Hello and Happy Sunday, Nine Lives Community! (It may be Monday for some of you, but for me, it’s still Sunday.) Fairies Masquerade here. No, I’m not dead - I’ve just been crazy busy with work and grad school. But I’m still around and very much involved behind the scenes here, and there are some things we need to talk about.

It has come to my attention that people are abusing our archive for the sole purpose of self promotion. We’ve caught onto the fact that we have members creating a second membership account, then using that account to nominate themselves for things like Featured Story of the Week.

We have never had to declare this before, and in fact we have allowed a certain amount of leeway in this area since Nine Lives began; for instance, with authors who wanted write McReedus but under a different handle from their usual one. However, trouble has been brewing in this area for a while now, and as a result of our lenience we find ourselves in the situation unfolding today: a member who has been previously featured and spotlighted on several occasions has been caught with an account created just to nominate themselves for Featured Story of the Week.  

You might wonder how we know if someone is creating multiple accounts? We can see the IP address each account registered with (and pull up all the details of that IP address), we see when an account is created down to the exact hour and minute, the email address used for the account... we see it all. And we pay attention to what is happening on this archive, because we have all invested way too much of our blood, sweat, tears, time and money into keeping this place running to not pay attention.

So now, we’re making it a rule: multiple accounts are allowed for people who want to explore writing RPF/other genres but are uncomfortable publishing under their regular handle. Secondary accounts found to be created for the sole purpose of self promotion (reviewing your own stories, nominating the primary account for Featured Story or other NL events) will be deleted, and the primary account temporarily banned for 15 days on the first infraction. Repeated infractions will see the primary account permanently banned and the IP address blocked from accessing the Nine Lives Archive.

In addition, we the admin team also reserve the right to pull the privilege of multiple accounts entirely if situations like this continue.

You might think we are overreacting. That’s ok, and if you want to send a PM to either myself, Ikklesou or subversivegrrl, or politely make your case in the comments below this news article, we would be happy to discuss it with you. But to put a point on it, the issues we have had recently with multiple accounts has defied the very first rule of our Terms of Service:

You are agreeing to be a courteous, responsible member of Nine Lives, and treat everyone with due respect.

Creating extra accounts to give yourself an unfair edge in a NL event like Featured Story is not treating your fellow members with their due respect. In addition, if the Featured Story process has been compromised in this manner then it is safe to assume, and indeed only logical to assume, that other events like Member of the Month have also been abused. In light of the current circumstances, it may be time for us to change how we handle these events, or possibly stop doing them altogether.

We want Nine Lives to be a safe and fun haven for all Caryl fans. The systems we have in place are/were the best options for keeping events and challenges fair to everyone. To see them being abused in this manner breaks our hearts, particularly mine. I’m going to get personal with you here, and add a note I did not previously share with my co-admins: Nine Lives is not free or even cheap to run, but I usually don’t mind because I, like so many of you, need a safe place for all my Caryl feels. All I, and the rest of the Nine Lives staff, have ever asked in return is for everyone to behave and interact in a way that keeps the Nine Lives community safe, respectful and supportive for all. When I see the site abused in this manner, I start to wonder if Nine Lives is even needed anymore, because either I’m obviously doing something wrong that this sort of thing happens, or I’m wasting my time, and the time of everyone who volunteers for Nine Lives behind the scenes. I hope not. I still believe in Caryl, I still believe that this fandom can be a positive, even life changing, experience for those involved and I still believe in the benefits of a place like Nine Lives. Please, continue to believe with me.

Stay safe and Caryl on,

Fairies Masquerade