T w e n t y S i d e d
Hey there, long time no see. By the time this goes up a few of you may have already noticed some adjustments regarding the commenting requirements, as well as the fact that I’m giving you this update instead of Bay.
Over the past few months we’ve had a very big issue with a few commenters using a VPN to circumvent IP bans, which is irritating on a good day, but a very big problem when the contents of their comments are, as listed from least to most alarming; personal insults, upsetting and often graphic statements on their thoughts via the direction my sibling has taken the site including some amount of unpleasant imagery, general threats on their health and safety, and death threats.
My sibling has been doing an excellent job moderating their comments, but it’s been a very big problem, and has started to take a very real toll on them. So for their health and safety we’re making some more changes to the way the site is moderated.
As of yesterday evening all commenters need to have a registered account to leave a comment. Which won’t deter every sock puppet but will help with the VPN issue. And I will be moderating all of my siblings’ comments for them as well as assisting with overall site moderation. I want to apologize for any inconvenience this might cause. But being constantly threatened and/or harassed is pretty stressful. And as they are already dealing with a myriad of physical and mental health issues, Bay starts the day half-empty most of the time.
If this continues we are considering requiring moderation approval per comment to weed the worst easier, but we’d rather not discourage discussion by implementing a mandatory waiting period, as discussion is a part of the site’s appeal. But my family’s safety is my top priority, and if it becomes necessary we will be using it as a buffer.
Thank you for your patience while we deal with these problems, to the folks who aren’t sending death threats and implying we’re desecrating a corpse. I want to thank you for your support. Your kindness has meant a lot to us, especially them. And we’re continuing to make plans to upkeep and preserve the site. While keeping it fun and safe for everyone involved, including you. You all keep this up and running just by keeping up the conversation. And we thank you for that.
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DEATH THREATS?!?!
I know, right?! I thought what I’ve seen slip to the blog was the worst of it and it was awful, spiteful and hurtful but apparently there was worse that got filtered out.
Unfortunately. So far they’ve all been behind a VPN so there’s not much we can do but ban the IP, dad didn’t advertise where he lives so so far it’s definitely empty threats. But it’s definitely enough to be upsetting.
Insane, I had no idea this sort of thing happened here (those sort of comments) – testament to the moderation I guess, but must be terrible to have to deal with.
It’s almost funny that someone could twist their mind into ‘defending’ an author by threatening that person’s children. But mostly it’s stupid and horrifying. Obviously Shamus would hate people doing this, what is happening in their fool heads?
Some people aren’t qualified to sit quietly indoors without adult supervision. Sorry they’re part of your lives.
“Defending” Shamus is also stupid. Unless they decide to start randomly deleting things (this has not been ever mentioned as an idea, ever), Shamus’s work is safe and doesn’t need defending.
A long time ago, I posted something to my blog (anyone old enough to remember livejournal, it was on that), which was a daft top ten list vaguely taking the mick out of Americans (“how to spot an American on the internet” was the title, as I recall).
It went semi-viral, and I got a lot of abusive comments. I also started getting a lot of abusive IMs (from people who figured out my messenger usernames). A couple of people identified roughly where I lived, and started threatening me more specifically.
I then discovered that a forum had been created to discuss hating me, specifically. With 8000 members.
I joined it (obviously), and saw that – amongst the various hate threads – there was a pinned schedule for sending abusive comments, to ensure that I got a steady stream of general vile abuse, threats of violence etc. etc.
Nothing came of any of it, but it was a little unnerving for a while.
TL;DR – the internet is a horrible place, and any time a light is shone upon the darkness people get surprised & they really shouldn’t.
Hopefully this particular episode doesn’t continue for very long. The vast, vast majority of it is sound and fury – I know it’s no less unpleasant to experience for all of that, but generally any nonsense like this is transitory.
A SCHEDULE!? That’s as horrible as it is darkly hilarious. I mean, I can understand why people post vile comments on their own accord on the internet, anonymity and all that. But when you’re looking at a post saying “9:00: bullying, 9:30: death threats”, you’d think such trolls might have a molecule of self-reflection.
I’m reminded of [a female media critic who became so ‘controversial’ that Shamus banned her name from being mentioned here because trolls would turn up] and [an almost completely unknown female game developer who had a similar experience] – both relative nobodies who will forever be more famous for the grossly disproportionate harrassment they recieved, than anything else they’ll ever do.
I’m stuck between sad acceptance, amazement and bafflement at how people can put such effort and time into something so pointless. Co-ordinating multiple people’s efforts to send hate mail and death threats is a despicable thing to do, but you’d at least think that they’d target a politician, or a news presenter, or someone famous?
How…sad do you have to be to put that much effort into attacking some guy’s blog?
See also kiwifarms (good riddance) and their tragically successful efforts to drive early internet personalities from this world. Gang culture loves adopting new social spaces where they can operate in obscurity far from the rules of civilization.
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I’d be fascinated to know how you spot an American on the internet. How the rest of the world views us, and how that conflicts with how we see ourselves, is morbidly fascinating to me.