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Did y'all know that there is a group (I call them The Mean Girls but I don't recall what their name actually is, if they even have one) who "meet" online outside this forum and discuss certain forum members, stalk them, harass them, etc? Not sure what can be done about them. Just wanting to let you know about them.
If you have been consistently "stalked" on this forum, harassed, etc. you may want to google your forum name and see if it pops up in other conversations outside this forum. Mine did - in this particular group only. I called them out on it on this forum, on the threads and in PMs to other forum members that began to be harassed by them (I recognized their methods). I also reported their posts over and over again and I think that helped as well. I don't see them around anymore, but maybe their screen names have changed, who knows?
Anyway, weirdos are definitely out there.
You should have reported them to Marka the head mod.
It floors me that people have so much time on their hands to do stuff like that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by otterhere
Thank you, Roslvr, for the technical support! Hopefully I've followed your instructions correctly and made private all that can be made private.
That's surprising, KathrynAragon, and disappointing. High school never ends for some people.
I always thought of C-D as a relatively safe place and personally try to keep it as impersonal as possible (I don't make "friends" or share contact info). Frankly, I hardly even notice the screen names when I'm participating in a thread, as it's more about the conversation than the people...
Although a few become memorable if you hang out here long enough!
You're very welcome. Your profile is private now. Hopefully that helps.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
Interesting.
Stalking is not an exact definition, but it is one of those things that if it happens to you, you know. I was hesitant to post this here because I have had a stalker of sorts on City-Data who may still be following me around. That member was infracted and told to stop but not banned, which is fine. It does contribute around the forum in other ways, and as long as it leaves me alone, it can stay. The problem was that the person not only dug up my old posts but then used to them to misrepresent what I had said (taking them out of context) in order to try to turn other members against me. It backfired, since several posters reported it asking who the weirdo was, and the assigned mod saw what was going on and took action.
I also suspect that this person may have discovered my identity, possibly through a photo I had posted tracked me to Facebook, because it knew something about me I had not revealed here, so be careful about that. I've wondered if substance abuse may have been involved, but in general, the person has a very cold, dark side that I see in its posts to others as well. As a matter of fact, this person attempted to attack a vulnerable poster in the lowest way I've ever seen on this forum. As a mod, I've seen a lot, and this action shocked even me.
Some people have dark hearts. I listen to a crime junkie podcast in which one of the truths they post is that none of us can ever really know what's inside another person, even if we live with that person. I suspect that my would-be stalker looks and acts pretty normal in real life.
In the end, they have to be miserable people to spend so much effort trying to make strangers miserable.
I'm shocked to hear someone did it to you, especially since you are a mod. IMO you should have had them banned because harassing a mod shouldn't be tolerated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon
I am THE SAME WAY. And it's way too much trouble to try to keep up with personal sagas anyway. And yes, I agree - it surprised and disappointed me as well.
Plus, I don't hold a grudge so even if I disagree with someone at some point on a particular thread, I don't hang onto it. If I DO happen to notice their name on another thread, I'm not like "Oh, it's so and so...so I hate them."
I'm the same way, I don't hold onto user names but apparently some people do. Like grow up already
You should have reported them to Marka the head mod.
It floors me that people have so much time on their hands to do stuff like that.
I'm the same way, I don't hold onto user names but apparently some people do. Like grow up already
Thanks and I did report them - I think it was to Marka. Not sure what became of it but I do know their harassment dwindled and I don't see them around much. And occasionally when I do, they're super nice to me, which is weird but OK.
Roselver---"It floors me that people have so much time on their hands to do stuff like that."
I think with this Corona lockdown, a lot of people have TOO much time on their hands.
"I'm the same way, I don't hold onto user names but apparently some people do."
I DO hold onto some names, because I appreciate their knowledge! There are some people on the Real Estate and Investing Forums that I try to follow insofar as possible. There are a lot of really bright people here!!
I've been on City-Data for over a decade, since I was in college, and was less careful when I was younger. I think many of us long term posters know a fair bit about each other's lives and backgrounds, but there's an element of trust that perhaps we didn't fully think out when we first started posting. There's a reason why I have my posting history locked down!
One of the more concerning moments for me was about a decade ago. I was going through cancer treatment as a freaked out 23 year old and used City Data as a way to exercise my feelings without freaking out my friends, especially since I was sugarcoating things to them because I didn't want pity or to make them worry. It was also just around when the ACA went through, so I had a lot of conversations about healthcare access in the US that were tinged by my existential dread of not being able to pay my bills. Some looney toon started following me around CD responding in horrible ways about how I expected them to work to pay for my healthcare and that if I couldn't pay, I should die. They even tracked down other usage of charolastra00 on the internet to leave comments. It was... dramatic. The only thing he hit was a very old Livejournal that hadn't been used in years, but I wonder what the other "charolastra00"s out there think!
In a slightly different situation, I learned someone at my workplace (in a very high responsibility/high skill position) was a high ranking videogame player when a bunch of 13 year olds in Australia doxxed him on Twitter when he kicked one of them from his guild. This was a man in his 40s who was at the executive director level of an internal financial group. It was one of the more awkward phone calls I had to make just to give him a heads up.
Poor Marka must be bombarded today. So many got obscene marketing spam in the PM box.
Drat! Don't think that's ever happened to me on a forum before. But they'll get it cleaned up.
I've only been stalked once and that was somewhere else and more of unwelcome humorous remarks than anything I took as a threat. When I didn't respond it stopped.
Real life when I was younger was a different situation.
Over the years I’ve had one that followed me to just disagree with own artistic style, another to tell me I didn’t know anything about my own born and raised home town. It takes all kinds. They think they are the judge and jury I guess. But that is not why we are on here. We don’t need a judge or jury here. It’s nice to offer helpful advice. And it’s nice to vent here instead to our kin. The mods do a pretty good job keeping up with all the unneeded drama. I’ve been a mod on a worldwide forum befor and we had just as many spammy posts as real posts. It’s a never ending job.
What would induce a poster to basically out, dox, or sabotage (that's not quite the right word, but) another poster in random posts?
In 2003, someone on the defunct Canadian Broadcasting Forum www.cbc.ca/forums posted my real name, employer's name and phone number. Weeks later the same poster posted a picture of me and then a wish that I "die on a Jerusalem bus."
At another Canadian politically conservative forum a poster told the owners that I was part of a Democratic Party, pro-abortion cabal that wanted to hurt the forum. The owner, having received some checks from me while I was trying to help the forum, emailed all the partners of my firm about me.
Creepy. That must be someone that knows you irl. I'm experiencing some stalking in other app and immediately figured its someone i know Irl, cause they appeared to be random yet not exactly random. If the stalker post my info they knows their identity is official.
In 2003, someone on the defunct Canadian Broadcasting Forum www.cbc.ca/forums posted my real name, employer's name and phone number. Weeks later the same poster posted a picture of me and then a wish that I "die on a Jerusalem bus."
At another Canadian politically conservative forum a poster told the owners that I was part of a Democratic Party, pro-abortion cabal that wanted to hurt the forum. The owner, having received some checks from me while I was trying to help the forum, emailed all the partners of my firm about me.
It does happen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by softcrunch
Creepy. That must be someone that knows you irl. I'm experiencing some stalking in other app and immediately figured its someone i know Irl, cause they appeared to be random yet not exactly random. If the stalker post my info they knows their identity is official.
Those people were in Canada. The person in the CBC episode had never met nor spoken to me. I met the people in the other website episode in Montreal, at the Canadian Conservative Party Policy Conference in March 2005 and was frankly surprised that happened. They seemed like nice people and I treated them as friends.
In 2003, someone on the defunct Canadian Broadcasting Forum posted my real name, employer's name and phone number. Weeks later the same poster posted a picture of me and then a wish that I "die on a Jerusalem bus."
At another Canadian politically conservative forum a poster told the owners that I was part of a Democratic Party, pro-abortion cabal that wanted to hurt the forum. The owner, having received some checks from me while I was trying to help the forum, emailed all the partners of my firm about me.
It does happen.
Those tolerant conservatives...
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