holy shit that's not right

Hi onikumomaru,

It discourages me that we could not discuss this before any grandstanding. I've responded to your note within 10 minutes and would like to find a way to resolve this. Please reach out to me for more information and to clear up some issues. I want to resolve this in the best way possible that will leave us both happy.

Thank you.

For reference, I like to commission a lot of art too. I commissioned the link you posted. It cost me a lot of money and even a little sanity. If I found someone was using my character with notification and getting art of it? I'd be furious too.
It seems there was some miscommunication down the line -- something I'd entirely blame on myself. I have deep, deep respect for copyright and IP licencing in the furry community.

I've responded to your note..I want to make this right, I mean it.

So delete the picture then?

Hi ZirArt,

Oni and I discussed the matter and came to a resolution! No one likes extremes!

One of the things I blame a lot is the recent taking down of the "verified" tab on profiles for people with legit art.

All they do now is put an inline up saying "Art owner" now and any body could do that, no verification needed.

Kind of a thorn in my side too seeing I've caught a few with my art as well. : \

Hi Ben. We still do and will always welcome Art takedowns! If your work is being misused on F-List, please reach out to us and file a ticket. We will take the time to make it right. The verification process was removed thanks to its misuse. Anyone and everyone who had ever commissioned art wanted verification. The purpose of verification was for users to make takedowns easier. When 99% of people verifying never once wanted to or did file a takedown, we had a problem.

We stand by artists rights and will always work with an artist or character to make it right.

Well the reason people weren't filing tickets for take downs of art is because like me, instead of going to mods right off, I'd go to the person first and ask them kindly to take it down. The verification on profiles acted like a sort of warning one could say, like "Oh, this is the actual owner of art, better do as he say" instead of not taking them seriously and for lack of a better term telling them to fuck off.

Thanks to owner of art indications on profiles, it's deterred those for trying to steal characters and more or less cut ya'lls work probably ten fold thanks to people willing to talk face to face with said person using their art and having it took down post haste. In other words it help you all out more then you think, or in my opinion it did.

Plus, if someone on staff is using someone else's art and also having their character made as not only a rip off, but blatant copy of another's character, how are we suppose to trust those empowered to moderate the site? Not saying I hate the site, I love it actually. Aside from unwanted people pestering me, I do enjoy chatting and a bit of RP in my spare time. But if the staff won't hold up their codes and rules for those in power, how are we suppose to expect them to do the same for the average Joe on there. It's concerning, it really is.

I've spoken with a past mod from the site which told me of someone, another mod, stealing the template for one of their characters to make their own. It just had like...a couple things different but was a spot on match otherwise. And when it was brought up they were more or less ostracized. Wasn't long after they weren't a mod anymore.

All I'm saying is if average users have to adhere to policy, then so should mods. I can feel for Oni because like him I have too invested much into not only art, but the fandom in a whole. Including cons, donations, and time volunteering for said events. So to see someone using another's image without not only permission, but also one could say disregard for that characters image, it's kind of upsetting.

Sorry for the rant, but I just feel as if things should be handled a bit differently. Hope they're no hard feelings but that's just the way I feel about things.

Ben,

In general, you shouldn't be approaching users! In fact, that is against our CoC - While it might seem like a nice first step, it's always going to be better if you get ahold of us first! Such misuse is one of the many reasons we have re-tooled the verification system. Mods are expected to follow rules as well. We hold ourselves and each other up to these rules quite strictly. The issue posted in this journal was primarily a communication breakdown which has already been fully rectified.

Please understand that you aren't alone in this. I personally as well as most of my co-staff members have done the same. Most of us are well above average in terms of time, money, and effort put into the furry community and we want nothing but the best for it.

In any case, it's not necessarily my position on the site to really get into a deep discussion on this. If you do have gripes, issues, or think we have a major malfuction, our inbox is always open. It would be silly for us to run a major site in the community and not make it the best it could be/run it into the ground.

Thanks

As for "cutting our work 10 fold" - That's very much not true. I wish it were!! - We've gone over a lot of stats before and after this change.

If we had to do 10x the work deal with takedowns than before. That's still a huge gain since the verification tickets themselves were 1,000x fold even that number. 10x more of "n" instead of 1000x of "m" is a pretty good trade off!

There is more than likely some way to work around it, such as saying it's fan art of the character, showing the variety of characters one could encounter on f-list rather than saying "These are the f-list staff's OC's". I can see where it's very easy for someone to interpet that is what the picture is saying, but without them explicitly stating "These are the staff of f-list and their OCs" well...yeah.

That aside, still kind of a dick thing to do, i'd imagine operators of f-list would actually have their own OC's, or if nothing else could have had one made up for the staff photo thing.

Wow. That's pretty terrible.

That shit ain't right

I look around on a daily basis for it. I spot a few but many more could just as wel sneak past due to the nature or common nature of my chars. Personally i wished flist had like a image match search like google.
Course assuming they dont use an imgur lib instead

Eh, this is the damn norm on the site and more to the point. . .I mean sure, it's a rare case to see this happen but. .just sad to see some of the modders having personas that are own by others being used.

Never in my years of being on this site - I never thought this will happen or even to know someone just went with it to the point to use one's persona and just use it without one's knowledge. . I will understand that if it was some random member of that site - that will be a simple problem but a mod? It's just baffling to me that this was not even questioned by other staff.