said, they just took it upon themselves to leave...most likely to cause more drama over the situation.
The people making public announcements leaving over a situation already blown out of proportion with unnecessary drama were causing just as much trouble and drama (collectively) as Qarrezel did with her own call out journal.
I know a lot of people that left and I find it very rude to say that FA is better off without them as I really think that it would be better of with them and not the rude people who are here just to be rude.
I'm stating here that I think bashing people for leaving over this or for any other reason is just plain rude and obnoxious.
plenty of people are leaving because of the issues but for some this just means they can leave with everyone else because they are only here for their watchers and would just as soon leave anyway.
I think leaving because a "popufur" left is dumb but I understand people's want to be away from somewhere they deem unsafe or unfit(for reasons we like or agree with or not).
I also think most people leaving are just using the mass amounts of people switching to, say weasyl for example, to relocate to a new environment :)
(I also think people will always find a reason to bash other people. I live on the firm belief that people suck and are dicks XP I'm a bit cynical sorry :P )
I'm just irritated at all the drama created by nosey people.
Although, I did see my Journal count balloon up recently. I just can't read every single one when I check journals like twice a month.
I'm still surprised on why this has gotten so big when it's none of anyone's damn business but those involved. All because Qarrezel had to go and make personal problems of someone else public in their own call out journal. So nosey people take the side of a "popufur's" view and create more drama of their own. It's pretty frustrating just to watch.
I do have a question though, since you stated about redoing the policies on harassment and stalking...what about the harassment of admins? On and off site? I've seen it alot, especially towards sciggles when she was first an admin. Have actions been taken against admin harassment like that?
admins of sites have no judicial power. no court sanctioned
order of restraint means nothing can be posted as it'll be
libel/slander. People should learn what normal people
can and can't do. so sadly without any court files innocent until proven guilty. if there is danger contact police not web admins
if stalker knows private information etc
plus problem lies on different jurisdictions as laws vary.
Web admins aren't substitute for actual law enforcement.
If they acted as such they'd be in legal trouble for
attempting to be as actual law. Stalker can sue in return
If both admins and user had no court evidence/order .
But yeah...all this....could have been avoided...
That's why users are given the block option while we investigate. They can block, and we'll look into that. If people circumvent the block, then we'll step in and suspend them.
You would simply just not know how a community works from the inside.
See, the administration does not operate under 'likely' or 'unlikely'.
If we did, then your verbally abusive tone with going out of the way to insult Dragoneer with "you are a fool. not that i had any doubt" would have likely hinted that you have been - or will be - similarly abusive to other users as well. Based on that we should have pre-emptively suspended your account while we took our time to investigate your comments history to make a conclusion.
If we found you innocent we would have apologized for falsely accusing you of harassment, explaining that it wasn't done maliciously and that we were acting in the best interests of protecting the users of FA community and providing a safe experience for all. You, as an understanding user that trusts the goodwill of the administration would have probably just shrugged it off, after all it was just FA and the suspension was just temporary.
Harassment of users is an important issue and should be taken seriously.
Do you see how this is an unlikely, unfair and outrageous scenario?
Yes, it can upset people if you accidentally ban hammer them while trying to protect another user, that's why you check each case carefully and apologise if you screw up. The thing is every administrator screws up some time, the true test of their mettle, is what they do about it.
Truth be told, I've never had a complaint of banning an innocent party while trying to ban hammer a harassive member. People usually complain to/about me as a mod because they want to be exempt from the rules and don't like that I don't agree with them.
What's worse Yak? Apologising to a theoretical someone suspended for a couple of days by mistake or doing damage control for failing to tackle a obvious stalking issue? A judgment can be undone or negotiated if a user feels it is too harsh, the stress and upset a victim feels at a stalker being allowed to have free run at them cannot be.
As for them "verbally abusing" Neer? To be frank, you should see some of the shit I get from users who think rules apply to other people not them. Comparatively most of the people who get fed up with Neer's inaction are relatively nice because the people he is pissing off are not the rule breakers.
Furthermore you're comparing apples to oranges, by suggesting that perhaps you should suspend a user while you investigate in case they've been abusive to others in response to a complaint about the admins not acting on cases where it's obvious to anyone with a set of eyes and rudimentary judgment that someone was being harassive.
Cut the bull 'Neer. I've been patient and polite to you because I thought that if I went off, you wouldn't do anything about the problems, but it makes no fucking difference does it Neer? You have no intention of doing anything against rule breakers especially if they're the sort of people you protect. Tell me again how beastiality gets people a one way ticket off the site when in fact mentioning that a user has admitted it off site to you as a point of concern in fact means you will protect their ass no matter how many rules they break.
~Spooky~
~Spooky~
except for that time that Zaush raped someone
And I don't mean the admins, I also mean the users.
Lets work to avoid this kind of things, stalking and harassing. Everyone its like "lolz dramuh!", like if it doesn't affect them at all.
But trust me, it will at one point.
Stalking and harassment escalates pretty damn quickly, and everyone can be a victim of it.
So its really stupid to laugh at this kind of things, since I'm sure someone at one point in their lives will experience this awful situation.
I had to deal with stalkers twice, and FA responded fast as a fart to solve one of the situations (the other wasn't handled so fast, but it was all cool since the person stopped the harassment almost after making his sockpuppet account. Not real harm, I think? Either way, I'm cool.).
But, here is the thing...I realized I should report only the FA-related stuff. And I did.
I posted god damn translations from spanish to english of notes sent on FA and a resume of all what happened with this stalker IN FA.
Maybe, next time...specifically say that it should always be only FA related for you to be able to help?
I know its an obvious thing, but maybe people miss the point?
I must say I'm really not mad at FA admins whatsoever regarding this. Maybe slightly disappointed, but I know that there is a limit of what you can do, and that's ok.
I can understand the victim leaving FA, But the mass exdous from the other users this was a bit much.
Having been a student of Cyber Law and having talked with Law Enforcement in the past [just for fun and my own personal interest of the subject] Cyber Crime has 2 possible places of jurisdiction. The First being the location of the Server the crime is happening on and the Second being the computer that the crime is being committed/viewed on. In the case of something like Cyber Stalking the best course of action would be something like the following:
Step 1: Block Offending User
[If trouble continues]
Step 2: File Complaint Ticket for Harassment
[If issue circumvented/unresolved]
Step 3: Request Ban of Offending User
[If issue takes place off-line]
Contact Local Law Enforcement for Advice, If bad enough and they have the right recourses they may submit it to a Cyber Crimes Division.
I don't pretend to know what the procedure is internally for handling something like Cyber Stalking on a Website on FA but for any ticket submitted the more information given, the better the picture will look for the person handling the ticket. So many people tend to not think about other things that might be tied to an issue that we're all guilty of tossing a simple worded trouble ticket out and hoping for the best. That usually means that the person handling it has to dig for information or make a quick judgment with the information at hand. It sounds like that might have been the case here but the primary reaction should be the 4 steps I listed above. If necessary for Law Enforcement, then log IMs and take them with you to see a Police Officer.
Personally I feel sorry for both the FA Admin Staff and the people that had this problem, I also think it was blown out of perspective and hope that this can be a learning event for all of us.
But no. I *hate* bestiality/zoo. It's illegal, and not something we tolerate.
Really? So you didn't say that? Someone hacked your account and Told Zaush to hide his dog raping?
I bet you didn't say this either huh? http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/.....mdragoneer.png
You totally didn't tell a sexual assult victim to not talk about it because it would cause drama, nope clearly you didn't.
Thanks for stayin' professional!
I myself have dealt with issues where someone has used the holes in the block feature to continue harassing and stalking. At this point contacting the admins was absolutely no help as they only told me there could do and just to block the user. It IS very similar to what just happened with Tarangryph. What needs to happen is either the admins need to less apathetic and become more proactive towards issues, or, individual users need to have more features that will allow them to better police their own pages.
This is exactly why Quar left. I feel the admins on this site have been vindictive and biased at times. If not, then at the very least, I see something akin to gross incompetence here.
I was hoping that the issue with Quar may have changed things, everyone learned a lesson, yeah, but the fact that I am still awaiting an admin to deal with my recent report tells me it really hasn't don't much.
I'm offended and disappointed, Dragoneer. You owe us, and this fandom, and these people that trust you to offer them a safe environment to post work, share ideas, and not face a biased, unfair administration, more. You owe them pro-activity, and good judgement, as well as reasonable response times to avoid damaging people's dignity, reputations, and personal feelings of safety on this site.
Stop trying to dodge blame for this, Neer, you owe us better. An I would love to return to this sight again in active form, but I don't feel safe here! I seem to not be alone in that feeling, not by far.
Being here on FA for a long time, I've seen plenty of administrators and moderators come and go, with some having years of being an admin on their belts. I've seen changes in the community, unfortunately not for the better, and it's affected FA heavily, bringing the overall intelligence of the fandom down to that of Michael Eisner (You've betrayed the shareholders!), mixed in with M. Night Shyamalan (What a tweest!), and Michael Bay (cool guys don't look at explosions). Users and admins/mods are definitely no exception to the rule. After all, the ToS and AUP both get updated a bit too frequently. I hardly know what is and isn't acceptable anymore.
I recall some of the recently hired/fired/quit have all but managed to uphold their duties properly, ranging from power abuse, being a bit too ban-happy, providing excuses, committing numerous infractions, improper/generic replies to Trouble Tickets, and of course, not dealing with drama in a more professional manner. I know the Block feature exists, and everyone can use it, but it doesn't solve all problems. A blocked user can still harass the person if they decide to hate them that much. Not to mention that the Block feature only prevents users from commenting, rather than just blacking them out completely.
There is a lot of incompetence here on FA, and with the current rampant behaviour of some of the admins in the past, I don't feel relatively safe. The experience is severely lacking, and those who do have experience are often, if not always, met with total silence or even "lolno". Which is why those other furry community sites exist. They're tired of being treated like crap. Fur Affinity has been my main hub for a long time, and I really don't want to leave it for another site to get my fur-related information elsewhere.
The one thing you really could do better is if you stop turning a blind eye to those with experience and are more professional, and start adding competent people on your team, rather than some of the previous milk-drinkers from years past who can't handle these kind of problems, much less so for drama that happens seemingly every day. It's nice being able to pick your apples from the same tree, but not all of them are going to be as good as you might think.
I like FA, I really do, but the sheer incompetence that occurs all around saddens me. This needs to change.
Are there plans for the block function to be modified to prevent one blocked from even seeing the other person's page, comments, etc., on the site?
I think that could prevent a lot of problems, maybe; though I guess it's kind of extreme.
I agree with you Dragoneer about seeing what could have been done better on both sides and what was attempted. That is very mature and reasonable no doubt.
But honestly, how can you say you and the other admins were needing/looking for evidence of this fredriksam's harassment against Taran and not finding it enough to ban the stalker when in fact you were actually covering it all up by deleting the their nasty posts and comments on Taran's journal that would incriminate and prove fredriksam to be the very stalker psycho Taran claimed them to be? That seems to me a step in the wrong direction which would get you no where in the investigation and would simply muddle things and waste time.
If you read first hand the harassing sick comments from fredriksam enough to delete them all then why go through all the trouble to cover them up or ignore them and let this person continue to be offensive and harmful to people on FA? Why not use those very comments as proof to insta-ban the guy?
I am sure you would have ways to check the I.P. addresses of the computer the comments were coming from and of Taran's computer and know for sure whether or not it was Taran posting the comments in attempt to frame fredriksam as a stalker. I know you guys have ways of finding this stuff out so why cover it up and not use it to ban this sicko?
I think Taran had ample evidence that this guy was indeed a sick perverted stalker but it feels like all the evidence was swept under the rug instead of directly addressed and assessed. :/
It all seems to have ended tits up on both sides. I feel bad for both you, your admins, Taran, Qarrezel, and all the people who are leaving FA over this.
Firstly over a week is not a good enough response to stalking issues, those should go to the front of the queue. Stalking is criminal behaviour, it's not just writing a nasty comment.
Secondly, to be blunt the only time you actually do anything most of the time it seems is when people kick off and then you're all damage control in public when what you should have done is to ACT when it came to your attention.
Perhaps if you ACTED instead of dragging your feet and then having to do damage control, I wouldn't still be waiting over five months later because you still have not tackled a harassment problem I'm having.
Perhaps if you acted two users with a history of harassment wouldn't be still on the site, despite one deliberately evading a block.
Some of us are tired Dragoneer, tired of asking you to do the task you took on with the site. Tired of you being all "upstanding" in the public eye while behind the screens you fail at some of the most basic things a web site owner should legally do. You shouldn't have to be talked into acting, you shouldn't have to be motivated by public shame. If you care about fA, you should be an active force on the site, and you're not an active force, you're passive.
Also just out right saying the person didn't block the person, unless you have something showing they at least accessed FA before you did the check on their account, I smell the usual sentence chopping that the media has unfortunately mastered. While yes, stating they didn't do a block yet is understandable if they were online but I digress.
Either way, I see the timing as just more evidence of 'cause and effect' and less 'doing before effect' like support is supposed to be. The only time I see where an action is being done before something critical happens is the hardware donation drive.