Moderation Comment Period: PM Access

1. The two users let slip, publicly, that they have this information. In which case the mods have access to that public information to make a decision.

2. The two users are doing something, IRL, against the user, in which case the user should be calling the cops and get Mike involved in a legal capacity. Which doesn't involve the mods at all.

That doesn't make sense. You essentially admit here that doxxing people via PM is bad,

but not as bad as public doxxing.

Even if I buy that, and it seems like there is a reasonable case for you being right, it seems like doxxing people via PM is still pretty bad because of the potential for real-life problems.

Certainly it seems bad enough that it should also be banned. Simply saying that it is less awful than public doxxing is not an argument for its being permissible.

Moderation does need it in order to know when it happens and who is doing it. This allows moderation to ban toxic and potentially dangerous users and to create a vigorous deterrent against users engaging in that kind of activity.

in that case, i guess you would have to look at PMs, but that would be a very rare case.

However, i'm starting to think the only person that should be able to do this is Mike

No I don't. I have explicitly said that what happens in a PM isn't doxxing. Don't deliberately misrepresent my argument.

Private disclosure is less impactful than public disclosure

When are we getting anonymous reporting back?

Since it is a moderation issue, I think moderation should be able to do it, or to see screenshots taken by Mike, but Mike's permission and assent should be obtained in any situation where something like this occurs, yes.

Whether you call it doxxing or not is immaterial to the fact that you admit it was bad. Ergo, you're argument was never misrepresented. Instead, your admission that it is bad underscores the need for moderation to be able to respond to such a problem. Whatever you want to call it is irrelevant to its need to be policed.

it seems like doxxing people via PM is still pretty bad because of the potential for real-life problems.

Not enough people weighed in.

At such time when a clearer consensus emerges against it, I will be happy to reinstate it. But a 5-2 decision is not exactly compelling.

This issue, with PMs, is different, however. I think the substantiality of the potential for misuse warrants a presumption against implementation, so I would reject PM access on a 5-2 decision.

Mike reads all PMs when and why he pleases.

Reporting may get back to being anonymous when there is a way to prevent the spam reports,

the best idea I've got so far is to add a required field for the report description ( so that it wouldn't be so easy to spam report ) and add a button that would take the user's right to report away if we see some copy pasted descriptions or some other bad behaviour but this way the mods will not know who they've just taken the right away from and it may bring some complications. It's just an idea but give it time and we may come up with something much better than that.

Regarding the PMs, truth be told, I am also not a fan of disclosing them,

but bsh1 pointed out some situations where it could possibly make sense and I believe we decided to bring this up on the forum and discuss it and that's what this topic is about. But then you've also provided some good points so it's going to be a hard decision. The best idea I've got is to maybe provide access only in some very serious cases (death threats and whatnot) and limit the access somehow so that the mods wouldn't be able to access it on a whim. But then, I can't come up with decent logic for this request PMs feature...so it's going to take some time and thinking.

The best idea I've got is to maybe provide access only in some very serious cases (death threats and whatnot) and limit the access somehow so that the mods wouldn't be able to access it on a whim. But then, I can't come up with decent logic for this request PMs feature...so it's going to take some time and thinking.

Drafterman why do you trust Mike to have that access but not bsh1? What the fuck has this faceless guy who came in with the DDO hacker bots do to earn your respect or trust?

You have that with the 10/day limit. Also, the issue with the spam reports was the work load the mods decided they needed to do in response to them. That, too, has been fixed with the relaxation of the voting standards and the lack of need of mod response for every report. Furthermore, the lack of anonymity didn't stop the spam reporting.

With respect to Mike, it isn't about trust. We access his servers. He has access to all of the information we put here. That is an inherent concession any user makes when they sign up. His turning over PMs (or any other information) to law enforcement isn't up for discussion. If he is so supoena'd, he doesn't have a choice.

It is less about "trusting" Mike than the fact that that bridge is already crossed and burnt. There is no uncrossing it. I did not, however, give any sort of consent, implicit or otherwise, to let some random person who happens to have Mike's ear have access to that information.

I have this question, is there any way to tell if bsh1 has the ability already? If no, then he could already be reading PMs now right?

If I could, I'd just encrypt the PMs and be done with it so even God himself wouldn't be able to access them, but there is no way (that I can think of off the top of my head) to make it secure. But to be honest, I don't think there are many websites that do that, I imagine even Facebook and other social networks don't. Maybe only some websites where people discuss riots and stuff like that but idk.

Dude. It's YOUR site. They only have the power to do what YOU give them. Put your foot down and say, "No, you can't have that."

1. There was never any "problem" to which de-anonymization was a solution.

I like this attitude. But if you feel that strongly about it, why is this even a discussion? Just tell bsh1 "No" he doesn't get this loaded gun to play with?