The Great LJ Debacle: Interview with cluegirl
After all the discussion and rumors going around about the two artists that have been warned under the new policies, I decided to go straight to the horse's mouth. First I went to pornish_pixies and left a message for the moderator, femmequixotic to ask if these allegations were true. She sent me onward to cluegirl, one of the artists in question.
What follows is the story straight from cluegirl's own "mouth," from a conversation we had through IMs. The text has been altered in the following ways: removal of our IM names, removal of some of my responses that did little to contribute to the overall conversation, and some rearranging of some of cluegirl's responses that, due to some lag time, appeared long after a question I asked. This is to make the text here make more sense. None of cluegirl's responses have been edited or otherwise changed other than that.
cluegirl:When I saw that ponderosa121 had been deleted, and what the grounds were, I knew that the picture I had drawn and posted, "A Hard Bargain", would definitely make me a similar target. So I went into my galleries roughly three days after she had been deleted, and removed that, as well as one other 'iffy' picture. Then, when femmequixotic asked the contributors to pornish_pixies to lock all their posts, I went through and did that, using the list that go_seaward had provided, on who posted what, and when. I'm sure beyond any question that “A Hard Bargain” was one of those I locked
sailorcelestial: Could you describe the picture in question?
cluegirl: It is clearly chan, and unquestionably so. It was an illustration for a story of the same name, in which Harry at 15, trades sexual favours to Snape for help with the triwizarding tournament. The picture illustrates a moment in which Harry is bound and suspended, and being penetrated by Snape. The word "mine" is cut into his belly. As I said in the warnings, it was definitely chan, definitely not worksafe, and definitely a challenging picture. Not for the faint of heart. That was why I took it down immediately.
So about a day or so after I'd locked everything, I decided how I would handle the problem of the images still remaining in my LJ. I replaced my links to anything that involved actual sexuality, whether of a minor (I only had the one of those, actually) or not, with a placeholder gif, and a link offsite to where I had the pictures moved. This was before 6A had said that they would consider links TOSsable. So the place holder itself was a bit cheeky, I'll admit. "Image removed due to 6Apart's corporate homophobia. Please follow links offsite to view." So the same day that lj_biz posted their 'official reply', I posted that morning that I'd believe it when I saw it, and not a moment before. Ironically enough, that afternoon, I got the letter from the LJ abuse team.
(At this point she offered to send me both emails she received [one from Abuse, and one, as you will see, from Support] along with her replies, which will be included at the end of this post.)
cluegirl: Okay. That's underway. What that thread involves is the original contact, and both of my replies, which did NOT go to LJ abuse, but instead were routed to LJ support.
As far as I know, my replies did not make it to Rachel's desk until femmequixotic, who had been working with her as regards pornish_pixies, e-mailed her directly the same thread I just sent you. As far as I know, there has been no reply. Because Femme copied me on the email, so I would see replies. However, someone from the support department contacted me today. And I'll now send you that e mail as well. I have not yet replied to that e mail, because I'm still trying to parse out exactly what it's intended to mean. Apparently, they have not taken in the fact that the deletion that didn't happen was last week, and not today. So as of right now, they say no further action will be taken, but they don't say whether their mistake counts as my 'first strike'. I have to figure out how to ask that question without going all red-headed amazon on them. I try to keep that bottled away unless it's really needed.
And too, [the Random LJ Support Team Member] is not the one who deserves to be smote. The asshat who went digging through my posts to find the link in code is who I'd like to kick now. The thing with that, I guess I'd better explain. When I got the warning letter, I clicked directly over to my galleries, looked for the picture, and did not find it in any of them.
sailorcelestial: Right, because there's been some debate over whether or not there's a mole in pornish_pixies looking for stuff to report...
cluegirl: I'd thought perhaps that I'd mistakenly uploaded it into more than one place. But I went through every single image in my galleries, and that one was not in it. There was a thumbnail, showing just the faces, but nothing more, and I deleted that too. Then I clicked the link provided in the email, and the entire image appeared. And that was when I started to freak out a bit. Because somehow that image was in a place where I couldn't get at it, but it still had my username in the URL code. Then someone who was watching me come unglued asked their technically savvy friends about it, and she told me to add a / to the end of the URL Which suddenly made the picture reappear in my galleries format, and let me -- through a roundabout run up -- finally delete it. I honestly was scared that someone had gone into my galleries and put the thing back in again, just so they could TOS someone. And it's a bit freaky, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that isn't what happened.
sailorcelestial: Right. It's insane how they're talking about they HAVE to immediately get the stuff off their servers if it's found... but they don't ACTUALLY get it off their servers.
cluegirl: Yeah. And the really ironic thing is that I have never drawn another chan pic since I've been drawing fanfic. That was my only one. The only other thing that came even close to questionable was an artistic nude of Harry at 11.
sailorcelestial: Okay, so let me see if I've got this straight: After ponderosa's suspension, you went through and deleted (or thought you had) anything you had that might be considered questionable by LJ's new standards. However, a week later, you stil received an email fro LJ saying someone has reported your piece (that shouldn't have even been there) and this was your first warning. In attempting to get the matter corrected, you had trouble getting an answer from anyone from the Abuse Team.
cluegirl: Right so far.
sailorcelestial: femmequixotic helped you, and finally you received notice from someone from LJ Support regarding the deletion/non-deletion issue, saying no further action would be taken, but not clarifying whether or not your slate had been wiped clean of "first strike" status, and you're still waiting for a clarification on that.
cluegirl: Right, and still waiting to hear anything at all from the Abuse team itself.
sailorcelestial: So it's not too out there to say that it's easy to get communication from LJ when you're a suspect, but when it turns out they might have messed up, suddenly they're no where to be found?
cluegirl: I think that's fair, actually. And thanks for this. It's been really empowering to be able to tell my side of it straight through.
The following emails have been altered only to remove the LJ staff member's name, so no one will go off screaming at innocent people.
Dear LiveJournal user cluegirl,
We are contacting you regarding an image within your ScrapBook account that has been reported to the Abuse Prevention Team:
http://pics.livejournal.com/cluegirl/pic/00069d7r
This image depicts a minor in an explicit sexual situation, and such content is in violation of our content policies. We are requesting that you remove the image from this entry as soon as possible, but no later than Saturday, August 18 at 12:01 AM EDT, to prevent further action from being taken against your account.
Regards,
[Innocent LJ Staff Name Here]
LiveJournal Abuse Prevention Team
------------
The picture to which you are linking was deleted by me last week. It no longer appears on my Galleries list, or any tool to which I have authorial access. I am not able, therefore, to delete it any farther than I already have done, and that means that the link you have here SHOULD NOT WORK.
Clearly, this is a problem for both of us. I would like to delete that picture, only I suspect I will need for LiveJournal's legendary customer support to explain to me what I need to do besides click the 'delete picture' button.
Seriously. I am trying to comply here, but I could use a little help.
Cluegirl
From there, apparently Abuse figured this was a situation best handled by Support.
Dear LiveJournal user cluegirl,
Thank you for contacting us for help. There were several database issues with ScrapBook yesterday and your image may have been affected by this outage.
Please do not worry about further action being taken against your account at this time in regards to this image. I can see that you have attempted to delete the image and I am unsure at this time why this would not be appearing properly when the links are visited.
I apologize for any frustration this issue caused you and thank you for your willingness to work with us. I will be investigating on LiveJournal's end and ensure that the changes you have made will be shown properly when those links are visited.
Regards,
[Innocent Support Team Member Name Here]
Support Coordinator
Six Apart, Ltd. // LiveJournal.com
I'm sure we'll all be looking forward to knowing how this situation gets resolved.
Until next time, as the coverage continues.
~~**Sailorcelestial**~~
P.S. I'm hoping to have more interviews in the future, as interviews are a really good way to get information straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
What follows is the story straight from cluegirl's own "mouth," from a conversation we had through IMs. The text has been altered in the following ways: removal of our IM names, removal of some of my responses that did little to contribute to the overall conversation, and some rearranging of some of cluegirl's responses that, due to some lag time, appeared long after a question I asked. This is to make the text here make more sense. None of cluegirl's responses have been edited or otherwise changed other than that.
cluegirl:When I saw that ponderosa121 had been deleted, and what the grounds were, I knew that the picture I had drawn and posted, "A Hard Bargain", would definitely make me a similar target. So I went into my galleries roughly three days after she had been deleted, and removed that, as well as one other 'iffy' picture. Then, when femmequixotic asked the contributors to pornish_pixies to lock all their posts, I went through and did that, using the list that go_seaward had provided, on who posted what, and when. I'm sure beyond any question that “A Hard Bargain” was one of those I locked
sailorcelestial: Could you describe the picture in question?
cluegirl: It is clearly chan, and unquestionably so. It was an illustration for a story of the same name, in which Harry at 15, trades sexual favours to Snape for help with the triwizarding tournament. The picture illustrates a moment in which Harry is bound and suspended, and being penetrated by Snape. The word "mine" is cut into his belly. As I said in the warnings, it was definitely chan, definitely not worksafe, and definitely a challenging picture. Not for the faint of heart. That was why I took it down immediately.
So about a day or so after I'd locked everything, I decided how I would handle the problem of the images still remaining in my LJ. I replaced my links to anything that involved actual sexuality, whether of a minor (I only had the one of those, actually) or not, with a placeholder gif, and a link offsite to where I had the pictures moved. This was before 6A had said that they would consider links TOSsable. So the place holder itself was a bit cheeky, I'll admit. "Image removed due to 6Apart's corporate homophobia. Please follow links offsite to view." So the same day that lj_biz posted their 'official reply', I posted that morning that I'd believe it when I saw it, and not a moment before. Ironically enough, that afternoon, I got the letter from the LJ abuse team.
(At this point she offered to send me both emails she received [one from Abuse, and one, as you will see, from Support] along with her replies, which will be included at the end of this post.)
cluegirl: Okay. That's underway. What that thread involves is the original contact, and both of my replies, which did NOT go to LJ abuse, but instead were routed to LJ support.
As far as I know, my replies did not make it to Rachel's desk until femmequixotic, who had been working with her as regards pornish_pixies, e-mailed her directly the same thread I just sent you. As far as I know, there has been no reply. Because Femme copied me on the email, so I would see replies. However, someone from the support department contacted me today. And I'll now send you that e mail as well. I have not yet replied to that e mail, because I'm still trying to parse out exactly what it's intended to mean. Apparently, they have not taken in the fact that the deletion that didn't happen was last week, and not today. So as of right now, they say no further action will be taken, but they don't say whether their mistake counts as my 'first strike'. I have to figure out how to ask that question without going all red-headed amazon on them. I try to keep that bottled away unless it's really needed.
And too, [the Random LJ Support Team Member] is not the one who deserves to be smote. The asshat who went digging through my posts to find the link in code is who I'd like to kick now. The thing with that, I guess I'd better explain. When I got the warning letter, I clicked directly over to my galleries, looked for the picture, and did not find it in any of them.
sailorcelestial: Right, because there's been some debate over whether or not there's a mole in pornish_pixies looking for stuff to report...
cluegirl: I'd thought perhaps that I'd mistakenly uploaded it into more than one place. But I went through every single image in my galleries, and that one was not in it. There was a thumbnail, showing just the faces, but nothing more, and I deleted that too. Then I clicked the link provided in the email, and the entire image appeared. And that was when I started to freak out a bit. Because somehow that image was in a place where I couldn't get at it, but it still had my username in the URL code. Then someone who was watching me come unglued asked their technically savvy friends about it, and she told me to add a / to the end of the URL Which suddenly made the picture reappear in my galleries format, and let me -- through a roundabout run up -- finally delete it. I honestly was scared that someone had gone into my galleries and put the thing back in again, just so they could TOS someone. And it's a bit freaky, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that isn't what happened.
sailorcelestial: Right. It's insane how they're talking about they HAVE to immediately get the stuff off their servers if it's found... but they don't ACTUALLY get it off their servers.
cluegirl: Yeah. And the really ironic thing is that I have never drawn another chan pic since I've been drawing fanfic. That was my only one. The only other thing that came even close to questionable was an artistic nude of Harry at 11.
sailorcelestial: Okay, so let me see if I've got this straight: After ponderosa's suspension, you went through and deleted (or thought you had) anything you had that might be considered questionable by LJ's new standards. However, a week later, you stil received an email fro LJ saying someone has reported your piece (that shouldn't have even been there) and this was your first warning. In attempting to get the matter corrected, you had trouble getting an answer from anyone from the Abuse Team.
cluegirl: Right so far.
sailorcelestial: femmequixotic helped you, and finally you received notice from someone from LJ Support regarding the deletion/non-deletion issue, saying no further action would be taken, but not clarifying whether or not your slate had been wiped clean of "first strike" status, and you're still waiting for a clarification on that.
cluegirl: Right, and still waiting to hear anything at all from the Abuse team itself.
sailorcelestial: So it's not too out there to say that it's easy to get communication from LJ when you're a suspect, but when it turns out they might have messed up, suddenly they're no where to be found?
cluegirl: I think that's fair, actually. And thanks for this. It's been really empowering to be able to tell my side of it straight through.
The following emails have been altered only to remove the LJ staff member's name, so no one will go off screaming at innocent people.
Dear LiveJournal user cluegirl,
We are contacting you regarding an image within your ScrapBook account that has been reported to the Abuse Prevention Team:
http://pics.livejournal.com/cluegirl/pic/00069d7r
This image depicts a minor in an explicit sexual situation, and such content is in violation of our content policies. We are requesting that you remove the image from this entry as soon as possible, but no later than Saturday, August 18 at 12:01 AM EDT, to prevent further action from being taken against your account.
Regards,
[Innocent LJ Staff Name Here]
LiveJournal Abuse Prevention Team
------------
The picture to which you are linking was deleted by me last week. It no longer appears on my Galleries list, or any tool to which I have authorial access. I am not able, therefore, to delete it any farther than I already have done, and that means that the link you have here SHOULD NOT WORK.
Clearly, this is a problem for both of us. I would like to delete that picture, only I suspect I will need for LiveJournal's legendary customer support to explain to me what I need to do besides click the 'delete picture' button.
Seriously. I am trying to comply here, but I could use a little help.
Cluegirl
From there, apparently Abuse figured this was a situation best handled by Support.
Dear LiveJournal user cluegirl,
Thank you for contacting us for help. There were several database issues with ScrapBook yesterday and your image may have been affected by this outage.
Please do not worry about further action being taken against your account at this time in regards to this image. I can see that you have attempted to delete the image and I am unsure at this time why this would not be appearing properly when the links are visited.
I apologize for any frustration this issue caused you and thank you for your willingness to work with us. I will be investigating on LiveJournal's end and ensure that the changes you have made will be shown properly when those links are visited.
Regards,
[Innocent Support Team Member Name Here]
Support Coordinator
Six Apart, Ltd. // LiveJournal.com
I'm sure we'll all be looking forward to knowing how this situation gets resolved.
Until next time, as the coverage continues.
~~**Sailorcelestial**~~
P.S. I'm hoping to have more interviews in the future, as interviews are a really good way to get information straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.