Posting for a friend!

[mordororbust]

The internet is failing ghost_lingering, so here is a post that I believe she has been trying to make for four hours ... not mine!:

Hey all,

This has taken me FOREVER to post. You realize that fandom killed lj right? Anyway.

I posted a suggestion here in a comment on the initial community post, but thought I'd repost here, edited and expanded, so more people

Comments

[ungemmed]

Okay. So, assuming the question becomes less "whether" and more "how" (as I hope that it does), here are some questions we need to ask. Otherwise, this group could become the wankiest bunch of self-righteous morons in fandom.

How do we want to set up this group? Which subgroups are we going to try and bring together with it? (I think your (ghost_lingering's)suggestions in this comment are a really good place to start, and I think coordination with proper LE types (surely there's someone in LE in fandom who we could liase through?) would also be important in distinguishing us from vigilante groups such as WfI.)

What are the guidelines for determining what's okay to stay public, what should be locked, what should be removed? How much discretion will be permitted? (Some discretion is obviously necessary, since the line between chan and kiddie porn is fine'n'fuzzy; on the other hand, the stricter and less-discretion-allowing/requiring the guidelines are, the less potential there is for wank.)

What will this group do when it identifies objectionable material? Will this response vary depending on how objectionable the material is? (i.e. a public chan fic skirting the borderline might get a polite flock-request before any other action, whereas a pedophile openly soliciting would mean contacting LE with no warning given... this is something we should probably talk to PJ or other groups about.)

What's the appeals process going to be like? (Transparency is our friend.)

[ghost_lingering]

this group could become the wankiest bunch of self-righteous morons in fandom

Which would be funny if, ultimately, pretty unproductive.

I think it's important to establish a few things from the beginning in order to avoid the wank. First, we wouldn't be a vigilante group. Second, there seem to be two groups in discussion here: an inter-fandom group and an inter-lj group. Third, a distinction need to me made regaurding personal/individual action vs group action.

Ok, on the third point first. There is a BIG difference between creating a group meant to police fandom/lj and sending in an e-mail to lj going: "I'm concerned about all the pedophilia stuff, and I was wondering what you are going to do to change it." Even if the e-mail is a group action (i.e. Aja or someone posts to this comm saying: everyone e-mail so and so at 6A about being concerned pedophilia) everyone is still writing their own e-mail, using their own address, deciding exactly what they want to say. If we create a group (or groups) then that's committee, that's figuring out who gets a say to begin with, that's, well...complicated. I think that both sorts of action have their place, although, to be honest, initially I was only talking about e-mailing lj and being like: "Hey, uh, I'm a bit concerned about all of this. Do something please?" The more I think about it though, the more creating groups to watch out for this kind of thing, both inside and outside fandom, is...well, something to consider.

(yes I am very wordy)

[ghost_lingering]

Which brings me to my second point. Which I'm still thinking through, so bear with me. An inter-lj group looking to review questionable material would...hmmm, be more possible than an inter-fandom group I think, because we fans very rarely agree on anything.

What if then (inter-lj) group wasn't able to actual suspend journals or anything, only recommend to lj a course of action. Sooooo, say for instance the group consisted of these people who I am making up off the top of my head:

--a long time lj volunteer
--a writer of original lit erotica
--a newish lj volunteer who wanted to get involved specifically with this program
--a member of fandom who is completely squicked by chan
--a member of fandom who is an active chan writer
--someone with fairly extensive knowledge of internet law
--someone with fairly extensive knowledge of law re: pedophilia
--someone who has worked/works with a group like PeeJ (Perverted Justice)

Re: (yes I am very wordy)

[totheseaside]

These guidelines definitely have me very interested. Perhaps contact LJ and let them know about this idea so that everyone can work together (with open-communication) about what they're doing and how it's going to be done.

(last one)

[ghost_lingering]

These people are overseen by an lj employee of some kind, which, ok, potentially creates more work for lj, but...possibly that is worth it, though that's their choice ultimately. Anyway, if a report comes in regaurding any kind of illegal sexual act thing the complaint gets passed on to these people. They each independently review the situation, and make their own recommendation, after which they might possibly talk it over with each other. They take their concerns to the lj employee person and, ultimately, the decision to suspend/warn/etc is up to lj.

I've never volunteered for lj support, but I think what I'm describing would be a kind of specialized lj support task force.

I'm still thinking through this and I have NO idea how feasible something like what I'd describing would be, but I can't see how it would hurt to suggest something like this to lj.

As for my first point...this is lj. This is my *neighborhood*. I'm not about to go all Batman and take people down myself but this is TOTALLY an issue which worries me. I can't see how forcing lj to talk about this is in any way vigilante. (Ok, finding the comms which weren't shut down, that's a bit vigilante, but the rest of it: forcing lj to fix this problem is something I'm pretty much 100% ok with doing.)

Re: (last one)

[ungemmed]

Exactly. Calling on LJ to fix the problem is not vigilantism, it's a letter to the city council saying "the police should keep closer eyes on the playground." So, continuing the analogy, the program we seem to be describing here would be a Neighborhood Watch equivalent?

I think what we need to do is outline what we'd like this group to do, think up some specific suggestions about structure/guidelines, and then email LJ proposing a new Abuse subteam (maybe? I'm not entirely sure about the way that panLJ modstructure works) specifically to respond to sex-oriented LJabuse reports.

I think that implementation probably should be headed by LJ, although fannish types offering their services to aid that implementation is yay. That way, it remains a case of us nagging LJ and helping it police itself, rather than a case of us policing LJ... right?

(Rar. As always I'm just throwing ideas out. I don't know much about chan, it didn't really squick me in high school but it squicks me lots now.)