3 simple words for any stream mod dealing with a certain memer’s spam. I think it should be a site-wide rule as well.

That would be hard, since sexual memes in general are allowed... well to a certain extend as no nipples and genitals should be shown and so there are a few more rules. There is even a dedicated stream about that.
Banning sexually intended selfies would also kill a lot of other memes in the process as you'll have to draw one line for all memes in this category. I know this is an attack on you-know-who, but you cannot change the rules effectively victimizing many other memers who do things in a more "proper way" in the process...

He-who-shall-not-be-named just found a loophole in the rules. Such loopholes will always exist. The proposed cure will in the end cause more harm than the disease you want to fight.

I guess I diagree. Nobody else has ever memed risqué images of themselves on this site to my knowledge. And certainly not in multiple streams; essentially anywhere he can.

My proposed rule wouldn’t squelch anyone else’s content and it would make ImgFlip a more appealing place for all, especially kids.

It's not a matter of agree or disagree. As an experienced moderator and somebody who've been digging through law and order in general and thus has a clear view on how rules work in general. You don't disagree... You don't acknowledge the barrier in your proposal. If you are okay with memes accusing people of sex with minors without a proper verdict from court (which is NEVER acceptable), you should be able to understand the barrier in your own proposal.

You-know-who knows where the borderline lies. It's annoying. I know... You can take offense from it. But in the end, it is not possible to ban that behavior without victimizing others. If his selfies are specifically targeted at people to the point of personally sexually harassing people, then we got a point, and then you can even call the police. Point is, that is the borderline never crossed.

On sites were all references to sex are banned this would be easy to tackle down. Many communities have worked that way in the past. How do I know? Because I banned people myself as a moderator for the practice in the old days, as I was instructed to.

Don't think the moderation staff isn't taking this personally. I already know where the moderators stand on this. I know you-know-who is trying to get negative response because he wants to trigger people. But when it comes to triggering people in general, then it's always a hard case. The borderline set is that he should not show his "naughty toy" which he never did in an open meme as far as I know (all accusations about this I heard were in private channels, but since I cannot check those I will not accept that accusation until I've seen irrefutable proof. This is also the problem the moderators have).

I've seen these kinds of discussions on many sites due to one single member finding the loopholes, and so far all of the proposals of similar situations, would only lead to undermining the community in general. That would be victory for the abuser, actually. You don't want that. Now I'm not sure if undermining is what he-who-shall-not-be-named seeks. I'm actually still trying to riddle him out.

"The law must sometimes permit things worse than murder, but punishes nicking a tiny pencil". This is a translation of a quote from the Dutch novel "Ciske de Rat", said in the novel by a cop, who knows the mother of the kid Ciske is abusing him, but has no legal means to arrest her for that. Always frustrating....

Excellent and thoughtful as always, Jeroen.

A lot to unpack here, and I respect the attention you and the site mods have given to this. I am happy they turned off his ability to comment for example. I don’t have years of experience modding websites, but I do have legal training, so that’s the perspective I bring.

—The “pedo” thing is a bit of a red herring. It’s impossible to prove since ImgFlip is not a law enforcement agency. I will say there is *some* evidence of those tendencies based upon content of his I’ve seen and disapproved from my streams. I won’t give those memes a detailed written description at this time unless asked but I will say it involved sexualizing young girls.
—The difficulty of proving pedo tendencies is why I’m focusing on other TOS-violating patterns of his behavior: The concepts of spam on the one hand, and sexual harassment on the other.
—“Spam” because the selfies he posts aren’t stylistically varied or very creative honestly, yet he has a habit of frequently posting them everywhere he can as if they were God’s gift to man. Far too many stream Mods have had to deal with this, including necessarily stream Mods as young as 13 or younger since ImgFlip has no real way of verifying age except by the honor system.
—“Sexual harassment” because once he’s been told to leave and stop posting lewd selfies on various streams, he should, but often he doesn’t. Persisting in unwanted sexual behavior is sexual harassment. He just doesn’t respect boundaries very well.
—My proposed simple rule “no sexual selfies” is bright-line, easy-to-enforce and would not impact a single other memer’s content to my knowledge.
—As for community, I agree it’s paramount. All decisions should be made with what is most beneficial for the community in mind. You suggested that taking action could harm the community. However, not taking action carries the same risks. His use of ImgFlip is already tearing the site apart and making it “less fun for others.”
—Kids don’t want to see his selfies, adults don’t want to see his selfies. Yet he carries on somehow anyway because of what I see as paralysis of analysis, and the Mods setting the goalposts at the far extreme of him literally exposing his dong. Many other ImgFlip accounts have been deleted for far less. My take is he has somehow charmed and flattered the right people with a sort of crazy uncle routine designed to make him appear harmless. He’s not. He’s smarter than he seems.

There is a lot on IMGFLIP I don't want to see, and what I still have to endure. On the entire internet for that matter. And I know some accounts have been deleted for less. I've also banned accounts for less in my moderation work for other sites. The problem is "less" does not always means "less clear"... Perhaps my quote from Ciske de Rat already makes that clear. Nicking a small pencil is not a big crime, yet it's theft and theft is an offense punishable by law. Child abuse, what the book is all about is also punishable by law today (the laws were very vague on the subject in the time the novel takes place which is between the two world wars. Ciske would in sequel novels fight the Germans in WWII as an adult) but is always a vague case... what is punishable and what is not. And in some ways I've been a victim of child abuse myself, but I know I don't have a case when I bring this up to the police, not to mention doing so would cause more harm than good.

When we come back to if these selfies are sexual harassment or not. It's just a hard case. Yes, those selfies are intimidating, I cannot deny that. On the other hand, if you-know-who was not a middle-aged man, but young girl, who just turned 18, with a body the Playboy would love to pay millions for, doing the same things, I wonder if the response would just be as negative. I highly doubt it, to be honest. Very likely it will be easy to see who the boys are here then, when they all go hubba hubba.

Moderation is always walking over a thin line when it comes to cases like these. Especially where sex is involved. If I would make a selfie of myself in which I only wear swimming trunks on a beach with a sexy girl in bikini, just sharing my vacation with you, that would then be an offense too, even when the picture has no sexual intend in mind. But if we have to tackle you-know-who for his selfies, the selfie I just described would have to be banned too.

These are also the hard things judges in real crime cases have to deal with. And also why a different verdict can come out depending on the judge. Some cases are easy, others are just on the edge, even when you know the suspect has evil intend.

I can reveal he can no longer post comments. For the rest, the moderators are a bit in a fix. Sometimes you must allow abuse waiting for the "fatal mistake". I don't like that, but that's reality. Not to mention, I've been told you-know-who has already bypassed some bans/account deletions.

I sort of agree with Jeroen here... If you ban all sexual selfies you kinda have to ban all sexual content because you never know if the person posting them might be the person in the picture. I think, all we can do is disapprove those memes in our own streams. It probably won't get rid of them all but at least within the streams we're responsible for we can create a safer place for everyone. I understand that sitewide mods can't really be that particular because they can only strictly follow the rules and not look for quality or very specific edge cases because that would lead to a lot of backlash over personal issues which they just don't have the time for dealing with... So, I don't think there's a lot we can do about the official streams but for the personal ones we can be more strict like that.

Yeah

—Selfies are fine. If memers want to face-reveal or whatever, that’s their call.
—Sexual (but covered) pictures of random beautiful models posted in the appropriate streams and marked NSFW are okay in my book.

But putting the two concepts of selfies and sex together is a recipe for sexual harassment.

Very few ImgFlippers (in fact none, to my knowledge) have ever asked to see another memer’s exhibitionism.

There are all sorts of other social media platforms for sharing those kinds of photos — PornHub (obviously), Tinder, Grindr, Instagram, many others I probably don’t even know about, heck even Facebook if you’re covered up enough.

But ImgFlip just isn’t really the place for that. In my opinion.

What difference does it make if they're a "beautiful model" or some random joe schmoe?

If the random Joe Schmoe in this case is someone who actually uses the site, and has been told repeatedly his selfies aren’t welcome on streams but keeps submitting them again and again, it’s sexual harassment.

This is why there’s been a reaction to he-who-must-not-be-named that there just hasn’t been to streams like boobs and booty, etc.

Other thing:

You know what you’re gonna see if you click on a stream called “boobs.”
Ditto “booty.”
Ditto “legsetc.”
Ditto “sex_jokes.”
Ditto “SexStream.”
Ditto “SexyGirls.”
Ditto “RedheadedGoddesses.”

They announce themselves upfront with a plain description of what you’re gonna see. Don’t like it, don’t click.

But you could run into those panty selfies anywhere. Because he posts or tries to post them everywhere.

He will try and try again to claim any real estate on the site that isn’t vigilantly modded.

Well see that there's an actual good point.

Is this spammer the one that uses photos of himself in girly looking underwear for comments? If so, I admit those images always made me uncomfortable. One thing if they ONLY showed up in a stream dedicated to old guys in girly underwear so we'd all have heads up and can avoid it like the plague, but you never know when a child might come across such a comment in a seemingly safe stream. And on a more personal note, sometime back someone claiming to be a user here sent me some nasty d*ck images. I am not saying it was mister girly underwear, but you know, I've never felt quite as safe here since then.

I do think they’ve been trying to push Jeff in the direction his own personal stream, but as you say virtually no one would go there. Jeff knows it and wants to be seen, so his spam on other streams continues.

Well-said and I’m horrified that happened to you. I would definitely consider that sexual harassment and whoever did that should face a severe penalty, maybe a permaban.

When there’s activity like this it creates a “hostile memeing environment.” Memers make fewer memes or even leave entirely and that hurts the site.

Yeah, Jeff something. I couldn't recall his name.

Thank-you. Like mentioned before, I can't say who the individual was, however the incident is why I removed more personal info from my profile. As many online places I am used to adding links in profile details, and I didn't even consider what the repercussions could be. My stupidity or naiveity, or both. Hopefully I will remember in the future that we never know what kind of sleazy people scour forums.

And you are correct it does make for a hostile environment, and I find this sad because IMGFLIP is for the most part a very nice place. While I try not to be a prude and have no issue for streams aimed for strictly adult stuff, I do wish such streams were restricted somehow where children cannot see such images. Not sure what kind of technical implemention that would involve however.