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Not a problem. Thank you Elena.

Like mentioned before, I want to get a feel for the site before I decided whether I want to join or not. Having boards hidden is something I understand, but at the same time it makes you wonder why they are hiding it. I have seen apps etc being hidden even when you are writing an app which makes me paranoid for some reason. My personal believe is that we are on the internet and things can be copied whether it is word for word or just the ideas. I can understand that it pisses other people off when it happens. Of course when it is word for word I get pissed off as well, with ideas I believe that anyone can come up with them as well so I personally have less problems with it.

I agree with what is said before that people have to be able to find the information. However I do not think it will create a certain feeling of immersion. I actually like it if forums etc have certain names that fit the setting. It helps if in the description it is mentioned what is actually in there making it easier to navigate. Though for me I prefer Rules being Rules, Plot being Plot, etc that keeps things clear.

@featherstone Hey, welcome back on here! It is lovely to see you around again. If you need any help or have any questions you can always drop me a pm.

Yes, it works, thank you! <3

As someone who recently found a plagiarized character from her site on another site, I shall tell you why the guest's story seems fishy. I was offended when I found this character. I don't talk to the person in question anymore, because she was banned from my site as no one really appreciated the way that she handled a few quite important things. However, I did not accuse the member in the cbox. I created an account with the name of the character as they were originally created and messaged the admins from the privacy of that account with all the information that made it clear that this character was plagiarized. I then waited. I am currently still rather peeved as they have not removed the plagiarized character as I requested, but I literally can't do anything else. But this character is a character that was created using backstory clearly stated on our site to be copyright us and was originally played by the creator of my site before being picked up by this other person (for those of you that don't know, I did not create Mortal Ends, I have simply been running it for most of its life). When this person picked up the character, they did so with what I thought was the understanding that the character had been created by myself and the original creator of my site. Then while advertising I found a Suspiciously Similar Character after our relationship with this person exploded and she was banned. She had taken the backstory and character and utilized them in whole on another site. I sent a detailed message, with links, to the admins (that I will not reproduce here as I do not wish to call this person out in specific in public). If the guest in question is not willing to go to this length to get to the bottom of their own accusation, then it is likely someone angry trying to get back at someone else. Someone who knows they are in the right would not mind making more permanent proof of their accusation happening. Also, when you're plagiarized it feels quite personal, I can tell you. It's not something I felt like airing in the open. It was just something that I wanted quietly removed. It's very easy to get someone else to help you with accusations if you're not utilizing actual proof, either because you have a friend already on that site or because, as Morrigan stated, someone else on the site doesn't like the person in question and is jumping on the bandwagon after seeing the public discussion. Honestly, if they aren't willing to present proof, you can't do anything. If they do eventually cough up proof and it's not clear what's going on, then go with your gut on who's telling the truth. There's not much else you can do. If the accusations are false, they'll never submit proof. They were just stirring up drama.

Without any proof to back it up, there's not much you can do. Respond to any further accusations with a boilerplate "this is how you submit evidence, without evidence there is nothing we can do" and then just don't pay attention to the stupid if they don't pony up evidence. There's really nothing more to do than that. If that's the full extent of a response they get, they'll eventually give up and go away if they're not legit. And if they are? They'll figure out how to prove they're legit.

Legit that's all you can do. Unfortunately without proof from the accuser side (I mean even copyscape is fishy because if I went and posted my profile into copyscape if I've used it before (which is likely as I hate writing profiles) then it would say I was plagiarizing my own work. Really just need your member to pony up the proof and then do away with it.

I agree, it's fishy. If I was going to go out of my way to go to a site and report plagiarism, you can bet I would bring proof of the theft with me. Documentation that includes a creation date, the player's contact info, something. Not just "She's stealing!" -vanishes in a puff of smoke- People can be so nasty to one another. As I mentioned in my first post, I've experienced that BS before first hand. Someone saw my artwork, claimed I stole or traced it without talking to me about it, and went on this rampage around a few of the communities I'm in and started telling everyone I'm stealing art. This was a perfect stranger, someone I had never met or spoken with before, who felt it was their job to tell everyone that I was stealing. I mean, I know the internet's full of Scumbag Steves, but c'mon. xD Anyway. I guess what I was hoping was that someone had a decent way of getting to the bottom of a plagiarism claim. But I guess we've done all we can for now.

That makes me feel hinky from the administrative sense. It makes my spidey senses tingle like you are not getting the whole story here. It's odd enough that a guest came into the chat box and now not even a little while later a more appropriate channel is reached with still no proof? It almost feels like a vendetta thing. I've actually seen it happen before where a slew of people jump on a "you're guilty" bandwagon (not from your site but from others) and start finding ways to harass people they don't like whether it be like this or similar techniques including finding false information to prove themselves right. I would, at this point, heir to the side of caution with the accusers. An example of a plagiarism thing that went awry we once had a person preemptively come and start accusing a site, that hadn't even posted in our directory, of an issue with plagiarism. When we found out the whole story in ended up that the site in question actually went through the site with the person as they were worried about it and any similarities as it was a rough start between the two with very similar concepts and whatnot and the admin of site 2 (the accused) went to the admin of site 1 (the accuser) and made sure they worked together so they knew their content wasn't copied. The site in question that was doing the accusing actually APPROVED of the fact that they were not plagiarizing and then still went on a crusade about it anyways.

Well my first thing would have been quite plainly, don't accuse your member of the deed as you don't have proof that she did it yet. Being that you already have I won't go back on that but here's the skinny as plagiarism is a big deal but people throw it around so regularly that it's hard to tell when something is actually copied or someone is just claiming it is, it very well could be that they created a character based off a wanted ad and the person believes that since it was originally their wanted ad then it is there property despite the fact that the person both fleshed out the character and made it their own and even possibly made significant changes in re-writes to make it more an individualized character. Irregardless I still think you need to take the side of your member. Who the fuck is this random guest pointing fingers? What are they to you? What solid proof did they provide to you that makes you question your member's validity other then a link to probably copyscape? Why did they pop in your cBox instead of properly reporting through a PM or other more direct medium that wasn't disruptive to your site? For me you always have to take the side of your member, innocent until proven guilty to the fullest. The reason for this is because if you accuse this member it puts them on the defensive and will likely start seeing behavior that may or may not be taking place, like someone is gunning for them to get banned since this incident. Now that being said (sorry for the long blah blah about this stuff but I've had to deal a lot with the sites claiming being plagiarized due to silly things including member introductions that someone claimed to be stolen... I didn't know you could steal your own content but whatever). I would recommend just posting a general notice after the whole thing has been resolved, no matter the outcome, and be understanding to the person that is being accused especially if it ends up not being true. Best advice I have though, is make sure that the site is safe in the end so do what you have to.

I have seen also plenty of plagiarism allegations which weren't true. Some were in good faith, some were done in revenge. I think you did it well, if the site in cause is still alive/ allows for more posts.

When members are active in the cbox but can't bother to let you know the status of a reply you've been waiting on... And then get mad when they get flagged during an activity check. Lolol.