All day today...

[heidi]

...I thouht it was sunday. It's not, I have sinced realised.

Alas.

I want to go home. I'm sick of traveling. I want to return to routine and the office and the gym and my bed, which I've slept in about seven times in November.

But first I want to go to the hp_california tea tomorrow (Ix, sorry about the replacementy things - I thought I was doing good by letting aaron & harry not come, but finding a replacement - glad it's working out, and I think you've done a great job of organization here. Also, am bringing a trivia prize from WB :)

And we're off to disneyland on monday, if the weather's fine. La, loff disney around Xmas.

Now for something a bit more serious, which I'm going to post on the FA lj and on fap itself when I'm back on my desktop, but I wanted to work through all my thoughts on it first.

And it's this: if you've been told about atrocious behaviour by an FA mod - say, that she stole someone's password, or harrassed a user by accusing her of murder, etc., *please* ask the admins or the ombudsman about it.

We've spent this week dealing with a situation where someone signed her posts Name Here For FictionAlley. In other words, she was impersonating a mod. One of the actual mods, at my suggestion, assessed her a point for this, as mod-impersonation is a violation of the ToU.

Said user (let's call her 'G') complained to the help desk; in my strange path to make sure everyone is happy, I emailed her back and explained why what she'd done was a violation of the ToU. I expected to get back a whinge, a complaint, more 'you're unfair!' claims.

She, instead, emailed me with an accusation that one of our newbie mods had engaged in nefarious deeds. I wrote back and asked her to explain, and her story included the following elements:
1. She'd lost her password in september, and emailed the 'only mod' who was online at the time (let's call the mod MOD).
2. MOD emailed her back with the password.
3. MOD subsequently sent her harrassing emails, accusing her of killing her mother and sister.
4. MOD also made posts that we then assessed her points for, because MOD was power hungry and/or mean.

All of the above is false.

How do we know this with certainty?

No, not simply because we believe MOD, but because the mod accused actually was not a mod back in September, but in fact has only been one this month. Also, because of nifty things like IP addresses and such.

However G has gone to her friends and complained that FA is evil, mean, full of liars and fraud and all sorts of bad stuff. We can't possibly explain this to everyone she's spoken to, because we don't actually know everyone who she's complained to, but we have a few guesses. I only hope that they realise that G needs support that is probably greater than they can give, mentally and emotionally; I hope she gets it.

I read this over and it sounds fantastical - and we spent pushing 50 person-hours dealing with it this week? How strange, you may think. But we did, and it's just... Frustrating is the best word I can come up with.

That, and *sigh*.

---

ETA: saw Love, Actually. Loff & loff & loff Love, Actually. Also want to draw 'degrees of relationships' map from Love, Actually, but unsure about including Kate Winslet, as she was sort of in it but really not, but in days of yore, married Alan Rickman and was younger sister to emma thompson & sister in law to hugh grant, who I adore. Also colin firth, wet.

Comments

[longtimegone]

That, and *sigh*.

*HUGS*

I'm ready to go home too.

And, as a funny aside, I am NOT used to people wearing SWEATERS and WINTER COATS when the weathermen have predicted a "CHILLY" (!!!) 70 degrees. This was the case today in Ft. Lauderdale. It just boggles the mind. There is nothing chilly about 65-70 degrees. :))

[longtimegone]

Heh. I saw Love, Acutally yesterday. I JUST LOFFED IT! <33333

[roobarb.livejournal.com]

70 degrees is chilly???

what the dickens do the call what we have here in the UK, most of the year we don't make 70 today it's going to be 40 degrees which they don't bother to clarify on the BBC site but has sunny spells so I guess it's coat weather though probably it won't need fastening up - not cold enough to be chilly yet though

[longtimegone]

it's warm year round down here. I live about 12 hours north of here though so we do get rather normal winters (although no snow). I just think it's hysterical. :D

[rachet.livejournal.com]

Loved and adored Love, Actually, too. Wish it would be out on DVD by Christmas!!!

[til-midnight.livejournal.com]

::boggles:: I didn't know about G accusing MOD. That's crazy. Like always, I salute everyone at the help desk for dealing with these problems.

[sincelastjuly.livejournal.com]

*offers schnoogles*

[angelamermaid.livejournal.com]

Hmm! I'm glad that my first month as a Mod hasn't been that eventful.

And now that I have a car, I think I'll bee seeing Love Actually soon!

[mark356.livejournal.com]

Good luck on the FA stuff, and I completely agree with you about Love Actually.

[jayabear.livejournal.com]

The only issue I'm having with mods, at the moment, is on SCUSA, at least, they don't seem to be, well, there. What I mean, is, there have been no warnings for the past five threads of L&L (and we know we haven't been that good.), and we keep discovering threads are still open when some t00b posts on them after we've deserted after finishing it ages ago.

t00bs are irritating.

I want to see Love, Actually, but it is still not out here! Woe! Woe!

*hugs*

~j

[aome.livejournal.com]

If you see a post or thread that needs dealing with, just use the 'report a post' feature and let us know what you need.

I'm not the mod for L&L specifically, but I *am* around online pretty often.

[jayabear.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll do that.

I can't remember who was the mod for L&L, I think it was Lissanne. At least, she used to turn up a few times a thread to smite people for violating the ToU.

Thanks.

~j

[aome.livejournal.com]

Liss is now a 'behind the scenes' mod at Scusa - she's not actively watching threads anymore, except if one of us goes on holiday.

[misako.livejournal.com]

Wow, sorry about all the hassle going on at FA. :: hugs ::

And technically, the title is "Love Actually" (no comma), and my friend is having a grammatical spaz about it. :: laughs :: I want to type "Love, Actually", too, but it's actually sans-comma. :: shrugs :: I still liked the film, though. :)

Misako

[nostrademons.livejournal.com]

Also, it's not possible for a mod (or even an admin) to find out a user's password and then e-mail it to them. Admins only can change a user's password, but they can never find out what the old password was. And Neville Longbottom's Password Recovery Form works by resetting the password to a machine-generated one and then having you pick a new password.

As far as I can tell from the code, the password is one-way encrypted as it goes into the database and then logins are checked with that hash. Meaning not even people with database access (Paul and to some extent me) can access a person's old password.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Can't figure out how to link to the exact comment, but this post has a relationship map from Love Actually in the comments. It's a little confusing, but rather cool.

[wcspegasus.livejournal.com]

I saw part of the G thing on the S&Q boards awhile back. Had no idea it had escalated that far. :( I honestly have no idea what is with some people. Why do they insist on making other people's lives miserable?

*hugs to the whole mod staff*

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

She is, according to her lj, only 14, so perhaps she doesn't understand how IP addresses work? She clearly didn't pay attention to when MOD joined as a mod, so I'm also pretty certain this was an after the fact attempt to get out of trouble. And if she really did recently lose family in a coach accident, then she needs therapy for reasons wholly unconnected to online stuff.

[wcspegasus.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it's still just bad manners in general. :( Even if she is only 14.

And if she really did recently lose family in a coach accident, then she needs therapy for reasons wholly unconnected to online stuff.

*nods* And while something like that is very regrettable and I'm sure quite devastating. It's still no reason to kick others around.

And it does sound like she needs the help of a professional.

[misspotter.livejournal.com]

Not that you know me... but I can't believe this situation actually, well, happened. People these days are so farfetched. Who would actually believe her that FA was 'evil' and 'mean' anyway? Those are such petty accusations.

[swordmage.livejournal.com]

Love, Actually. One of the best movies I've seen all year.

I don't think Kate Winslet was in it though.

And let's not forget the guy who played David (I think), the love-interest of the woman working in Rickman's office. And the guy who was in love with Keira Knightley.

And Wisconsin.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Kate was on the tv for the Titanic bit - I'm not sure whether that counts as being 'in' the film, tho.