Pretty much this. They are being very open and admitting to their mistakes, pretty quickly as well.
The situation is very delicate, there aren't too many solutions you could do without a lot of consequences. I'm willing to see how they handle things from here on.

From what I've seen they handled it pretty well given the situation. Frankly I'm surprised people jumped ship as quick as they did.

Yeah, how dare they attempt to amend problems and be transparent as fast as they could on problem that happened? They OBVIOUSLY should have ignored everything anyone said for weeks and then make an ambiguous and lacking excuse that doesn't answer anything! Not to mention banning everyone that came with substantial claims!

This kind of problems are bound to happen, they giving away the info and trying to protect the users involved is actually a really reasonable thing to do. I can't say "yeah they are a rapist" or "they are lying to harm that guy!", but neither can the admins, and such subjects are hard to address and deal with, they trying to be as open as they can. After dealing with awful administration as DA and FA, seeing them doing that is something that I'm pretty glad to see.

I come back here and something happens, I have no idea.

So far they have been pretty forthcoming with all info regarding the situation. I've actually been quite impressed with how well things have been handled, they've definitely learned from FAs mistakes.

I'm sorry I missed this out, what happened on Weasyl?

Mayhaps people are just a little on edge about site problems since the recent bullcrap on FA.
Weasyl is handling things pretty well though, it's refreshing.

I find it kind of funny that people are so quick to up and jump and point fingers at Weasyl, yet meanwhile on FA they have a convicted zoophile, and an alleged rapist as staff members, and people refuse to leave there. Not to mention Tumblr staff are censoring their userbase now and removing media and blacking out certain topics. Not to mention dA alleged allowing third parties to pirate artwork from their site, as well as not giving a shit about their users.

I'll take Weasyl staff learning how to handle these difficult solutions while being the imperfect human beings they are over anything else any day.

imho it's understandable that people are so kneejerk about jumping ship- patience is thin, and people seem disillusioned with trying to build up another community on a website that'll end up being trash, as opposed to staying on a website run by trash people that already has a huge userbase (FA, tumblr). userbase = money for a lot of people, and money is a necessary if you're a freelancer, so why stay on a website with no money and awful admins?

i'm not leaving quite yet, but if this keeps up it'd be very likely.

I couldn't agree more.

most of the people i've seen leaving the site at least say that its because of the community reaction and not actually actions taken by weasyl itself; unfortunately i havent been too exposed to whats going on right now but apparently its a lot of weasyl users' reactions thats putting a bad taste in a lot of peoples' mouths?

This isn't the first time they've done some not so great things. I can link some of them when I get the time but it's pretty late right now.
I'm probably leaving here once inkstand opens up. I just don't feel comfortable on here anymore.

For everyone here, I'd just like to say that Weasyl did everything RIGHT in this situation - they didn't make a special exception for the user, however they DID try to compromise so the journal would be within their rules, and they came out and told their side of the story when the user started drama that caused so many on this site to throw a tantrum.

I made a detailed post about EXACTLY what happened here: http://fuckingfurries.tumblr.com/post/104050074599/about-weasyls-callout-policy-announcement

It's a sticky situation, and as soon as the journal was up, Weasyl couldn't have done anything that would make EVERYONE happy. Either they would make a special exception to their rules and have users mad at them for THAT, or they'd take action against it and have users mad at them for THAT. The fact that they even tried to come to a compromise is more than anyone can say for any other furry site so far.

Frankly, the way I see it, this was a no-win situation for Weasyl. They had to choose between either selectively enforcing their rules and allowing this journal to go ahead (which is, of course, one of the big things we've all gotten upset with FA for doing for years now) or enforce the rules and look like they were apologizing for and endorsing truly terrible things. I think they made the best call they could under the circumstances, and when they say they're going to have serious discussions about revising the rule so that this doesn't happen again, I honestly believe that they will.

I, too, think people jumping ship is a bit too much of a kneejerk reaction. But frankly kneejerk reactions are kind of de rigueur these days for any sort of controversy. God knows I've done enough of that myself...

Yes. This. I'm actually shocked about the reaction of some people here. Rules are rules and we as users have to read them before hand and follow them. If the rules are stupid, try to start a discussion and make points why the rule should be changed. Not judge the rule (and the whole hole administration for that matter) because of one situation where a rule was challenged and actively broken in ONE special situation. This isn't judgmental about "TheUser" and the journal or the rapist that was called out. The rules of this site are bigger then THIS situation and we have to think of all the userbase here when we change or set up rules. And I feel weasyl really cares bout this.
(On a site note: This is why Tumblr is shit. Discussions there are usually over emotional and don't try to solve anything, this is what i call a toxic environment. Because tumblr just doesn't care about it's users or anything for that matter.)
Besides that, calling out another user isn't allowed on ANY of the sites I'm on, no matter the situation or topic.

To me there is no discussion about this. Calling out another user should stay forbidden.

I have a lot of feelings in response to the comments on this journal but I will write my own. In short, though, I'm glad to see you're sticking around, but I hope for everyone's sake we can keep the commentary to actual site policy, and refrain from making personal/antagonistic comments about the controversy or the individuals involved. It was the toxic victim-blaming, women-hating community response that influenced me to leave FA in the end. No one interested in finding that same shit here, so let's keep it civil and constructive.

It IS a very delicate situation and it could have been handled worse. I don't know what is true or what is lies but it's impossible to know it not being a police officer or other sort of government official. So I don't want to take a part in witch hunts in any direction - I wouldn't be able to judge if it's true or not if one of my acquaintances said that, let alone a stranger online.

And selectively ignoring the rules was definitely not an option. Again, this isn't a court room or a police station to report people.

I don't think art sites are the best place for addressing issues like that (as in through journals) but I don't what's the best place is. Not tumblr either, I've seen enough of that place.

I honestly don't know what they could've done different in this situation. From what I have seen the staff seemed to have handled everything rather professionally?