The Ugly.....

I can happily report that "The Ugly" are in the minority at the fan sites I frequent..but they are "out there" ..and so I'll mention them.

By "ugly".. I mean the baddest of the bad. The people who not only can't seem to follow rules but intentionally do so and then when they are called on it.. cry "foul" and or take drastic measures for "revenge".

At the sites I run ..and the ones I frequent.. it takes a lot to get banned. You have to really go out of your way to break the rules.. even after being warned. I think on my main fan site.. I've banned only two (well actually "three" but more on that later) people. Most people respond to warnings and as I said in "The Bad" ..they either work within the rules or leave the site voluntarily.

As part of the "respect for the celebrity" aspect of rules that I've mentioned before.. the sites I frequent all stress respecting a celebs "private time". While public events are announced and people are encouraged to try to attend.. we do not post any info on where the celebs might be during their private time and or working. We may mention general locations of houses and or filming..but not specifics. Not enough to "track them down".

On every fan site you get the person who does not see anything wrong with trying to track down a celeb while they are going about living their life..or working. Most of these people do not consider this "stalking". I've had people argue with me that "stalking" only involves the intent to do physical harm. I don't agree with that. (But that can be the subject of another post ;) ). I do not feel that just because a person chooses to be in the "public eye" that they lose all rights to privacy.

I have had people attempt to use my site to gain information on a celebrity's whereabouts .. in order to track them down as they work, shop, go out to eat, travel etc.. I' ve been made aware of people contacting people on the site via email or private message to ask them for information that the person has said they "know" but haven't posted. When I do find out about this type of behavior.. I feel that is a basis for banning. In the beginning I tried just giving "warnings" but found that this type of person doesn't heed warnings since they don't think they are doing anything wrong to begin with.

One really ugly incident that happened on one of my sites was a member who posted that she happened to work at an establishment that the celebrity involved frequented when he was home. She said that she showed him the site on a lap top and said she'd pass along messages. When people questioned the validity of it all.. another member stuck up for her. Said she had visited her at the city.. and she did work there, did meet the celebrity etc. Well.. in order to get to the bottom of it.. I started checking IPs and such. The two members.. used the same IP originating in the same city as the individual who was "backing up" the story.. not from the city where the celebrity lived or the establishment was supposed to be. This was a case of one very troubled person registering as two different people in order to fool the members of the site and tell lies about the celebrity. So "both" of the users were banned.

The ugliest of the ugly.. seem to reside on the IMDb forums. For those that don't know .. when you look up a celebrity or movie or whatever on IMDb .. there is usually a forum where that topic can be discussed. The problem is that these forums are pretty much not moderated. I've come to the conclusion that the majority of the people who frequent those forums.. have been banned from other sites. The ugliest thing that I have witnessed on the IMDb forums are personal attacks on members and admins at other Fan Sites. ( The people who post regularly at the IMDb forums pride themselves on NOT being "fan sites".) I've seen more than one admin have very personal, insulting things said about them and their families and their sites on IMDb by people who got in to trouble on said fansites for breaking rules. I've seen private messages, emails and personal information posted there with no other purpose than to gain revenge for being reprimanded on sites that these people claim to dislike any way. It is also common for the IMDb forums to contain posts that are very disrespectful to the said celebrities. Since these forums are not fansites you do get people who don't like the celebrity being discussed and that's fine. However, some people go out of their way to post ugly rumors, gossip and invasive razzi photos.

In the internet world you are always going to find a wide range of personalities and on fansites it's no different. When I started running a fansite I had no idea that you almost need a degree in psychology to deal with some of these people. But, as I said.. the worst are in the minority. I wish I didn't even have to mention them, but they are a part of the "fan site" thing.. hopefully I won't have to bring it up again.