Actitivity on that MLPArena

[cowboyopossum]

Oh my God... That's insane! I hope the victims got justice...   

[BlackCurtains]

Yeah. The entire thing is pretty crazy. If you want the link you can PM me.

[Taffeta]

I watched a documentary on YouTube yesterday about a guy who murdered over ponies. There are dangerous people everywhere.

WHAT?!  Oh my! 

Was that the Fedex case with the creepy Applejack letter or another one? Please don't tell me there's been more than one.

I only use FB and I never actually post on my profile anymore, though I am in a couple of groups. Facebook are going to learn very little about me really, but yes, that stuff is creepy.

Mind you, I had that experience in around 1999-2000, when the internet was a lot more basic. You'd be amazed how easy it was for people to create multiple new AIM accounts, and use all their friends to create a 'stalking' situation. One of the ponypeople I mentioned above threatened to send her partner (who was stationed over here at some military base) to see me because she 'knew where I lived'...and so on.

That was the most terrifying time I have ever had in the pony community, hands down. Which is why I abandoned the TP because when I tried to get help, the mods there then took HER side and said I'd written all the transcripts myself and was making it up. Because she was an influential customiser who was popular for her artwork and nobody wanted to upset her.

A lot later more stuff came out. I'll leave it at that.

I'm afraid I've seen the same untouchable behaviour from some other customising people in the years since who are treated as deities because of their craft and thus allowed to behave like monsters in other areas. This is not an indictment of most customisers, I hasten to add - but it has happened and continues to happen whereby people put up with, or even validate nasty in order to get a particular product.

Ways for people to do online nasty - and a lack of people doing anything about it - has unfortunately characterised the internet from the point of start to now. It's easier to attack people now, true enough. But if someone is determined, they will still do it.

I dislike social media particularly because I had that experience at age 18 and I learned very quickly how trusting people online was risky and could hurt. The fact that we've gone more towards that model and less towards this one is very sad in my opinion.

[Snapdragon]

and the whole "if you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about" doesn't work if someone mistakes you for someone else online.

Totally agreed! And it's so easy to impersonate other people online, too, especially popular figures. The argument doesn't hold water IMO (although it tends to come up in discussions about privacy online and off) because it's just a fallacious argument to try and get people to hand over their privacy for fear of looking shady, when in reality privacy is such an important right, and one we have to fight for even if we aren't "the bad guys" that a lack of privacy is supposed to protect us from. I shouldn't have to tell people my real name or give a photograph in order to discuss my feelings about Hasbro's oversaturation of the Mane Six in the repro toylines!

Taffeta, it's really scary and sad to hear your story, and I'm glad that it sounds like that person was eventually found out in the end, and you didn't give up on ponies entirely. I've seen people get bullied out of the fandom (or at least the public parts of the fandom, like the forums) by some really nasty behavior over my many years reading and posting. And it's totally understandable, but also so sad, that people could be bullied away from enjoying something that's so sweet and relatively harmless like MLP. (I always hope they can continue to enjoy MLP in private, since you don't really need a group of fans to buy toys you like!) That said, I have seen some of the same behavior from faux-popular folks, similar to your example of customizers, who sometimes attract a bit of a cadre of fans willing to White Knight for them to the point of harassment. It's definitely an issue in the G4 fandom on a larger scale, but unfortunately we're not immune to it on the G1/vintage collector side of things. It's wild to me, because at its peak, the G4 fandom could have several hundred to low thousands of people who were fans of a 'famous' artist or musician; but in the vintage fandom, aren't we talking about more like a couple dozen fans, at most? And that's worthy of going to battle for? That's so silly to me! It kinda helps to put things in perspective, even though it only takes one 'crazy' fan to make you afraid for your safety, as your example illustrates.

[Carrehz]

I think people are just so used to having their every utterance displayed for free on the internet that they take it totally for granted as though it's normal, like pinning a sign to a telegraph pole for a lost cat.

Agreed. There are some pretty good free image hosting sites out there still though, but I think a lot of people nowadays are used to just going click-upload-done on social media sites and don't want to learn how to link to an off-site image...?

The pony murder thing is horrifying

Taffeta - 100% agree with everything you say. It really upsets me that it's just getting easier to abuse and harass people online, rather than harder Especially since young people these days (I feel so old saying this ) don't seem to be taught to keep personal info OFF the net and be careful about sharing it, like we were. I'm sure I've said this before in the thread (or in other threads) but I've seen soooo many "about mes" on blog where people have posted damn near their entire medical history, a big long list of their 'triggers', selfies, etc... It just makes me want to shake them and yell "you're giving bad people info they can hurt you with! None of this needs to be public!!". God knows I've been hurt and harassed online before, but at least none of those jerks know anything serious or identifying about me, you know? Don't get me wrong, if you're comfortable sharing pics online, etc then that's your business, but social media really encourages too much oversharing IMO. Another reason I try and avoid as much of it as possible :/

[Taffeta]

So just to emphasise the 'old people attitude' to privacy, yesterday I legit edited out our living room sofa from the background of a photo of some ponies because it's our sofa and the internet doesn't need to see it. Literally nothing personal in the photo. Just not sharing the sofa. Nope.

In seriousness, you're right about data. I have resisted using facebook for stuff for so long for the reason that there's no security. I understand the issue of harassment and anonymous bullies online, but at the same time, I don't feel that safe posting in conversations as myself in case you accidentally get misunderstood. I won't pretend I haven't had that experience before :p. So yeah. I don't want to engage like that and it's a shame we're all expected to.

As for the off site image linkage, the old person me laughs at this a lot. Honestly. I mean, I remember taking photos with an actual physical camera, getting film processed at my expense and then scanning them into an ancient scanner...either for my ID site or for ebay. A lot of the time ponies got shoved in scanners, and they look like they are terrified by the experience. The whole idea of "omg, it's so difficult to find an external host and, like, link an image" makes me roll my eyes. This is why I don't think the brony fandom would last ten seconds in the 1990s/early 2000s trying to make a fandom work when the tech couldn't keep up.

I dug this up to show what I mean. This was my ID site way back in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Please ignore some of the information, as a lot of it was still being figured out. But the layout, intrusive ads, scanned pony images...a sample page link below. Most of the site does work but the main page is gone and some of the images have broken over time. Most of the non-scanner images were actual physical photos developed and scanned in to be uploaded.

https://taffeta.tripod.com/id16.htm
Anyone who dislikes how images work on the arena needs to look at that page and get perspective. LOL


...I am old. And proud of it.

[BlackCurtains]

Teffeta, yes, it's the FedEx case.

I'm sure I've said this before in the thread (or in other threads) but I've seen soooo many "about mes" on blog where people have posted damn near their entire medical history, a big long list of their 'triggers', selfies, etc...

When I was still on Tumblr I saw this on almost every blog. I also saw plenty of people get harassed. I ran a Sims 3 blog, and just like any other fandom, it has its share of lying, backstabbing, stalking, etc.

[Carrehz]

So just to emphasise the 'old people attitude' to privacy, yesterday I legit edited out our living room sofa from the background of a photo of some ponies because it's our sofa and the internet doesn't need to see it. Literally nothing personal in the photo. Just not sharing the sofa. Nope.

I've done the exact same thing!

Again I 100% agree with everything you said Image uploading is easier than ever (except when my site host starts playing me up, like it was the other day *shakes fist* ) and we've even got a tutorial on how to do it... I must admit the complaints about it do make me giggle/roll eyes too.

And I love that old ver of your site, such a blast from the past!!

BC - I think (hope...) Tumblr users are starting to wise up a little about those things, and not share quite as much info etc... but some of the stuff I saw back in the day was truly shocking I mean, certainly I've seen people share personal things in that vein way before social media too, but usually it was in private areas, or maybe in a journal entry/forum post/etc that would get lost amongst other posts over time (so still public but not easily accessible)... not organized in a neat little list and linked on the side of their blog for all and sundry to see, you know? Gah.