Hello everyone. The mod team has decided to inform you of an ongoing security issue we have been dealing with. We debated the pros and cons of making this information public, but ultimately decided the risk to our members would be reduced significantly enough to warrant disclosing. Know that we did not make this choice lightly. Former member @Charles_Foster has spent over a year embedding alternate accounts into our site, pretending to be multiple people for the purposes of bullying and harassing people. She did this with the aid of former mod ZombieMombie. We are not at liberty to discuss all the things she has done on and off site to members, but one thing to note is that we are not authorized to permanently suspend someone unless their behavior poses a direct danger to the safety of members. She has caused direct harm to multiple people in ways that impacted them in real life. We would like to take this moment to once again remind people that our rule against sharing offsite contact info with people is there for your own safety. There will always be those who view our site as an easy way to target lonely, vulnerable people. There will also always be those who join the site with good intentions, but have mental health struggles that manifest as aggression towards others.
Currently, the mod team has been working to update our security. In the meantime, if you are someone CharlesFoster has bullied in the past, you may have noticed an uptick in accounts that have been antagonistic towards you over the past year or so. Some of these accounts might look like new members. Some of them might look like legitimate, long time accounts. We are slowly weeding out these false accounts, but we could use your help. If you have been receiving a high number of antagonistic comments, private messages, or vague topics that seem to be about you over the past year, please flag them so the mods can look at them and check whether they are from a legitimate account or a false account.
We apologize for both the initial security breach, and our delay in effectively addressing the situation. Many of us had considered her a friend for a long time, and did not want to believe she would be capable of something like this. Our positive feelings towards her also led to us moderating her more gently than others. She was heavily accommodated to try and help her shift to better behavior, but she did not, and the delay in adequate response allowed her to harm members for longer than anyone else would have. We have been working to reform our approach to moderating since ZombieMombie left, and we have installed several safeguards to increase inter-mod accountability and keep moderation consistent across members. We will continue to work on this.
EDIT To clarify: The troll accounts are from unique accounts that look like they are their own individual members. They are not from accounts impersonating existing members.
That is why we decided to tell people as soon as we realized the scope of the situation. The moderator in question has left the forum. The mod team has constructed a standard code of conduct to follow. Some of these you have already seen implemented. We no longer give a public reason for suspension. We no longer allow public deliberation on policies, and instead handle them in private messages. We have upgraded our backend security to be able to spot trolls and duplicate accounts more quickly. We have involved the admin team to be more involved in moderator oversight.
I’m glad you guys are trying to improve the situation idk we’re all anonymous so nobody can really do anything terrible like dox someone I never give my name online
Let’s not turn this into a name calling situation. We understand people will have a lot of hurt feelings, and we respect that. But the purpose of the thread is to make people aware, and to answer any questions. Not to publicly bash people. They are both human beings, despite their actions, and human beings with severe mental illness at that. And yes, @Cheese they both were unmedicated at the time these events took place, as far as we are aware.
sure that more than me thinks this is a MAJOR breach of trust and is scary