To recap, some more
16 years ago
Part one. Man, this is all starting to sound familiar.
So, first we had someone possibly (I don't know, I didn't watch it) make the fandom sound sleazy on a talk show. Dragoneer banned this person for the "good of the fandom", then backpedaled hastily and apologized. That "good of the fandom" quote from the ban message seems to conflict with Dragoneer's statement that "Chewfox was banned (temporarily) to prevent drama against her and for site stability". Hm.
Then, recently, someone else was banned for "pedo"-related charges that happened over eight years ago. Evidence would seem to indicate that this person was convicted, has paid his debt to society, and is now clean in the eyes of the law, save for whatever sex offender shenanigans we have. Not so in the eyes of furry art sites, I guess, although I have seen zero administrative comment on this one whatsoever.
(If I may go out on a limb: I would be extremely surprised if the teenager involved in the above case weren't a dumb furry kid who wanted some e-dick, rather than some poor soul sucked into a tangled web of lies and whatever. I certainly remember being fourteen and on the Internet. Not that this makes it okay or teenagers less dumb, but I don't like that this is equated with grabbing an eight-year-old off the street.)
"Generally, what happens off site is not my concern. I've seen a LOT of things, and look the other way."
What are the rules? Why is the furry community slowly being turned into a giant witchhunt?
Still no accountability.
Still no transparency.
Still wasting admin time punishing people for posting shouts on banned accounts, even though it would take less than ten minutes to make this programmatically impossible...
Addendum: Also, Internet detectives on lulz reveal that Dragoneer has no qualms about reading your notes. He read TORA's as part of his decision to ban, it seems.
Let's repeat that: Dragoneer reads your notes.
So, first we had someone possibly (I don't know, I didn't watch it) make the fandom sound sleazy on a talk show. Dragoneer banned this person for the "good of the fandom", then backpedaled hastily and apologized. That "good of the fandom" quote from the ban message seems to conflict with Dragoneer's statement that "Chewfox was banned (temporarily) to prevent drama against her and for site stability". Hm.
Then, recently, someone else was banned for "pedo"-related charges that happened over eight years ago. Evidence would seem to indicate that this person was convicted, has paid his debt to society, and is now clean in the eyes of the law, save for whatever sex offender shenanigans we have. Not so in the eyes of furry art sites, I guess, although I have seen zero administrative comment on this one whatsoever.
(If I may go out on a limb: I would be extremely surprised if the teenager involved in the above case weren't a dumb furry kid who wanted some e-dick, rather than some poor soul sucked into a tangled web of lies and whatever. I certainly remember being fourteen and on the Internet. Not that this makes it okay or teenagers less dumb, but I don't like that this is equated with grabbing an eight-year-old off the street.)
"Generally, what happens off site is not my concern. I've seen a LOT of things, and look the other way."
What are the rules? Why is the furry community slowly being turned into a giant witchhunt?
Still no accountability.
Still no transparency.
Still wasting admin time punishing people for posting shouts on banned accounts, even though it would take less than ten minutes to make this programmatically impossible...
Addendum: Also, Internet detectives on lulz reveal that Dragoneer has no qualms about reading your notes. He read TORA's as part of his decision to ban, it seems.
Let's repeat that: Dragoneer reads your notes.
FA+

WHY YOU GOTTA HATE MY KIND
CAN WE JUST RAP IN PEACE
I am divorcing you
let's split up the fine china, I get the blue teacups though
Place gets cool and cooler every fucken day
What I'm also curious about though is what will happen with Tora at cons. He's been staff at AC for years now, and probably other cons. Will these cons want to keep someone on staff who's admitted to wanting to have sex with 14 year olds? Will Tora be able to wear his suit anymore without being ridiculed by other furries?
And yeah, FA administration has been sucking a lot more this year. I'm pretty sure even [b]I[/b/] could administrate this place better. :|
Is the issue that we think he's going to use FA to lure in children? Are we banning based on thoughtcrime, then, since there's no evidence he has ever done this?
We've both known plenty of teenage furries eager to fuck anything and plenty of adult furries happy to oblige. I can hardly get my panties in a twist over this, especially if by his own admission he's given up. And for the same reason, I doubt anyone will bat more of an eye at TORA than they already did.
I personally do believe that Dragoneer banned Tora for a thought-crime, though I imagine he also felt pressure to do so. It really is nothing but a witch hunt, like FA is suddenly going to suddenly have a better image once we get rid of all those damn pedos and zoophiles. Now that users are seeing that people actually WILL be banned for such things, there seems to be some great movement to purge FA of such individuals. From what I've seen, this seems to mostly be a movement of "trolls" though who are just looking for excuses to rid FA of people that they just don't like for shits and giggles.
I have no real qualm with what Tora said recently or even what he did 8 years ago. I know he's not out trying to lure kids into having sex with him. Simply looking at his recent chat log with that guy shows that it was he who was lured, not the other way around. Is it really such a terrible crime if it's the MINOR who is soliciting the ADULT for sex? It's not like kids suddenly grow the fuck up as soon as they reach the age of consent. I was 14 once too, and I can assure you that I was well aware of what sex was at the time and that I wanted it bad. I hardly doubt I'm in the minority on that.
Honestly the ban is bullshit and if Dragoneer put some real thought into it I think he'd realize that. Unfortunately I think he's too caught up in trying to keep FA's image clean, a futile task to say the least. Dragoneer needs to stop letting the "majority" rule and run this site like it's his again.
I don't know if that's inherently an awful thing. I look at red hammer week, and it seems entertaining and mostly harmless. Not sure where the line is between that sort of shenanigan and "you're banned if you push this button that we could easily remove".