Beware of the snake man

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Originally Posted by Deborah

Sorry but this is not how it works, we don't ban people because we do not like them or they don't fit in or their ignorance, or just because (if it was the case NO ONE would be safe ;)).

People are banned if they violate the TOS which the staff enforces with the infraction system, 100 points leads to a month ban and 150 points leads to a permanent ban.

Ignorance is not a TOS violation.

Now what does exist is the reputation system which let a user know what people think and whether they approve of the user idea or not, obviously Reptile Dysfunction is as low as you can get showing the disapproval of the community.

So no need for people to thank you in the hope that a member will be banned because it will not happen, but rest assured that the thread is obviously being monitored.

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I know, I know ...... Just wishful thinking lol .... It's just irritating that someone that intentionally does such things that backpetal against the cause many of us are here for, is allowed to continue amongst us .... But I can read between the lines and I understand your hidden message that is yet in plain sight in this post ;)

I thanked him for his post, it was hilarious

Really don't mean to thread hijack, but I just got the tapatalk app and I can't figure out how to post..... I have an iPhone 6+, I even googled it and it was an outdated version. Please help. Sorry again


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Boom, you think this is funny because to you it's ludicrous that someone would actually take pets and feed it to other pets.

I have first hand knowledge about how this very much isn't the case. A few months back on tumblr there was a user who kept a burm, who advocated trapping as a way to feed large constrictors cheaply. At first they said they only trapped pest species and let others go, but later they admitted they would trap dogs and cats. Not just strays either, they'd trap animals that they knew to be neighbors pets because they felt in the right at the animals where trespassing on their property after they'd warned the owners to keep them confined to their own yards.

This person saw absolutely nothing wrong with this, and maintained that they were totally in the right, even in the face of massive criticism from the rest of the tumblr reptile community. They even linked youtube how to videos to encourage others to do this. That's how mess up this was. Eventually we got the youtube channel taken down and they deleted their blog to avoid anymore backlash. It only would have taken one PETA or HSUS nut finding that blog before they scampered to make a whole lot of trouble for the rest of us though. The biggest problem for the reptile hobby as a whole is that it's looked at with fear and suspicion by those outside of it, and it only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch. That's why we need to present a united image of rational, reasonable, sane, and responsible pet owners. When people like that do pop up, it's up to us to call them on it, or else go down with them when the inevitable crap storm hits the public fan.

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Originally Posted by Lizardlicks

Boom, you think this is funny because to you it's ludicrous that someone would actually take pets and feed it to other pets.

I have first hand knowledge about how this very much isn't the case. A few months back on tumblr there was a user who kept a burm, who advocated trapping as a way to feed large constrictors cheaply. At first they said they only trapped pest species and let others go, but later they admitted they would trap dogs and cats. Not just strays either, they'd trap animals that they knew to be neighbors pets because they felt in the right at the animals where trespassing on their property after they'd warned the owners to keep them confined to their own yards.

This person saw absolutely nothing wrong with this, and maintained that they were totally in the right, even in the face of massive criticism from the rest of the tumblr reptile community. They even linked youtube how to videos to encourage others to do this. That's how mess up this was. Eventually we got the youtube channel taken down and they deleted their blog to avoid anymore backlash. It only would have taken one PETA or HSUS nut finding that blog before they scampered to make a whole lot of trouble for the rest of us though. The biggest problem for the reptile hobby as a whole is that it's looked at with fear and suspicion by those outside of it, and it only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch. That's why we need to present a united image of rational, reasonable, sane, and responsible pet owners. When people like that do pop up, it's up to us to call them on it, or else go down with them when the inevitable crap storm hits the public fan.

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Are you kidding me? An entire community on Tumblr sat back and just complained about this? Why didn't anybody actually get up from their keyboard and do something about this? Why didn't YOU do something? Simply sitting there and talking about it, and getting their youtube channel taken down does nothing. HSUS and PETA DEFINITELY needed to be contacted about that, not to mention police.

My point is, as a reptile community we need to identify and condemn these psychos who feed cats and dogs to snakes. If people are going to see us as respectable and responsible exotic pet owners, WE OURSELVES need to do more to prevent this from happening. Not just sit back and hope that the general public doesn't find out.

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Originally Posted by JoshSloane

Are you kidding me? An entire community on Tumblr sat back and just complained about this? Why didn't anybody actually get up from their keyboard and do something about this? Why didn't YOU do something? Simply sitting there and talking about it, and getting their youtube channel taken down does nothing. HSUS and PETA DEFINITELY needed to be contacted about that, not to mention police.

My point is, as a reptile community we need to identify and condemn these psychos who feed cats and dogs to snakes. If people are going to see us as respectable and responsible exotic pet owners, WE OURSELVES need to do more to prevent this from happening. Not just sit back and hope that the general public doesn't find out.

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The problem with organizations like HSUS and PETA getting involved is they will take an Isolated Incident like this and use it to further their own agenda and not really focus on the one individual, but the entire community and how evil we are. Law Enforcement and maybe the local SPCA would be a better choice.

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Originally Posted by JoshSloane

Are you kidding me? An entire community on Tumblr sat back and just complained about this? Why didn't anybody actually get up from their keyboard and do something about this? Why didn't YOU do something? Simply sitting there and talking about it, and getting their youtube channel taken down does nothing. HSUS and PETA DEFINITELY needed to be contacted about that, not to mention police.

My point is, as a reptile community we need to identify and condemn these psychos who feed cats and dogs to snakes. If people are going to see us as respectable and responsible exotic pet owners, WE OURSELVES need to do more to prevent this from happening. Not just sit back and hope that the general public doesn't find out.

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It was not "just complained about." A private pet owner started posting about trapping to feed their snake on their personal blog. Other snake keepers sent them communications that this is a terrible idea and explained why. The person became belligerent, and the more people got involved and tried to reason with them, the more hostile they became while trying to justify their methods. The youtube account we got taken down because we were able to report in to youtube under animal cruelty, but the posts the person made didn't violate tumblr's TOS, so they wouldn't do anything about it. They eventually nuked their own blog because too many people got mad at them for what they were doing, citing the oft cry of "tumblr is too sensitive! Everyone is offended by everything!"

Unfortunately, they didn't provide anything that would have identified the area they lived in, or you bet your butt we would have been mass calling the authorities in the area (did it the other day when some girl in kentucky posted about how she was (illegally) taking box turtles out of the wild and giving them new, pretty paint jobs on their shells. Ketucky Fish and Wildlife still said they couldn't do anything unless they had a specific location). Problem with the internet is that it's world wide. I live in Washington, and that person lived... idk I could maybe guess "south-ish". Doesn't really do a whole lot of good to call the police and tell them about how "someone on the internet is being bad, no sorry officer I don't actually know where."

What we did accomplish was stopping them spreading terrible advice, especially on tumblr which has a great deal of younger community members just starting out. Maybe some reason got through to them as well, but maybe not. The best we could do was tell them "stop that, you're wrong."

I appreciate that you wanted to help the situation, but at that point preventing bad press for snakes pales in comparison to helping save neighborhood pets. Any IT professional worth his weight in salt could have gotten their IP address easily. What that person was doing wasn't just "bad advice," that was a MAJOR animal cruelty case. With people like that you cant just tell them to stop it, as if they were a petulant child.

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Originally Posted by JoshSloane

I appreciate that you wanted to help the situation, but at that point preventing bad press for snakes pales in comparison to helping save neighborhood pets. Any IT professional worth his weight in salt could have gotten their IP address easily. What that person was doing wasn't just "bad advice," that was a MAJOR animal cruelty case. With people like that you cant just tell them to stop it, as if they were a petulant child.

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Sorry, that may have worked in 'the good old days' of the internet, but these days it's not so easy. And calling PETA or HSUS and giving them free ammunition is just plain stupid.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Sorry, that may have worked in 'the good old days' of the internet, but these days it's not so easy.

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Depends on how savvy the perp was. It would have taken a warrant or court order to get Tumblr to give up the IP address, and if it came from overseas or through a proxy, good luck tracking down the perp. It can be done, but it depends on how many resources the authorities want to dedicate to it.

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And calling PETA or HSUS and giving them free ammunition is just plain stupid.

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Agreed, they would be the last groups I'd call in on a neglect or cruelty investigation. Local AC would have been fine but without a location that's a nonstarter.