Because apparently a long time ago FC chose to ignore illegal sales and pretend they're not happening here - them never banning Joseph Kim should tell you something.
When someone is found to have violated one of our rules, they receive a warning point, which stays on the member's permanent record. The penalty for violating the rules increases with each warning received. If a member receives multiple warnings, then the member is banned. The member you mention in all your posts was never banned because they appear to have voluntarily stopped using the forum after receiving one or more warnings, but before receiving enough warnings to warrant a ban. Is this so hard to understand?
Claiming Formiculture "ignore[s] illegal sales" is itself ignorant of how our rules are enforced. And speculating that the "end [of] the hobby" might come from this community's perceived failure to adequately prosecute "illegal" actors is simply a ridiculous assertion.
This forum has a very clear and strict rule regarding offers to buy or sell ants in violation of local laws, which I wrote:
8. Members must accurately represent their location in their Member Profile to participate in offers to buy, sell, trade, or otherwise distribute living ants of any caste or life stage. For members located in the United States, offers of live ants are only permitted between members who reside in the same U.S. state. Cross-border offers are not permitted between any members (participating members must reside in the same country or trading zone).
“Offer” is defined as any advertisement, thread, post, chat message, private message, or other transmission that occurs on Formiculture.com, including links to third-party sites or messaging systems where offers may potentially occur, with the intent of buying, selling, trading, or otherwise distributing ants from one place to another.
Out of nearly 125,000 posts, can you find even one example where someone publicly offered to buy or sell ants illegally, where the post wasn't removed for violating the rules, and the member(s) warned? As far as private messages are concerned, this forum does warn members who transmit "illegal" offers via private messaging when we are made aware of it, as was the case in this thread. What else would you have us do—read everyone's private messages in order to enforce laws?
Formiculture is an ant keeping community, not a division of law enforcement. That said, if the forum were to receive a warrant, signed by a judge, to turn over messages or records as part of a criminal investigation, it would have to comply. Consequently, it's no safer to transmit private messages here than to use private email. Are you mad that Gmail doesn't automatically scan messages for illegal offers to buy and sell ants, too? And Facebook—don't even get me started on how much "illegal" ant smuggling activity occurs on Facebook, every damn day!
The disagreement you seem to have with how this forum deals with illegal traders is that you think that banning someone's account is going to solve some problem to a greater extent than simply disallowing offers which promote illegal activity, which this forum already strictly enforces. If someone breaks the rules enough times, they do get banned. But normally once someone is warned, they stop the behavior and go somewhere else. What is banning them going to solve if they've already left Formiculture for greener pastures?
Edited by drtrmiller, September 5 2019 - 12:33 PM.
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