An Explanation

[Visor]

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.

I think this is well said.

That said, I can post recent evidence of Warman and his attacks on other members on this site (but won't, NSFW language etc). From what I've seen of Jan he seems to be different to Warman, better. From this stage the act is done regardless.

Either this is a non-issue and will never happen again, in which case we were better off ignorant, or this is an issue which needs to be seriously dealt. The major problem with the second view is that we are hardly quorate here.

I prefer that they are open with decisions like these, the fact that they are and the members of the admin staff, I have faith that something like this will not happen again, or at the very least this option will not be discussed again. (Yes the saying comes to mind that once you've crossed the line, it is easier to keep doing and harder to see it anymore (I probably butchered it, but you know what I mean.)

Saying the the Org would ban you is crazy talk. If they did I would honestly be very surprised. It might be an autocracy or whatever you call it, but it's not tyranny.

ATPG is liking the posts for a reason, and I am pretty sure I can guess/know what it is. This situation is an exception, not a rule, and whilst distasteful, they did the right thing by telling us as members.

A similar incident with a banning of a family member occured to myself and my brother over at TWC. We both played hotseats over there, and were mostly enemies in-game because y'know, we're brothers. We shared the same IP address, etc. Anyway, I was thrashing one guy, and he got mad at me for beating him, and reported my brother to an admin. Keep in mind that I asked if my brother could play initially (as he asked me because we always wanted to play online, and he's not exactly outgoing or at least he wasn't then), anyway, after one-two guys thought we were the same person, my brother was reported. Now, I was rather annoyed at this, and went and contacted the mods (I was rather proud of myself for not being a dick about it). I explained how we shared the same IP address (which they said was a method to determine alt accounts). Then I argued for them to at least restrict us to not playing in the same game, which they did accept ( I showed evidence in games of us being enemies etc.) Then the admin basically said to me, that it is obvious that you guys were not 'cheating' or whatever, that you guys are different people (logging in simultaneously, as well as posting in different sections, etc, enemies in some games), and the ban was lifted fully, and we had no restrictions.

Point of that long winded story is that if Jan wants his account back, it would be easy to do, I imagine, unless Warman has installed some virus software stuff on his computer like a keylogger.

And I've already talked about my thoughts re pm reading, so that should do it for my thoughts.

TL;DR: Read it. I support the staff's decision to do this (only in this one case, ever, and never again), and support them being open about it, and the moderation and admin team. I think TC does a fine job for the site, as does every other staff member.

EDIT: On asai's last post, I agree.

[Strike For The South]

So instead of a temp ban so this can get sorted, the admins rifle through the PMs

How is that not taking a sledgehammer to a nail?

I would like to get all the new rules out of the way now please

[InsaneApache]

I'll chip in.

I can understand the reasons for doing this. I don't like what was done.

[Kralizec]

If I were in a similar situation as King Jan (i.e. they suspected my account was hacked) I'd rather have that they checked my PM box for unusual things instead of banning my account until and if I was ever able to prove my identity.

However I rarely use the PM system here. I mostly come here for the public discussions in the tavern - I don't really talk to anyone here privately. I've also decided early on that I'd rarely give details about my real life on the internet, and never in a way that could be traced to my real name. I have a facebook account and stuff, but I'm pretty careful with that and I'd never allow people from forums like this to see it, no matter how much I like you. I've seen people on this forum describing, basically, which street they live in. The closest I've come to is tell which city I live in, and even that I rarely mention.

Some of the posts here are remarkable, at least to me. I can understand that other people use PM more than I do, talk about their personal lives with it and dissaprove of what the staff did - but people react as if it's a case of a psychiatrist or a lawyer breaking his duty of secrecy and spilling his clients personal information. To me, this incident is serveral orders of magnitude smaller.

Which isn't to say it's a light matter, but I think that the circumstances of the case and the method the staff chose were justified. The administrators always had the power to do this. They publicly announced what they did when they could simply have kept it as secret. They told their reasons for doing so and said this was the first, and probably last time they ever did it. I don't see how anybody could reasonably fear that the staff would ever do the same with his or her own account, or at least more than before.

[caravel]

That said, I can post recent evidence of Warman and his attacks on other members on this site (but won't, NSFW language etc). From what I've seen of Jan he seems to be different to Warman, better. From this stage the act is done regardless.

Evidence is a big word... evidence needs to be 100% solid, it's no good in producing quotes which cannot be verified to have come from the quoted source. i.e. if you were to quote PMs, that would not be proof enough, you would need to open the PM(s) in question and hit the report button. Any other "evidence" would presumably be still accessible on the main forums - so I'm not clear as to where else this evidence is going to come from - nor do I see it as relevant. The behaviour of the member in question was not outright criminal, just annoying and trollish, so it's irrelevant and certainly does not justify entering his brother's account to read PMs.

I prefer that they are open with decisions like these, the fact that they are and the members of the admin staff, I have faith that something like this will not happen again, or at the very least this option will not be discussed again. (Yes the saying comes to mind that once you've crossed the line, it is easier to keep doing and harder to see it anymore (I probably butchered it, but you know what I mean.)

Indeed, the staff could have covered this up, but didn't. They'd already told the owner of the account that they'd reset his password due to suspicious activity, so they could easily have accessed his PMs between resetting and emailing him to let him know, marked the messages as unread and he would probably have been none the wiser... I'm sure they knew this but very much to their credit, they chose to come out with it and face the music.

Point of that long winded story is that if Jan wants his account back, it would be easy to do, I imagine

Yes, it's for the account owner to contact the staff - if the staff had banned/suspended his account because of suspected misuse, then they would have been doing him a favour. The next time he is in touch (not someone else using his email) he could have easily confirmed it was him and gotten his account reactivated. As I understand it, suspicion was aroused, because suspect PMs were coming from the account to staff members. After the first (or second?) deactivation and reactivation from the email - coming from someone who was obviously not the account holder - the staff would have been sure that the email was also compromised and should have simply banned the account and waited for the real owner to get in touch. There is no other alternative and staff cannot be expected to micromanage accounts any more than that. Every member is responsible for their own account security.

If I were in a similar situation as King Jan (i.e. they suspected my account was hacked) I'd rather have that they checked my PM box for unusual things instead of banning my account until and if I was ever able to prove my identity.

However I rarely use the PM system here.

A ban can be reversed - reading someone's PMs cannot. Some of the members here are very long term, have been here for more than a decade and probably use this forum to stay in touch, some may know each other by name, where each other live, etc. I honestly don't believe that attempting to justify that PMs can be read, or that members should not expect them to be private, as some have argued is the answer to this.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

A ban can be reversed - reading someone's PMs cannot. Some of the members here are very long term, have been here for more than a decade and probably use this forum to stay in touch, some may know each other by name, where each other live, etc. I honestly don't believe that attempting to justify that PMs can be read, or that members should not expect them to be private, as some have argued is the answer to this.

This - for me - is the key point, and why this is unacceptable. I have real life contact with maybe half a dozen members on this board through other mediums like facebook, I'm probably unique in that I use my real name as a handle, but I'm far from the first member to put it in their sig or profile.

The point is - the PM system is not disconnected from my real life, without looking I couldn't be sure what was in there - I shouldn't have to EVER worry about the staff looking.

What was done was clearly, unambiguously, wrong. If it were not, we would not have been informed. Consider this, suppose Jan's account had not been hacked? Then where would be? It seems to me that the PM's wouldn't have been read unless it was fairly certain it was Warman anyway.

Right, that's it. I really am done now.

[Drunk Clown]

I shouldn't have to EVER worry about the staff looking.

Based on what?