- Joined
- Apr 2, 2001
- Messages
- 14,285
- Points
- 48
Identity on the internet.
Every few months this subject comes up. Time for a refresher on how we deal with it here.
Our policy on member pic images is based around a simple rule: People lie.
Given this 'rule', the way we deal with member images here is simple.
If you have an account with us and send us an image we post it. We are not the identity police. What you send goes up.
Given that people here are adults we feel that people will act with some self-responsibility when veiwing images, and believe in them only so far as one should when presented with unverifyable information. Keeping the idea in the back of their minds that what they see may well not be real. It's the web. Idenity here is slipery. Most people have come to accept that and make choices very well with that in mind.
But what if an image is stolen?
Simple. If you see a stolen image then tell us that it is, and provide us with a way to verify the theft.
In the case of the image that started this thread, that was exactly what happened. A user pointed out that he felt the image was stolen and pointed us to where the owner of it might be found. We contacted the young woman and she was able to quickly verify the image was her, and was thus stolen. We removed it.
But that ability to verify is fairly important. As we have had people report to us that images are stolen when in fact they were not. One person, now departed from this forum, seemed to have axes to grind with several people, and tried to cast doubt on them in every way they could. That I had met some of the people they accused, and knew others who had personally met some of the others, put paid thie their lies with ease. It was simple to verify that something stinky was afoot.
But this was a cautionary lesson.
People on both sides of this image theft game will and can lie to us for multitudes of reasons that are never easy to suss out.
So we require a way to verify theft. And in the eight cases that lay outside the ones I just discussed above, where images have been called into doubt, Seven of the Eight accusers provided solid ways for us to verify the image theft and quickly deal with it. Sadly no proof, even after several requests so we could follow it up, was presented in the last case, so no action was taken.
It's the web folks. A lot of smoke an mirrors here.
Chasing proof of anything is time consuming and painful. Trust me, I have to do it often enough.
This 'is the image real' argument is the same one as the 'gender' issue that pops up every few weeks in chat, or after a new woman posts a thread. You know the one, "Are they really a woman? You see posts in reply that are variations on, "Not real!" and such.
You know how it goes, a woman posts and every one jumps on her as being fake. And more often then not 'she' is. But on occasion she is not. We've had three real women driven off site by this sort of witch hunting. Yup you folks caught a lot of fakes, but in your net you got a few real women also, and cost the community their participation. You can decide if it was worth it.
And here is a question.
We have several 'male' forum members who are female, including one very prominant one. Wow! Where are the witch hunts to turn up these fake guys..... Gee, if finding the fake women is so important, why not these fake men?
Could it be that there is no hunt, because there is no risk with fake men that some males might have fanatasies about them? And since there is no risk of this, there is no chance that they might have a 'bad' experience as they would fantasising about with the fake 'women', only to discover they were in fact jerking off to a female image shell with a male animus inside? Nah, that can't be it, could it? Far to cynical to think that. It must just be that the hunters have not had time to look at the male members yet.
But I digress.
My point:
Disputing an image is simple, it's the same rule we require for discussion in any thread. Back up your claim with verifiable support.
Myriads
Every few months this subject comes up. Time for a refresher on how we deal with it here.
Our policy on member pic images is based around a simple rule: People lie.
Given this 'rule', the way we deal with member images here is simple.
If you have an account with us and send us an image we post it. We are not the identity police. What you send goes up.
Given that people here are adults we feel that people will act with some self-responsibility when veiwing images, and believe in them only so far as one should when presented with unverifyable information. Keeping the idea in the back of their minds that what they see may well not be real. It's the web. Idenity here is slipery. Most people have come to accept that and make choices very well with that in mind.
But what if an image is stolen?
Simple. If you see a stolen image then tell us that it is, and provide us with a way to verify the theft.
In the case of the image that started this thread, that was exactly what happened. A user pointed out that he felt the image was stolen and pointed us to where the owner of it might be found. We contacted the young woman and she was able to quickly verify the image was her, and was thus stolen. We removed it.
But that ability to verify is fairly important. As we have had people report to us that images are stolen when in fact they were not. One person, now departed from this forum, seemed to have axes to grind with several people, and tried to cast doubt on them in every way they could. That I had met some of the people they accused, and knew others who had personally met some of the others, put paid thie their lies with ease. It was simple to verify that something stinky was afoot.
But this was a cautionary lesson.
People on both sides of this image theft game will and can lie to us for multitudes of reasons that are never easy to suss out.
So we require a way to verify theft. And in the eight cases that lay outside the ones I just discussed above, where images have been called into doubt, Seven of the Eight accusers provided solid ways for us to verify the image theft and quickly deal with it. Sadly no proof, even after several requests so we could follow it up, was presented in the last case, so no action was taken.
It's the web folks. A lot of smoke an mirrors here.
Chasing proof of anything is time consuming and painful. Trust me, I have to do it often enough.
This 'is the image real' argument is the same one as the 'gender' issue that pops up every few weeks in chat, or after a new woman posts a thread. You know the one, "Are they really a woman? You see posts in reply that are variations on, "Not real!" and such.
You know how it goes, a woman posts and every one jumps on her as being fake. And more often then not 'she' is. But on occasion she is not. We've had three real women driven off site by this sort of witch hunting. Yup you folks caught a lot of fakes, but in your net you got a few real women also, and cost the community their participation. You can decide if it was worth it.
And here is a question.
We have several 'male' forum members who are female, including one very prominant one. Wow! Where are the witch hunts to turn up these fake guys..... Gee, if finding the fake women is so important, why not these fake men?
Could it be that there is no hunt, because there is no risk with fake men that some males might have fanatasies about them? And since there is no risk of this, there is no chance that they might have a 'bad' experience as they would fantasising about with the fake 'women', only to discover they were in fact jerking off to a female image shell with a male animus inside? Nah, that can't be it, could it? Far to cynical to think that. It must just be that the hunters have not had time to look at the male members yet.
But I digress.
My point:
Disputing an image is simple, it's the same rule we require for discussion in any thread. Back up your claim with verifiable support.
Myriads
(Picks up her cupid's arrows and runs off into the sunset...)
