Baren
Cumming,#2General Comment
Mon, September 03, 2012
I was on Fetlife for a year, having left it recently for personal reasons and had nothing to do with this article. However, I just wanted to add a little info to paint a broader picture of the article on Fetlife and the Reaps project there. I am no expert on the matter but felt the need to add something I felt was missing from the article.
What I noticed was happening on Fetlife while I was there was basically simple. Some people were posting a lot of pics they borrowed or stole(from who knows where), and posting them on their profile's with no mention of the "model(s)" in them(which was customary), but more importantly, the photographer. They seemed to be implying that these were their own works.
The group I hung with was a sizable number of models and photographers. What was blurring the line and causing confusion then was that these people who were posting work that was not their own were appearing to be playing themselves off as being a really good or even a great photographer. They would start collecting a lot of 'friends' and then the models who figured this out were getting confused as to what this person's interests really were, and what they were doing with pics they might have now copied from their profiles as well. Of course, photog's were not amused by all this either, but that's not the important part.
Reaps seemed to be there tho help keep all this in check, as sort of a user-run security checkpoint to help keep tabs on people who may have not had the best intentions for the information they were now able to get ahold of. Why Fetlife's moderator's were not more instrumental in this I do not know. Even our own gov runs things poorly sometimes, so I think we should cut them all some slack in what otherwise is probably an honorable intention.
At any rate, I hope this has made "The Devil"(Reaps) look a little more like someone you'd have over for dinner and not BE dinner. Please remember my statements above are just my opinion and Reaps could be acting in ways that are borderline and nasty, but there is or was a purpose to all of that at one time.