Ok, here's what happened. I have my board and on it this girl came on we will call her member s. Well, member s was very much interested in the board, she claimed she was from the country it was set in and if we needed help with it just ask. It was a nice offer, but I was put off of her from the start when she came onto the board pretending that she knew more about the country then me and my co-admin did, when in fact we have both lived in the country ourselves and know a LOT about it because it's a passion of ours, hence why we made the board set there. Anyway, I looked passed her "know it all" attitude like a good admin should and let her register and was happy. She filled out an application, which was a good start, but she didn't finish it. Something happened and she forgot her password or the link to the board or something. So the application was put into the rejected list thinking that she had decided not to join.

Member J comes onto the board. She is sweet, a great active roleplayer. She is the dream for every admin. Really! Well, my co-admin recieves a pm from her stating that the unfinished/abandoned application in the rejected forum, by member s, is actually stolen from her! I was shocked to find that after member s had such a bad attitude and acted like she knew everything that she would steal! But she wasn't on the board and her application was rejected, so I didn't think anything of it. I thanked member J for letting us know and everything.

Well, yesterday we sent out a mass email to all of our old/new/all of our members telling them about the Post-A-Thon we are getting ready to have and that if they have forgotten about the board here is their chance to come back to it! After I went to bed last night, member s comes back onto the board makes a new character finishes this huge long application that is very well written and left an admin message saying that we can delete her other character that was rejected and that she lost the link to the board and that was why she never finished the character and that this one took her two hours to write (highly doubtful) and that if we needed anything let her know because she's from the country and she can help us out! I don't know what to do.

I didn't accept her new application, it's just sort of sitting there, and I sent her a message saying that someone has brought it to my attention that she stole their application and that she has a chance to explain. But I trust member j and believe her. So what do I do? I don't think it's good enough just to deny her character and ban her from the board. I don't want her to take these characters to another board or do this else where.

Well... first thing I would do is see if this "Member S" replies to the message you sent her. See what she has to say, regardless if she is guilty so if something happens and she says you just up and deleted her, she is wrong because you sent her a message and gave her ample amount of time to reply to it.

Second, I would contact "all" of your affiliates and give the OOC name of this member and her IP address and tell them your predicament and that you would like them to ban or look out for this member and that "Member S" is known for stealing.

Third, contact your forum provider and let them know what's up. I cannot say if anything will actually happen if you contact them but best bet is to contact all your affiliates about the member.

Lastly (if you haven't already) copy everything you have by her and put it somewhere safe (including the pm the "Member J" sent you and make sure you have the dates. Then delete every single post made by "Member S" and ban her.

1. Did member J give you proof her application was copied?

2. Has member s replied to your PM?

Until these things happen, I wouldn't do anything. If there is proof she copied it, ban her or do whatever you like. Of course, you can't do anything about other boards, so, well, it's a writeoff. People steal. People lie. Deal with it, protect yourself, move on.

(I mean, personally, I can't see why someone would steal an application... they're not exactly hard to write. But there you go.)

She did message back stating that she did in fact use the personality from another persons application on her own site, and that it was with permission. I do have proof of the member j's application. And she says it wasn't with permission. I am going to ban her if she can't prove that it was with permission. I just wanted to make sure she didn't leave the site and go to another board and do the same thing to someone else. Thank you so much for the advice though! I've never had to deal with someone stealing before. I think it's appalling.

All I can say is that you better hope that member J doesn't go, "Oops, lulz, I did give member S permission. I forgot," after you ban member S.

I talked to Member J and she said that she didn't give permission to use it because member s didn't ask for it, but that she didn't really care as long as it was deleted. So I deleted the application and the character and Member S has apologized and so things seem to be ok. I told her that this was her first warning and that if I find out that she did it again she was gone. So I think we are ok, but I'm going to keep an eye on all of her characters from now on. :] Thank you so much for the advice!

If you're worried that her new application is stolen, then try copying a sentence or two from the personality and pasting it in Google to see if anything comes up. But you have to wrap the whole thing in quotation marks; that makes Google search for exact or more-or-less-exact matches. Otherwise, if you leave out the quotation marks, you'll just get a bunch of random 'matches'" This is not a fool-proof solution, but when I've been suspicious bout applications, I've Googled them and more often than not something comes up. In fact, that's how I figured out someone had stolen one of my applications!

As for what you should do about Member S now... See if she replies to the PM. Unfortunately, you can't exactly go around every site you come across telling admins to ban her; plus, it's not up to you to protect another admins' board. If you find proof that S has a habit of stealing, then you might consider making a notice for your members warning them about her and try and get the word out that way. But don't give just anyone her IP; that's not right. I don't think IPs are very informative, but it seems kind of sketchy to go around giving it to people... Just my opinion lol.