should PMs be moderated?

[Hooahguy]

not in the sense that a mod has to read all your PMs, but if you write something vulgar and insulting to someone, you should be held accountable and punished, if reported.
recently a member sent me numerous anti-semitic messages, and because there is a "send without accountability" this member will not be punished.
thoughts?

[FactionHeir]

You can take a screenshot and send it to Tosa.

[TinCow]

Yes, forward the PM(s) to Tosa.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Generally pm's are unmoderated. I don't think it's a hard and fast rule though.

[Andres]

PM's are unmoderated, but that shouldn't be an excuse to abuse PM's to harass someone. Forwarding to Tosa seems a good suggestion.

Alternatively, you can just put the member in question on your ignore list and enjoy the peace.

[Hooahguy]

i did send it to tosa, and he said he cant do anything.
and if i ignore him he can still send me PMs. tried it with another member, and he could still PM me.

[drone]

Can't the board admins access PM boxes directly? Screenshots and "forwarded" PMs could be faked (not saying they are in this case, just saying), and action taken against the sender should be provable. I would imagine that the PMs are stored in the board DB and are accessible to those with the proper access.

Forward the PM to Tosa, I'm sure he can sort it out.

[Andres]

i did send it to tosa, and he said he cant do anything.
and if i ignore him he can still send me PMs. tried it with another member, and he could still PM me.

Yes, they can still send you pm's, but if they're on your ignore list, it reads like this:

X is on your ignore list

Instead of chosing "view message", you can check the box next to them and delete them without reading.

[TinCow]

i did send it to tosa, and he said he cant do anything.
and if i ignore him he can still send me PMs. tried it with another member, and he could still PM me.

If Tosa can't or won't take action against this person, there's not much more that can be done, sorry. If he's already ruled on it, then your only option is to convince him to change his mind.

[Tribesman]

If Tosa is unable to do anything Hooah have you considered posting the PMs on the forum to show the tosser up as a racist bigot for everyone to see ?(or would the posting of racist crap in public be against the rules)

[Hooahguy]

personally, i would love to do that, and expose this guy for who he is, but i think that would be against the rules.

[Tribesman]

Yeah thats a tricky one isn't it , though in theory you could PM someone who doesn't mind getting the warning points that much and they could post it.

[drone]

I would recommend against that. Again, the veracity of PMs forwarded or copy/pasted cannot be verified (as mafia players can attest). Such a public action would open the door to reprisals and false accusations, either related to this incident or others wishing to sharpen their knives and settle scores. Sanctions should be handled privately by the mods/admins.

Now, if the sender is foolish enough to post his views on the public forum, he/she is fair game.

This incident does bring up a good point, related slightly to the issue we had some months ago with profiles and group boards. PMs are private by nature, and I'm sure they get used to send around illicit links, pics too risque for the Babe Thread, etc. I reread the FAQ, and PMs don't seem to be covered in the rules.

[TosaInu]

Hello,

Posting that would be a problem yes. It's pretty easy to make a screenshot of text in a webpage as has been demonstrated before. Not saying that's what going on now, nor that it has actually being done before, but it's possible and can create persistent, confusing and nasty situations.

There are several problems with this in general.


You cooperate with this Hooahguy? I want to see your PM box and want to hear every detail about the history. Also, what I said in my first PM today is not to be ignored. We can talk about that later.

[Prince Cobra]

Ignore list is your best weapon.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Just ignore them, being able to do that is the best thing about the internet.

[Hooahguy]

Hello,

Posting that would be a problem yes. It's pretty easy to make a screenshot of text in a webpage as has been demonstrated before. Not saying that's what going on now, nor that it has actually being done before, but it's possible and can create persistent, confusing and nasty situations.

There are several problems with this in general.


You cooperate with this Hooahguy? I want to see your PM box and want to hear every detail about the history. Also, what I said in my first PM today is not to be ignored. We can talk about that later.

tosa-
i give you full permission to my PM list.
and we will talk about the issue before, im assuming about my sig.

[TosaInu]

Hello Hooahguy,

I'll check then. Please PM me more information about the situation and how it evolved, because I need to know more.

Yes, your picture in the signature. Before, the talk before is easy. The picture is too large (see FAQ: limit 10 kb), that's reason enough already to remove it.

[Hooahguy]

is my sig good now?

[TosaInu]

Hello Hooahguy,

Thank you for changing.

When following the FAQ to each letter: no, it's about 16 kb oversized. But I'll leave it for now.

Like said: we'll talk about sizes later. It's not the first time.

I'll focus eye on the other issue now. It's really nice weather and apart from that there are personal urgent things to do, I can't guarantee I'll understand and solve this all in a few days. Sorry, but I'll try. I'll dive into your PM box now.

[rasoforos]

I am glad Tosa Inu is checking this out.

If we allow loopholes for racism and harassment we are gonna open a can of worms so large you wont believe it is possible.

Many of us here, despite the heated discussions, really enjoy the political side of the .org because it is well moderated against racism and racial hatred in general and I wouldn't myself like to see this privilege eroded away due to a technicality.

[Dodge_272]

PM's should not be moderated.

PM's that are moderated are just M's.

[Aemilius Paulus]

PM's should not be moderated.

PM's that are moderated are just M's.

I agree. They are called private for a reason. They are the last resort against moderators, and the place where you can discuss anything you want.

[Hooahguy]

i gree too, but when people are harrasing you thru PM its time for the mods to step in.

[Gregoshi]

I agree. They are called private for a reason. They are the last resort against moderators, and the place where you can discuss anything you want.

Email is your last resort if you truly feel threatened by the moderator menace, i.e., take it completely off site.

[Nachtmeister]

It is true that PMs moderated by default would no longer be private.
But moderated upon request and only then (but not afterwards unless requested again) is something different entirely.
In this case here - it is absolutely necessary. How a moderator otherwise gather evidence of offensive/abusive PMs? Someone picking on someone else with racism, of all things, should be permanently IP-banned if exactly this is what is going on and for no other reason than sheer racism. However, this must first be absolutely ascertained by a moderator.
Racism-related conflicts - as any other personal conflicts - *can* be very complicated.
(I will not underline this with examples because I only want to state an opinion on the topic question, not spark a wild inflammatory side-topic discussion.)
If for some reason the PM-abusing user felt provoked from something - be it purposeful provokation or just a mistake - they might turn out not to be actual racists after all but just an angered user trying to "retaliate" and not being very smart/creative about it. In this case, measures must still be taken against such behaviour, but then a permanent IP ban could easily be over the top.
To settle such things, moderators must have insight into *all* exchanges, direct or indirect, that have taken place between the parties involved. Justice needs omniscience...
So for this purpose, I must say I am all for moderators looking into private messages - upon explicit request by the user who's private messages are to be looked into.

[Ser Clegane]

Personal view:
PMs should generally not be moderated - however, if tools offered by the org (e.g., PMs, Social Groups) are abused for e.g., continuous harrassment of individual members or for illegal activities, staff should reserve the right to intervene on a case by case basis.



EDIT to add:

upon explicit request by the user who's private messages are to be looked into.

This is an important point - staff should not be able to check PMs without the consent of the recipient or sender.

[Nachtmeister]

This is an important point - staff should not be able to check PMs without the consent of the recipient or sender.

Well from TosaInu's posts in this thread, I gather that they technically can, now.
And I do not see how they should be technically barred from doing this without severe restrictions in other areas and consequent repercussions/loss of authority.
To me, it is more something like a matter of honor.

[TosaInu]

Hello,

Moderators are 'cop' so to say in their assigned forum. In other forums they can gib bots (buy product X accounts), harassing alt accounts (when I say so), but basically they are just member there.

Moderators can't moderate profile pages or social groups; members are responsible to keep that tidy themselves. I can and will.
Moderators can't read PM boxes from others.

I'm in no way happy with moderating PM's; actually, the hippie inside is not happy at all about having such things like rules or moderators, let alone myself. Perhaps it's just because nothing of that was there when I joined, but it's proven many times that a site simply can't function without such things.

[Togakure]

"... the hippie inside ...?" I wouldn't have guessed. Thanks for the grin.

I don't know if this board is technically capable, but at another forum I occasionally frequent, you can block PMs from any members except moderators and admins. Thereafter, you won't receive PMs from them, and when they try to send you a PM after you block them, they'll get a message that they have been blocked from sending PMs to you. It seems a mechanism like this might help in situations like this.