Hi there, Does WS still have a policy where members who are close to the case in some way being required to register w/ Admin to verify who they are, which then allows them to post? I am not talking about a POI necessarily.
Thanks
Let me tell you why we do this.
A looooong time ago we would let members pretty much post what they wanted as long as it wasn't *advertiser censored* or other horrible things.
Posters would come on WS and claim to be detectives, doctors, and such with no worry of anyone checking up on them.
One time we had a very popular member who claimed to be a cop. Posted incredible stories, very interesting things, he would give us in the inside look into investigations and how cops did things.
Found out he was not a cop at all and all the stories were just that, stories.
A member of WS management from years ago told everyone he was a lawyer. Total lie.
Both of these incidents happened a long time ago. But even as the years went on we didn't verify because we really did not have posters claiming to be professionals or family members. If we had them I don't remember them.
As we started to grow in 2008 we made it clear we would not allow bullies on WS. We made the rules tighter. The more we came down on posters going off topic or attacking others the larger our membership grew.
With this growth came lots of posters who claimed to be all sorts of things. Be it professionals or relatives of victims they started to come to WS in droves. Because the word got out the bullies were gone and we only allowed adult conversation people from all walks came to Websleuths.
When we started noticing so many people claiming to so many things I decided we had to start a verification process. I thought back to the cop and the lawyer and just knew this could easily happen again.
One of the first verifications I did was a woman who claimed to be in communication with Cindy Anthony. She was telling the truth.
We cannot in any way shape or form be certain that a poster is not an impostor. I do my best to verify people but it will happen. So please always keep in mind that short of me hiring a P.I. I can only verify someone to a certain extent and just because they are verified doesn't mean they won't lie.
There have been times when I notify a poster I need to verify them they disappear never to return. That speaks volums.
So far, we have had wonderful experiences with professionals and friends and family of victims coming to Websleuths. These people have added a tremendous amount of credibility to our forum and have made it more interesting and enjoyable.