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ATTN: Illiad | by Pic | 2006-11-19 12:55:59 |
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Related issue | by mortaine | 2005-08-04 13:19:34 |
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What kind of `safeguards' would you recomend? | by hieraco | 2005-08-04 14:43:10 |
| Follow up thoughts. |
by mortaine |
2005-08-04 15:43:34 |
The incident I mentioned wasn't a UFie incident-- it's just the most famous case of Internet emotional fraud out there, so I mentioned it.
I recently watched an interesting flamewar/fraud case over a supposedly-burned cat erupt. The worst part was, the defrauder manipulated her friends into vouching for her, and then subtly encouraged people to doubt/flame/harass the person who caught her in her lies for a couple of days before she finally confessed her crime. She defrauded various strangers for a total of about $5,000, and with luck she will be charged for the crime. But getting to that point was a long road full of nastiness.
A person who questions a story that doesn't sound right should not be flamed mercilessly for a thousand comments simply because she is a critical thinker and says "wait-- that doesn't match up."
I can't say for certain what kind of safeguards should be there, and I think they will probably evolve organically in the course of the (hopefully rare) cases for which this may come up. I also would never say that someone with two accounts is in any way suspect. Someone who posts with one account to announce the death of the user of their own other account, obviously, is not being honest, and catching that should be the minimum safeguard in place (should probably be the easiest, too).
It just feels to me that having an "in memoriam" membership level is a wonderful and much needed idea-- certainly when I die I want the Internet communities I'm a part of at that time to care about me and remember me. But I would feel it cheapened such an honor if people who were *not* real were somehow allowed to get away with it.
Perhaps there should be a couple of safeguards:
1) That the in memoriam level of membership is revokable in the case of non-legit accounts.
2) That a suspicious UFie can privately send their evidence or information to a mod for follow-up to determine if an in memoriam membership is legit, without fear of reprisal or public flogging, whether they are right or wrong. Being critical thinkers, as so many UFies are, means questioning when something rings false.
3) That the mods allow public questioning threads on the board, as long as they remain respectful, and that they do not permit someone to accuse without something to back it up, but also do not permit emotionally-motivated bashing of those who question.
Just some thoughts. I don't want to harden my heart more than I already have, but I have to admit that I maintain a permanent sense of "these people may be lying to me" everwhere I go on the Internet. |
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