Best I can figure at this point is that this is simply human nature.

I say that because I belong to several specialized interest groups, one of which is the reptile community and it is literally the exact same thing.

When I was pretty deep into dealing with horses, same thing.

Hell, even when I was playing MtG this kind of nonsense was rampant in certain circles.

I have always found it odd how when groups of people with shared interests become a sub-section community of society as a whole behavior that would generally be frowned upon or even be downright wrong in the general portions of society become acceptable and I do think a sort of "mob mentality" is a bit of a culprit behind it. We share the same common interests and develop a core around which we all gravitate and we want to remain in that pull so if someone comes along that could potential threaten it we'll jump on them like a pack of hyenas to a kill just to avoid the potential back lash of not joining in or even just out of irrational or overzealous thought processes.

I have been guilty of this, I think pretty much everyone has, though I work hard to avoid such things now. Speaking out against it is about as bad though, at least as far as the community whole is often concerned, so when truth becomes the new hate speech you start second guessing even your own morals and fail to interject.

We are a strange, silly, sad, confused species.

I'm pretty sure I've done the same thing, maybe it's just the age brings wisdom thing causing me to actually notice it for once. Probably even doing it right now, but at least I'm calling out the entire community and not a single person for the issue.

Even earlier when discussing this with someone else, they just force you to come up with names of people where stuff didn't work or where the situation was the same and things resulted differently. It makes it difficult because it's not a sane way to justify an argument, it just drags more names through the mud and then causes more conflict.

Yes, the thing is, people see this kind of rant and they cannot grasp the concept of "collective whole". While there is a minority of the population in a given community not partaking in such things, there is almost always going to be a majority that does, whether they ever admit to it or not. Again, it kind of goes back to the mob mentality thing.

This is not about names or individuals.

This is about patterns of behavior that are prevalent in these types of "close-knit" communities.

It gets worse in communities that suffer poor image problems with the general public, like furries and, even, like reptile people. Reptile keepers literally had to form a lobbyist group to defend them against government overreach because of the poor overall view that the general public has pertaining to large scaled animals. It makes many members of the community naturally more hostile and more on edge when it comes to accepting new members or tearing other members now. Do not ask me the logic behind it, I think the logic is loss in the sheer numbers of individuals involved.

When someone makes a mistake, even if it came from good intentions, there is often this need to jump on that person and further dramatize their mistake without giving them a reasonable chance to fix it. This often creates a defensive response and literally does nothing to defuse the situation. Instead of veterans coming in trying to be the voice of reason they are either silent or joining in on the fray, their "leadership" worsening the entire debacle until it is neither recognizable as the original problem or even salvageable.

That being said, no one should ever leave a community having not fulfilled their end to people, even if that results in a refund.

I do not know the situation, but there are many instances in my community where people have run off with money or not covered injured or dead animals due to being attacked immediately without being given time to defend themselves or properly correct the situation (just stating that based on your reply to the person below me).

At a certain point someone has to be the bigger person in the nonsense and sometimes that person is not even the one that started it, but the only way to ever try to break these kinds of cycles is for the bigger people to step up and try to mediate the situation. It is not necessarily fair that this job often falls on someone either not involved or the person who was attacked mercilessly in the beginning, but they are the ones that will ultimately come out looking better in the end for it.

i feel like i need more information. seens kinda one sided, i'm sure that you are 100% in the right with your rant but i feel like there's more to this then just a newb taking a risk

It's not so much about the artist in question, as the fact that instead of handling the situation like civilized adults, we grab pitchforks and torches, slander the person across as many possible mediums as we can get.

This was an FA thing, but I've seen posts about this on Twitter, Tumblr, /r/Furry and even Weaysl where the artist doesn't even have an account. We, furries, are overzealous crusaders. We're a community that exists primarily online where anonymity rules, but yet it's ridiculously easy for one person to start a fire that turns into a wildfire.

No matter what happens in the case of the artist, is it right for us to be chasing people out of the community? In this specific case, if the artist leaves the community with a bunch of owed money and art, after saying they were going to refund money, but was chased out by people who couldn't sit down and shut up for 10 seconds, is it even remotely fair to say they're a bad person?

I mean I guess I'm a bad person, because if I was getting harassed after trying to do something good, I'd be like "fuck these people, peace bitches" myself.

Some people are scummy. It works both ways. That's why I like to know what the artist did to get the people mad. People don't normally just get into a flurry unless there something to make them. Even if it's small.

Some people are scummy. It works both ways. That's why I like to know what the artist did to get the people mad. People don't normally just get into a flurry unless there something to make them. Even if it's small.