This is the 3rd Examiner article posted by MI member, Emeritus (aka Roger Talley). Currently the last in this series, but I suspect that further articles will be addressed to this subject over time.

AGAIN, PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE CONTAINS ADDITONAL LINKS NOT SHOWN WITHIN THIS POSTING. A LINK TO THE ORIGINAL EXAMINER ARTICLE CAN BE FOUND HERE:

http://www.examiner.com/article/prudent … ts_article

The 3rd article is entitled:

Prudent use of model networking sites

If you are a member of a model networking site, you cannot assume that the site will notify you of problem members.  They won't.  You cannot assume that all members are who and what they claim to be, or that the site is free of scammers and predators.  They aren't. 

Let's take some examples.  “Ralph”, that Las Vegas “model manager” who was actually a predator, was reported to onemodelplace.com management, to the police, and to the Las Vegas business licensing office.  Nobody did anything more than question him.  Although onemodelplace.com rules say they will banish him for the things he was doing, in fact, after their “investigation”, he is still a member of the site, still soliciting models to “give career advice to” (but not “manage”).  Las Vegas area models are still at some risk from him of, if nothing else now, getting horrible advice and crappy pictures.

At modelmayhem.com, a member who was stalking a model was allowed to continue on the site for three months after management was provided with a copy of a restraining order, which he repeatedly violated.  We do not have knowledge of how long it took for modelmayhem to remove fake profiles from Lavont Flanders, but clearly the profiles remained long enough for him to ensnare models in his schemes.

But, if you want to have a productive relationship with other members of the site, you have to keep these threats in perspective, take prudent steps to protect yourself, and work within the culture of site members.

So . . . how to do that?

In none of those cases, or any similar to them, did site management at any time warn their members of these predators.  But what they did do was provide a forum where members themselves who become aware of it could warn others.  A google search, for instance, shows that modelmayhem.com allowed numerous conversations in their forums discussing the case and warning others, as long ago as 2007.  Flanders continued his scam even after being arrested in 2007, and despite the many warnings on the modelmayhem.com forums, a model was victimized by him allegedly through the site in 2011.

The discussion forums on networking sites are a little-used resource; only a tiny percentage of members are active in them.  In some senses that is understandable; the forums on modelmayhem.com and some other sites are rife with misinformation, trolls, and utter nonsense.  Participants have to sort through all that.  But doing so, even though it is burdensome, gives you a strong sense of the culture of the site, of what is normal in “the industry” and what is not, and who and what to avoid.  Most “warnings” of scams are by people who have never participated in the forums and think they have just discovered something new.  Almost always it is something old, that forum regulars have known of for years and can recognize instantly.

It is also common for forum regulars to refer people who have questions to resources like Newmodels.com, which has extensive information on the practices of the mainstream modeling industry, and several articles on scams.  On some sites' forums there are also collections of serious articles that will inform you about the industry such as modelinsider.com

And there is another reason for forum participation.  Despite its difficulty, it is an excellent way to network and to bring yourself to the attention of people you might like to work with who otherwise may never find you.  (So many models, so little time . . . .)  Being conversant with the forums, and the regulars there with you, can enhance your career and keep your out of trouble in many ways.

This is the final article in the series devoted to working with model networking sites.

http://www.examiner.com/article/prudent … ts_article

Curtis Wood wrote:

-this is such a great series of Articles.

-There needs to be some type of verification system in place.

It IS a great series of articles.  I blogged about them, with links to each one.  Roger very nicely put a lot of what I'd been trying to articulate for quite some time.

Now, regarding your thoughts of a verification system, that's a tough one. 

ShootNotes used to use a 3rd party verification system to verify you were who you said you were (that is, I had to give my real name and some other very personal information).  In some cases, I'm ok with that, especially if that info is just going to be verified and I'm going to be allowed to use my stage name.  As long as the info remains with a third party and isn't shared with anyone, then yea, that's cool.  But IIRC there was info you had to give that isn't even given on a standard release, and if that were shared with people... I'm not ok with that.

Aside from that, though, once someone has been verified, everything may not be hunky dory.  What's going to prevent someone who's been verified from committing a crime, not delivering images, or otherwise doing something negative?  Or, for that matter, having already committed a crime--as I understand it, the verification system SN used to use was just an ID verification... there was no background checking or anything like that.  An initial "you are who you say you are" verification means just that.  And unless there are ongoing verifications, background checks, and... I dunno, police report checks and news sweeps (maybe?), there isn't much anyone can do to make sure everyone on every site is behaving themselves.  Especially not for free (and I imagine keeping it affordable would be a challenge).

As I see it, the responsibility to do [general] your due diligence and verify the person you're working with is safe isn't really that big of a deal.  Is it something you may not realize needs to be done right away?  Sure thing.  Is reference checking a process that may evolve as you learn certain things or get into certain situations?  You bet.  But should that process stop if websites start requiring people to verify they are who they say?  I don't think so.

SLE Photography wrote:

Rachel Jay wrote:

ShootNotes used to use a 3rd party verification system to verify you were who you said you were (that is, I had to give my real name and some other very personal information).  In some cases, I'm ok with that, especially if that info is just going to be verified and I'm going to be allowed to use my stage name.  As long as the info remains with a third party and isn't shared with anyone, then yea, that's cool.  But IIRC there was info you had to give that isn't even given on a standard release, and if that were shared with people... I'm not ok with that.

The idea with ShootNotes was that the third party trusted company would use that info to verify without the modeling sites taking part accessing it, keeping your info safer.  Unfortunately pretty much all those companies have gone belly-up, which's a big reason we haven't re-launched ShootNotes.
Chris & I DID come up with a new idea the other day that might make a difference in this sort of thing tho. 

The issue I remember having with it was that I wasn't 100% sure what info would be shown, and there wasn't anything that said, "this info won't be shared" (or if there was I totally missed it), so I was wary and ended up not using the "verify me" part... though SN was gone not long after that.  At the time, though, I also didn't know anyone who'd been verified so I couldn't see how being verified showed up in their profile.  Had I, I might have been a little less wary of it.