Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Sometimes bad things happen!
It should save speculation to inform our community why we banned one person yesterday. We have never done this before as we had vowed at the outset to be and open forum where apart from having basic social rules, there was free speech and banning would be a last resort.
This has worked. We have banned over half of everyone who registered when our background checks indicated spamming, pornography, no interest in serious photography, Viagra or other drug sale, failure to clarify inconsistencies and so forth. This has been and continues to be a lot of work. However people who have a genuine interest in photography have no problem at all in joining OPF.
In a few rare instances a spammer got through and we simply removed them.
One of the unacceptable things in photography or any part of society is to present other people's work as if it is one's own. Well we had numerous activity concerning one person's posts and have invested a huge amount of effort in trying to get solid confirmation that gave us reasonable very minimal comfort concerning photographs posted by one individual. Eventually, this process was diverting so much energy that we had to ban this one person. However, if that person is a real photographer and backs up their identity, location employment so we can have total clarity, we will reverse our decision.
No one can be perfect; I'm not for sure. However, I can say we have given this one person a fair opportunity to explain particular images. If we misjudge the source of the images, that is done without malice.
I hope you understand how difficult such decisions are, but have to be made for practical if not ethical reasons.
Asher
It should save speculation to inform our community why we banned one person yesterday. We have never done this before as we had vowed at the outset to be and open forum where apart from having basic social rules, there was free speech and banning would be a last resort.
This has worked. We have banned over half of everyone who registered when our background checks indicated spamming, pornography, no interest in serious photography, Viagra or other drug sale, failure to clarify inconsistencies and so forth. This has been and continues to be a lot of work. However people who have a genuine interest in photography have no problem at all in joining OPF.
In a few rare instances a spammer got through and we simply removed them.
One of the unacceptable things in photography or any part of society is to present other people's work as if it is one's own. Well we had numerous activity concerning one person's posts and have invested a huge amount of effort in trying to get solid confirmation that gave us reasonable very minimal comfort concerning photographs posted by one individual. Eventually, this process was diverting so much energy that we had to ban this one person. However, if that person is a real photographer and backs up their identity, location employment so we can have total clarity, we will reverse our decision.
No one can be perfect; I'm not for sure. However, I can say we have given this one person a fair opportunity to explain particular images. If we misjudge the source of the images, that is done without malice.
I hope you understand how difficult such decisions are, but have to be made for practical if not ethical reasons.
Asher
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