If this site and community, not to mention simple morals and decency, mean something to you, please read. If not, keep walking.
Short Version: After hindering this site tirelessly since he was removed from the staff, Arcturus' most recent hack attempt has been rewarded by being unbanned and made an unofficial member of staff in the respect that he will be trusted to point out the holes he finds rather than just hack them as he has done for the past year and a half.
Details and brief history Follow:
When Arcturus was part of the staff, he did a lot of good for the site. He asked to have a bit more executive control of the site as appreciation for such, or he would leave. Specifically, the fight that was the last straw was over him banning Oz for being a bad moderator (in Arc's opinion). Jheryn said no, Arcturus left.
For those that weren't aware, that was the cause of that first big downtime that took FA months to recover from, and it was the beginning of the grudge that has been the cause of every major downtime and hack attempt since.
Arcturus has hacked the site many times. I have one source who says that every single hack attempt on the site has been either Arcturus or one of his ArtPlz minions. Another source says there have been many hacks that were from people completely unassociated with Arcturus. There are two sides of that story, but neither side can deny that Arcturus HAS been solely responsible for, if not all, then the majority of the hacks that have denied this community use of this wonderful service.
Arcturus (among others) brought us ChanPlz. A site that refused to acknowledge any DNP requests. People could post any artwork from any artist, and if the artist showed up to protest, they were freely bashed and ridiculed. ChanPlz was taken down. Respect for personal creator wishes, or even simple copyright law, was completely non-existent. Unless you could prove to THEIR satisfaction that you were losing money over it, they gave you the bird.
Arcturus is credited for being behind WTFur. A similar site to ChanPlz, which came about after ChanPlz was removed, not for reasons of decency and respect, but as a PR move to try and save ArtPlz's image. WTFur was also built on a solid foundation of "fuck artists' rights and wishes."
The first of the recent Admin Lock modes was due to yet another hack by Arcturus. He took over Dragoneer's account, banned a user he had a personal gripe with, made nasty remarks in Dragoneer's name, and then told the staff 'I'll tell you how I did this and help you fix it if you unban me and let me help work on the site.'
The staff gave in to this demand which aside from being yes, "lol intarbutts", is still, by definition, terrorism and blackmail.
The "official" stance is that Arcturus is not "official" staff. He is merely allowed to play his hacking games on the condition that he reports holes he finds and helps close them.
There is nothing more than good faith in Arcturus' trustworthiness holding him to actually report any holes he finds whatsoever.
Arcturus has demonstrated not only a complete disregard for the interests of this site and it's community, but an absolutely unhealthy obsession with interfering with it whenever the mood may strike him. He has established a complete disregard for the concepts of respect or decency towards artists, their rights and wishes, and people in general. ANY suggestion that he can even remotely be trusted can only come from either friends an supporters of his past destructive actions, or people who are not aware of his long and rather pathetic history of attacking this community.
Now, Arcturus is unbanned, acting as a "white-hat" for the site, supposedly reporting holes he finds. As a reminder, he has considered all his hacks as "helping" in that he simply chose that method to point out the holes he found. The administration is simply trusting his word that he will actually report the holes he finds, and there is nothing whatsoever keeping him from doing what he has already done time and time again.
ONE Admin solidly and firmly stood against giving the message of disrespect to the community that it would be to allow this person to even be unofficial staff. One Admin believed that defending the site against Arcturus' hack attempts was simply part of the job, and that giving in to his blackmail demands would send a horribly clear message to the entire community that the single most maliciously destructive user FA has ever had can be made staff as a reward for once again denying this community the use of THEIR site. That one Admin is the only one who has ALWAYS taken a firm and solid stance in the name of defending the peaceful and productive members of the community against those who are here simply to harass and deconstruct any progress they can.
Arc has been made an unofficial off-the-books staffmember as a debugger. The Admin who was more in favor of dealing with the extra effort of keeping his threat out as a way of showing his respect to the members of this community that Arcturus has done nothing but disrespect has been the target of not only the majority of the people attacking this entire community, but also is under fire from his fellow staffmembers for doing nothing more than trying to defend this community from those who the rest of the staff seem afraid to piss off.
Defending this community should be at the exclusion of those who compromise the well-being of the community. One of the Admins gets this, and takes the heat that comes with it. Almost all the rest of the staff also seems to be in favor of cutting back on the bullshit, but are either afraid of the backlash that the troublemakers cause, or are held back by the very few members of staff who seem to feel that a problem isn't a problem until AFTER people are duking it out over it.
If you feel in any way connected to this site and community, and feel there is something wrong with the staff discussing firing Myr, a staffmember who was willing to continue to put forth the effort to fight Arcturus' hackings and E-terrorism, while simultaneously welcoming back into the community the single greatest individual cause of community upset, please speak up.
Short Version: After hindering this site tirelessly since he was removed from the staff, Arcturus' most recent hack attempt has been rewarded by being unbanned and made an unofficial member of staff in the respect that he will be trusted to point out the holes he finds rather than just hack them as he has done for the past year and a half.
Details and brief history Follow:
When Arcturus was part of the staff, he did a lot of good for the site. He asked to have a bit more executive control of the site as appreciation for such, or he would leave. Specifically, the fight that was the last straw was over him banning Oz for being a bad moderator (in Arc's opinion). Jheryn said no, Arcturus left.
For those that weren't aware, that was the cause of that first big downtime that took FA months to recover from, and it was the beginning of the grudge that has been the cause of every major downtime and hack attempt since.
Arcturus has hacked the site many times. I have one source who says that every single hack attempt on the site has been either Arcturus or one of his ArtPlz minions. Another source says there have been many hacks that were from people completely unassociated with Arcturus. There are two sides of that story, but neither side can deny that Arcturus HAS been solely responsible for, if not all, then the majority of the hacks that have denied this community use of this wonderful service.
Arcturus (among others) brought us ChanPlz. A site that refused to acknowledge any DNP requests. People could post any artwork from any artist, and if the artist showed up to protest, they were freely bashed and ridiculed. ChanPlz was taken down. Respect for personal creator wishes, or even simple copyright law, was completely non-existent. Unless you could prove to THEIR satisfaction that you were losing money over it, they gave you the bird.
Arcturus is credited for being behind WTFur. A similar site to ChanPlz, which came about after ChanPlz was removed, not for reasons of decency and respect, but as a PR move to try and save ArtPlz's image. WTFur was also built on a solid foundation of "fuck artists' rights and wishes."
The first of the recent Admin Lock modes was due to yet another hack by Arcturus. He took over Dragoneer's account, banned a user he had a personal gripe with, made nasty remarks in Dragoneer's name, and then told the staff 'I'll tell you how I did this and help you fix it if you unban me and let me help work on the site.'
The staff gave in to this demand which aside from being yes, "lol intarbutts", is still, by definition, terrorism and blackmail.
The "official" stance is that Arcturus is not "official" staff. He is merely allowed to play his hacking games on the condition that he reports holes he finds and helps close them.
There is nothing more than good faith in Arcturus' trustworthiness holding him to actually report any holes he finds whatsoever.
Arcturus has demonstrated not only a complete disregard for the interests of this site and it's community, but an absolutely unhealthy obsession with interfering with it whenever the mood may strike him. He has established a complete disregard for the concepts of respect or decency towards artists, their rights and wishes, and people in general. ANY suggestion that he can even remotely be trusted can only come from either friends an supporters of his past destructive actions, or people who are not aware of his long and rather pathetic history of attacking this community.
Now, Arcturus is unbanned, acting as a "white-hat" for the site, supposedly reporting holes he finds. As a reminder, he has considered all his hacks as "helping" in that he simply chose that method to point out the holes he found. The administration is simply trusting his word that he will actually report the holes he finds, and there is nothing whatsoever keeping him from doing what he has already done time and time again.
ONE Admin solidly and firmly stood against giving the message of disrespect to the community that it would be to allow this person to even be unofficial staff. One Admin believed that defending the site against Arcturus' hack attempts was simply part of the job, and that giving in to his blackmail demands would send a horribly clear message to the entire community that the single most maliciously destructive user FA has ever had can be made staff as a reward for once again denying this community the use of THEIR site. That one Admin is the only one who has ALWAYS taken a firm and solid stance in the name of defending the peaceful and productive members of the community against those who are here simply to harass and deconstruct any progress they can.
Arc has been made an unofficial off-the-books staffmember as a debugger. The Admin who was more in favor of dealing with the extra effort of keeping his threat out as a way of showing his respect to the members of this community that Arcturus has done nothing but disrespect has been the target of not only the majority of the people attacking this entire community, but also is under fire from his fellow staffmembers for doing nothing more than trying to defend this community from those who the rest of the staff seem afraid to piss off.
Defending this community should be at the exclusion of those who compromise the well-being of the community. One of the Admins gets this, and takes the heat that comes with it. Almost all the rest of the staff also seems to be in favor of cutting back on the bullshit, but are either afraid of the backlash that the troublemakers cause, or are held back by the very few members of staff who seem to feel that a problem isn't a problem until AFTER people are duking it out over it.
If you feel in any way connected to this site and community, and feel there is something wrong with the staff discussing firing Myr, a staffmember who was willing to continue to put forth the effort to fight Arcturus' hackings and E-terrorism, while simultaneously welcoming back into the community the single greatest individual cause of community upset, please speak up.
