Members Involved in Scandals

[Jason]

On a certain thread, someone mentioned Onisisus who apparently was some sort of sexual predator. Anyway, he had a big YouTube following and when the things "came out", people left in droves. Anyway, if you got members who are scandalous, do you feel the people could bring down the forum? Would you remove them for that reason?

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Yes, as I vaguely remember @CedricV citing before if there was sufficient evidence they’d be promptly banned to protect the community

 

[Darth Cognus]

I don't generally believe in removing someone for off site crisis unless it poses a direct threat to the community. A nuanced example could be a member of staff who's gone off the deep end in the 'wider' community and so is no longer fit to represent the site, but shouldn't necessarily be removed as a user outright. The threat multiplies if the user decides to take that off site issue local. I get somewhat more conflicted if the entire issue is muddy but it's a forced point of contention anyway, where the member is not really doing anything wrong but off site drama attracts unwanted attention. In other words it is very case by case and removal on this basis shouldn't be done lightly.

 

[Jason]

The person's name was Onison. A lot of times the person loses little popularity because people like their stuff so much and/or the image is feeding into identity politics.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

I don't generally believe in removing someone for off site crisis unless it poses a direct threat to the community. A nuanced example could be a member of staff who's gone off the deep end in the 'wider' community and so is no longer fit to represent the site, but shouldn't necessarily be removed as a user outright. The threat multiplies if the user decides to take that off site issue local. I get somewhat more conflicted if the entire issue is muddy but it's a forced point of contention anyway, where the member is not really doing anything wrong but off site drama attracts unwanted attention. In other words it is very case by case and removal on this basis shouldn't be done lightly.

What do you mean by “gone off into the deep end”?

 

[Darth Cognus]

The person's name was Onison. A lot of times the person loses little popularity because people like their stuff so much and/or the image is feeding into identity politics.

Frankly Onison seems barely relevant to forum scandals, to my knowledge his controversy never extended to forum membership. It may have happened but an example would help. I know that he himself has a forum which represents a conflict of interest: to literally be a scandal but also owner of the forum. An interesting topic itself I suppose but I have no intention to register there and it seems locked out to unregistered users. I imagine their moderation demands are high to have an alleged predator as the face of their forum.

I just haven't seen this scenario often although I have seen members become controversial on-site or be banned as a result of their actions in the topic space the board is for, such as controversy as a youtuber or related identity coming back to their forum persona.

What do you mean by “gone off into the deep end”?

In context of this discussion, involved or causing a scandal - again, not necessarily on the forum itself - which the board ownership would need to consider.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I think having members who are involved in a scandal might affect your forum, but you've got Kiwi Farms which is a terrible forum still around even though they have numerous members who doxx and harass other people. But that's all that forum thrives on, they make fun of some terrible and "weird" people online, but they also tend to harass those around them or purposely disrespect those around the individuals they talk about which are called "lolcows".

 

[Jason]

I think having members who are involved in a scandal might affect your forum, but you've got Kiwi Farms which is a terrible forum still around even though they have numerous members who doxx and harass other people. But that's all that forum thrives on, they make fun of some terrible and "weird" people online, but they also tend to harass those around them or purposely disrespect those around the individuals they talk about which are called "lolcows".

Lots of that mean stuff on social media, but I don't stick around to be the bait and there's no doubt you're being hunted on there.

 

[Husk]

It depends on the scandal for me. If it's something like a literal convicted pedophile or even somebody harassing/bullying people, I don't care if it didn't happen on my site, I'm not letting that through the door. If it's just some gossip or there is no proof whatsoever, I don't really care enough to worry about it.