Congratulator: Troll?

[RogueMudblood]

This is the user. Here's the problem:

I haven't gotten around to navigating his whole site yet, but, he's taken a lot of fics from AFF and broken them apart and flamed them on his website. Now, I may not agree with the subject matter in the fics, but he's looking for them to tear them apart. I found his review here on cleanup (and posted a note on review forum), but I don't know if you have a way to track reviews?

He trolled this on his site here

Here he includes direct links to stories on AFF that an author has written to respond to his trollishness.

And here's where he shows his stupidity: "think we should assume that by "Psyche" cybersexbomber means "Psylocke"? I would think so, although I very much like the idea of him only hearing about the X-Men secondhand and getting confused by Cyclops, Psylocke, and Cyclops' nickname Cyke" - there was an X-Men character named Psyche. Here's another link on her (in case you don't like wikipedia).

There are lots more examples - he does one a week. That's 52 authors a year who get flamed by this guy for no reason other than putting the correct warnings on their stories and then people reading it anway and not liking it. Can you make him go away? Can you do anything about his site? Not a writer, but I don't think the writers deserve this type of reaction just because someone doesn't like their work. If I don't like it, I don't read it.

[JoeHundredaire]

Err, I'm no legal scholar here, but wouldn't attempting to do anything legally to him epic fail on account of fanfiction being essentially illegal in the first place? I doubt a judge would be particularly sympathetic to the cause.

[DemonGoddess]

I can certainly delete him from here, and there are other options about what he/she is doing off site that I can exercise as well. The offsite options may not work, however.

[RogueMudblood]

Err, I'm no legal scholar here, but wouldn't attempting to do anything legally to him epic fail on account of fanfiction being essentially illegal in the first place? I doubt a judge would be particularly sympathetic to the cause.

Not really asking for a judge to get involved. Would like to point out a couple of things though:

1) He's ripping info from another site without permission. (Yeah, it's fanfic, this brings me to point 2)

2) None of the stuff he's ripped is disclaimed anywhere - by ripping what pieces he does (and he chops them up to make his trollish posts) he omits the disclaimers.

3) He doesn't have an age restriction anywhere on his site that I saw. I didn't have to bypass anything to view erotic material. (Most places you have to show ID just to purchase a Harlequin romance novel. Most of the stuff I've read on AFF isn't that tame. And none of the stuff he's objecting to is.)

I say "he" always because in one of the posts I reference above he makes very graphically lewd comments about his "dick" and says at points "question to the ladies" - so he's admitting his gender.

But let's get back to the basic point - his entire site is there only to create strife and discord. He has navigated AFF with the specific intent of finding and flaming authors whose material he doesn't like based on the warnings they put on it. He wants to express his opinion, fine. But he's come to a site where he knows he will find material he objects to solely for the purpose of objecting to it. I'm not okay with that. And I'm really not okay with him creating an account, agreeing to the TOS here that says he won't troll, and doing it anyway just because he feels like he "should" because he thinks he has some moral high ground.

[JayDee]

I'm pretty certain he can argue, amongst other things, 'Fair use'.

There are assloads of snark sites out there, some direct link, some don't. Livejournal is heaving with them! Two more with a deal of AFF stories quoted etc are www.whygodwhy.org and www.toplessrobot.com (the latter being a nerd blog with a weekly fanfiction review - they did mine eg here

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2008/04/fan_fi..._can_take_t.php and another story another time.

[Edit - I actually love the hell outa topless robot. They have great video and picture links. As far as the reviews go, they're actually considerably less harsh than the section on WGW, where the users have generally called for me to be strung up and mutilated. When I saw the first screencap of the new Walking Dead TV series on Topless Robot I was squeeing like a schoolgirl and looking for something to glomp.]

If he's/TR's users are acting like a troll on the site than that's something you're in a good position to deal with, but trying to get alll the off site quoters/snarkers/MSTers and so on moved could be problematic. When It happened to me here and on WGW and other places I tend to laugh

[edit 2 - Another issue with going after offsite things like this, well, every time some legal representative has tried it with somethingawful.com or worse 4chan they've ended up with their letters/emails posted up and gained a whole lot more un-wanted attention from trolls, while finding that the mocking is protected by the whole fair use thing as well as various other apparant legal nicities.

I do sympathise with the authors who don't care to see their works ripped apart like that on topless robot or the many other places doing much the same, but honestly, as mean as its ever got I've never seen anything quite as bad as the mainstream critics gave the movie Gigli.

Didn't realise the topless robot folks had started flaming on this site though, back when they did my stories I only knew because I already followed the blog. I have a minor Star Wars character as an avater so I qualify as a nerd anyhow!]

[JoeHundredaire]

1) He's ripping info from another site without permission. (Yeah, it's fanfic, this brings me to point 2)

Protected under parody use; precedent set in multiple court cases including (I believe) all the way to the Supreme Court.

2) None of the stuff he's ripped is disclaimed anywhere - by ripping what pieces he does (and he chops them up to make his trollish posts) he omits the disclaimers.

So? If anything happened to him from the original material makers, he could just shrug and point back AFF's way and go "I got it there, they violated your copyright, go sue them." If you think a quick "hey it's not mine but I'm going to use it anyways" would insulate an author from being sued for copyright violation, you're sadly mistaken.

3) He doesn't have an age restriction anywhere on his site that I saw. I didn't have to bypass anything to view erotic material. (Most places you have to show ID just to purchase a Harlequin romance novel. Most of the stuff I've read on AFF isn't that tame. And none of the stuff he's objecting to is.)

And? Google the porn star of your choice and you'll pull up links to galleries of their movies, none of which require you to validate before seeing 15-20 pictures or 4-5 movie clips of varying levels of explicitness.

But let's get back to the basic point - his entire site is there only to create strife and discord. He has navigated AFF with the specific intent of finding and flaming authors whose material he doesn't like based on the warnings they put on it. He wants to express his opinion, fine. But he's come to a site where he knows he will find material he objects to solely for the purpose of objecting to it. I'm not okay with that. And I'm really not okay with him creating an account, agreeing to the TOS here that says he won't troll, and doing it anyway just because he feels like he "should" because he thinks he has some moral high ground.

Yes, well, the top post as of when I visited was a story about Sonic anally violating a crying Tails. Perhaps if people feel having their material brought into the light of day and dissected is so horrible, it's a sign that they need to step back and examine what they're writing? Edited July 10, 2010 by JoeHundredaire

[Danyealle]

Joe, go read the rules of the site once more. There is a very specific one about NOT using without authors permission and not copying the work. Those both give us leverage in places like this.

[JoeHundredaire]

Yes? And? If you delete him, then what? He doesn't need to review or anything. He just needs to visit the site to find a new story to flame once a week. So what's to stop him to continue visiting unlogged in to harvest material? Rules are only as good as your methods of enforcing him and in this case, the only punishment the mods could hand out to prevent him from accessing the content on this site would be a wide-spectrum IP ban that could potentially knock out the access of any number of legitimate users.

And how does that stop him from continuing to maintain his site when I'm fairly certain both fair use (hell, any argument that he doesn't have the right to fair use would be an argument that this site doesn't have the right to exist because fair use is the primary argument people use when the legality of fanfic is debated) and parody legal precedent are on his side?

Edited July 11, 2010 by JoeHundredaire

[Danyealle]

First, we can and HAVE banned by IP. We can also contact the site he posted on to get the stuff removed since it is obtained by a violation of the rules he ripped them from. If they are unreceptive, we go above them to the server and hosting site. They tend to be receptive to such complaints.

While you are reading the rules, i suggest you also brush up on a few about behavior Joe, because you are starting to tread in dangerous areas and are looking at getting in trouble yourself with the snark and attitude.

[JoeHundredaire]

Over at Twisting the Hellmouth, we have a statistics page that maps out a variety of interesting information about each of an author's stories. One of them is the IP a chapter was last interacted with (posted or edited) from. Looking at the story I'm currently working with, I have four separate IP addresses and there's variation in both the third and fourth segments of it. Looking across TtH with a quick IP search (handy mod feature Jay added for weeding out dupe accounts), I'm pulling up over a hundred registered accounts who share 69.183.x.x IP addresses alone (I look at my stories and see 69.185, 69.188, and 70.x.x.x IP addresses). To say nothing of unregistered readers. And my IP rotates at will. Hence my question: would the moderators really be willing to knock out an unknown portion of viewership and legitimate users just to keep this one guy from visiting?

Edited July 11, 2010 by JoeHundredaire

[DemonGoddess]

In point of fact, the only person who actually places IP blocks is me. It is done very sparingly, and AFTER a lot of looking to make sure that it's not dynamic. Of course, there are other avenues I look at when looking to do such a thing as well, which the IP number itself tells me, and I use that information accordingly. Having connected for YEARS for gaming direct by IP and having to know that for hosting the battle sims, there are certain things I look for that others may not.

As to it being fair use, sure, parody is fair use. However, using a site's content WITHOUT permission is not fair use, particularly where a site's rules clearly state that one may not do so. That is in direct violation of the user agreement this person agrees to WHETHER OR NOT he or she reads it when signing up to use the site. In that respect, yes, I can and WILL delete in that for instance. It wouldn't be the first time.

Generally speaking though, a request to remove the content which has been taken without permission is always the first step, and certainly what I'll be doing next with this person. For the most part, people are reasonable and do remove things when APPROACHED reasonably.

There is absolutely no need to turn this into a legal debate. So, let me do MY job to do what I can for the member base affected in this for instance. Realistically, there really isn't much I can do about offsite activity, EXCEPT to ask for the removal of the copied content. As to use of this site, however, there is always something I can and will do. This sort of thing means deletion for the user who's doing it.

[Rain7777]

the latter being a nerd blog with a weekly fanfiction review - they did mine eg here

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2008/04/fan_fi..._can_take_t.php and another story another time.

So he's done TWO of your fics? Wow. I must admit some of his stuff was funny, he has an s amusing sense of dry wit BUT I can't be cool with what he's doing. I'd be torn up if I saw my fic on there after two years of working on it. Saying that though is it not his right as a citizen to have freedom of speech. I'm not condoning the fact that he's completely shredding everyone's work to pieces, but, with it being fanfiction its not like we can claim it's OUR work really? And also he has a right to say if he does or does not like something... Just think that its gonna be hard for anyone to do anything about it. If the mods can cut his account on here then great but he can still access the site and if anything happens the whole place will be teaming with Trolls.

Unfortunate though it may be I think anyone who has that happen will have to rise above it and know that everyone here at AFF.net values their work and admires them for having the bravery to put it out there. **Glum smile**

[JayDee]

So he's done TWO of your fics? Wow.

Yep - couldn't find the link before for some reason, but his other one of mine was here:

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2008/10/fan_fi...nd_the_puss.php

...it was an interesting surprise to come back too after a couple weeks away! I have had my scrawlings violated twice by a droid with its baps out.

On the plus side, I got one of the 20 honorable mentions in the site's Robot Haiku contest!

[Rain7777]

Yep - couldn't find the link before for some reason, but his other one of mine was here:

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2008/10/fan_fi...nd_the_puss.php

...it was an interesting surprise to come back too after a couple weeks away! I have had my scrawlings violated twice by a droid with its baps out.

On the plus side, I got one of the 20 honorable mentions in the site's Robot Haiku contest!

Wow. I'm not sure what to say. It's an awkward thing. I dunno whether to congratulate you or not. : S Is getting an honorable mention a good thing? I bet reading your fic on there wasn't... (But you said you read that site before)... Or was it?

I hope it didn't knock your confidence and the fact that you're still on here gives me the hope that you're still writing. I honestly hope so

[JayDee]

No, it's not a good thing - but as I said above when it happened there or other snark sites I just laughed it off. I recognise I am one of the worst non-intentional-troll-bad writers on this archive (in terms of themes, quality and sheer repetitive dullness) so it would be entirely churlish of me to be annoyed by negative feedback. about half to three quarters of all my reviews have been pure flames of the 'Die In A Fire' variety, and I had previously left them there to show no hard feelings, but now that flames are being deleted as part of the review boards clean up I keep meaning to go back and do my bit by deleting them all, and save the clean up crew a few seconds work!

[RogueMudblood]

...now that flames are being deleted as part of the review boards clean up I keep meaning to go back and do my bit by deleting them all, and save the clean up crew a few seconds work!

You'd probably save DG at least 3 hours worth of work, as she's the one that does the deleting, so I'm sure she'd be most appreciative. I'll admit that some people who flame make me laugh. ("Come back when you descover some tallent" was one of my favorites that I've had to put up for deletion.) Any bit the authors can do to moderate their own stories to alleviate the overworked archive/forum moderators I'm quite certain would be appreciated.

[Rain7777]

No, it's not a good thing - but as I said above when it happened there or other snark sites I just laughed it off. I recognise I am one of the worst non-intentional-troll-bad writers on this archive (in terms of themes, quality and sheer repetitive dullness) so it would be entirely churlish of me to be annoyed by negative feedback. about half to three quarters of all my reviews have been pure flames of the 'Die In A Fire' variety, and I had previously left them there to show no hard feelings, but now that flames are being deleted as part of the review boards clean up I keep meaning to go back and do my bit by deleting them all, and save the clean up crew a few seconds work!

I'm happy to see that you're taking it in a good light tho and that it hasn't knocked your confidence and taken you off the site

[JayDee]

Wow - didn't realise it could save that much time. Just been through and deleted all of the flames - there's a few negative reviews left, but they're more than just "gaaah!" "ugh" and the aforementioned "die in a fire"s so that's okays. I know the difference between the acceptable negative review and TOS abusing flame. Hardly any reviews left!

[DemonGoddess]

You'd be surprised at how much time self maintenance saves me. I go in to the database directly to do all this stuff. Believe me, when I see it, I am very, very appreciative.

[JoeHundredaire]

It could be worse. You could be Jessi Slaughter.

[Rain7777]

It could be worse. You could be Jessi Slaughter.

Please excuse my naiveté, but who's Jessi Slaughter?

[RogueMudblood]

Please excuse my naiveté, but who's Jessi Slaughter?

http://www.google.com/search?q=Jessi+Slaug...ved=0CB4QsQQwAA

http://hotnationalnews.blogspot.com/2010/0...erligirl13.html

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/89991/prof-4c...ian-isp-filter/

It all started with a US girl by the name of Jessi Slaughter. According to US reports, she apparently posted videos on YouTube of herself saying she was better than others. The videos spread to other sites including 4Chan where a number of internet trolls decided to cyber bully her. After personally identifiable information of Slaughter was posted, she started receiving prank phone calls among other things. Her father got involved with a video response attacking those who were responsible of the trolling which only made matters worse. Ultimately, she wound up in a police safe house and an investigation is under way. For many, this was simply an object lesson that says that parents need to keep an eye on their children's activity online.

[JoeHundredaire]

Yeah, who'd have thought that 4chan would decide to have some fun at the expense of an 11-y/o girl who posted self-nudes online, threatened to 'pop a Glock' in peoples' mouths and 'make a brain slushy' and told people to 'suck her non-existent dick and get AIDS'?

Then her father made it worse.

And her mother still has no idea what's going on. Although police have confirmed she's lied to interviewers insofar as there have been no death threats or anything.