An Explanation

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

PVC, I agree absolutely with the general principle of what you're saying, but TinCow was not personally responsible. It seems (though all of this is just speculation...) that the admins came to an agreement that the PMs of the member in question should be checked to establish his identity... then presumably one person was selected or volunteered to actually do the reading of the PMs. Who actually carried out the actual reading is irrelevant - all those involved are equally responsible for deciding on this course of action and allowing it to happen. Making an example of TinCow would be token justice at best.

Either all the admins involved step down (which is unrealistic), or an apology is issued with some assurance that this won't happen again.

Admins are human, warman has tested the staff's patience for years - so the staff let their emotions get the better of them and yes they fucked up - surely in the site's 13+ year history allowed at least one of those? They're human and they make mistakes, I say just forget it and move on. If you don't trust the staff, which is fine, then don't use the PM system here.

Drunk Clown, they don't have the "tools" for looking at your PMs, they probably got access by assuming control of the account itself. Saying that admins have tools to look at PMs will need to unnecessary FUD. In the right circumstances, a ban is correct and ethical - even if only founded on suspicions. Reading a member's PMs most certainly is not ethical by anyone's standards.

On the other hand, why bother telling us if no retributive action is to be taken?

I, for one, think that issuing a statement like this is unacceptable on its own, it amounts to an admission of guilt without an act of restitution.

Monk and CountArch have, I think, summed up the situation perfectly. This was a lapse in judgement which has sullied the reputation of the staff. Far more important is the Precedent which has been set.

The Precedent is that the staff may, at their discretion, violate members privacy (which was up until this sacrosanct). Another precedent must now be sat - that if the staff choose to do this they must take responsibility for it by resigning.

Tosa Inu's iron will enforced this law while he ruled the Org, it has been demonstrated that the current staff are not so unbending and therefore a deterrent must be put in place to discourage this from happening again.

[caravel]

Tosa Inu's iron will enforced this law while he ruled the Org, it has been demonstrated that the current staff are not so unbending and therefore a deterrent must be put in place to discourage this from happening again.

Tosa had several years running the .org and knew exactly what made it tick - compared to Tosa, the current admins are newbies, so cut them some slack. Tosa has gone so that's water under the bridge, but the .org is in safe hands with Andres, whom I would trust implicitly to straighten this out - given time (apologies to the others, but I simply don't know you - whereas Andres' integrity is beyond question as far as I'm concerned).

I don't much care about who someone is in real life, if you're a high flyer, a politician or a pyschiatrist - it doesn't make you any more qualified to run a board than anyone else. Tosa, irrespective of what his real life qualifications may have been, certainly knew how to run a board and understood the politics very well and though I found him infuriating at times, he was a class act here. The administration have some very large shoes to fill, yes they've made an error, but this board with it's ever dwindling membership does not need another ridiculous *gate scandal.

Tosa also had his fair share of problems with warman - this is a young fellow who was offered multiple "second" chances and blew every one of them. He quite simply trolled his arse off, and on receiving the flack he justly deserved, played the victim and hit the report button... No other board would have tolerated him as this one did.

£0.02

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I'm not interested in starting a fight - so this will be my last reply to this thread.

Just so we are absolutely here - this is not personal in any way, I expect TinCow loathes me now for singling him out, and I'm sorry for that as I happen to quite like him.

No - as far as I am concerned this is about the precedent set going forward, I'm not comfortable with a precedent that says staff can do this without consequence - because that means it will happen again, probably the next time the Admins change.

[a completely inoffensive name]

What do you people expect. This is a privately owned forum. The admins make it their mission to reduce the amount of snooping to the absolute minimum. For 13 years they went without having to open one PM, and now they did it once under the most respectful manner possible, with full disclosure of what they did and how they came to the decision.

If you don't want your PM's read, then talk to other people on MSM, GoogleTalk, Skype, Ventrilo, Mumble, email......

FFS, the admins went above and beyond the call for their positions.

[Strike For The South]

I basically agree with Phillip.

Warman was a petulant child but I fail to see why the pms had to be read. His brothers account could have simply been locked or given a temp ban.

The new policy of the Org is touchy feely on the outside and draconian on the indside. Ban the word fag, railroad respected members, and rifle through PMs to get rid of a gnat.

I blame the new Mods.

[caravel]

No - as far as I am concerned this is about the precedent set going forward, I'm not comfortable with a precedent that says staff can do this without consequence - because that means it will happen again, probably the next time the Admins change.

I agree that it sets a precedent, but calling for one staff member's head is no solution as more than one staff member was involved in this. Asking all of those involved to step down would be a step too far.

What do you people expect. This is a privately owned forum. The admins make it their mission to reduce the amount of snooping to the absolute minimum. For 13 years they went without having to open one PM, and now they did it once under the most respectful manner possible, with full disclosure of what they did and how they came to the decision.

The point is that there should not have been any "snooping" at all. Members' PMs should not be read by staff under any circumstances - end of. I accept they made a mistake, but I do not accept that the reading of PMs is somehow warranted under exceptional circumstances. I think we'd be seeing this in a whole different light if it was our PMs being read.

Warman was a petulant child but I fail to see why the pms had to be read. His brothers account could have simply been locked or given a temp ban.

Yes.

The new policy of the Org is touchy feely on the outside and draconian on the indside. Ban the word fag, railroad respected members, and rifle through PMs to get rid of a gnat.

I have come to accept that they run things here their way - if I don't like it, I'm free to go elsewhere and start my own board.

I blame the new Mods.

I do not.

[a completely inoffensive name]

The point is that there should not have been any "snooping" at all. Members' PMs should not be read by staff under any circumstances - end of. I accept they made a mistake, but I do not accept that the reading of PMs is somehow warranted under exceptional circumstances. I think we'd be seeing this in a whole different light if it was our PMs being read.

I trust the mods to have discretion in what they read from my PM's. I trust them as people (which isn't much but I don't say anything personal in PM's anyway). I don't feel comfortable with them knowing anything too personal and so I do the rational thing and not send PM's on a private forum with personal info.

[SoFarSoGood]

If you don't want your PM's read

Don't buy a computer, if you have one already do not connect to the internet, if you have done this already BEWARE!

I assume then it was Jans pms to me that were read and I don't have a problem with it so don't see that others should be offended.. just trying to get on with CoE - read them all if you wish!

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The more I read - the worse this gets.

This is a case of the staff bowing to Warman's trolling and violating the Org's rules. The fact that Jan had raised this issue before further compounds the error - clearly, the staff had enough information to know it was Warman accessing the account.

Warman's not exactly hard to spot, either, his posts practically come with neon signs attached.

Jan is responsible for his account's safety - if my sister or one of my friends hacks one of my accounts I'm still liable for whatever they pull if I let them do it.

It's all well and good to say it's happened once and never will again, but prior to, what, last week? It had never happened and never would.

At this point assurances are of little value, as demonstrated by this debacle they are at best only as good as the person giving them, and Org staff have started to turn over more rapidly of late.

[Kadagar_AV]

First of all, I am ALL for privacy on the internet.

With that said, I see nothing here to fret about. This is a games forum run by volunteers. Sure, there is a commercial banner on the bottom of the page, but I don't think the staff here are taking their private jets to the staff parties, so to say.

Further, this place is NOT meant for private conversations. If Yahoo had read my mails I would be pretty upset as that is the resource I use to communicate, but I haven't seen this site make any promises about keeping information secure.

Whowever was targeted, was obviously a punk, and hurt the community at large. The staff here seem to have gone out of their way to get rid of him, before finally taking this last step. Let's remember that this would not have happened had the user accepted his ban at any stage of the many go arounds. He kind of brought it on himself.

Also, the fact that the staff is open about it and explains how and why, make me trust the site MORE, not less.

So, well

[caravel]

This is a case of the staff bowing to Warman's trolling and violating the Org's rules. The fact that Jan had raised this issue before further compounds the error - clearly, the staff had enough information to know it was Warman accessing the account.

I agree with this assessment.

Jan is responsible for his account's safety - if my sister or one of my friends hacks one of my accounts I'm still liable for whatever they pull if I let them do it.

Exactly.

It's all well and good to say it's happened once and never will again, but prior to, what, last week? It had never happened and never would.

It has happened and cannot be undone. The important thing now is the assurances that it won't happen again - which we've had. Apart from that, there's not much more anyone can do, apart from call for heads, which will not solve anything. Demoting staff will be extremely damaging to the .org and cause even more bad feeling. It's not as simple as someone losing their position over something like this and they go back to being a member and everything is fine... there is fallout, the ex staff member may leave for good, their friends may also leave, it creates an unnecessary stink. This is not the same thing as catching some corrupt admin who was gleefully spying on member's correspondence... what was done, was done in good faith, that is inescapable - so feeding someone to the dogs (or the trolls) is not the answer.

At this point assurances are of little value, as demonstrated by this debacle they are at best only as good as the person giving them, and Org staff have started to turn over more rapidly of late.

A lot of the staff members had been here for close to a decade, new blood was inevitable as people got older, stopped playing the games, etc. The admins however are mostly long term members, so I don't think that statement is really relevant in this case.