FA, MFF, and False Accusations
I’ve been accused of a lot of things in my life, some from misinformation, some from simple miscommunications, and some from sociopaths with a black heart. Generally, I will either try to correct people or just laugh it off. However, there are times when people are so determined to ruin your name, you have to stand up and fight back. This is one of those times where one person’s lie has resulted in my name being pulled through the mud and my social status with my friends being strongly affected.
The story goes like this. A couple of weeks ago, @Novemurr IM’d me for the first time in several months. Apparently, his FA account had been hacked into and he was gathering information to figure out who did it. I told him that I had no knowledge of any hacking. It wasn’t clear to me at the time that no matter what I told him, I was going to get the blame. Before closing the chat window, he bragged that he had “inside information” that I had done this.
Now, my closest friends know that I am not the brightest when it comes to computers. I know how to use Excel, play videos on YouTube, and that’s about it. Asking me to hack into anything would be like asking anyone not named Arthur to pull the sword from the stone!
The following week, I’m linked by a friend to the “most boring YCH ever” on FurAffinity. When I click on the link, I receive a notice that my account had been suspended. I was baffled. This had to be a mistake. I refreshed the page. Nope, same message.
Reading the notice, I had been accused of vandalizing @Novemurr’s FA account and had been suspended for one month because of it. They justified this because of an IP address match.
As many people know, I host friends at my apartment constantly, practically every other weekend and sometimes during the week. As a result, many people have access to my laptop and in turn, my IP address. I don't want to outright blame my friends because I trust them with all my heart. There is also the possibility that someone duplicated my IP address for this act. I’ve consulted those who are well versed in the world of I/T and they have said that while this is very difficult, it’s far from impossible.
Immediately, I sent an e-mail to the FA accounts department, asking for further details. As of this writing, it has been over 2 weeks and 4 e-mails with no reply. (Granted, when the website doesn’t work half the time, do you really expect anyone associated with it to be working?) Despite FA refusing to share any information with me, there is an uninvolved group they proactively spread word to.
This weekend, I was contacted by a member of the @midwestfurfest board. He informed me that @Dragoneer had been in touch them recently. Dragoneer shared with the MFF board details surrounding my suspension; a liberty that was not given to me, as mentioned earlier. I explained to the board member everything written here so far. Though, I questioned why Dragoneer was going to the MFF board in the first place. What do any alleged actions have to do with my ability to be on MFF staff, especially when there isn’t a public relations issue involved?
Ultimately, I was informed that the MFF board requested that I step down as the fursuit track lead over a mere accusation of minor importance. The more I thought about it, it was clear this was not worth the time and energy to fight when the board refused to even give me an honest chance to defend myself from such bogus allegations.
One other reason they gave was that this was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” That’s a creative way of putting it. The only other conflict I’ve experienced with MFF staff is when I openly disagreed with another board member’s opinion on how a now-defunct convention closed its door. This board member vilified their former staff for not “stepping up to the plate” when leadership wanted to step down, which I took personal offense to as I was staff for that con.
There are a couple of things that are crystal clear to me involving all of this.
1. @Novemurr has a petty grudge against me that he will continue to hold until the day he dies. He’s spent hours, if not days, digging up any dirt he can find (or asking others do it for him). When he can’t, he will crop tweets to take my quotes horribly out of context to vilify me. It’s laughable that he could take any moral high ground when his biggest contribution to the fandom is paying for porn of his character for others to view.
2. @Dragoneer must have some personal issue with me to bring a wild, unfounded accusation against me and to censor his accounts department. On top of this, to go to the MFF board to get me punished surrounding an issue that has nothing to do with the convention.
3. The board of @midwestfurfest needs to reevaluate their decision making process. Using bogus information from an unrelated third party to deny offers of time from would-be volunteers sets a poor precedence for future decisions.
I understand this entry could result in further actions against me by FurAffinity and their puppet master, @Dragoneer. At this point, it doesn’t matter. Add @Novemurr to the mix, and all parties involved are on a witch hunt to defame me to anybody who will listen. I refuse to let this happen. I don’t care how many combined followers these individuals have on their various accounts, the truth stands above all. These liars must be held accountable for what they spread.
The story goes like this. A couple of weeks ago, @Novemurr IM’d me for the first time in several months. Apparently, his FA account had been hacked into and he was gathering information to figure out who did it. I told him that I had no knowledge of any hacking. It wasn’t clear to me at the time that no matter what I told him, I was going to get the blame. Before closing the chat window, he bragged that he had “inside information” that I had done this.
Now, my closest friends know that I am not the brightest when it comes to computers. I know how to use Excel, play videos on YouTube, and that’s about it. Asking me to hack into anything would be like asking anyone not named Arthur to pull the sword from the stone!
The following week, I’m linked by a friend to the “most boring YCH ever” on FurAffinity. When I click on the link, I receive a notice that my account had been suspended. I was baffled. This had to be a mistake. I refreshed the page. Nope, same message.
Reading the notice, I had been accused of vandalizing @Novemurr’s FA account and had been suspended for one month because of it. They justified this because of an IP address match.
As many people know, I host friends at my apartment constantly, practically every other weekend and sometimes during the week. As a result, many people have access to my laptop and in turn, my IP address. I don't want to outright blame my friends because I trust them with all my heart. There is also the possibility that someone duplicated my IP address for this act. I’ve consulted those who are well versed in the world of I/T and they have said that while this is very difficult, it’s far from impossible.
Immediately, I sent an e-mail to the FA accounts department, asking for further details. As of this writing, it has been over 2 weeks and 4 e-mails with no reply. (Granted, when the website doesn’t work half the time, do you really expect anyone associated with it to be working?) Despite FA refusing to share any information with me, there is an uninvolved group they proactively spread word to.
This weekend, I was contacted by a member of the @midwestfurfest board. He informed me that @Dragoneer had been in touch them recently. Dragoneer shared with the MFF board details surrounding my suspension; a liberty that was not given to me, as mentioned earlier. I explained to the board member everything written here so far. Though, I questioned why Dragoneer was going to the MFF board in the first place. What do any alleged actions have to do with my ability to be on MFF staff, especially when there isn’t a public relations issue involved?
Ultimately, I was informed that the MFF board requested that I step down as the fursuit track lead over a mere accusation of minor importance. The more I thought about it, it was clear this was not worth the time and energy to fight when the board refused to even give me an honest chance to defend myself from such bogus allegations.
One other reason they gave was that this was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” That’s a creative way of putting it. The only other conflict I’ve experienced with MFF staff is when I openly disagreed with another board member’s opinion on how a now-defunct convention closed its door. This board member vilified their former staff for not “stepping up to the plate” when leadership wanted to step down, which I took personal offense to as I was staff for that con.
There are a couple of things that are crystal clear to me involving all of this.
1. @Novemurr has a petty grudge against me that he will continue to hold until the day he dies. He’s spent hours, if not days, digging up any dirt he can find (or asking others do it for him). When he can’t, he will crop tweets to take my quotes horribly out of context to vilify me. It’s laughable that he could take any moral high ground when his biggest contribution to the fandom is paying for porn of his character for others to view.
2. @Dragoneer must have some personal issue with me to bring a wild, unfounded accusation against me and to censor his accounts department. On top of this, to go to the MFF board to get me punished surrounding an issue that has nothing to do with the convention.
3. The board of @midwestfurfest needs to reevaluate their decision making process. Using bogus information from an unrelated third party to deny offers of time from would-be volunteers sets a poor precedence for future decisions.
I understand this entry could result in further actions against me by FurAffinity and their puppet master, @Dragoneer. At this point, it doesn’t matter. Add @Novemurr to the mix, and all parties involved are on a witch hunt to defame me to anybody who will listen. I refuse to let this happen. I don’t care how many combined followers these individuals have on their various accounts, the truth stands above all. These liars must be held accountable for what they spread.