One does not expect website administrators to be
perfect, but one does expect them to have take a little care before mashing the permaban button as hard as they can manage.
Last Wednesday I logged into FA to find that I'd been permabanned, a message flashing up saying that it was 'cause "making sockpuppet accounts is against FA tos". I had no idea what was going on, so I made
a thread on the forums asking if a member of staff could explain what was going on. My forums account was immediately permabanned.
An administrator, Carenath, explained that the reason I'd been permabanned was because making sockpuppet accounts is against the FA tos, my forums account was a "duplicate" so that goes too. I was pretty puzzled as to what was going on at this point since I hadn't been making sockpuppets. I eventually realized, that since he referred to me as "dave", whoever originally banned me must have decided that my davehyena forums/mainsite accounts were my "proper" accounts and that I was sockpuppeting.
Thing is, as any adminstrator who looked at my mainsite/forums account would have seen, I haven't logged into either of those accounts for
two years. I made my new mainsite and forums account in good faith, never intending to use the other accounts again. I sent off an e-mail to Dragoneer relating this and I received a reply saying that he would look into it. The next day, without any further communication or explanation, my mainsite account was unbanned. I found that out from the forums thread, where it was also said that the admin involved made a mistake. However my forums account was still left permabanned on the (IMO) technicality that duplicate forums have always required permission from an admin. After explaining to Carenath that I had made the forums acount in good faith, to his credit he apologized & unbanned my forums account & explained why he'd done what he did.
I expressed the desire that the administrator who started the whole thing off make themselves known to me, explain their reasons and maybe say "sorry". Carenath said he would ask them to get in contact, but that, naturally, he could not force them to. The administrator did not get in contact.
If the adminstrator involved made an honest mistake, why would they refuse to identify themselves, explain or apologize? I find it hard to belive that a permaban for sockpuppeting comes like a bolt from the blue, two years after changing accounts, as mistake. Assuming that it truly was an honest mistake, as well it might be, is it still not dishonest and cowardly to refuse to take ownership of your mistake?
I think there are three failures here. The first is a failure of common sense: the admin either did not look at my old accounts to see they had lain unused for two years, or if they did, they didn't bother to query that with a note to my current account before mashing ban.
The second is a failure of communication: the initial message didn't adequately explain things & when I made it clear on the forums that I had no idea what was going on, I was banned and thus prevented from further communication. When I was unbanned on the main site, I was not informed of it happening or the what and why of the situation. The information that I'd been unbanned which was related in my thread was in response to someone elses question, even. The thread I had made on the forums was locked, which prevented any further open discussion of the incident.
The third is a failure of honesty: The precipitating administrator has refused to identify themselves and take ownership of their mistake. If you won't admit you've made a mistake, you've not learnt from it and the same thing will happen again. And again.
These failures consistently crop up; the recent password compromise had a failure of common sense on the part of the compromised admin in using the same password for different sites, a failure of communication in Dragoneer not making it clear to admins that using a unique password is rather important and a failure of honesty (IMO) in Dragoneer claiming that it was an honest mistake, shit happens etc, while the details/people involved are kept secret. If it's an honest mistake, and shit just happened, no trouble in fessing up and telling all right?
Anyhow, the reason I made this post is not because I'm mad, but because I'm sad. I'm sad that the collective community of people who use the website are treated so shoddily when the same failures crop up again and again while people who can help are ignored at best. I'm sad that people are banned for no good reason while the likes of Crassus and co. are left untouched. I believe that this ban, in a very small way, illustrates the fundamental lack of change in how fur affinity is run by Dragoneer. The compromise in a larger way I suppose.
Now, I understand that not all administrators are the same, that not all have the same motivations and that is unfair when some are collectively criticized as part of "the administration" for things beyond their control or which happened before they were staff. What comes to my mind as well though, is this: when one administrator can permaban someone and leave them without the foggiest idea of who did it and why, is that the sort of thing which inspires collective confidence in "the administration" or "the staff" as a whole and encourages one to view administrators as individuals? Why can't Dragoneer, after 5 years of involvement with FA, run a tight ship?
And I feel compelled to add that having a little taste of one's own medicine is a bitter drink indeed. :<
In short:I am weeping salty tears while a person in a fursuit stomps on my face forever.
