Mod Post: Beware unofficial social media 'mirrors'!

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

Hey everyone!

We'd like to announce something to the community as a whole. Recently there have been a few cases of Artists Beware clones popping up on various social media websites. We would like to let you all know that these 'mirrors' are not official Artists Beware portals. Our only portals are this LJ community, ab_archive and a mirror of A_B on DreamWidth. These three sources are all run by moderators of this, the 'mothership' community.

As for these other 'mirrors'; we don't know who's running them but they seem to do it so people who do not have LJ accounts can loophole out of signing up for one, and/or for the fact we do not allow proxy posts.

We do the latter for quality control, and to make sure the members of our community get their answers right from the source without any 'telephone effect'.

The former is not an issue because as some of you might have noticed, LiveJournal allows people to interact in communities via GooglePlus (G+), Facebook and Twitter. Not only in comments, but actual entries as well. You can even go through these connect widgets to create an actual LJ account anyway, should you choose to!

We'll be editing our info to reflect this knowledge, and we hope that you, our members will continue to guide people towards our LiveJournal community, for quality control, user protection and immediate action in case of anything, be it good or... not so good.

And for those who either were or already have entertained and followed through with the idea of a 'mirror site': We're flattered you want to help spread the word and all, but we'd prefer if you did NOT use the name 'Artists Beware' for a user title, or copy any content from this or our official mirrors to your own. This is to avoid confusion in the user base, and is again for quality control, user protection, and more.

Thank you guys for your support, you're the best!

Comments

[negawolfie.livejournal.com]

What about the one in Tubmlr?

http://artists-beware.tumblr.com/

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

The three links given in this mod post are the only official mirrors of Artists Beware. Any other offshoots were not approved by us, nor are they run by us (which is how they would be approved).

We encourage our users to only use the LJ site to post their bewares, advice and more that way the core users of A_B can see it, and offer their own advice, etc.

That is the beauty of A_B, not only can you TELL people about it, we can give you advice on how to proceed with it, people can offer up additional or counterpoint evidence and more. There is DISCUSSION here.

Discussion on Tumblr while not impossible, is messy disjointed and hard to follow. It is why we did not create a mirror on that site, and is the reason why it is not an approved source.

[claytronic.livejournal.com]

that one was deleted reallly quick, wow

[kohaku-chimaera.livejournal.com]

It got deleted?? I actually really enjoyed having such easy updates show up on my dash. :/

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

I really wish people would at least try to talk to us before they do this. NONE of the people who have made AB clones have even tried to discuss it with us first, and it bothers me a lot that they use our name and just copypasta our material.

It's fine to want to make your own community elsewhere with the same idea, but please don't use the same name, take posts from here without permission from the people who made them (after all, they might not be cool with it), and plagiarize mod posts for your own use!

At the very least, make sure you're very clear in saying you're not affiliated with us in your profile info where it's not just going to be bumped off as people post.

I just know it makes me really uncomfortable because people will assume we're involved, and suddenly we're responsible for what a bunch of strangers are doing where we have no control.

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

Pretty much in whole agreement with your post!

I mean, what do they want out of the A_B name? Internet fame? Not really going to happen, we're hardly famous ourselves; in name at least, for our association with A_B. A_B is just... A_B. Everything is lumped into that one identity, which is why all of these offshoot sites are harmful more than helpful.

Fractioning A_B into all of these other sites makes no sense, weakens the link and community of A_B too. New people aren't going to know where to go, or worse off, like you said: if something went badly on a mirror, who'll take the initial blame and fall? We will, because its "Artists Beware". Just because its on Tumblr, or DeviantArt ot FurAffinity, matters not - we'll get the initial blame.

And since we do not KNOW who's running these mirrors, how do we know they're going to speak professionally, keep confidences, and more? While I'm sure these people are all wonderful - we don't know how they'll act when the actual STRESS of working on such a service catches up to them. Its not just a BOOM, its posted, lets go play WoW/SecondLife/TF2 thing. Its a deeper dedication, a lot of discussion, apologizing, hovering and even knowing when to step back and let someone else help out too.

Its why there are FIVE of us working on this one LJ community. Its a team effort to keep A_B working, so I hope these offshoots really know what they're getting into, but my gut tells me they have not a clue.

[night-sky99.livejournal.com]

Long-time lurker here. I'm reading the info and FAQ of the a-b tumblr posted above. This person doesn't seem like they know what they are doing is wrong. They don't have permission from you mods, or from the original posters. I just can't even really fathom that they think it's perfectly okay to a)steal your idea, and b) steal these posts, word-for-word.

Do you know if these mirror sites are posting even the friends-lock posts? 'Cause that just seems plain idiotic if they are.

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

They don't see themselves doing wrong, because they think they are doing us and others who 'don't want to get LJ accounts' a service and a favor.

But snatching our community icon, plagiarizing our mod posts and snatching already posted and easily accessible content is essentially no bueno, harmful to people who want to get their problems solved, or at east properly aired out, etc.

So I hope that those who have made mirrors see this, and understand WHY making A_B clones under the header of A_B is a very very bad idea and quit while they're ahead. Its better for all that you just link the LJ account.

[tornaderman.livejournal.com]

Looks like the AB tumblr was deleted pretty quickly.

[fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com]

I know one of the comms I follow has an official twitter feed that just picks up the crosspost links. All if does it send a post to twitter with title of post and a link back to the entry on LJ. fully automated.

It might be nice to set up official one that does something similar for people that don't visit LJ as much but do use Twitter. then it'll show up in their feed that they should come check it out, but it still brings them back to the original entry here.

[shukivengeance.livejournal.com]

These unofficial mirrors make me uncomfortable not just as a moderator - because the reputation of something I care about is potentially at stake due to something we have no control over - but also as a user. The idea of something I have posted here being taken without my knowledge or permission just makes me uneasy and feels like an intrusion.

What is also problematic is that these copycats do not have the same level of of quality control that we do. The tumblr is deleted now but I saw that they had reblogged this http://spetznas.tumblr.com/post/3112036385/artist-beware-v which is subjective ad hominem nonsense with no supporting evidence and misinformation on copyright law.

[taasla.livejournal.com]

And the artist in that situation even ended up here reporting the OP of that tumblr post. Ha.

[dragontripmon.livejournal.com]

I'm also concernered about this considering i've seen several tumblr blogs that deal with bad art and things get taken down for harassment considering how easily spread said tumblr posts and stuff getting out easily on sites. So that's another way to cause a lot of problems.

While this is'nt related i found a journal repost about A_B on FA from someone journal that lead to the original basically opinion about A_B. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3467269/

[darkunisha.livejournal.com]

There is a group called "Artists-Beware" that I found on DA recently and they do a similar thing and have a similar style to this one. They do list that they are not affiliated with this community, and vise versa, but just wanted to drop a link if that's alright with the mods. c:

Here's the link:

http://artists-beware.deviantart.com/

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

We're aware of the DeviantArt copy site, we have already requested of them to state they are not affiliated with Artists Beware.

The now-deleted (or name changed not sure yet) Tumblr A_B was a problem because they were using our mod posts, used our icon and were taking bewares already on the LJ and moving them to that Tumblr, in essence trying to play themselves off as some sort of official A_B mirror, when they were actually doing things no one on staff here would do!

[dragontripmon.livejournal.com]

Well at least that group does not have screencaps considering there's a rule on DA about vigilante groups that happen to be discussed in a journal post on communityops that was made by R^2.

[kwolf13.livejournal.com]

I can kind of see why other people would try to mimic what you guys do here. Frankly Livejournal seems pretty dead (at least compared to other places like Twitter and Tumblr)

I could swear at one point I saw an A_B on Facebook, but I can't find it. Not sure if that was a branch off of you guys or another mirror.

Maybe it would be a good idea to make branches on other sites, not to particularly post on, but at least update people when new posts are made over here. I find it's hard to keep track of this community because of how inactive this site seems, I can't be the only one who has the same problem.

[(Anonymous)]

Tumblr is not the idea site for a community like A_B. We cannot control reblogs or the editing of content and more.

Its not us trying to be 'cool kids club' about it, its about protecting both those who are posting here and those who are going to be posted about even. And tumblr allows for no possible QC to keep things in check.

LiveJournal, even at its worst - does. As does DreamWidth. No other social media outlet offers such coverage. They're not built for it. And without one of us shelling out a great deal of money for a website designer or a coder to give us what we'd want to make Artists Beware as efficient as it can be, moving is not an option.

As for A_B, we are not inactive actually. And LJ itself still has its busy spots but they're catered more to a certain audience which might not include some of your interest, it admittedly doesn't cover some of mine, but that's fine. I don't need one site for everything, but that's just me.

We can consider making other names on other sites, if only to 'save' them and keep others from attempting offshoots and that's kind of it.

[shukivengeance.livejournal.com]

Trying to do the same job this community does isn't an issue. It's the theft of our name and content which is problematic.

As already stated in the post and comments, the only 'official' ABs are here, our archive LJ community and the Dreamwidth backup.

Your suggestion is something I do believe we should consider, and someone else mentioned an automated Twitter crossposting thing which sounds useful.

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

Tumblr is not the idea site for a community like A_B. We cannot control reblogs or the editing of content and more.

Its not us trying to be 'cool kids club' about it, its about protecting both those who are posting here and those who are going to be posted about even. And tumblr allows for no possible QC to keep things in check.

LiveJournal, even at its worst - does. As does DreamWidth. No other social media outlet offers such coverage. They're not built for it. And without one of us shelling out a great deal of money for a website designer or a coder to give us what we'd want to make Artists Beware as efficient as it can be, moving is not an option.

As for A_B, we are not inactive actually. And LJ itself still has its busy spots but they're catered more to a certain audience which might not include some of your interest, it admittedly doesn't cover some of mine, but that's fine. I don't need one site for everything, but that's just me.

We can consider making other names on other sites, if only to 'save' them and keep others from attempting offshoots and that's kind of it.

[taasla.livejournal.com]

I'm not really happy about some of these places reposting or listing people as someone to be bewared without the original OP's permission. In my case, I told Tashumitsu that I would only post about my issue with him here and only here. If he goes about the internet and sees his name plastered everywhere it looks like I tried to smear his name in every place I possibly could. That is simply not the case.

[shukivengeance.livejournal.com]

This is a very valid point and yours *was* one of the posts the tumblr reproduced.

[ocelotish]

Do we know that all of these places are actively ripping off the concept? Artist(s) Beware isn't exactly an original name or concept. Maybe it's just me, but there isn't enough here to rip off in most cases.

However, I'm 100% behind the 'these are associated with us, no one else' in the info.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, they say directly in their info that they're based off of us.

[fastbreak333.livejournal.com]

I still don't get why they'd copy-and-paste the posts over there... you don't need an LJ account to see these posts. Seems really silly if you ask me.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Except the f-locked posts, which some art.

[spiffystuff.livejournal.com]

A while ago I offered to make a googledocs spreadsheet of people listed here (or find some other solution) so one can easily search for names and get a quick rundown of positive and negative post status before linking in to see what has been written.

But I wasn't about to do it without permission and while I can understand borrowing the name, since it is pretty generic, copying the content shoulda raised some questions about permissions I would think.

[marus-puppy.livejournal.com]

A spreadsheet woulda been kinda cool! Especially for those posts that get to be hundreds of comments long.

[familliaraver.livejournal.com]

Yo dawg I heard you like A_B so we went ahead and posted some A_B on your A_B so you could A_B while you A_B

[oceandezignz.livejournal.com]

This. This deserves a macro response but alas we are that kind of comm.

Regardless, good show.;p