Forum under attack, what do we do now?

[Hunnyluvs]

I received 3 "abuse reports", ALL FAKE, and ALL FROM THE SAME PERSON whom has stalked and repeatedly attacked us without provocation all week. He is mentally ill, has a criminal record, and is wanted by the police in Nevada. He has two accomplices. In the last week,against us, he has broken six more real world laws, multiple counts each. These individuals HAD a Forumotion forum of their own, but their activities were deemed malicious and illegal to the point of having their forum permanently deleted.

We KNEW he was going to try FILING FALSE REPORTS to harm us, because he THREATENED to. So I came here and pm'd an admin that we needed it on record here that we were having such a problem (in case you did get reports on us), and I needed advice about changing our forum's address so these people could no longer find us. And I wanted to know what Forumotion thought we should do in such a case, since forums are the business you are in, and you subject us to your TOS.

Well the admin ignored us. He threw our pm away, and didn't even find it necessary to jot us a quick note advising us that he didn't give a snot, or at least "here's who you can report it to instead". No. He deleted my pm and left us entirely abandoned to it, waiting for help that never came.

The result is our forum, after all the work I did building it, is GREATLY HARMED. I am having to explain this to my lawyer (oh this situation already involves police and filing charges), and probably the judge when he asks, "Didn't you report the problem?" And I will have to tell him. "Yes, your honor, we did, right away and to the appropriate individual. (to the management), however at Forumotion they have a series of petty and unpredictable procedural rules (such as "only a mod can use colored text" and "if you use colored text we'll ignore you")"

And when the judge retorts, "Oh, kind of like the soup nazi, on Seinfeld?" I will have to be honest, because we are in court, and say "Yes." Well thank you for that. You COULD HAVE helped me understand how to change our address effectively, to help put a stop to the problem.You SHOULD HAVE at least acknowledged that we were advising you to expect false reports, and we wanted it on record of course. But oh no. You just threw our pm away. No soup for us!

And I'll bet ANYTHING I'll get a warning, ban or some correcting language in return for speaking only the truth, here, and only out of need to do so, because the staff wont help, or even tell us where to go/what to do to get help, so that I have to post here and ask fellow forum operators, WHOM I FEEL CERTAIN will have experienced the same "well, you didn't say 'simon says' properly!" treatment, when coming here for help.

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I want it clear, before any one dares suggest it. WE PAY MONEY. This ISN'T a 'free' forum. We're customers. And if the staff here are not getting paychecks, that's their problem. I PAY. I have obligations. And I don't want to hear your personal financial issues offered as an excuse for business practices which allow people to have problems involving police, courts, harmed lives, and the loss of their business.
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We did NOT have a problem that should be broadcast in this public forum, as your actions have FORCED me to now resort to here. We needed to speak quietly with management, and report a problem with people threatening us and breaking laws and filing false reports. BAD PEOPLE whom the police want to find.

Can ANYONE here explain to me why I brought a problem, like that, as SERIOUS as that, to an admin, and GOT IGNORED? Is that this forum's idea of good policy? Well, it's not good policy. And it smacks of callous, anal martinets inflicting the pettiest of procedural rules by way of abandoning its customers, because they HONESTLY DON'T CARE. And that sucks.

AGAIN: These forums are not "free". WE PAY FOR THEM. I expect better.

And if I get correcting language, a warning, a ban, ANYTHING like that, in answer from staff for this, that would be truly inappropriate for you to do NOW. You left us to dry. We did the right thing, and you screwed up, causing us harm. It will be a sad moment to me if you decide to further pursue that shockingly awful method of...whatever it is you think you're doing. You actually owe us an apology, some help, and amends.

I didn't come here to threaten you with telling the lawyer, by the way. I am simply explaining to you the GRAVITY and depth of our situation, which you helped worsen for us. I just want a little help.
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WHAT WE NEED....

1 -I tried to find another forum to use besides Forumotion, but didn't have enough knowledge. I wanted a forum like this but WITHOUT a report button.

I was a member of Yahoo Answers which is a cesspool of fear and suspicion and customers fleeing, ALL BECAUSE OF REPORT BUTTONS. My experience is people use those when they feel angry, NOT when you have done wrong. They just want "revenge".

EXAMPLE: I said we had three reports from one guy, right? Here's what he reported us for: He was posting repeated threats, stalking and attacking our members without ceasing. WE deleted his account. He received the automated mail that Forumotion sent him (not us) informing him simply that ..well here, read it:

QUOTE: Hi Roger Rabbit,
You receive this automatic e-mail because your account on "******.com" - http://www.*******.com has been deleted. You can contact the administrator to know why it has been deleted. UNQUOTE

Forumotion sent him that. Not us. Oh but you signed my name to it, thank you! OH and you also told him what our new address was, so he could follow us and continue attacking, and breaking laws not just rules. THANKS! I PAYED YOU MONEY TO CHANGE MY ADDRESS, to stop the problem with him. And YOU send him my new address!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKS!!!!!!!!!!

Oh but it gets even better. The three abuse reports we got, all from that one same guy? --> All claim that that letter IS WHAT WAS ABUSIVE TO HIM. THAT'S WHAT HE IS REPORTING US FOR.
YOUR AUTOMATED MESSAGE TO HIM.

Now here is why I bring up my experience with report buttons at other forums. Typically, someone will report, MOST OFTEN as an act of personal revenge committed against someone innocent. And MOSTLY they come as REPEATED false reports (because they want to get your account taken away from you to hurt you). And guess who reads reports (or any appeals)? That's right. A Machine, programmed to approve every report it gets without consideration, and deny every appeal automatically. No human ever sees your appeal. ANY JERK CAN LIE YOU INTO OBLIVION AND YOU CANT STOP IT (At Yahoo, the members all have their accounts set to private (so they can barely play), and 4 "back up accounts", ready to go, for when they regularly lose their account to what they call "a troll", pushing that ****ing button) It is exceedingly irresponsible for a company to imagine if it leaves those buttons around a place, it will "police itself" without any humans around for anyone to go to for help.

And when I came here yesterday, I received just like what I got at Yahoo: I report a problem, and silence comes back, and my account gets destroyed. (although hopefully, here, in this case, the admin who ignored me managed to finish his potato chips undisturbed by a customer with a problem..at least we can hope for that).

Later I expect to get treated just like I did at another forum, where they have the opposite approach, they think a forum should have even more rules and cops than the United States! (as if that's possible), and the result is they lost half a million active members. At that place, if you had a problem and said so, you got punished. They didn't solve problems, they "got rid of them". Well their "problems" didn't really "go away", all their customers did. They went from fame to shame, from sucky management. And people tried to help with suggestions, but they defended the sucky management with more and worsening rules. After a while, they even started opening people's mail!, and punishing them for things done in the outside world. Anyone know what a "culture" is, in business terms? Yea, its to be fostered, or else feared because it becomes destructive. And does anyone know the story "Animal Farm"? Well, I don't know if I'll get through to even one person, or be noticed, but I'm trying to be considerate here, taking this time. Because that "no one's available" policy of yours needs re-thinking.

Well, I don't mean to mope, but I expect to get some authoritarian **** for posting this. Well, hey, what do I care... I lost my forum, having done not a thing wrong but dream and try to handle everything right. Have you staff people got no clue how important these things can be to an individual? And that there are thousands of us out here? Does the **** admin who ignored me not understand that he may cause someone real misery?
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Well I came here yesterday to ask about these "abuse reports".
AND I STILL NEED TO KNOW:
-Do they come just to my admin panel for me to deal with?
-Or has Forumotion been reported to?
-What happens now?
-What am I expected to do, procedurally, when we receive a report?
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2 -Having already changed our name and address yesterday ( I bought a domain name for a year) HOW can we change our address again today, and HOW can we do it in a way that Forumotion isn't going to tell CRIMINALS our new address (wtff)?

3 - Aw, screw it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go close my forum, my dream and hard work. Thanks for the help in letting it to go that far. (OH and why don't I get a confirmation code emailed to me, when I try to delete my forum? It sends no code. What gives? How do I delete it?

Or is there a way of salvaging it, by changing the address WITHOUT the previous address leading to the new one? (*yes I do know where the "redirect" button is. But FORUMOTION SENT OUR NEW ADDRESS WHICH I PAYED THEM FOR TO A CRIMINAL! - a criminal who may even get away with god damning us to here, now, without us having done anything wrong, because the staff wont listen.

..And even if one doesn't redirect the old address to the new one, anyone clicking your old link will be led to a list of search results with your new forum name right at the top! So we're screwed aren't we? I need to let the terrorist win, right? I have to close it. and start ALL over to get away from him...

Well.
No soup for us.

[Sanket]

If you PM'ed Typlo by any chance, he gets possibly 100's of PM's every day. Its very probable that he missed your PM & it got deleted. We regret that information was not passed on to you.

So to talk of your issue. Only, if you would have cared to ask it on the forum we would have helped you. The Abuse a report feature is a feature for people to report something on your forum to the admin of the forum which is you. Those reports are not sent to forumotion. So even if a user abuses such a tool, it has got no repercussions. The reports are added in your admin panel.

Only way to report any forum to forumotion is using the litigation tool.
https://help.forumotion.com/t12330-complaint-against-a-forum-how-to
Also, after someone reports it to Forumotion. If its found that its a hack forum or giving download material, only then is the forum deleted directly in the first place. If there is no base in their litigation, no action is taken. So when there is no illegal content on our forums, why should we worry.

So hope all this information sorts your problems? Is there more that you want to know, since most of your comments were just rude taking a dig at Forumotion.

[Hunnyluvs]

If you PM'ed Typlo by any chance, he gets possibly 100's of PM's every day. Its very probable that he missed your PM & it got deleted. We regret that information was not passed on to you.

So to talk of your issue. Only, if you would have cared to ask it on the forum we would have helped you. The Abuse a report feature is a feature for people to report something on your forum to the admin of the forum which is you. Those reports are not sent to forumotion. So even if a user abuses such a tool, it has got no repercussions. The reports are added in your admin panel.

Only way to report any forum to forumotion is using the litigation tool.
https://help.forumotion.com/t12330-complaint-against-a-forum-how-to
Also, after someone reports it to Forumotion. If its found that its a hack forum or giving download material, only then is the forum deleted directly in the first place. If there is no base in their litigation, no action is taken. So when there is no illegal content on our forums, why should we worry.

So hope all this information sorts your problems? Is there more that you want to know, since most of your comments were just rude taking a dig at Forumotion.

Aaw, I do feel bad now that you've been so nice to me. And you're always nice to me. Thank you for that. Do you want me to just delete this post, since it's so gripey? (In the original text, I had said how much I like the mods here because they come right away, and are always helpful and nice about it. And you are.(I did write that but it was just too long.) I'm sorry if I made it seem I was saying you were a terrible place. I rather love Forumotion. I even have the hat you sell. XD Most of what I've been so upset about is I thought I had had my forum killed, and would have to go somewhere else. Oh I'd much rather stay with you guys. Its wonderful news to me that we aren't just going to get wiped out like used to happen at Yahoo.

Well, if they cant really harm us, maybe they will just get tired and go away?
Okay, well, we will try some more.

I don't think I need anything else, except I'm awful sorry if I was offensive to you. You're always good to me when I have to come. I'm sorry Typlo. Okay well I have read this and gotten what I needed. Maybe you'll want to garbage this, because its not flattering to Forumotion. And you're actually a good egg for not slapping a warning on me. (em, you didn't ,right? *blink* oh my..well it would be my fault, if you did.

By the way, how I actually feel about you being a volunteer, not a payed employee here, is quite grateful that you spend your time getting to know all this stuff for us. I'm gonna go be ashamed now, but happy that we aren't going to have our forum deleted, and you helped me.

Sherry


(I copied the info you gave me. Its valuable to know.Thank you!)

[Jophy]

Since this thread appears to be solved, I will lock this thread and mark it as solved now. Important: You can also help the moderators to know if your topic/problem is solved by EDITING your first post and marking the topic as solved. Thank you. ~ Joph25