i posted this in the other thread, but will post it here in case anyone missed it.

i've been out of town because my girlfriend was having a bit of a crisis so i can't be on the forums. i'm working on adding the donations.

i'm... horrified at what i came back to here. i'll make every attempt to be as transparent with all of you as i always have been, i'll answer any questions you have.

this misinformation is coming from a group that's harassed, stalked, doxxed, sent myself and my family death threats. you can read about what happened to me here: I Set Out To Expose A Hate Movement In Gaming?So They Set Out To Destroy My Life | Ravishly (http://tinyurl.com/mmdseet)


Every piece of information they uncovered was used to harass. I was sent those pre-transition photos and told I would never be a woman. My dox and deadname were repeated loudly and repeatedly, even by the biggest figureheads of their movement. One them openly encouraged people to harass me with said photos; even before that encouragement, it had already happened hundreds of times. Photos of my immediate family members that had passed away were sent to me with vile messages—some blaming me for their deaths. I was tweeted pictures of my house, along with messages asking if I would rather be shot or stabbed. Threatening emails were sent to my friends, some of which were severe enough to require contact with the police.

My websites were taken down from distributed denial of service attacks. GamerGate websites openly posted instructions on how to illegally gain access to my servers via SQL injection exploits; this was used to leak chat logs between a small group of friends from almost a decade ago. Campaigns were launched to bombard advertisers on my sites with lies in an attempt to get them to pull out.

Boards that encouraged SWATs posted my information, including my address and that of my family’s. Numerous critics of GamerGate had already been victims of SWATs, one of which resulted in over twenty police being deployed. The board responsible bragged frequently about a woman’s dog being killed by the police in one incident.

My brother passed away six years ago; he left me Sadie, his pitbull. For weeks after my information appeared on that board I would wake up in cold sweats fearing I would lose her.

these are the people this information is coming from. they're harassing me and making up lies about me. yes, i am in debt, which is why i can't cover the costs myself anymore-- that does NOT mean the money for donations goes to that, it never has. not a penny of it goes to my debt.

the very people harassing me are the reason the donations situation is as it is now. i had to pay for additional server security, DDoS mitigation, frequent security audits, additional backup services and much more. they've also bombarded our advertisers with lies trying to get them to pull out.

i've run this site for over a decade now. i've put thousands upon thousands of my own dollars into this site as well as thousands of hours of time. i know i haven't been around as much lately, and i feel very guilty for that-- running a site for this long takes a huge toll emotionally. it's kind of heartbreaking to see after this much time and everything i've put into it, people are going to believe a group of trolls and villainize me over their lies instead of standing by me.

i'm going to make sure ffs survives, and as i said earlier, i plan for this to be the last time we'll ever need donations.

i'll answer any questions you all have, and i'll be transparent as possible. but please, before you believe any of that bullshit, know that you're believing people who have tried to had me swatted, have sent death and rape threats to myself and my family, and have grossly and repeatedly violated my privacy, and have overall made a game out of trying to destroy my life. i've had to contact the police multiple times because of what's been going on.

i'm going to stick by FFS no matter what. i hope you all do, too. i promise to be around more and answer any questions you have. please, read the above article. look at who you're choosing to believe. these are people that aren't doing everything they can do harass and terrorize me.

I'm fairly new to this forum so I don't really understand what's going on with the situation you mentioned, however I have peripheral awareness of the proliferation of gender discrimination as highlighted recently in Wired magazine, etc. and I am definitely disturbed to hear about this harrassment you are experiencing. While, as mentioned, I have no clue of the history or particulars of the situation I did want to show you some support, however meager. I hope your situation improves... resolves... whatever... and thanks for creating, building and maintaining this website, which I'm sure you're aware brings happiness to movie, tv and gaming soundtrack lovers everywhere (myself included in a big way)! I'm still a shriner noob so I trust you'll know how to reach out if you feel there's anything I can offer of assistance.

I've no idea whats going on, but hope you can be happy and these people stop harassing you. You seem like a good person from the little contact we've had in the past, wish you the best Sarah.

So I read up just a tiny bit more. And from what I gather the main issue is what happens with donations. If it's not, whatever, I really don't care. But at the end of the day when you give money to anyone in person or online what they do with it, unless done in some form of legal contract, is up to them.

Attacking sarah personally is childish and pathetic, Ofcourse thats all you can expect from losers online.

Sarah, I have always enjoyed talking and you still have my total support. :awsm:

I don't care what is true or what is not. Fact of the matter is you persist and do not lower yourself to petty insults. You have my appreciation for that alone; there's not many people who could say the same.

Regards.

So, I question you about the sudden disappearance of IRC logs which I've seen myself while they were still hosted on the ffshrine.org domain and you (or one of your lapdogs) remove me from the group — along with my entry, I'm going to bet)? My, my, someone would think there's some truth to those so-called "lies" about you (it's not like the smart ones needed more evidence, but, heh). Good thing the logs got archived. Wanna know something? Up to a point, I still believed that it was… How to put it… A case of someone else going by the handle Sarah, but then, I came across more stuff. I truly wanted to dialogue with you, but I guess my mom has always been right: I'm an idiot far too trusting for my own good. You don't actually dialogue much, huh? I pity the fools who still believe the crap you spew out.

I can only hope that more and more folks get to discover the truth about you, you're a disgusting human being.

Sarah, I have always enjoyed talking and you still have my total support. :awsm:

Same here, Sarah.

So, I question you about the sudden disappearance of IRC logs which I've seen myself while they were still hosted on the ffshrine.org domain and you (or one of your lapdogs) remove me from the group — along with my entry, I'm going to bet)? My, my, someone would think there's some truth to those so-called "lies" about you (it's not like the smart ones needed more evidence, but, heh). Good thing the logs got archived. Wanna know something? Up to a point, I still believed that it was… How to put it… A case of someone else going by the handle Sarah, but then, I came across more stuff. I truly wanted to dialogue with you, but I guess my mom has always been right: I'm an idiot far too trusting for my own good. You don't actually dialogue much, huh? I pity the fools who still believe the crap you spew out.

I can only hope that more and more folks get to discover the truth about you, you're a disgusting human being.

if you're approaching this from a place of thinking i'm a "disgusting human being" based on lies my harassers are telling about me, you're not interested in dialogue. i don't know why, after all of these years, i get no assumption of good faith, but i'm not obligated to listen to people that are regurgitating lies about me. read the actual article in the original posted-- those are the people you're choosing to believe. i can't help that, i can't stop that, and nothing i will say will change your mind since you've decided who and what to believe already.

i wish that wasn't the case, because i had always liked you previous to all of this.


Almost a month has passed and nobody has got a real answer about any of the important questions we all, as users and donators, should know. Why do you keep yourself with such mistery if you don't hide anything, Sarah? Why don't you say the things straight, why don't you answer each and every one of the questions you were questioned? I think no matter how you try it's pretty obvious given your reaction to all of this, half of the forum doesn't trust you or won't trust you, and next time this forum goes on a donation (which will happen, sometime, just let months happen and the money grow..) this forum really will have a hard time and literally nothing you do will make people trust you or donate again to save this forum. You bought it upon yourself, just for the simple fact that you didn't do what you should have done the first time; answer, instead of keeping yourself so much secretism..

This post I just made has nothing to do with whatever has been spread of you, I have nothing to do with that and I'm not against you (at least the way you would assume) but I'm just saying what ALMOST everyone else in the forum thinks about this.

i've answered in detail the concerns brought up in the other thread. was there something specific not addressed you'd like me to?

I would not say half the forum, or even most of the forum. Most of the film dl section likely does not know (or care) about any of this. You assume way too much in saying this. None of the big posters in the film section have weighed in on this. They are too busy actually enjoying the forum being up to care. I would bet a fair few do not even know who Sarah is, as Jessie moderates that section and deals with them the most.

That said, you are most likely right that there will be more donation drives (sorry, Sarah, but there just will), and the next time we will see if we meet the goal. Only time will tell. But, like I mentioned before, she asked for money to keep the site up. We gave money, and the site is up. So in a **very** broad sense we got exactly what we paid for....

I'll admit that I haven't been active here in years, but when I saw the connection was made I started lurking again. And seeing how the donation situation is I just have one question to ask. If this situation is causing you so much trouble and is the reason you're unable to devote more time to dealing with the issues here, why not just take a step back from the constant Twitter activity and use that time to address the issues going on with this website instead? Who knows, maybe if you start putting that time you spend on Twitter and Reddit on this site instead, you might not need the amount of donations you think you do.

Here's the thing, I think most of the disgruntled users could care less about the accusations made against you by Gamergate. What I think they find far more insulting is that you say you're so busy and can't find time to deal with this site yet you have hours upon hours to devote to a silly Twitter crusade which has done nothing but bring misery to yourself and put your website in hot water. It comes off as dishonest, reckless, and not caring.

But that's just my perspective as an older member looking back on this site. I really could care less what happens to it in the long run.

Speaking as someone who despises the download section...

I've read all of this... 'mess'... and honestly, it's none of our business about Sarah's personal life. Having that brought up is a low blow and those who use it as a weapon (as many have done), shows just what sort of person you are. No I'm not supporting Sarah personally, I'm supporting a person's right to privacy and not to have their name/character dragged through the mud and publicly crucified as some are so intent on doing. Yes, I've had some problems with Sarah in the past, but that does NOT give me the right to attack in this uncouth manner as others have, and neither should anyone else stoop to such depths. Just goes to show how blindly the masses follow someone if they scream loud enough, eh?

Regarding the donations... I admit, I can see how some want to know where the money is going. They DO have that right to ask. However with all this damn animosity towards Sarah, all I have to say are two things:

NUMBER ONE : If you don't like how things are being run here, then leave. Simple as that.

NUMBER TWO : We NEVER had this problem, with donation drives or attacks against the Admin etc, BEFORE the download section was added!!!

'Nuff said.

i've addressed where donations go repeatedly in the other thread; anyone with questions is encouraged to go look up the past replies. if you feel like i haven't answered something to your satisfaction you can always bring it up there.

quite frankly, what's going on in the rest of my life should be irrelevant to FFS. i only brought it up here because the people have been harassing and stalking me for the better part of a year created and circulated lies that ended up here; i posted this only to clarify that's where they're coming from and why they're quite frankly bullshit.

i'm going to close the thread since there's not a whole lot super productive happening here. if you have questions or concerns about the site feel free to make a thread. and thank you for being supportive, those that were ~