I have always wanted to do a profile make-over. I could have easily requested but I want to make my own. Personalized. Keeper-fied. Haha. I checked html codes online, even subscribed to tutorials here in AFF. It is kinda overwhelming at first, with all these letter-symbol-and-number combinations. But once you familiarized yourself with them, you'll see the patterns and it would be easier. 

I am just too lazy right now to fix my boring profile layout. But not too lazy to steal layouts from people who worked hard on them. I can't really understand why people have to steal something that is already free. These layout designers only ask not to delete or tamper with the credit or their signature. We should respect that.

An AFFer deactivated her account recently after people called her out. Apparently, she copied the codes without permission and had the audacity to erase the credit/signature of the artist/coder. She had it coming. But the drama would have been avoided if she were reported for it. It's wrong to take something that is not yours. But we couldn't really prevent others from doing that since we have no rules about that. The public's brand of justice often leads to bullying, which is wrong.

Also, there are users who request for a graphic/poster yet fail to credit the designer and shop even after receiving it. Artists could simply delete the image from their albums to destroy the link. But what if the person already transferred it to his/her own account? I suggest graphic designers visit other designer's shops once in a while and check out the blacklist section. I have seen one user who made it to the blacklist in three different shops.  Again, we don't have a rule regarding this.

I also noticed users claiming their accounts have been hacked. As to how they managed to retrieve their accounts back, I have no idea. I know of three. All of them lost stories and karma. One I reported because it was obvious she wasn't really 'hacked'. Even made multiple accounts to back up her story. She was the 'hacker' and only wanted karma points. The other two have the same sob story. But we'll see...

It is already annoying that people put up HELP blogs to beg for karma when they could have earned via story comments, [blog comments?], a new subscriber and an upvote. But to TRICK others... SMH

How far would these people go? I thought they were only cheating the featured system. Blatant copying of published novels just to gain subscribers and upvotes. Creating multiple accounts and subscribing to his/her own story [this no longer works]. Transferring stories to another account so that they could featured again [It takes about six months for a past featured author to have another of her stories featured. The algorithm was designed this way so that other authors' stories could get featured.] And the latest 'click this/here' links to get the story upvoted without the reader knowing. [This is wrong. Because these people take away the right of users to upvote by tricking them into pressing an unknown link.] 

But what frustrates me even more is when their blind and loyal readers try to justify their crime. SMH. 

There is only one user to date who I reported and admitted to plagiarizing another person's work. I had to give her credit for that. While most of them played innocent or lied as to why their fics suddenly got deleted, she posted her apology to her readers. 

She was pressured to surpass the success which is her first fic that she was tempted to lift off words from a novel. She saw fics with storylines copied from published material. Why can't she do it as well? That is her reason. I subscribed to her one Saturday, commented on the inconsistencies of her characters' names [Jude for Chen and James for Baby Kyu] but she merely edited them. I felt that something was off with her story but couldn't tell exactly what. She updated Tuesday, chapter 46, and I clicked it even when I wasn't even past chapter 7. Then I saw one word. Just one word. And it led me to the sequel of the novel she copied from. I asked her, if I had not reported, would she continue the fic? If my comment on her characters' names didn't compel her to do the right thing? I accepted her apology though. But then she deactivated and never answered my questions.

Deactivating is the best way to go. Delete the fic. And then hide from the shame. At least, the IP add is not banned. This is what offenders usually do. Others change their usernames.

Such a boring post. I salute you for reading all of that.

I was about to post a blog on AFF trends but yeah... I was side-tracked. I just have to say this. 

-Keeper