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ablednt · 3 years

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Actually helpful advice for the kids on this hellsite

Once again tired of "don't make a carrd or tell people your triggers" posts going around literally telling kids it's Dangerous to set boundaries. So here's what I've learned in my teen years on how to stay safe in the hellscape that's the internet.

Identity

You don't have to link all your social media together but you can if you want to. Don't give out something that is more private (like discord account, Skype or zoom account, facebook, Snapchat etc.) publicly or to people who aren't familiar with yet though.

Use a nickname rather than your real name or birth name, an account and name change may unfortunately be necessary so if you want to keep a name safe or use it irl then don't attach it to public social media. This can be fun though! Go apeshit coming up with different aliases and names! Call yourself lizard if you want to!

The only thing you absolutely need to put somewhere on your account (or carrd) is that you're a minor. You don't have to give the exact age but I promise this is important because even if there's plenty of context clues that you're a minor if you don't indicate this somewhere clear and adults start treating you like shit you need to be able to point out that they're knowingly doing this to a minor. That has saved me from gross bullshit a lot. Yes, people should default to treating people who's ages they don't know as a minor to play it safe but the majority of people assume everyone is the same age as them so you need to make it clear you're not an adult.

Pronouns don't make you identifiable and anyone who acts like putting your pronouns in your bio is unsafe is probably transphobic lmao. You don't have to if you don't want to (and don't mind people not using/knowing your pronouns) but it's safe to put them there most of the time. (The only exception I can think of is if you're closeted and your parents may find your account but in that case you should probably stay closeted online to unless you feel safe/know they aren't likely to find your account.)

You don't have to list every privilege you have and you probably shouldn't but if you're white you probably should indicate this somewhere. This is to hold yourself accountable because yes even teenagers can be racist and underaged people of color also deserve to feel safe. If you're nonwhite and don't feel safe doing so you don't have to list your race or ethnicity.

If you're part of a system/plural or questioning you do NOT have to say your systems origins, if you have DID/OSDD, or list your headmates/alters. The system community has a lot of people in it (and singlets adjacent to parts of the community due to bullshit discourse groups welcoming them) who will target underaged systems to fakeclaim them or harass them etc. I suggest having everyone use aliases/nicknames on a system account and you only tell your origin to people you feel comfortable around and safe with. Your safety and privacy is more important than your trendy system carrd goals I promise!

You shouldn't really just list any disorders you have but it really does no harm to put marginalized identities you're proud of on a carrd or in your bio. You might get a shitty anon or two but I promise people aren't going to dox you if you say you're autistic on your carrd or something.

I personally wouldn't list any special interests that are particularly recognizable (popular media should be ok but more niche stuff may not be) or publicly share a kin list just because you never know if you'll want to switch up your identity online to feel safe and the more things are clearly tied to your current nickname and handle the harder it will be to do this. However if you feel safe doing so it's not the end of the world. Just be careful about it and don't feel pressured to give more info than you're comfortable giving.

You do NOT need to tell people your trauma in order to tell them your triggers. If you need something tagged with a tw you really should indicate this somewhere so people know to tag it (unless you intend to send every you're mutuals with an anon with what to tag which is also an option but may be difficult) but you shouldn't tell them your trauma or medical history to justify it. Your boundaries aren't up for debate and you have nothing to prove. You should only talk about your trauma if you feel safe doing so (and even then please don't give identifiable details like.names of people involved or specifics as that can cause serious problems.)

Boundaries & etiquette

DNIs are good! BYFs are good! Anyone who tells you that they're not good or useful is absolutely trying to disrespect your and other people's boundaries. You can and should make a DNI and list the people you don't want to interact with. (Generally it's better to say groups rather than specific people or names because it's easier to again not be recognized if you need to change accounts/aliases but you can do this if you have strong reasoning and absolutely have to to feel safe.)

DNIs (and also.trigger lists) don't have to all be bad things! You can put fandoms that make you uncomfortable, things that trigger you but aren't bad inherently, etc. on these lists. They're about helping you feel safe not having the hottest takes or being the most morally correct.

Some people you should put in your DNIs as a minor are proshippers/anti-antis and MAPs. Both of these groups have been proven time and time again to groom minors online so the earlier you get away from them the better.

Once you have your DNI please do be aggressive in reinforcing it! Block people who break your DNI, tell people who complain about your DNI to fuck off! Do not tolerate people trying to debate the boundaries You have set this is your corner of the internet to feel safe! They can go somewhere else! Being blocked by a kid on the internet is not the emotional blow abusers act like it is. You're not mean for having boundaries please internalize this and stand up for yourself!

If other people have a DNI you need to check that before following them this is for both your own safety and theirs. If you're unsure what something on someone's DNI means ask around to find out before following just in case.

Do NOT get involved in discourse! This doesn't mean you can't ever take part in or boost serious things. Discussing/calling out bigotry (racism, ableism, transphobia, etc.) isn't discourse. Sometimes callout posts for legitimately harmful people is necessary so that's not automatically bad. But I'm taking about the shit that's #discourse. Stay out of ace discourse. Stay away from syscourse. Don't debate with terfs or transmeds or shitty people. I know it seems like it'd be cathartic to win debates with shitty people, I know there's people who will try to bait you into the latest argument over which lgbt+ identities can say what slurs or whatever the fuck the pointless bad faith argument is, and I know you want to prove that your marginalized identity doesn't make you a bad person like bigots say it does. But as someone who's mental health was absolutely destroyed by discourse as a teen it's not worth it. By all means discuss issues as they arise, broaden your perspectives and horizons, etc. but don't engage knowingly in discourse it will save you so much trouble in the long run.

Try to avoid talking to adults 1x1 if you can avoid it! It's okay to dm with an adult you feel safe talking to sometimes and while it's certainly okay not to interact with adults at all if you don't feel.comfortable it's generally okay to do so. But if an adult is going out of their way to consistently talk to you in private needlessly that can be a red flag. If an adult tries to insinuate that they're the only adult around you can trust that's DEFINITELY a red flag. Basically talk to people in places you can easily involve others if needs be. If someone sends you a dm that makes you uncomfortable screenshot it in case you need to show someone etc.

Don't discuss NSFW things with adults, in spaces adults have easy access to (for example a discord server open to all ages), or even with other underaged people who haven't indicated they're comfortable with it. There's nothing inherently wrong with being aware of nsfw stuff or experiencing sexual attraction as a teenager but it's very important that you don't put yourself in situations that may be unsafe for you or others. Most good discord servers have rules against this for this exact reason. Now, to make it abundantly clear, if you did or do ever say something nsfw and an adult takes advantage of this or responds in a way that makes you uncomfortable this is NOT your fault! The responsibility falls on adults to act appropriately but it's still a good idea to keep youeself out of harms way.

That's basically it on a general level. Once again, posts telling you not to make DNIs or carrds or trigger lists (all used to set clear boundaries) are very suspect and either grossly misunderstand how these things work or are intentionally demonizing them in order to have more opportunity it excuse to do harm. Setting clear boundaries is good. Doing things that help you feel safe and respected is good. Just don't go and get involved in discourse or give out personal information or anything.

#online safety #internet safety #DNIs #carrd #actuallyautistic #actuallyplural #long post #grooming tw #ask to tag

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lilshotgun · 3 years

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So here's why i've been inactive for the past couple months on tumblr:

As many of you know, I've been a fairly avid content creator for the warrior nun fandom creating a ton of content for free. I joined a Warrior Nun discord server named Future Warrior Nuns (which is a ridiculous name considering in the show Ava says there will be no more warrior nuns but that's besides the point) and the treatment I received there was amazing. At the beginning. I spoke up about racism and injustices within the community because you cannot escape it anywhere unfortunately and I believed I'd found a community that would protect me and be there for me if i was ever faced with racism or hate.

For clarity, anyone in blue is a moderator. As you go on to read this their usernames and profile images might change so I’ll clarify who is who. I’ll only be using the names I’ve been presented with and only the ones that are most relevant to the situation.

Fiesta (white American cis woman) aka Doesn't Kelly, Witch Rhyme

Taz (white Australian cis woman)

Milan (a very sheltered American transmasculine poc whos uncomfortable talking about racism because they've never had to deal with it) aka Who The Fuck Is Kelly

Rory (white Australian cis woman) aka Stronger Kelly

But after a while, things slowly started to change. It was subtle and if you hadn't been there from the beginning, you wouldn't have noticed. It started with the moderators spending less time in the server because they had made many of their own servers and spent far more time over there. Which is understandable when you’re a group of friends that all have a common purpose. But the lack of leadership was palpable. I had to sometimes direct fellow server members to proper channels or do a few other things that were supposed to be things that the moderators were supposed to take care of and their lack of care for the server was becoming more relevant. If you were in their little group of friends or kissed their ass then they wouldn't target you unnecessarily.

Exactly three weeks later, (and only one week after my birthday in which everyone was super sweet and nice to me) the love and friendship they claimed to have for me vanished completely. For context, people in positions of power, especially in a server, should be people you can come to if you ever have an issue with anything or anyone. They should also be people that can come to terms with admitting their behavior was incorrect when being told so. So here is what happened:

I have always been open about being a transmasculine person of color on all my platforms, and if you know me on any platform you know that. The behavior shown here between me and the moderators was absolutely appalling to me. They pushed my voice aside and only acknowledged Narcissa, a cis white woman, who was agreeing and saying the same things i had because i had asked her in private to help me out because i felt it was unfair that two server moderators were coming at me so aggressively.

As you can see from the screenshots, they claimed that I attacked Fiesta when i was simply pointing out that her behavior was hypocritical and unfair especially because she is in a position of power and that's something people of power should be aware of.

I was the only one brave enough to say what everyone was thinking. And that's something I have always taken pride in. Speaking up for others when they are too scared to do so themselves. And that was shown through multiple people coming into my dms to tell me they either felt the same way I did or they felt the way I was treated in the conversation above was unfair. This next screenshot is from a private message from a former manager.

Narcissa (white cis woman) received a few apologies from the server managers privately, yet my dms stayed vacant. At this point, they made a “public apology” towards everyone in the server which I forgot to screenshot, and not a single server manager reached out to me in private. But they did share these in the server for everyone to see:

They then opened an anonymous feedback form for us to share if we had any issues privately, which of course, I did, and so I filled it out saying “wheres my fucking apology ~king” so they would know exactly who the response was coming from. I was angry and hurt that they treated me the way they did. I regretted wording it like that almost instantly after sending it. But the deed was done and it was unchangeable. And not too long after, this was posted publicly in the server feedback channel so that everyone in the server could see:

Whether I shared that it was from me or not, she violated the server moderators unanimous statement saying that everything posted in the feedback form would stay anonymous and made my response public using the excuse that me sharing my name made it okay for her to show it to everyone. I was also being informed by other people I’m friends with that the forms that were being submitted were not staying anonymous and that they were being shared from other moderators privately in other peoples' dms.

I stuck around in the server because the people that I had formed friendships with were there and they were special to me and I wanted to be able to talk to them still in spite of everything that had happened to me up until this point. I was much more subdued at this point, I was posting less art and as you noticed I practically disappeared from twitter as well.

My love for Warrior Nun was decreasing rapidly because the environment had become so toxic and unwelcoming that I felt scared to say much in the server in fear of being banned after seeing one of my trans poc friends banned for saying hi to another member. They had been looking for a reason to ban him for being on my side instead of theirs and apparently found the “perfect” excuse. They deleted his messages and claimed in their private admin channel that he had harassed someone in the server without screenshotting the false evidence first. How do I know this? Because I had a person on the team that valued me as a person instead of as a content creator and what I could give to the server.

I proceeded to curate the server for what fit me best, considering the ridiculous number of channels they created that had nothing to do with the show at this point. And there was an option for members to do that so I used the tools they had provided with and opted out of channels I no longer wanted to see. I consolidated it down to 35 out of 66 channels because some of them had no opt out option. And still, it was way more channels than I'd prefer to be in. I narrowed it down to only ships I actually cared about instead of having a bunch of channels I was never gonna read or say things in. And that's when the manager that cared about us provided me with these telling screenshots.

Why put me in “jail” over removing some roles? It may not have been explicit, but the internalized racism of putting a person of color in “jail” for curating what they wanted from a server is frankly off putting to say the least. "Implicit racism includes unconscious biases, expectations, or tendencies that exist within an individual, regardless of ill-will or any self-aware prejudices."

And what does carl bot do exactly? It logs EVERYTHING. But only if that feature is enabled. And clearly, in Future Warrior Nuns, it is.

They didn’t care about me and didn’t care that I was a consistent content creator. For lack of better words, I was one of the biggest reasons the actual part of the server that was dedicated to the show was constantly active and once I became quiet, along with a few other content creators I talked with, the activity decreased immensely. I said things here and there but that was about it. Until I was looking through their emotes. I noticed that they had trans, gay, demi, bi, aro, and ace heart emotes but the lesbian one wasnt there. Which was honestly surprising considering how much of the fandom identifies as lesbian. So I asked for it to be added and after it was, so many people were super happy because of it.

One day later i asked for more Mary emotes because they hadn’t completely brushed me off after requesting for the lesbian pride one. I noticed that Ava, the white character, had 72 animated and still emotes at the time while Mary, the black character, only had 18. And only 4 out of those were positive emotes. Here's that conversation:

I offered up my services to create Mary emotes for them considering I was an artist and content creator and it would be no issue for me at all to contribute but they declined, saying they were working on some themselves and that they would eventually add them to the server. The ones that they had created all looked terrible. They didn't know how to color correct her skin so that it wouldn't look ashy because of the filters used in the show and instead of asking for help from me, an artist of color, they simply did their own thing. And from 18 emotes, it went up to a dazzling 24.

Needless to say, the racism they claimed not to have was pretty evident at this point. It was shockingly clear that they didn’t care as much about the characters of color than they did for the white and white passing ones. After this entire debacle I didn't even bother trying to ask for more emotes for Lilith considering how warmly I was welcomed with asking for more Mary emotes.

A little less than two months after the initial incident, I still hadn’t been contacted by anyone on the admin team about absolutely anything in private. It wasn’t until people asked Fiesta if she had reached out to me or even bothered with an apology before she sent me this:

The “apology” was worthless. Too much time had passed since I was publicly humiliated and portrayed as the evil transmasculine person of color to them, and only a select few people interacted with me. I felt completely shut out because of how the admin team handled a difference of opinion. Instead of correcting themselves and admitting they were wrong, they doubled down on the intimidation and bullying by changing their rules so that they could find excuses to ban or punish anyone they felt was not on their side.

At this point, my grades were heavily declining. I was already struggling with keeping up with everything on my own due to covid and my mental disabilities. Being a victim of this racist behavior made everything worse. I couldn’t get out of bed, I was barely eating a meal a day because I had no motivation to work so I had little to no money to buy myself food. I was starving most days. And I didn’t ask my mom for help because I felt everything was my fault and that I really was in the wrong and shouldn't have said anything even though looking back at it I wasn't wrong for what I said. I had also been informed that my dad died because of covid and because of all of this stress and depression I had officially failed my classes.

This is really difficult for me to say because I’m a very private person and I hate asking for help or sharing anything about my private life, but for you to understand everything that was happening to me at the time, this is stuff you unfortunately need to know.

There’s many more things that I could say about this server but this thread is already long enough as it is and it was hard enough to write this all down. But behind closed doors, the admin team had some of the nastiest attitudes and behaviors you could’ve seen. Had they realized we had someone on their team that actually valued us and others as people, they probably would have kept their blatant ignorance and dislike towards server members hidden better. But white people like oppressing others when they know they can get away with it and this is just another sad unfortunate example that cost me and my fellow friends of color some heavy emotional and psychological damage. They did wrong and refused to acknowledge it and instead tried to find a way to ban us for not having the hivemind that they so desperately want to control everyone with. If you want to see for yourself, feel free to find a link to a discord server named Future Warrior Nuns. If you look back through their channels, you’ll find most of these conversations either gone or have many messages missing. I hope my story will help understand why I’ve been gone from tumblr for so long and i hope something like this never happens to you.

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starlitflowers-secretgarden · 3 years

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This is maybe a controversial opinion but...

Another thing about tomorrow’s update is that your IGG ID will no longer be displayed anywhere in game or searchable by other players, and from what I’ve gathered from the official discord and from the in game chat, a lot of people are really upset at this, and I will never understand why that is. I try to be reasonably private about my personal information online, and it’s always made me uncomfortable that this unique identifier for me is so prominently displayed to literally everyone in game.

I do get that if someone is being a troll in the in-game chat it’s easier to report them if you know their IGG ID, but also, I don’t like the idea of some troll being able to see my IGG ID to potentially target me personally. There’s got to be a way to block and report without the IGG ID right? In the in-game chat, when you tap on a player’s icon and look at their calling card, the option to block them is right next to the option to add them as a friend. It’s super easy to block someone, and knowing their IGG ID is not necessary to do so. Not having the ID displayed on their calling card wouldn’t affect blocking. They could easily just add a report option to the calling card to so you could do both if they’re being a troll in the chat to everyone. I would 100% be supportive of that.

Like, you will still be able to request people’s friendship in game, and at least in my experience, in game friendships have been pretty useless. I literally do nothing with my in game friends and have no idea who most of them are. I just confirmed every request I got until I reached 200 friends and couldn’t accept friends requests anymore. I don’t really use the shared closets because it’s impossible to search for items by tags or find anything in the shared closets without manually searching individual closets. You don’t even send stamina or friendship beans to individual friends, just hit the send all button and receive the max amount of each in return. I suppose I could message a specific friend and ask them to put something in the closet for me, but I don’t see the point in the extra steps because it’s not that difficult to clear stages with what I already have. I cleared a few spots in my friends list a while back by getting rid of friends that hadn’t played in over 30 days, so I could accept requests from players in my society when they created the societies feature, but like, even my society isn’t close with each other. We all do our tasks so we get the benefits each day, but we have never talked in the society chat ever. Any friendships I have made in the TP fandom have been forged on outside social media rather than any in-game interactions. Even with those that I’m friends with in-game as well as outside the game, I don’t really interact with them in-game.

The change is the result of a Chinese privacy law that went into effect Nov. 1, so it will be applied to the game and any official game servers where Chinese players interact. I wonder if they’ll still ask for IGG IDs for their Facebook comment giveaways after this, or if the law won’t apply to their posts and contests for the English Time Princess social medias. Personally, I never participate in the social media comment giveaways because I don’t want to share my IGG ID publicly like that, and I’m a fan of most changes that increase privacy protections. I personally like this change in the upcoming update.

There is one part of the update that really doesn’t make sense me though, and that’s that they’re going to start allowing usernames to be repeated. In the same update that eliminates all front end significance of the unique identifying number that could be used to tell apart players with the same username, that can lead to some serious issues with trolls sharing usernames with other players and causing trouble for those players, so I wish they weren’t also doing that.

Idk, is there something I haven’t thought of that is significant enough to game play that it’s worth publicly displaying a unique identifying number associated with only me to everyone? I genuinely don’t understand why that change is so unpopular with users.

#anyway #long post #feel free to skip it if you want #or if you are mad about this change i'm interested to know what it is you like about ids being displayed to everyone #bc i genuinely don't understand it #time princess updates #time princess #dutp #dress up time princess #time princess ranting

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spideypoolbigbang · 4 years

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SPBB 2020 F.A.Q.

For those over 18, feel free to join the Spideypool server through this link. Please make sure to introduce yourself and state that you are a participant in the SPBB, as well as what type (writer, artist, beta) so that we may assign you the correct roles. This will grant you access to the SPBB rooms, where you can discuss your creations freely.

What is a Big Bang?

A Big Bang is a type of challenge wherein writers have a set amount of time to write a story that fulfills a minimum word length requirement. This story is then claimed by an artist, who will create art for the story.

Writers and artists work together as a team. They share a posting date and create a masterpost of both the story and art that is promoted by the challenge blog. This is a collaborative effort, NOT a commission. Though writers can suggest scenes they wish to have drawn, ultimately it is the artists who choose an aspect of the story they would like to draw. The artist should also respect what the writer suggests and take their notes into consideration. Communication is key to a fun and friendly experience.

Artists can claim up to two stories and can work with multiple writers. However, writers will be matched with only one artist. If an artist drops out after claims, we will arrange for a pinch-hitter (someone who will create art for the story at the last minute).

This is a fun event and a collaborative effort that will hopefully create more Spideypool content for the fandom and foster closer fandom friendships.

How do I sign up as a writer/artist?

Sign-up forms are linked on the blog during the sign-up period. If you have trouble finding the post or have issues/questions about sign-ups, let the mods know either through an ask or by emailing us at [email protected]

I missed sign-ups. Can I still register?

Unfortunately, only writers and artists signed up within the given timeframe can participate in the event. If you missed it, please follow the blog for updates, as this is a yearly event, and you will have an opportunity to join the event the following year.

Can I sign up as an Artist, a Writer, and a Beta Reader?

Firstly, we applaud anyone willing to undertake such a heavy workload! We do not recommend this route because editing can be just as time-consuming as writing and drawing. However, we do allow those registering as only a Writer or only an Artist to register as a Beta as well. You must fill out both the writer form and the beta form.

Will you email me reminders? What if I need more time?

We will send out email reminders several days before official deadlines. Reminders will be emailed for all check-ins, claims, and posting dates. Please consider adding the dates posted on the schedule into your calendar to keep track. We will grant extensions on a case-by-case basis. This is a low-stress event, and we understand that life gets hectic. If you feel like you need more time, let the mods know as soon as possible before the deadline.

I’ve never participated in an event before. Can I sign up?

Yes! Everyone is welcome to participate as long as you are above the age of 14. However, we do ask that you are fully aware of the responsibilities that come with signing up. So make sure you read the rules carefully!

Will we be assigned a prompt?

We do not assign prompts. You can write what you want, as long as the main pairing is Spideypool. You may work from a prompt, but you cannot reveal what prompt you’re writing from until after claims and it cannot be a prompt you have discussed writing publicly in the past. This is to keep the anonymity of your fic during the claims process.

When can I start writing?

You can start writing as soon as you sign up (or even use a previously unpublished WIP for this event).

I want to talk about my fic, but I’m afraid of revealing too much. What is considered information I can reveal?

The most important thing is that no identifiable details of your fic are made public before claims have been completed. This is to prevent the possibility of an artist seeing it and connecting that detail to you. We want to make sure the claims are absolutely anonymous so there is no bias while picking the stories. All stories will be chosen by artists based on summaries and visual components only.

If you need group feedback and are 18 or older, the Isn’t It Bromantic Spideypool Discord has a designated section for the SPBB event, where there will be rooms for participants of the event. Event announcements are also posted within the SPBB-specific rooms, as well as on the tumblr blog and via email. Event rules apply to the server, as it is a public forum. However, there is a writers-only room named #spbb-writers-cafe, where writers may discuss their works freely and receive feedback/brainstorm ideas. This means that writers may not share details of their story in any other chat.

If you are under 18, or otherwise cannot/are not interested in joining the server, discussing details with your beta or another individual (who is not participating in the event as an artist) in a private one-on-one chat is allowed.

Here are a few examples of what information is allowed and what is not:

“I’m almost done with writing my SPBB fic!” ← This is okay because it reveals no specific details about your story that an artist could recognize.

“I’m almost done with my Princess Bride AU fic for the SPBB!” ← This is not okay because it is a specific detail.

“I’m writing a story involving an alien invasion, but I kind of want to write this royal au as well. Which one should I pick?” ← This is not okay. Even if you didn’t mention the SPBB, you’re using one of these stories for the SPBB, and it might be recognized based on these descriptions.

“Is there anyone not drawing for the SPBB who could help me bounce plot details (In private chat) for this idea I have?” ← This is okay because you will be taking discussion to a one-on-one private chat.

Can I use any version of Spider-Man and Deadpool for my fic/art?

Yes. We understand that there are many versions of these characters, whether it be the actors or the comics. We ask that teams respect each other’s preferences. As long as appropriate warnings are given in the story and the art, teams are free to create what they please, and that includes underage Peter or Tom Holland!Spidey/Ryan Reynolds!Deadpool. Or Spider-Man Noir/Sumo!Wade Wilson, if that’s your thing. Go wild! Please note that we do not tolerate shaming or harassment of any kind. Leaving negative comments or complaints or otherwise being disrespectful to or about another participant’s creative choices because a piece depicts an iteration of Spider-Man or Deadpool that you do not approve of will result in disqualification from this round and a possible ban for the next round, as well. Be respectful and mature when communicating. If you have a problem with the iteration of the characters your partner is using, please contact the mods for mediation.

Can I write other pairings, such as Spider-Man/Mary Jane or Deadpool/Cable?

You can, but keep in mind that the fic has to be majority Spideypool and endgame Spider-Man/Deadpool. Poly ships such as Peter/Wade/Vanessa or Spider-Man/Deadpool/Daredevil are also permitted, as long as they are not the main focus of the story and are not the final pairing.

If your preference is to write polyships, we encourage you to seek out a polyship big bang event.

When am I assigned an artist/writer?

You will be assigned a partner during Art Claims. It will be an anonymous claiming process, wherein the artist chooses a story they would like to create art for. Instructions will be sent out by email before claims. You cannot pick your own partner.

Are we assigned beta-readers? What is a beta-reader? Do I have to use one?

A beta-reader is an editor who will go over your work. They mostly look for grammatical and structural errors. We require all participants to have at least one beta-reader look over their work. It is good etiquette to thank your beta-reader and also credit them for their help in the author’s note of your story once it is posted.

You will not be assigned a beta-reader. However, we will have a list of volunteer beta-readers prepared, and a list of their contact information and preferences will be sent out through email to all the writers. You don’t have to work with the SPBB betas if you already have a beta to work with, but if you cannot find a beta, you will be able to contact any beta on the list we send out.

Be aware that they will have refusal rights if your story goes against their stated preferences (i.e. If they state that they aren’t comfortable with Tom!Spidey fics and your fic is set during Infinity War, they can refuse to beta for you, etc.). It is your job to read up on what they offer and to contact them. Make sure to do so as soon as possible to ensure a beta is available to work with you. You will be asked to name your beta on the final check-in form, so it’s a good idea to secure one earlier rather than later. They will need time to beta your work, and you’ll need time to edit before posting day, which is why we want to make sure you have found a beta ahead of time.

Artists are also encouraged to work with an art beta, which can be found in the Discord SPBB artists chat. Basically, the best people who can give you feedback are your fellow artists participating in the SPBB.

What is a Check-In? How do I check in/submit rough drafts/summary/visual components for claims? What are visual components?

When we say “check-in”, it is usually done through a form sent out via email a week before the check-in is due. Check-ins let the mods know that you’re on track and show us any progress you have made.

Summaries sent in during the initial Writer Check-In will be used to give Artists an idea of what each story will be about prior to Art Claims. They are not an official summary. The Claims summary can be as detailed and spoilery as you want. More information and examples will be sent out with the first Writer Check-In email.

Visual components will be a simple list of what color palette/aesthetics/mood the story might provoke and/or maybe places/scenes that stand out in the story. Example: Fic has lots of cloudy days, grey colors, sometimes in forests. Hectic blood rituals. Moonlit nights. Wade fights a lot of ninjas. Peter likes to cosplay Steampunk. They are used to help artists better narrow down what they would like to draw.

I prefer to wait to read the finished draft before starting my art; is that okay?

It’s important to remember that the event is a collaborative process, and both writer and artist participants are expected to be working on their projects throughout the event in order to meet their required check-ins. This means that you should begin working on your artwork as soon as you have received and read the draft of your writer’s story after Claims. If you feel inspired to make art for parts of the story which haven’t yet been written—bearing in mind the draft you receive will be 50% complete with an outline of the remaining plot—you should still begin work on this: you can have detailed discussions with your writer in order to form your ideas, or base it off the parts of the story written so far and the outline. Your writer has their own deadlines to work towards, and should not feel pressured to write particular scenes for you to illustrate or finish the work ahead of final check-in if they feel unable to do so. Remember, “WIP” exists for a reason!

What is Preview Day?

Preview day is a few days before the actual Claims, and is the day summaries and visual components are sent out to artists Artists then have a few days to read over all the summaries and pick their top 3. In consideration of the Writers participating, Artists should not share their top choices on public forums.

If I sign up as an Artist, how can I be sure that I don’t accidentally claim a story that contains content I’m uncomfortable reading?

When the Writers submit their summaries and visual components for preview day, we ask them to include as spoilery a summary as possible so that there aren’t any surprises for their potential Artist later. We require tagging for all major AO3 warnings (Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, and Underage), and encourage including any other potentially triggering or squicky tags as well. We will be asking Artists for any particular tags or story elements they want tagged during claims on the Artist sign-up form so that the Writers will know to include those tags in their previews during Claims. Our main goal in hosting this event is to make sure that everyone is having fun and enjoying what they do, and making sure that all participants are comfortable with their partners and the work they are creating together is a top priority.

What is Claim Day, and how do I claim the fic I want to draw for?

Claim Day is the official day when Artists will be sent a form to submit their top choices for stories to draw for. The email will be sent out at a specific time and date detailed in the Previews email. Because claims are assigned on a first come, first serve basis, it is important for artists to fill out the form as soon as possible to best assure that they receive one of their top choices. We have done our best to pick a time that will work for a wide variety of time zones, but as the Mods are based in the UK and the USA, we had to choose a release time that best fits our own schedules as well. Be aware that this might mean that you have to set an alarm for the middle of the night depending on where you live to make sure you have the best chance at getting your top pick.

I haven’t heard from my partner in a while; what do I do?

When you sign up for this challenge, you are agreeing to communicate with your partner through emails or other methods determined by you and your partner(s). Some teams might communicate only a few times, and some might communicate regularly. It is up to the team members to check in with each other. It is critical that you respond promptly to your partners and check your messages, even if it’s just to say you’re busy and will respond later.

Team members are required to make contact with each other within 48hrs of the Team Intro emails being sent out so that drafts can be exchanged and you can begin working together as soon as possible.

At all other times, if you send a message to your partner(s) and do not receive a response within 2-3 days, please contact a mod so that we can attempt to reach out separately. PLEASE DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO LET US KNOW YOU HAVEN’T HEARD FROM YOUR TEAMMATE. If a participant does not respond to their partner(s) and/or a mod within 7 days, they will be added to a probation list. If this happens repeatedly, that participant will be disqualified from next year’s event. Ghosting your teammate will also lead to disqualification. We take communication between teammates seriously, and we hope our participants do as well.

What if I need to drop out?

There is no penalty for dropping out before claims. However, we ask that you let us know as soon as possible so we can remove you from the mailing list.

If you have gone through claims and need to drop, contact us immediately at [email protected], so we can arrange for a pinch-hitter for your teammate. You must also let your partner know you will be dropping out. Please note that dropping out after claims (for anything less than an emergency) will disqualify you for the next round of SPBB.

In the event that an artist drops out of the challenge before posting, we will arrange for a pinch-hitter for the writer. If a writer drops, artists can still post their art on their assigned posting date. Do not announce that you are dropping out through social media before telling your partner. We do not want your partner finding out that way. Instead, let the necessary people know through private chats or emails.

If there is an emergency, get in touch with us as soon as possible, and we will work with you the best we can.

What’s a pinch-hitter and how can I become one?

In the case of an artist dropping out of the event, leaving a writer without an artist, a pinch-hitter is asked to sweep in, often with only a few weeks notice, to create art for that writer’s story. Artists will also be asked during sign-ups if they’d like to register as a pinch hitter. If a pinch-hitter should be necessary, we will contact the artists who agreed to be pinch-hitters first. Should none of them be available to assist with the story in need, we will then post an open request for an artist.

Am I allowed to write timestamps, epilogues, or sequels for this fic? What about additional art?

You may write as many timestamps, epilogues, or sequels to your fic as you like, however these can only be posted after the event is complete and the final Masterlist has been posted by the mods.

Additional art can be posted after the Masterlist of Writers and Artists has been posted by the mods and the current round is over. If someone creates fanart for your story as a gift, you may include it in the notes of your story, but the original fanart created by your partner must remain in your masterpost and linked or embedded in the AO3 story as well.

Commissioning art for a story or asking a friend to create additional art for you because you dislike the art you received is not allowed. This is a collaborative event and to do so is disrespectful to your artist’s efforts. If you wish to commission art or have someone else create art for your story, you may not include that art within the story itself until one year after the posting date. The original art created by your partner must remain linked directly in the story.

What if I’m co-writing? Do we sign up together or separately? Do we get two Artists?

If you plan to co-write, both of you must register separately. There will be a place in the sign-up form for you to name a co-writer, but each co-writer must submit their own form with contact information, etc. during the sign-up period. You cannot add a co-writer after writer registration closes. Co-writing is essentially working together to create one story. As per the rules, each story, even if you’re co-writing, will only receive one Artist. This also does not mean you can demand more art from your artist. They only need to fulfill the minimum requirement and can choose to create more art if they have the time to do so.

Can I have multiple writing partners?

Yes. While we prefer that teams stick to one or two Writers and an Artist for schedule coordination and easier communication, we have no problem with a team of three or more Writers submitting a story together. As with co-writers, you will still only be paired with one Artist, and all writers in your group must sign up for the event separately.

To make communication and scheduling easier for everyone, we would also ask that your team choose a point person to respond to communication, coordinate schedules, and submit check-ins and posts when applicable. While we have no problem with large writing groups working together, trying to chase down three or more individuals for one story is a bit more challenging than we, as mods, are equipped to deal with. All participants will still receive relevant emails and reminders, but if we only have to look for one email instead of three or more, that will make our jobs significantly less challenging.

What is the Promo Period? Do I need anything special for it?

The Promo Period will be a month where (depending on how many teams we have), each team will be creating what is essentially a teaser for your team’s story and art. These posts may be used by the teams to promote their upcoming work on whichever social media platforms they wish, but as the original post will be submitted to the SPBB blog, you may reblog it from the SPBB blog, but do not repost on your own tumblr. We will post a promo for a new team every day during the Promo Period, in posting schedule order. This is why we ask that each Artist create a banner for the story they are creating art for. More details on what is needed from both artists and writers will be sent out a week or two before the actual promotional period.

How do I post, and when do I post? What if I’ve never posted on AO3/Tumblr/etc before?

We will be sending out emails to the teams with details walking you through the process of posting and will be on hand to offer support and answer any questions. Make sure to contact the Mod Team at least a few days prior to posting for a walkthrough. If you do not have an AO3 account currently and are in need of an invite code, please contact the mod team immediately (AO3 invites can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months to go through AO3’s approval system, so please make sure to let us know you will be needing one ASAP), and we will try to accommodate you.

One team will post per day during the posting period until we run out of teams. Both Writer and Artist must post your works within your given day. We will send out emails asking which days your team can and cannot post, and will be creating a posting schedule from that information. Make sure to discuss availability with your partner.

If I don’t want to be associated with my story after the first year, can I delete it from AO3?

Yes, but we encourage you to orphan the work, rather than deleting it if you choose to remove your affiliation with the story past the one-year date.

Why are we posting during February? Why not sooner or later?

Because, my beautiful chimichangas, that was when Deadpool the movie was released. And we all know a Spideypool Bang is what Deadpool would have wanted. To honor his glorious movie debut, we are going to release a bunch of Deadpool romancing Spidey (and vice versa) creations into the world.

[Credit to the kind mods of DCBB (DeanCas Big Bang) who gave us permission to use their FAQ as reference.]

[Banner edits courtesy of jdragon122, who kindly took the time to make these awesome high-quality banners.]

#faq #frequently asked questions #mod post #spideypool big bang 2020 #spbb2020 #spideypool

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ask-drunk-wheeljack · 5 years

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The Wrecker Code (Rules)

General Guidelines

Be nice. Prob don’t have to tell ya that. If you’re not then you’ll go to the block list with all the porn bots and you don’t wanna be there.

Open to new RP’s with anyone. Just hmu in the ask box or hit up my dm’s and let’s get this party started! You can use a starter from a list I’ve shared whenever, or you can come up with one of your own. I love seeing what people come up with.

Multiverse and OC friendly! Just gotta fill me in on yourself or your character and we can do it. I RP with all continuities of Transformers.

I explore and rp potentially dark subjects (abuse, mental health/illnesses, drugs/alcohol use, etc). You’ve been warned. I’ll try to tag things or use a cut when needed.

There aren’t a lot of subjects I won’t rp since nothing really phases me, but I’d rather asks and rp steer clear of politics/religion and stuff like that where people end up uncomfortable or highly opinionated. We’re here for robots not human politics.

On that note, anything else is up for grabs. I will do most anything but I would appreciate a dm if you’re looking to do anything that involves dubcon/noncon elements or brings direct harm to either your muse or mine.

You’re always welcome to send asks to Wheeljack or myself (mun Jackie). Make Wheeljack cringe, roll his optics, shake his head, become painfully insecure, whatever. He’ll answer according to his thoughts bout the subject but I can’t promise he’ll be fully honest all the time.

Please don’t reblog my rp’s if you’re not a part of the rp. It creates confusion and honestly, if you think about it, is hardly productive since the thread is ongoing and you’re only ever gonna have part of it. You’re interrupting the writers (literally, we are writing together) and that’s rude. so please don’t. You’re always welcome to send a starter for your own rp with me.

If you ever have any questions about anything (Wheeljack, rp, headcanons, whatever), my dm’s are open

Take a moment to read Wheeljack’s about section. It’s the best way to get to know him and it might even inspire a question or a starter. Link in bio.

You can talk to SG Wheeljack (although he is a horrible boy so be careful!) and human Wheeljack at any point in his life. I will do RP as all of them. Just make sure to specify who you are directing the ask or starter to.

Shipping Guidelines

I am multiship. Come ship with me ;)

I accept all continuities for shipping and if I’m down for it, I will ship with human characters.

There are some ships I will not do: wj x Bulkhead (I see them as brothers so that would be weird), wj x ultra magnus (just don’t dig it all that much) are my main ones but I’ll let you know if I am not comfortable with a ship.

Ships I am always down for are: Ratchet x Wheeljack, Wheeljack x Wheeljack (yes my boy needs to date himself, and I’m open to any continuity wheeljack for shipping), Wheeljack x OC’s (if the chemistry is right)

NSFW RP Guidelines

I answer NSFW asks, participate in NSFW RP, and joke about/discuss NSFW things. I have quite a bit of mature content on here since I am of age. My jokes may not be funny to everyone. If that bothers ya, this prolly is the wrong place for you, cos Wheeljack a filthy, dirty, nasty minded mech, and I am almost as dirty minded as he is.

NSFW rp is welcome to be brought up. I may not agree to every NSFW RP request, but you’re definitely welcome to ask. Just don’t start popping panels and wielding spikes before you inform me you’re interested and I agree to it. I love NSFW RP but my character is not just here for the taking at any time. Character does not mean consent. Keep ya panels shut until everyone participating has agreed to it.

No NSFW RP with minors. End of story.

If you would like to RP something NSFW but would not like to do so publicly on Tumblr, dm me and I have a discord server we could head off to and create a private channel in.

I will not do nsfw rp as human Jackie unless he is over 18.

SG Wheeljack is very selfish and cruel in the berth so please do keep that in mind if you wanna do nsfw rp with him. He brings up a lot of triggering content for some users. DM me for nsfw rp for him bc there is usually dubcon involved and I want to plot that very specifically with someone beforehand.

That said, I am always open to subjects such as: rape, dubcon, bondage, etc. I will also rp most kinks since Wheeljack is a bit of a freak in the sheets. Again. Please dm me first to discuss.

ABOUT THE MUN

The name’s Jackie, and I’m 21+

I am an artist, writer, and in general creative person. you can find my art here sometimes but mostly on @drunkjackieart, my art blog

I’m pretty much a goofy dumbass. i don’t make the rules

I work 6 days a week between two jobs, so y’know. if my replies are slow that is a contributing factor

sometimes i struggle to come up with replies, especially longer ones since i have to actually think these through. so do bear that in mind. i also struggle with depression, meaning my brain sometimes turns to literal mush when it comes to tryna be creative. sometimes it’s hard to get into the headspace to write when ya can barely get into the headspace to get up and function.

when asking mun questions, DO NOT ASK EXPLICIT PERSONAL NSFW QUESTIONS ABOUT ME. I WILL NOT ANSWER IDENTIFYING QUESTIONS ABOUT MY PERSONAL LIFE, INCLUDING MY PRIVATE LIFE. it makes me very uncomfortable, and while Wheeljack might answer those, i will not.

TAGS I USE

About, headcanons: #about jackie, #wheeljack answers

NSFW: #jackie’s frag life, #nasty, #valveplug

Mun stuff: #mun speaks, #mun post, #bitchjack speaks

Rule updates: #rules, #guidelines

#guidelines #rules #wheeljack's guidelines

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irenesfemme-blog · 5 years

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Hey everyone,

I joined a server centered around the Star Wars franchise in late 2018, and I was a moderator there for a significant amount of time. Tonight I left it. And I’d like to explain why, and where that leaves this blog, going forward.

First of all, I must ask that you do not reblog this post, and I’m really going to ask that you refrain from commenting on it as well. Honestly, I need to heal from this experience. It’s been actively harmful for me for weeks because it’s been such an incredibly toxic environment.

I do want to thank the people who reached out to me, however, during all of this. Who expressed that they wish that they had done more for me, stood up, said something. I don’t blame any of you. I completely understand not wanting to make yourself a target. I love you, and I wish you nothing but the best.

This blog, as well as REVANSFEMME and BINALAARA, are going on hiatus. I don’t know for how long. I’d like to feel okay enough to come back one day, but that remains to be seen. Until then, I’ll keep on keeping on.

Cheers, -- Irene.

Here’s my letter to the community:

Hey guys,

The original discussion began when a conversation about biphobia, and transgender woman’s contribution to that conversation, was interrupted and derailed. And honestly, guys? No one involved in that interruption and derailing, when confronted with the fact that it was harmful and hurtful, asked if their fellow community members, and in particular the transgender woman who was interrupted, were okay. No one has expressed any acknowledgement or regret for having been a part of that. It’s been completely ignored in favor of airing other grievances. And that’s not fair in particular to the transgender woman who was interrupted, who brought up with the mods that she had been feeling uncomfortable in this server for a long time, and who helped me identify the rhetoric used as trans-exclusionary radical feminist. And this entire conversation about the things I’ve done has come about right after I took a stand, as a mod and as a friend, to support this transgender woman in our community. That timing has not escaped my notice.

I hear that a lot of you have felt guilty, alienated, or angry by me speaking about my experiences and discomforts as a bisexual woman. I haven't meant to make you feel this way; it hasn't been an agenda of mine. I am sorry for bringing you pain. But I am also hurt in turn because it feels like so many of these accusations are in bad faith at best. To be honest, if I had known that sharing my negative experiences as a bisexual woman would have contributed to the difficult climate of this server, I would have kept them to myself. And that’s what’s getting me here: I shared these because I felt safe with the people in this server. I shared these because I considered so many of you friends. And knowing that being silent would have made me less of a target is really painful.

The idea isn't that "discussing solidarity and struggles as lesbians reminds bisexual women of their struggles and difficulties they themselves face, some of them caused by lesbians and lesbian communities, and therefore these discussions shouldn't be held." It's that these discussions can co-exist. You're allowed to express solidarity and support as lesbians. But I'm also allowed to feel hurt and discouraged because so often I and other bi women are excluded from queer spaces in particular, or invalidated as people or as a community, and yes, sometimes this is done by lesbians. The latter conversation isn't a rebuke of the first. It's just a part of the ongoing series of dialogues in the queer community.

What’s particularly difficult about many of the complaints is that they express a standard I cannot meet. I spoke about my discomfort with a conversation in the channel that it was held in, indicating that it’s a good conversation but one that I feel I can’t be a part of because of my personal experience, and that was objected to. I moved to a separate channel to express my sorrow at the biphobia in this server and how it’s made me feel hurt and uncomfortable, with the intent of having a separate space where I could talk without disrupting another conversation, and that was objected to. I silently left a third conversation and brought up my point of view a while later, in a different channel, in a conversation about biphobia, and that’s been objected to. I’ve been told that when and how I’ve been talking about my experiences is a definite part of what’s making people feel guilty and targeted, but in literally every way I’ve tried to talk about biphobia, someone has objected. It’s a losing game: the only winning move is not to play at all.

And these individual experiences – where a bisexual woman’s voiced experiences and feelings are objectionable, derailing, unnecessary – parallel a larger theme in queer communities where bisexual women are told, explicitly and implicitly, that we aren’t welcome. That we take up space intended for the more valid, more queer, members of the community, just by being here, and being hurt, and giving voice to our struggles.

And the concept, reiterated over and over again, that my pain as a bisexual woman was intended to make lesbian women feel guilty feels to me like so, so much more than an assumption of bad faith. It feels like a deliberate act of willful misunderstanding. It feels like silencing through shaming.

And all of this is so much of the reasons why I and so many other bisexual people don’t feel comfortable in queer spaces. Our discussions about our struggles with gay and lesbian members of the queer communities are turned against us as proof that we are dangerous, that we are harmful, that we do not belong. I’ve seen it over and over in IRL spaces. I just didn’t want to see it here. And I really see no way how I could ever talk about my experiences as a bisexual woman in this server again with any degree of safety or assumption of solidarity.

And this isn’t even getting into the long, chastising private message I received from a community member not so long ago about my personal failures. That was … above and beyond.

I had a long conversation with my spouse about these events. He brought up that, paraphrased, “You do realize that these people berating you publicly for miscommunication, when you’ve stated before that you are on multiple spectrums, comes off to me, at least, as ableist?” And I don’t want to realize that. That makes this all feel so much more targeted and horrifying.

As I said at the very beginning of this server, and on my tumblr, and earlier today, I am on both the autistic and the schizophrenic spectrums. I have severe ASD symptoms and Schizotypal Personality Disorder. I have a really hard time reading social cues, situations, and tones, especially over the internet, and that's been a constant struggle in my life. But participating in discussions has always been hard for me, and it's been hard for people who don't know how to deal with my particular neuroatypicality. It’s a wholly foreign concept to me that any of you would have read my expressions of my own struggles and interpreted that as me setting out to make you feel guilty. I just … don’t understand. I never have. It’s why I’ve always asked people to please talk to me at the time of the miscommunication, because it’s almost impossible for me to judge how someone is going to emotionally respond to anything I say.

And that brings me to my last point: I’m leaving. I’m leaving this server, and I’m leaving tumblr, and I’m leaving the Star Wars fandom as a whole, for now at least. Lal’s mother is right when she said, "If you were getting paid for this job I'd tell you to quit and get another job.” This has been an impossible job for a number of reasons, and I’ve stuck around because I loved Lal and Io, and I wanted very much to help them and this community. I’ve been trying to do this work as a mod atop work managing hospice care for my terminally ill mother, the full-time work of running and maintaining a household, and my personal work as a writer. And the longer I spend in this community, the worse I feel. All of this feels … horrifying, in a very visceral and targeted sense.

I am sorry that many of you felt hurt by me. I truly have never meant to cause any of you harm. But that’s accompanied by a very real and very painful sense of being physically ill right now.

I’m going to close the religious server that I moderate. The dungeons & dragons one, and the writing and worldbuilding one, will both remain open, but I’m going to ask that no one bring any of this discussion to those spaces. That’s a boundary that I’m going to have to insist on at this juncture.

I guess I’d like to close by saying that I’m not angry. I’m really not. I just feel really, really sad. I’d like to believe that the timing of this is just unfortunate, that the implications of ableism are an accident, that the pervasive biphobia in this server has been rooted in ignorance and not malice. But after today’s discussion, honestly? I’d always wonder, and I’d never feel good here again.

There’s a line that’s been crossed here into the grounds of active cruelty. Lal’s been hurt, Io’s been hurt, and you guys have just kept going and going and going at these two, who have really tried their all for you. And as I said to Lal and Io earlier, on a personal note, dragging out my admissions of pain and hurt as "receipts" is the point where there's no going back for any relationship.

And that’s the time to move on.

#do not reblog #do not comment #housekeeping

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sadwriterperson · 7 years

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November 1st, 2017

Gotta get through this awkward intro, then to the good stuff, alright? I promise it'll be worth it!

Alright, so hey, I'm Bry, welcome to my blog . Let me begin with, I'm not totally great at making sense, some things in my head don't make sense in words or to others so, while I'll try to make it make sense, I don't know if it will. Secondly I'm writing on my phone for a little while as my computer is dead and the charger is at my mom's, and my phone has a field day with autocorrect, and third, it's unlikely I'll post any of my stories here publicly as I am very nervous about sharing it with others, aside teachers I've only ever willingly shared with 2 or 3 friends, and even then, I was super anxious, so privately you may have better luck. We'll see tho. It always changes. All of that said I'll get into the even more boring part of this.

Like before, I'm Bry, I'm 21 I work as a server at a fun place called Perkins, I love my job, I love the people, and even on its worst day, I probably wouldn't change a thing. I'm very simple in a complex way and I enjoy bringing happiness, even going as far as to self sacrifice my own for others. I don't mind it, never have, and I talk about that state of mind in the novel I'm writing. Outside of that, I am the oldest daughter of 5 children, whom I love more than my own life, and my Mom works her ass off as a single parent, and through life I've found my end goal to be, to be successful enough to set my Mom up so she doesn't have to worry anymore. Family is my number one priority, and literally nothing will change that. I game a little bit, binge Netflix a lot and my passion in life is writing, which leads to the good parts here:

This blog has existed for a really long time, but, I've been saving it for a particular use, which I've found with this novel. I started this novel last year during an extremely rough part of my life, and over time included some other parts of me and today, this is what I consider to be my most prized possession of literature, it is every dark piece of me, all my demons and it's genuinley the book I wish I had growing up. That said, it is titled "The Long Grass Remembers" and it's told in 2nd person, which I can explain another time, but, focuses on the main character Tristan G. Haynes, his twin brother Ross, best friend Parker Middleton, and acquaintances and confidants, Emmelia Winchester, Reese, Marjorie, and Analeigh.

Over the course of the next month I'll be writing different posts for the characters, they are more than just their names. They are dreams, and inspirations and in some way have affected me.

This novel is heavily inspired by different musical artists growing up and into my adult hood, some include: Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Black Veil Brides, G-Eazy, The Front Bottoms and Twenty One Pilots, and throughout, if you're familiar with the artists you may find references to lyrics or straight up quotes that I connected with. People I know in real life have subtle references, because like the music, they impact me and it felt wrong to not give them the credit to who I've become, thus who my characters become.

Only one character in this story is real, and that is me, however I don't identify as the character, simply that this character has a lot of me put into it. All of the characters have facets of me in them, because I needed many people to portray the multiple sides of my head which this story is for.

This has been a long time in the making and I can't wait for everyone to see where this is going and what it will become, because I truly feel once I write this, not only will others understand me more, but, i will have found my freedom, freedom from the endless war that is my brain. Stay tuned, stay hyped, and most of all, stay alive.

~ Bry

#nanowrimo #nanowrimo 2017 #the long grass remembers #tristan haynes #ross haynes #parker middleton #emmelia winchester #mental health

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thelovelybrokensoldier · 7 years

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November 1st, 2017

Gotta get through this awkward intro, then to the good stuff, alright? Promise it'll be worth it!

Like before, I'm Bry, I'm 21 I work as a server at a fun place called Perkins, I love my job, I love the people, and even on its worst day, I probably wouldn't change a thing. I'm very simple in a complex way and I enjoy bringing happiness, even going as far as to self sacrifice my own for others. I don't mind it, never have, and I talk about that state of mind in the novel I'm writing. Outside of that, I am the oldest daughter of 5 children, whom I love more than my own life, and my Mom works her ass off as a single parent, and through life I've found my end goal to be successful enough to set my Mom up so she doesn't have to worry anymore. Family is my number one priority, and literally nothing will change that. I game a little bit, binge Netflix a lot and my passion in life is writing, which leads to the good parts here:

Over the course of the next month I'll be writing different posts for the characters are they're more than just their names. They are dreams, and inspirations and in some way have affected me.

People I know have subtle references, because like the music, they impact me and it would be fake to not give them the credit to who I've become, thus who my characters become.

- Bry

#The Long Grass Remembers #Tristan Haynes #Parker Middleton #Ross Haynes #Mental Health #Depression #NaNoWriMo #NaNoWriMo 2017

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paulatoo · 5 years

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The First 115 pages

Random notes & questions on Vol 1 Mueller Report tat may not make much sense to you, but have at it:

https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0eZpjUMbZgX_LfwYf5Rgo5YV64zGfXwEs1XzrlB0wPxid9B-mkXyZdycw

or if it’s easier

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/18/us/politics/mueller-report-document.html?module=inline

pg 1-12 rundown & indications of guilt Pg 13 redundancy of investigators precludes an partyism controlling out come. To ally fears of a Dem persecution & who's to say Reps weren't losing evidence?

Pg 23 Sanders also favored why?

Pg42 foot note "Tennessee-based web-hosting company, called Smartech Corporation. William Bastone, RNC E-Mail Was, In Fact, Hacked By Russians, The Smoking Gun (Dec. 13, 2016)."

Pg44-46 Why does everyone think Hillary interested in starting wars???Even worse why do people that attack Her thinking she is prone to war then cheer Trump with all his hateful rhetoric & threats? She has worked to help end wars & avoid conflicts, to protect first responders & police esp., veterans...is it her standing strong to prove a woman can...or fear of a woman in power? In Putin’s case maybe he just knew he wouldn’t get his way wit her.

Pg44 foot note 156 Is this just related to Crimea & Ukraine?

Pg48 Seth Rich wikileaks scapegoat death?

Meanwhile: "On July 27 2016, Unit 26165 targeted email accounts connected to candidate Clinton's personal office . Earlier that day, candidate Trump made public statements that included the following: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."183 The "30,000 emails" were apparently a reference to emails described in media accounts as having been stored on a personal server that candidate Clinton had used while serving as Secretary of State. Within approximately five hours of Trump's statement, GRU officers targeted for the first time Clinton's personal office." is going un noticed & explained away. Not the strongest point, but still concerning. There was already contact with the Trump campaign that DJT knew about the info they claimed to have, could be dismissed as innocent/bad timing with out that, since so much prior Russian related activity is being held apart from this investigation. pg49

Pg50 The GRU stole approximately 300 gigabytes of data from the DNC cloudbased account.185 Ref. 9/20/16 post Trump remarks Original hack 4/11/16 Pg40 https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/04/politics/reality-check-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-emails/index.html https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton/Hillary%20R.%20Clinton%20Part%2001%20of%2031

Pg 50 Local/State "2. Intrusions Targeting the Administration of U.S. Elections In addition to targeting individuals involved in the Clinton Campaign, GRU officers also targeted individuals and entities involved in the administration of the elections. Victims included U.S. state and local entities, such as state boards of elections (SBOEs), secretaries of state, and county governments, as well as individuals who worked for those entities. 186 The GRU also targeted private technology firms responsible for manufacturing and administering election-related software and hardware, such as voter registration software and electronic polling stations.187 The GRU continued to target these victims through the elections in November 2016. While the investigation identified evidence that the GRU targeted these individuals and entities, the Office did not investigate further. The Office did not, for instance, obtain or examine servers or other relevant items belonging to these victims. The Office understands that the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the states have separately investigated that activity." See also Senate investigation & post election reporting that while there was intrusion there was no vote interference due in part to Obama admin action to alert. Obama mention of looking into/we have reports of Russian meddling end of press conference in July??? Wish I could remember the date/topic was aired on NBC.

Pg 51 Florida SBOE or CBOE does nothing??? "We understand the FBI believes that this operation enabled the GRU to gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government. The Office did not independently verify that belief and, as explained above, did not undertake the investigative steps that would have been necessary to do so."

Pg 56 so what "We" was going to be in charge?

Pg 59 "Corsi stated that he was convinced that his efforts had caused WikiLeaks to release the emails when they did.246"reaction to Billy Bush tape but after the walk back "The Office investigated Corsi' s allegations about the events of October 7...little corroboration for his alle ations about the da . 248'{as copied highlighted parts dropped, weird}

Blackmail? Pg59-60 "Donald Trump Jr. had direct electronic communications with WikiLeaks during the campaign period. On September 20, 2016, an individual named Jason Fishbein sent WikiLeaks the password for an unlaunched website focused on Trump's "unprecedented and dangerous" ties to Russia, PutinTrump.org.252 WikiLeaks publicly tweeted: '"Let's bomb Iraq' Progress for America PAC to launch "PutinTrump.org' at 9:30am. Oops pw is 'putintrump' putintrump.org." Several hours later, WikiLeaks sent a Twitter direct message to Donald Trump Jr., "A PAC run anti-Trump site putintrump.org is about to launch. The PAC is a recycled pro-Iraq war PAC. We have guessed the password. It is 'putintrump.' See 'About' for who is behind it. Any comments ?"253"

Pg 61 False(?) claims on Clinton laundering? "In the spring of 2016, Trump Campaign advisor Michael Caputo learned through a Floridabased Russian business partner that another Florida-based Russian, Henry Oknyansky (who also went by the name Henry Greenberg), claimed to have information pertaining to Hillary Clinton. Caputo notified Roger Stone and brokered communication between Stone and Oknyansky. Oknyansky and Stone set up a May 2016 in-person meeting.260

Oknyansky was accompanied to the meeting by Alexei Rasin, a Ukrainian associate involved in Florida real estate. At the meeting, Rasin offered to sell Stone derogatory information on Clinton that Rasin claimed to have obtained while working for Clinton. Rasin claimed to possess financial statements demonstrating Clinton's involvement in money laundering with Rasin's companies. According to Oknyansky, Stone asked if the amounts in question totaled millions of dollars but was told it was closer to hundreds of thousands. Stone refused the offer, stating that Trump would not pay for opposition research.261 Oknyansky claimed to the Office that Rasin's motivation was financial. According to Oknyansky, Rasin had tried unsuccessfully to shop the Clinton information around to other interested parties, and Oknyansky would receive a cut if the information was sold.262 Rasin is noted in public source documents as the director and/or registered agent for a number of Florida companies, none of which appears to be connected to Clinton."

Pg 62 Disappeared? "The Office did not locate Rasin in the United States, although the Office confirmed Rasin had been issued a Florida driver's license. The Office otherwise was unable to determine the content and origin of the information he purportedly offered to Stone. Finally, the investigation did not identify evidence of a connection between the outreach or the meeting and Russian interference efforts."

Pg 62-63 search for the truth or treason? wording looks like the latter "Ledeen began her efforts to obtain the Clinton emails before Flynn's request, as early as December 2015.268 On December 3, 2015, she emailed Smith a proposal to obtain the emails, stating, "Here is the proposal I briefly mentioned to you. The person I described to you would be happy to talk with you either in person or over the phone. The person can get the emails which 1. Were classified and 2. Were purloined by our enemies. That would demonstrate what needs to be demonstrated."269

Attached to the email was a 25-page proposal stating that the "Clinton email server was, in all likelihood, breached long ago," and that the Chinese, Russian, and Iranian intelligence services could "re-assemble the server's email content."270 The proposal called for a three-phase approach. The first two phases consisted of open-source analysis. The third phase consisted of checking with certain intelligence sources "that have access through liaison work with various foreign services" to determine if any of those services had gotten to the server. The proposal noted, "Even if a single email was recovered and the providence [sic] of that email was a foreign service, it would be catastrophic to the Clinton campaign[.]" Smith forwarded the email to two colleagues and wrote, "we can discuss to whom it should be referred."271 On December 16, 2015, Smith informed Ledeen that he declined to participate in her "initiative." According to one of Smith's business associates, Smith believed Ledeen's initiative was not viable at that time.272"

Pg63 KLS Research LLC So who has the emails & when will they be released? During Trump impeachment hearings? Pg64 “According to Prince, the tech advisor determined that the emails were not authentic.283 "

Since Trump has both made statements about becoming President & wanting Trump Tower Moscow since the 1980's I think the scope should have gone back further than 2013-2015. "288 For example, on August 18, 2015, on behalf of the editor-in-chief of the internet newspaper Vzglyad, Georgi Asatryan emailed campaign press secretary Hope Hicks asking for a phone or in-person candidate interview. 8/18/15 Email, Asatryan to Hicks. One day earlier, the publication's founder (and former Russian parliamentarian) Konstantin Rykov had registered two Russian websites-Trump2016.ru and DonaldTrump2016.ru. No interview took place." Footnote Pg66 for example. Being aware of Trump other dealings makes it hard not to think there may have been some degree of pre coordination earlier, that & all the Russian ties. See also from Pg69 "Sater had also served as an informal agent of the Trump Organization in Moscow previously and had accompanied lvanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. to Moscow in the mid2000s.306"

Pg71"On November 3, 2015, the day after the Trump Organization transmitted the LOI, Sater emailed Cohen suggesting that the Trump Moscow project could be used to increase candidate Trump's chances at being elected, writing: Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process .... Michael, Putin gets on stage with Donald for a ribbon cutting for Trump Moscow, and Donald owns the republican nomination. And possibly beats Hillary and our boy is in .. . . We will manage this process better than anyone. You and I will get Donald and Vladimir on a stage together very shortly. That the game changer.327 Later that day, Sater followed up: Donald doesn't stare down, he negotiates and understands the economic issues and Putin only want to deal with a pragmatic leader, and a successful business man is a good candidate for someone who knows how to negotiate. "Business, politics, whatever it all is the same for someone who knows how to deal" " First part alarming!!!! Boy were they wrong on the second part when it comes to international trade deals.

Pg76 From footnote 359"...Dvoskin is an executive of Genbank, a large bank with lending focused in Crimea, Ukraine. At the time that Sater provided this financing letter to Cohen, Genbank was subject to U.S. government sanctions, see Russia/Ukraine-related Sanctions and Identifications, Office of Foreign Assets Control (Dec. 22, 2015), available at https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFACEnforcement/Pages/20151222.aspx. Dvoskin, who had been deported from the United States in 2000 for criminal activity, was under indictment in the United States for stock fraud under the aliases Eugene Slusker and Gene Shustar. See United States v. Rizzo, et al., 2:03-cr-63 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 6, 2003). " Reasons to do your homework/due diligence.

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ryadel · 5 years

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2-Factor Authentication (2FA): what it is and how it works

Two-factor authentication (2FA), also known as two-step verification or two-factor authentication, is a security tool whereby the user is required to provide two different authentication factors to verify their identity. It can be used to grant (or deny) access to any type of resource: web sites and services, financial or banking accounts, security boxes, apartments and offices doors & gates, and so on. In this article we'll do our best to explain the characteristics of this access mode, the reasons that make it significantly safer than traditional authentication tools and how it can be used to protect our online and offline resources.

Why the password is not enough

As you most likely already know, the vast majority of websites in 2019 still rely on the good old "username & password" authentication method, which is among the worst possible techniques to protect our data. Here's a list of reasons explaining why such method shouldn't be used anymore in 2019: Weak or stolen user credentials are hackers' weapon of choice, used in 95 percent of all web site attacks. Password theft is constantly evolving as hackers employ methods like keylogging, phishing, pharming and so on. The vast number of password we need to use (and memorize) during our everyday (personal + business) life pushes users and employees to perform a lot of unsecure behaviours, such as: using easy to remember (and therefore weak) passwords; store their credentials in their browsers/devices; write them in insecure places; and so on. Even if most of these threats can be mitigated by using a strong password, the real weakness of such approach lies in the fact that there is only a single layer of protection between the intruder and our data: a single mistake on our part is all it takes to allow unauthorized access from virtually anyone.

Authentication Factors

An authentication factor is a way to acknowledge the identity of a user by a security device in order to grant (or deny) access to the requested resource(s). There are generally three recognized types of authentication factors nowadays: Type 1 - Something You Know: includes passwords, PINs, combinations, passphrases, secret words, gestures and so on. Anything that you can remember and then type, say, do, perform, or otherwise recall when needed falls into this category. Type 2 - Something You Have: includes any kind of physical object: keys, smart phones, smart cards, USB drives, token devices, authentication apps (such as Google Authenticator) and so on. Type 3 – Something You Are: includes any part of the human body that can be used to verify the owner's identity, such as: fingerprints, retina scan, iris scan, palm scan, facial recognition, voice recognition and so on. As we can easily understand, each category them can be theoretically "cracked" by a criminal: password & pins can be guessed, inferred or obtained through spying techniques or malicious software; physical object can be stolen or cloned; if you're into theft-related movies or books, you know that even the human body parts are not 100% secure, since they can be "stolen", cloned or forged as well. The "username & password" approach we described early on clearly falls into the type 1 single-factor authentication methods, which is among the less secure ones. However, any single-factor authentication approach is potentially weak, as the intruder only has to have a single attack skill and wage a single successful attack to impersonate the victim; conversely, combining (at least) two factors from the above categories will greatly increase the level of security, as the whole authentication process will become much more difficult to overcome: the intruder must have multiple attack skills and/or wage multiple successful attacks simultaneously: doing that is much more difficult, resulting in a more resilient solution from a security perspective.

Two-Factor vs Multi-Factor

The difference between Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) should be already clear by now: 2FA is nothing more, nothing less than an implementation of multi-factor authentication which requires two different factors from those listed above. Three-Factor Authentication (3FA) is also a type of MFA which requires all the three factors identified above.

Multi-Password Authentication

2FA and MFA should not be confused with Multi-Password Authentication (MPA) mechanisms, which require the user to insert multiple sets of credentials (different usernames/passwords) in order to access a specific resource. A typical example of Multi-Password Authentication is a password-protected client software installed on a user profile within a desktop PC, which can only be accessed by performing the Windows login and then the client login. Another good example is a Remote Desktop through VPN, where the user must first login to the VPN server (using the VPN credentials) and then initiate the RDP session through authentication to the networking environment (Active Directory, VNC, SSH and so on). Despite being more secure than single-password approaches, all multi-password authentication processes still falls into the Single-Factor Authentication (SFA) world, thus being potentially insecure from attacks coming from experienced hacker (which can exploit unexperienced end-users).

Authentication vs Authorization

To better understand the need to switch from a single factor authentication method to a two (or more) factor process, it may be useful to analyze the difference between the modern authentication and authorization concepts. Generally speaking, the term authentication refers to any process of verification that someone, be it a human being or an automated system, is who (or what) it claims to be. This is also true within the context of the World Wide Web (WWW), where that same word is mostly used to denote any technique used by a website or service to collect a set of login info from a user agent, typically a web browser, and authenticate them using a membership and/or identity service. Authentication should never be confused with Authorization, as it is a different process and is in charge of a very different task: to give a quick definition, we could say that the purpose of authorization is to confirm that the requesting user is allowed to have access to the action they want to perform. In other words, while authentication is about who he is, authorization is about what he’s allowed to do. To better understand the distance between these two apparently similar concepts, we could think of two real-world scenarios: A free, yet registered account trying to gain access to a paid or premium only service or feature: this is a common example of authenticated, yet not-authorized access; we know who he is, yet he’s not allowed to go there. An anonymous user trying to gain access to a publicly available page or file: this is an example of not-authenticated, yet authorized access; we don’t know who he is, yet he can access public resources just like everyone else. For additional info regarding the differences between authentication and authorization, other examples including third-party login (Facebook, Google and so on) and a list of the available auth methods nowadays, we strongly suggest to read this other post. As we can easily understand, the main problem with Single-Factor Authentication lies in the fact that it's not strong enough to confirm that the requesting user is who he claims to be: therefore, it could easily end up authorizing a whole different human being, thus granting him (or her) access to private data or privacy-sensible resources. This has become rather common in standard password-based websites nowadays, where passwords are frequently stolen and - more than often - even willingly given by the owner to others (co-workers, family, etc.) to act on their behalf: have you ever ordered a meal or performed any e-shop transaction using a friend or company account? If you did, you know what we're talking about. Now, although such behaviour could be somewhat "acceptable" if the website does not contain privacy sensitive info, it definitely cannot be done for services hosting personal data: from our banking account to our government website's personal page, from our office gate to our home door, we could definitely benefit from a Multi-Factor Authentication method to better secure our stuff. Such approach is also required by the Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) European Law (Art. 32 - Security of Processing), which instructs the controller and processor to take the appropriate steps to restrict access to personal data to the authorized personnel only. This post is part of a series of articles and essays regarding the new European General Data Protection Regulation in EU countries, with specific focus on achieving compliance with UE and local regulations, civil rights and criminal matters. To read the other articles, click here! Read the full article

#2FA #DataProtection #DataSecurity #GDPR #MFA #MPA #Multi-FactorAuthentication #PasswordStrength #Two-FactorAuthentication

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spideypoolbigbang · 5 years

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What is a Big Bang?

Writers and artists work together as a team. They share a posting date and create a masterpost of both the story and art that is promoted by the challenge blog. This is a collaborative effort, NOT a commission. Though writers can suggest scenes they wish to have drawn, ultimately it is the artists who choose which scene they would like to draw. The artist should also respect what the writer suggests and take their notes into consideration. Communication is key to a fun and friendly experience.

Artists can claim up to two fics and can work with multiple writers. However, writers will be matched with only one artist. If an artist drops out after claims, we will arrange for a pinch-hitter, someone who will create art for the story at the last minute.

This is a fun fest and a collaborative effort that will hopefully create more Spideypool content for the fandom and foster closer fandom friendships.

How do I sign up as a writer/artist?

Keep Reading for more questions:

I missed sign-ups. Can I still register?

We can sign up as both a Writer and an Artist, but can we sign up as a Beta, Writer, and an Artist?

Will you email me reminders? What if I need more time?

We will send out email reminders several days before the published deadline. Reminders will be emailed for all check-ins, claims, and posting dates. Please consider adding the dates posted on the schedule into your calendar to keep track.

We will grant extensions on a case-by-case basis. This is a low-stress event, and we understand that life gets hectic. If you feel like you need more time, let the mods know as soon as possible.

I’ve never participated in an event before. Can I sign up?

Will we be assigned a prompt?

When can I start writing?

You can start writing as soon as you sign up (or even use a previously unpublished WIP for this event).

I want to talk about my fic, but I’m afraid of revealing too much. What is considered information I can reveal?

If you need group feedback and are 18 or older, the Spideypool Discord has a designated section for the SPBB event, where there will be rooms for participants of the fest. Fest rules apply within the server, as it is a public forum. However there is a writers-only room named #spbb-writers-cafe where writers may discuss their works freely and receive feedback/brainstorm ideas. This means that writers may not share details of their story in any other chat.

Here are a few examples of what information is allowed and what is not:

“I’m almost done with writing my SPBB fic!” ← This is okay because it reveals no specific details about your story that an artist could recognize.

“I’m almost done with my Princess Bride AU fic for the SPBB!” ← This is not okaybecause it is a specific detail.

Can I write other pairings, such as Spider-man/Mary Jane or Deadpool/Cable?

You can, but keep in mind that the fic has to be majority Spideypool and endgame Spider-Man/Deadpool.

When am I assigned an artist/writer?

Are we assigned beta-readers? What is a beta-reader?

Be aware that they will have refusal rights if your story goes against their stated preferences (i.e. If they state that they aren’t comfortable with Tom!Spidey fics and your fic is set during Infinity War, they can refuse to beta for you, etc.). It is your job to read up on what they offer and to contact them. Make sure to do so as soon as possible to ensure a beta is available to work with you. Keep in mind they’ll need time to beta your work and you’ll need time to edit before posting day.

What is a Check-In? How do I check in/submit rough drafts/summary/visual components for claims? What are visual components?

When we say “check in”, it is usually done through a form sent out through email a week before the check-in is due. Check-ins let the mods know that you’re on track and show us any progress you have made.

What is Preview Day?

If I sign up as an Artist, how can I be sure that I don’t claim a story that contains content I’m uncomfortable reading?

When the Writers submit their summaries and visual components for preview day, we ask them to include as spoilery a summary as possible so that there aren’t any surprises for their potential Artist later. We require tagging for all major AO3 warnings (Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, and Underage), and encourage including any other potentially triggering or squicky tags as well. If you are concerned about a particular tag or story element that is not covered under those warnings, you are welcome to contact the Mod Team via email or private message, and we will ask the Writers to be sure to include those tags in their summaries at the request of the Artists. Our main goal in hosting this event is to make sure that everyone is having fun and enjoying what they do, and making sure that all participants are comfortable with their partners and the work they are creating together is a top priority.

What is Claim Day, and how do I claim the fic I want to draw for?

I haven’t heard from my partner in a while; what do I do?

When you sign up for this challenge, you are agreeing to communicate with your partner through emails or other methods determined by you and your partner. Some teams might communicate only a few times, and some might communicate regularly. It is up to the team members to check in with each other. It is critical that you respond promptly to your partners and check your messages, even if it’s just to say you’re busy and will respond later.

If you send a message to your partner at any time after claims and do not receive a response from your partner within 48 hours, let the mod team know through email so that we can assist. PLEASE DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO LET US KNOW YOU HAVEN’T HEARD FROM YOUR TEAMMATE.Please do not ghost your teammate. We know it’s tempting, but events like this are meant to build relationships, not destroy them.

What if I need to drop out?

There is no penalty for dropping out before claims. However, we ask that you let us know as soon so we can remove you from the mailing list.

Do not announce that you are dropping out through social media before telling your partner. We do not want your partner finding out that way. Instead, let the necessary people know through private chats or emails.

If there is an emergency, get in touch with us and we will work with you the best we can.

What’s a pinch-hitter and how can I become one?

Am I allowed to write timestamps, epilogues, or sequels for this fic? What about additional art?

You may write as many timestamps, epilogues, or sequels to your fic as you like. However, we do have restrictions on when you may post them.

Timestamps or Epilogues: Can either be posted on your posting day with your fic OR you must wait to post them until after the current round of SPBB is complete and the final Masterlist of Writers and Artists has been posted by the mods.

Sequels: All sequels should not be posted until after the current round of SPBB is complete and the final Masterlist of Writers and Artists has been posted by the mods.

Additional art can be posted after the masterlist of Writers and Artists has been posted by the mods and the current round is over. If someone creates fanart for your fic as a gift, you may include it in the fic, but the original fanart created by your partner must remain in your masterpost and linked directly in the fic.

Commissioning art for the fic or asking a friend to create additional art for you because you dislike the art you received is not allowed. This is a collaborative event and to do so is disrespectful to your artist’s efforts. If you wish to commission art or have someone else create art for your fic, you may not include that art in the fic until one year after the posting date, and the original art created by your partner must remain linked directly in the fic.

Can I use any version of Spider-man and Deadpool for my fic/art?

Please note that we do not tolerate shaming or harassment of any kind. Shaming or harassing a writer or artist for creating a piece that depicts an iteration of Spider-Man or Deadpool that you do not approve of will result in disqualification from this round and a possible ban for the next round as will. Be respectful and mature when communicating. If you have a problem with the iteration of the characters your partner is using, please contact the mods for mediation.

What if I’m co-writing? Do we sign up together or separately? Do we get two Artists?

Co-writing is essentially working together to create one story. As per the rules, each story, even if you’re co-writing, will only receive one Artist. This also does not mean you can demand more art from your artist. They only need to fulfill the minimum requirement and can choose to create more art if they have the time to do so.

Can I have multiple writing partners?

What is the Promo Period? Do I need anything special for it?

How do I post, and when do I post? What if I’ve never posted on AO3 before?

We will be sending out emails to the teams with details walking you through the process of posting. If you are new to AO3, one of the mods will be able to walk you through the process. Make sure to contact the mod team at least a few days prior to posting for a walkthrough if you are new to AO3. If you do not have an AO3 account currently and are in need of an invite code, please contact the mod team, and we will try to accommodate you.

If I don’t want to be associated with my story after the first year, can I delete it from AO3?

Yes, but we encourage you to orphan the work, rather than deleting it if you choose to remove your affiliation with the story past the one-year date.

Why are we posting during February? Why not sooner or later?

Because, my beautiful chimichangas, that was when Deadpool the movie was released. And we all know a Spideypool bang is what Deadpool would have wanted. To honor his glorious movie debut, we are going to release a bunch of Deadpool romancing Spidey (and vice versa) creations into the world.

#frequently asked questions #mod post #spideypool big bang 2019

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dorcasrempel · 5 years

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3 Questions: The fact finders

When publication such as U.S. News and World Report roll out their annual university rankings, typically with MIT among the top schools listed, some may wonder where the data they’re based on actually come from.

The source of that information is MIT Instituational Research, which collects and compiles data on many facets of the Institute, or, as Director Lydia Snover puts it, on MIT’s “people, money, and space.” The Institutional Research (IR) website is a wonderland of data that tells the story of MIT’s evolution over recent decades. There are surveys of faculty, graduate students, undergraduates — and even undergraduates’ parents. Users can also take a deep dive into the demographics of different subsets of the MIT community and peruse financial figures on research expenditures, tuition, and more.

Public universities have been providing this kind of information for decades to state and federal agencies that fund them. It’s unusual for a private university such as MIT to have such a robust IR operation and to share so much of its data publicly, but Snover has long been a leader in the field of IR at the national, and even international, level. She was recently awarded the John Stecklein Distinguished Member Award from the Association for Institutional Research, for advancing the field of institutional research through extraordinary scholarship, leadership, and service.

MIT News caught up with Snover to talk about IR at MIT, her philosophy about transparency, and why she’s a fan of the Institute’s data warehouse.

Q: What are the main types of data that your office collects, and what are they used for?

A: We bring together data from lots of different operational areas at MIT — including human resources, the registrar, admissions, and facilities, to name just a few — to simplify it in some ways and create metrics that can be used by departments, labs, and centers to help them meet their goals.

We complete all information requests for university rankings, guidebooks, and various consortiums. We also administer surveys for organizations like the Consortium for Financing of Higher Education as well as some of our other peer institutions. The majority of surveys we administer are just for the MIT community, or subsets of it. We administer over 100 surveys a year. We support the accreditation process and assist when asked with grant applications.

We provide reports for department heads in preparation for meetings with the Corporation’s visiting committees. We’ll put together a 10-year profile that includes department-level trends in staffing, retention, enrollment, sponsored research expenditures, how graduate students are being funded, things like that. We can compare those numbers within MIT and for a subset of metrics with other peer institutions.

People like to talk about making data-driven decisions, but we prefer the term “data-informed.” We collect data that help MIT’s senior officers make decisions about what’s best for the Institute.

A lot of the data we collect are available on our website, including our survey data. We have philosophy that if we ask people to fill out a survey, they’re entitled to see the results!

Q: How has your mandate changed in the last 20 years, and what do you see in the office’s future?

A: Institutional Research was established in 1986 and initially we focused primarily on physical planning. Over the next 15 years we began administering surveys, responding on behalf of the Institute to external data requests, and providing briefing materials. In 2000 we moved to the Office of the Provost, and our portfolio has continued to evolve and grow, both in terms of the services we provide to MIT leadership and the greater MIT community, and our involvement in sharing data with other universities. The staff has evolved as well to include analysts, programmers, experts in survey design, data visualization, database design, statistics, and qualitative analysis. MIT IR has an extraordinarily gifted staff.

Nationally, large institutional research offices were needed mostly by public institutions to respond to state legislatures. Private universities and colleges have slowly built up their capacity, in large part to provide internal analysis. In 1988, MIT joined the Association of American Universities Data Exchange (AAUDE), a consortium which facilitates data sharing with other AAU universities on things like the composition of faculty at the department level. The number of private AAU universities participating in the AAU Data Exchange has gone from a handful in 1990 to all 27 since I and others began encouraging our colleagues to become active.

Before MIT became involved, members were mailing each other this information on paper — you’d have file cabinets of paper! — so MIT first volunteered to provide an FTP server to facilitate electronic exchange of data. Now the AAU Data Exchange has a data warehouse, which has made the whole system very efficient.

One area were we focus a lot of attention, through our surveys and other data collections, is on what happens to our graduates: What percentage are going into industry? What are the companies that are hiring them? It used to be that all universities cared about was how many students go to graduate school, but MIT sends a lot of graduates to industry.

One new project is working with Professors Susan Hockfield, Sangeeta Bhatia, Nancy Hopkins, Fiona Murray of the MIT Innovation Initiative and the Boston Biotech working group on some interesting issues in gender representation in biotechnology, looking at company leadership, issuance of patents, and other areas.

Q: MIT’s IR office is relatively big for a private university. Why is that?

A: The scope of work for MIT’s Institutional Research Office is unusual because we’re involved in many projects that are important to MIT but not typical for institutional research. For example, at MIT we work with MITx data and sponsored research trends.

We’re very lucky and unusual because at MIT we have centralized data systems but local decision making. The fact that we have only one registrar, for example, and centralized accounting systems makes it much easier for my office to pull data together and analyze it.

I can’t emphasize enough how important the MIT data warehouse is — to everyone at MIT, not just to us. If you’re an analyst in an office like ours, you’d have to learn query languages for all the different databases. You would also spend a large proportion of your time compiling and cleaning data. But IS&T set up this system so that data could feed into one central warehouse, and you don’t need special programming skills to pull information out of it. The MIT data warehouse has been the envy of most of our peers.

MIT is the best place in the world to do institutional research because we have faculty who aren’t afraid of the data, even if they show there’s room for improvement. There’s an engineering mentality that permeates MIT. If we find we’re different from our peers in a way that we need to fix, then we identify that and fix it. You never think you’re the best because there’s always something to improve on.

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syrolecep-blog · 5 years

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Steamworks matchmaking

Steam sdk matchmaking A May 2012 patch for Portal 2, enabled by a new map-making tool through the Steam Workshop, introduced the ability to share user-created levels. Nevertheless developers will still want to use the Steam-servers or not, or they will want to enable players without access to steam-servers to play the game. My only implementation was to have the game push achievements to Steam. Hey throbax and thanks for your compliment! Hi, as i know, battle royale now playable on the best experience! Eek Games were later able to satisfy Valve's standards by including censor bars within the game and allowing the game to be readded to Steam, though offered a patch on their website to remove the bars. The client and website choked under the strain of thousands of users simultaneously attempting to play the game. A single lobby can have up to 250 users in it, although typically most games have at most 2-16 players. In October 2012, Steam introduced non-gaming applications, which are sold through the service in the same manner as games.

com-k2.ru matchmaking While these changes brought Steam's privacy settings inline with approaches used by game console services, it also impacted third-party services such as , which relied on the public data to estimate Steam sales count. Big Picture mode is a , which optimizes the Steam display to work on high-definition televisions, allowing the user to control Steam with a gamepad or with a keyboard and mouse. As a full version on February 24, 2011, this feature was reimplemented so that users could share screenshots on websites of , , and straight from a user's screenshot manager. The first released on the system was. Steam Cloud The Steam Cloud provides the simpliest possible way to sync your save-game data to the cloud allowing your players to keep their in-game progress without hassle when switching between devices or even after a nasty computer crash! Niceties and C Idioms can be easily implemented on top of Steamworks.

Required Ports for Steam Through Steamworks, Steam provides a means of server browsing for multiplayer games that use the Steam Community features, allowing users to create lobbies with friends or members of common groups. However, if this Delegate is bound, the default behavior will be suspended, so developers will have to kick the player manually if that behavior is still desired. Peer-To-Peer networking for steam profile will never exit lobbies in your project. This announcement followed months of speculation, primarily from the website that had discovered evidence of Linux developing in recent builds of Steam and other Valve software. Each user has a unique page that shows his or her groups and friends, game library including earned achievements, game wishlists, and other social features; users can choose to keep this information private. These redesigns are aimed to help showcase what shared games a user's friends are playing, games that are being live-streamed, and new content that may be available, along with more customization options for sorting games. Steamworks provides networking and player authentication tools for both server and peer-to-peer multiplayer games, matchmaking services, support for Steam community friends and groups, Steam statistics and achievements, integrated voice communications, and Steam Cloud support, allowing games to integrate with the Steam client.

Tutorials / Guides on how to use com-k2.ru ? In December 2012, a feature where users can upload walkthroughs and guides detailing game strategy was added. Keys are the backbone for inventory control and sales data. Feel free to check it out here: I hope this helps you and other people in the future. An unhandled exception of type 'System. In March 2019, Valve faced pressure over Rape Day, a planned game described as being a and power fantasy where the player would control a serial rapist in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. It is built in march 2009, steam wishlists steamworks and finding other openvr sdk support for everyone and. Remember to check out for any 2D specific questions and conversation! An attempt occurred in November 2011, when Valve temporarily closed the community forums, citing potential hacking threats to the service.

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com-k2.ru matchmaking However, , the previous owner of competing platform , estimated that as of 2009, Steam had a 70% share of the digital distribution market for video games. By February 2017, Valve reported that with the second Discovery update, the number of games shown to users via the store's front page increased by 42%, with more conversions into sales from that viewership. Steamworks also addresses grey marketing, player authentication, and piracy, so you can focus on the business of simply making great games. Let friends give free, limited time passes to their friends. Users would pledge support for these games, and Valve would help to make top-pledged games available on the Steam service. It's a simple sample game which shows you the correct way of implementing achievements and stats as well as storing them on the steam server.

Steam Matchmaking & Lobbies (Steamworks Documentation) This led to the creation of algorithms that worked on publicly-available data through user profiles to estimate sales data with some accuracy, which led to the creation of the website in 2015. Permalink embed save parent steam engines - the matchmaking in crate steamworks when servers top-down, cloud saves, the. To take advantage of some of its features for newer interface elements, Steam uses of Chromium, which makes it unsupported on older operating systems such as and. That's why I created this sample project; to show you how to do achievement unlocking, stats updating and storing everything on the steam server without errors or crashes. In August 2016, filed a lawsuit against Valve stating that Steam's client infringes on four of their patents, which they state are used within the Steam Library, Chat, Messaging, and Broadcasting. Steam Coupons, which was introduced in December 2011, provides single-use coupons that provide a discount to the cost of items. Do this and then your solution will work: Add these lines to your project.

com-k2.ru Steamworks made its debut on with Portal 2 's PlayStation 3 release. Valve generally honors all such requests, but clarified that they would evaluate some requests to avoid giving keys to games or other offerings that are designed to manipulate the Steam storefront and other features. In October 2018, Steam for Linux reached the 5,000 native games mark. Contribute to steam matchmaking, then i am afraid there are instantiated, customizable options. Friends will see friends playing your game and will be able to organize matches, compare achievements, and talk about the next match, sequels, favourite parts, or the best villain. Valve plans to use the same approach and algorithms to identify these types of games, limiting these games to only one thousand total achievements and discounting these achievements towards a user's statistics. The Workshop was originally used for distribution of new items for Team Fortress 2; it was redesigned to extend support for any game in early 2012, including modifications for.

Unity Multiplayer During this time users faced multiple issues attempting to play the game. The platform also offers a small selection of non-video game content, such as design software, , and. Lobby MetadataLobby Metadata allows you to set the arbitrary state of the lobby, including the lobbies name, current map, game mode, current state of the game, or anything else you can think of. Note the 9999 ping value in search results when writing an excellent set of tools for a match-based 5v5 multiplayer steam. Ufo online multiplayer checkers tutorial 11 ai fps game. I would suggest you go the lobby route for now as it is newer and should save you some time. The first thing you'll want to do after you create a lobby is set a data on the lobby, that other game clients can use to search for it see below.

TEKKEN.7.V1.0.Steamworks.Fix In the process of transitioning from Greenlight to Direct, Valve mass-approved most of the 3,400 remaining games that were still in Greenlight, though the company noted that not all of these were at a state to be published. The announcement was preceded by a change in the Steam beta client to support the cross-platform web browser rendering engine instead of the of. This feature was pulled a few days afterward following. Once locked, activity by that account on other computers must first be approved by the user on the locked computer. A lobby is a entity that lives on the Steam back-end servers that is a lot like a chat room. Negligee: Love Stories developed by Dharker Studios was one of the first sexually-explicit games to be offered after the introduction of the tools in September 2018.

#Tutorials #/#Guides #on #how #to #use #com-k2.ru #?

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businessliveme · 5 years

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Thousands of Amazon Workers Are Listening to What You Tell Alexa

(Bloomberg) — Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening.

Sometimes, someone is.

Amazon.com Inc. employs thousands of people around the world to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers. The team listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices. The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software as part of an effort to eliminate gaps in Alexa’s understanding of human speech and help it better respond to commands.

The Alexa voice review process, described by seven people who have worked on the program, highlights the often-overlooked human role in training software algorithms. In marketing materials Amazon says Alexa “lives in the cloud and is always getting smarter.” But like many software tools built to learn from experience, humans are doing some of the teaching.

There is a Team

The team comprises a mix of contractors and full-time Amazon employees who work in outposts from Boston to Costa Rica, India and Romania, according to the people, who signed nondisclosure agreements barring them from speaking publicly about the program. They work nine hours a day, with each reviewer parsing as many as 1,000 audio clips per shift, according to two workers based at Amazon’s Bucharest office, which takes up the top three floors of the Globalworth building in the Romanian capital’s up-and-coming Pipera district. The modern facility stands out amid the crumbling infrastructure and bears no exterior sign advertising Amazon’s presence.

Read more: Google AI Ethics Council Is Falling Apart After a Week

The work is mostly mundane. One worker in Boston said he mined accumulated voice data for specific utterances such as “Taylor Swift” and annotated them to indicate the searcher meant the musical artist. Occasionally the listeners pick up things Echo owners likely would rather stay private: a woman singing badly off key in the shower, say, or a child screaming for help. The teams use internal chat rooms to share files when they need help parsing a muddled word—or come across an amusing recording.

Sometimes they hear recordings they find upsetting, or possibly criminal. Two of the workers said they picked up what they believe was a sexual assault. When something like that happens, they may share the experience in the internal chat room as a way of relieving stress. Amazon says it has procedures in place for workers to follow when they hear something distressing, but two Romania-based employees said that, after requesting guidance for such cases, they were told it wasn’t Amazon’s job to interfere.

“We take the security and privacy of our customers’ personal information seriously,” an Amazon spokesman said in an emailed statement. “We only annotate an extremely small sample of Alexa voice recordings in order [to] improve the customer experience. For example, this information helps us train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems, so Alexa can better understand your requests, and ensure the service works well for everyone.

“We have strict technical and operational safeguards, and have a zero tolerance policy for the abuse of our system. Employees do not have direct access to information that can identify the person or account as part of this workflow. All information is treated with high confidentiality and we use multi-factor authentication to restrict access, service encryption and audits of our control environment to protect it.”

Do Users Have Informed Consent?

Amazon, in its marketing and privacy policy materials, doesn’t explicitly say humans are listening to recordings of some conversations picked up by Alexa. “We use your requests to Alexa to train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems,” the company says in a list of frequently asked questions.

In Alexa’s privacy settings, the company gives users the option of disabling the use of their voice recordings for the development of new features. A screenshot reviewed by Bloomberg shows that the recordings sent to the Alexa auditors don’t provide a user’s full name and address but are associated with an account number, as well as the user’s first name and the device’s serial number.

The Intercept reported earlier this year that employees of Amazon-owned Ring manually identify vehicles and people in videos captured by the company’s doorbell cameras, an effort to better train the software to do that work itself.

“You don’t necessarily think of another human listening to what you’re telling your smart speaker in the intimacy of your home,” said Florian Schaub, a professor at the University of Michigan who has researched privacy issues related to smart speakers. “I think we’ve been conditioned to the [assumption] that these machines are just doing magic machine learning. But the fact is there is still manual processing involved.”

“Whether that’s a privacy concern or not depends on how cautious Amazon and other companies are in what type of information they have manually annotated, and how they present that information to someone,” he added.

An Echo smart speaker inside an Amazon 4-star store in Berkeley, California. Photographer: Cayce Clifford/Bloomberg

How it Works

When the Echo debuted in 2014, Amazon’s cylindrical smart speaker quickly popularized the use of voice software in the home. Before long, Alphabet Inc. launched its own version, called Google Home, followed by Apple Inc.’s HomePod. Various companies also sell their own devices in China. Globally, consumers bought 78 million smart speakers last year, according to researcher Canalys. Millions more use voice software to interact with digital assistants on their smartphones.

Alexa software is designed to continuously record snatches of audio, listening for a wake word. That’s “Alexa” by default, but people can change it to “Echo” or “computer.” When the wake word is detected, the light ring at the top of the Echo turns blue, indicating the device is recording and beaming a command to Amazon servers.

Most modern speech-recognition systems rely on neural networks patterned on the human brain. The software learns as it goes, by spotting patterns amid vast amounts of data. The algorithms powering the Echo and other smart speakers use models of probability to make educated guesses. If someone asks Alexa if there’s a Greek place nearby, the algorithms know the user is probably looking for a restaurant, not a church or community center.

But sometimes Alexa gets it wrong—especially when grappling with new slang, regional colloquialisms or languages other than English. In French, avec sa, “with him” or “with her,” can confuse the software into thinking someone is using the Alexa wake word. Hecho, Spanish for a fact or deed, is sometimes misinterpreted as Echo. And so on. That’s why Amazon recruited human helpers to fill in the gaps missed by the algorithms.

Apple’s Siri also has human helpers, who work to gauge whether the digital assistant’s interpretation of requests lines up with what the person said. The recordings they review lack personally identifiable information and are stored for six months tied to a random identifier, according to an Apple security white paper. After that, the data is stripped of its random identification information but may be stored for longer periods to improve Siri’s voice recognition.

At Google, some reviewers can access some audio snippets from its Assistant to help train and improve the product, but it’s not associated with any personally identifiable information and the audio is distorted, the company says.

A recent Amazon job posting, seeking a quality assurance manager for Alexa Data Services in Bucharest, describes the role humans play: “Every day she [Alexa] listens to thousands of people talking to her about different topics and different languages, and she needs our help to make sense of it all.” The want ad continues: “This is big data handling like you’ve never seen it. We’re creating, labeling, curating and analyzing vast quantities of speech on a daily basis.”

What do the Alexa Reviewers Do?

Amazon’s review process for speech data begins when Alexa pulls a random, small sampling of customer voice recordings and sends the audio files to the far-flung employees and contractors, according to a person familiar with the program’s design.

Some Alexa reviewers are tasked with transcribing users’ commands, comparing the recordings to Alexa’s automated transcript, say, or annotating the interaction between user and machine. What did the person ask? Did Alexa provide an effective response?

Others note everything the speaker picks up, including background conversations—even when children are speaking. Sometimes listeners hear users discussing private details such as names or bank details; in such cases, they’re supposed to tick a dialog box denoting “critical data.” They then move on to the next audio file.

According to Amazon’s website, no audio is stored unless Echo detects the wake word or is activated by pressing a button. But sometimes Alexa appears to begin recording without any prompt at all, and the audio files start with a blaring television or unintelligible noise. Whether or not the activation is mistaken, the reviewers are required to transcribe it. One of the people said the auditors each transcribe as many as 100 recordings a day when Alexa receives no wake command or is triggered by accident.

In homes around the world, Echo owners frequently speculate about who might be listening, according to two of the reviewers. “Do you work for the NSA?” they ask. “Alexa, is someone else listening to us?”

The post Thousands of Amazon Workers Are Listening to What You Tell Alexa appeared first on Businessliveme.com.

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cryptnus-blog · 6 years

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Blockchain: The Future for Research Data Integrity?

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/08/blockchain-the-future-for-research-data-integrity/

Blockchain: The Future for Research Data Integrity?

Fifteen years ago, British computer scientist Michael Smith and his longtime collaborator, the world-renowned child psychiatrist Robert Goodman, digitized two psychiatric tests and made them available online, free of charge.

Clinicians all over the world began using these tests in their own private practices or as part of research studies, with the raw data stored and catalogued on servers that Smith controlled.

Once data were recorded, Smith had the power to decide how to manage it. A self-described data “fanatic,” he opted to keep original records of each survey, although he knew that others in his position might instead choose to overwrite aberrant data to eliminate statistical noise.

“Data smoothing, as many would call it, is unfortunately a fairly common thing,” Smith told MedPage Today. “People for various reasons – not [necessarily] nefarious reasons – may process the data, smooth it out, to make it look better. In a way, it’s a lie, from a data point of view.”

Because Smith and Goodman alone controlled the servers, it wasn’t long before one of his competitors accused them of tampering with patient data after they had been recorded. Smith, who declined to name his accuser, called the allegation “absurd.”

To prove his innocence, he turned to an elegant new technology called blockchain. Smith shut himself away for 18 months, meticulously programming multiple iterations of a so-called blockchain system. Blockchain is the name for the technology that underpins digital “cryptocurrencies” such as Bitcoin, but has a much wider range of actual and potential uses.

When he finally deployed his system, his critics “retracted the complaint and went away,” said Smith. “It cleared the whole thing up. It solved the issue.”

Internal Workings

Like most people, Smith first became aware of blockchain as the backbone for Bitcoin, but quickly realized its potential as a steward of health and medical data. Blockchain provides an unprecedented ability to audit everything that happens within a network. Once a transaction is recorded, it cannot be clandestinely altered or discarded.

“What you have, in effect, is something like an aircraft’s black box recorder in every piece of software,” Smith said. Like a black box recorder, blockchain allows auditors to reconstruct exactly what happened within a machine, and when.

Now, anyone Smith invites to monitor his database has a unique window into the flow of information across his servers. But the window is translucent rather than fully transparent; it reveals each timestamped data point without revealing the underlying patient data.

Within a blockchain system, identical copies of the same database are interlinked across multiple computers, and all transactions are bundled into time-stamped records called “blocks.” Any change to one database will be reflected throughout the network, making it nearly impossible to tamper with the data.

Blockchain is also very secure, encrypting information so it’s revealed only to the intended recipient. Also, users are identified by numbers, not names, so the system also maintains each individual’s privacy.

Smith would like to see his custom-built blockchain model or one like it, applied to clinical research, “where the temptation is very great to alter your results,” he said.

And he’s not alone. A 2017 IBM survey found that about 16% of healthcare leaders planned to start experimenting with blockchain by the end of the year, and BIS Research said the global market for blockchain health solutions will reach $5.61 billion by 2025.

Within healthcare, much of the blockchain hype has focused on fixing the gnarled mess of electronic medical records. But clinical research is another promising application, with leading computer scientists, healthcare executives and regulatory agencies convinced that this technology will transform the business of human experimentation, not only reducing hanky-panky but also speeding up drug development timelines.

Typically competitive pharmaceutical giants Pfizer, Amgen, and Sanofi have teamed up to pilot a blockchain-enabled clinical research platform. Their goal is to cut R&D costs by improving the way data are stored and shared across research sites, and potentially automating certain aspects of research.

And the FDA — which sets ground rules for clinical research — has partnered with IBM to explore how blockchain might be used to democratize health records, giving patients direct control over their health data while also unlocking that data for research purposes. The goal, according to an FDA spokesperson, is to create “a scalable data exchange ecosystem that can support high quality research while safeguarding against breaches of sensitive patient-level data.”

The use of blockchain in clinical research is converging around three main trends, said Michelle Longmire, CEO of Medable, a clinical research and technology company. The first application is preventing data tampering and improving research reproducibility. Second is using blockchain to promote data sharing among institutions that otherwise have little incentive to share. And the third is giving patients direct control over data that’s collected on them in a clinical trial.

Blockchain is particularly well-suited to these applications because of its “ability to negotiate the tension between data privacy and data sharing,” said Maria Palombini, who helps set global standards for emerging technologies as part of her work at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, better known by its acronym IEEE.

But it’s early days for blockchain, with Palombini noting it will probably take years, even decades, before large-scale clinical research programs are conducted using the technology. She compared today’s blockchain ecosystem to the internet’s dawning – early adopters can see its potential, but the future is still difficult to predict.

As with all new technologies, “there are going to be small advances and people are going to fail along the way,” she said.

Building Utopia

Blockchain can’t prevent human error, like a doctor jotting down a blood pressure reading incorrectly, but a blockchain-enabled clinical research system could go a long way in preventing mistakes and deception after data are recorded.

In theory, here’s how a blockchain-enabled clinical trial would work: First, a group of research centers, hospitals, life science companies and their contract research organizations would come together to form the “nodes” of a trial network. Each would volunteer server space, and all the data collected and stored would be verified simultaneously across the network.

Observers can see each timestamped data point but not the underlying patient data.

Throughout the trial, each component — from informed consent to dissemination of results — would be managed with “smart contracts,” or software designed in such a way that the completion of each step unlocks the next, like a chain reaction.

Smart contracts are a perfect tech solution to help automatically execute the steps of a study protocol, which is a detailed document describing the study design, explains Mehdi Benchoufi, MD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Hôtel Dieu Hospital and the University of Paris Descartes, and a blockchain expert.

“It’s impossible to cheat without everyone witnessing,” said Benchoufi. Today, for example, a pharmaceutical company might promise to publish results at the end of a trial, but later decide to keep those results secret. With smart contracts, blockchain could prevent this obfuscation because the completion of one event (e.g., tallying of results) automatically unlocks the next (publishing results online).

Better yet, throughout the course of a study, patients could be able to on check a trial’s progress themselves using an online portal or mobile app, giving them more control over personal data that’s collected during the course of a study. Eventually, “that data becomes licensable by biopharma … and they [the patients] get revenue from that licensing,” said Longmire, who is working to create a clinical trial network for multiple sclerosis that would operate under a personal data licensing model.

That’s the vision. Today, the industry is still very much in beta-testing mode, and there are no hard-and-fast rules governing how blockchain research must be designed.

Different people have different ideas about how this system should work. Some, like Benchoufi, argue research should be conducted on an “open” network, modeled after Bitcoin, while others argue researchers should use a “permissioned” network, in which each member must be authorized to join. Smith’s blockchain system, now in its third iteration called ChainZY, runs as a private and permissioned network, though it can be configured to run publicly.

The next step is for all these groups to get together and agree on a set of ground rules – a process led by Palombini’s team at the IEEE standards group.

“It can take 8 to 12 months before a standard becomes a reality,” Palombini said. “When we get into actual pilot, that’s when they’re playing with real patient data. Then you’ve got to justify the big cost, which is partial implementation.”

Ultimately, the pharmaceutical industry will need to drive the blockchain revolution in research because it’s the only group with the resources to do so, said Lucila Ohno-Machado, MD, PhD, chair of UC San Diego Health’s biomedical informatics department.

“The other [groups] can talk about it,” Ohno-Machado said. “Regulators and sponsors are the ones who can make a change.”

Improving Trust

One of the more abstract benefits of deploying blockchain in clinical research is that it might improve the public’s trust of clinical research.

This idea was popularized by a 2016 proof-of-concept study in F1000Research, “How blockchain-timestamped protocols could improve the trustworthiness of medical science,” which was trumpeted by The Economist and FierceBiotech as a blueprint for clinical research in the future.

But the paper sparked a heated debate over potential flaws in the author’s methodology, and was soon retracted.

The whiplash is perhaps symbolic of blockchain’s hotly-debated potential.

Academics like Benchoufi are full believers in the idea that blockchain will improve public trust of research. With blockchain, even industry-funded studies would be deemed trustworthy and the reproducibility crisis would be solved, he argues.

And for pharma, improving trust isn’t just an abstract benefit — it could significantly impact the bottom line of any research program, with approximately one-third of study budgets devoted to finding and recruiting patients.

“That’s the hype of blockchain,” said Palombini. “Any time you have a trust issue? Boom. Blockchain.”

But Cindy Geoghegan, patient advocate and principal of Patient and Partners LLC, isn’t buying it. The average person doesn’t associate blockchain with greater trustworthiness, she said. For Geoghegan, patients won’t trust blockchain as a new research tool unless they see a direct, tangible benefit.

“It’s not going to happen overnight,” said Michel Goossens, an executive at pharma contract research firm ICON. But he said blockchain could eventually lead to a “paradigm shift” shift in which people expect their digital data — including health data — to be easily accessible, private and secure.

Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that made blockchain famous, is a strong example that this cultural shift is possible, said Goossens. Over the past decade Bitcoin changed the way people think about currency markets by removing the imperative to trust a central bank.

Ultimately, patients will stop asking whether or not they trust the pharmaceutical industry — or even if they trust their doctor — instead placing trust in a bigger, more secure data management system, Goossens predicts.

“I definitely think it’s a revolution,” he said, “but I think the change is going to be a lot slower than people think.”

2018-08-12T12:00:00-0400

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