I’ve probably spent three or four hours over the past couple of days reading posts relating to the banned poster. Including the 147 messages on the other board. (I can hear the chorus of “Get A Life” in the background.)
What ticks me off more than anything is that at least one e-mail message was “shared” with the group.
If I send you an e-mail, it’s for you, it’s not to be posted or passed around or forwarded to someone else.
Isn’t it?
When (if ever) is it okay to make public what someone sent you in private?
Should I assume that any e-mail I might send to another Doper or a Mod can be made public?
I’d like your opinions – not on this one particular instance – but in general. Have you ever done this? Has someone done it to you? Why?
I have recieved e-mail from posters in the past. If it is nasty, I will post a message asking if she/he would like to post it in public for all to see. So far-no takers.
I think it was David B that said in another thread something like the Internet has nothing to do with privacy. Whatever you send to someone else can easily be made public.
Whether that’s right or wrong depends on your own (and the recipient’s) ethics.
If someone said “I masturbate to Barry Manilow tunes”, I’d keep it private. If someone said “I’ll be at your house at 3 AM with a shotgun. You gonna die.” I might forward that to the police.
Sending someone an email is identical to telling someone something in private useing any other medium–you have to consider the possibility that they will pass it on to someone else. It is no more secure than an old fashioned letter or a whispered aside. Just like in real life, it is not a good idea to tell anything you want kept private to anybody you do not know well. Yes, it is rude to tell secrets, but people still do it. If you feel strongly about this, it never hurts to explicitly state in an email that it is “just between us two”: people are exactly as likely to respect this as they are in any other situation. The question is, are you too naive for real life?
The internet didn’t suddenly make people devisive, two-faced, back-stabbing, and dishonest. They’ve always been like that.
Folks have been revealing private writings to gain advantage since the invention of the alphabet. Until lately we blamed the publishing companies and the gossips instead of ourselves. Now we blame the internet instead of the publishing companies.
Nothing new under the sun . . . The only thing that is ‘naive’ is to lend your trust to folks who are incapable of paying the interest. Unfortunately, we’ve all made that mistake often enough to be called ‘cynical’ instead of ‘wiser’.
Dr. Watson
“Anything more than the truth would be too much.” – Robert Frost
I have never posted an e-mail (or a portion of an e-mail) on a public board. I have resisted any urge to post the contents of IMs or ICQs on a board. I tend to want to maintain the “privacy” aspect of personal communications.
Having said that, I am not at all sure that I would hesitate to publish an e-mail that indicated that someone was acting unethically or viciously–particularly if I was the recipient of an e-mail that I had not solicited. I do not feel that it is fair for one party to send venom, lies, or disturbing truths through private correspondence with the intention of silencing the receiving party by crying “That was private!”. (It is also one reason that I do not publish my e-mail address: I really do not want to encourage people to come to me “privately” with gossip or hate mail.)
And, of course, the occasion for posting e-mail is generally a period of high emotion and bitter feelings, so the judgment of both the author and the recipient/poster are liable to be clouded. For that reason, I do not generally judge the parties involved with less regard than whatever esteem they have earned in less troubled times.
Tom, I don’t believe you and I have ever spoken, but I read your posts a lot. I just have to say that sometimes you are like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. Very comforting.
This response is way too well-reasoned and logical to be posted in the Pit. Where is the vitriol? Where is the sarcasm? Where are the the vulgarities, profanities and blasphemy?
Tomndebb, please forward to me your mantra. I could use a little of your placidity long about now.
(Lest that appear sarcastic, let me state that I meant it wholeheartedley.)
I don’t know if my post was the one you were referring to regarding posting an e-mail message, or not. If so, there’s a couple of salient points you omitted in your OP.
I answered a question from Story Tyler about whether anyone else had received unsolicited e-mail from Jill in regards to posts they had made in regards to Melin. I had received such e-mail. I would not have posted the contents of the e-mail except for this post from Jill:
If you don’t send me unsolicited e-mail with subtle attacks on my friends, I expect not to see any occasion to share them with anyone, let alone post them, with or without your tacit approval…
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
I don’t think private e-mail is something that should be posted to the board at large. On the very few occasions that I have sent private or personal e-mails to other posters on this board, every single one of them ASKED me first if it would be okay with me if they shared it with someone else or posted it to the board at large.
I guess I’ve just been corresponding with people who have integrity and respect privacy. I would never, ever, even if I was pissed beyond reason, post private e-mail in a public forum in order to hurt, embarrass or discredit another person. Even when the e-mail I received was hateful, horrible or sick I never once posted it.
I am aware that other posters have done this. I am not one of them. Nor would I correspond, privately, with someone who would do that. Also, I feel I should point out, that someone could very easily say that so-and-so sent me this e-mail and make something up and then post it. I am very wary when seeing such posts until it is either confirmed or denied by the supposed party that sent it.
Best!
Byz
Voted most sex obsessed. (Yeah, blow me smart ass!)
Let’s get hypothetical. What if someone was to be claiming something on the board–say that they were experts in some field-- and they were using that expert status to back up statements that the other posters on the thread could not readily prove or disprove out of there own sphere of experience. What if such an individual were to send you as sympathetic to their side and send you an unsolicited email admitting that they were no such expert, but that claiming to be one really had the other side stumped. In such a situation, wouldn’t posting the email–or at least relating its contents–be morally imperative? Obviously, if they were claiming to be a doctor or something and giving medical advice one would have to speak up, but I think it would be right to speak up even if it were non-threatening deception. To do otherwise would be to allow someone to use ettiqutte to FORCE another person to be connected to something unethical.
I tend to regard e mails like they are private letters, and I wouldn’t share them.
But, if this question really refers to the plea about anyone else receiving e mail having to do with the ban of Melin, I probably would TELL you that I was going to post it first, because of the relevance to the subject at the time.
As usual, Dr. Watson and Tom have nailed down the essentials. FWIW, I agree with Byz on this; email is mail, must the means of transmission differs. Sharing a private communication without permission Isn’t Done.
Unfortunately email is no more sacrosanct than paper missives. It makes historians, ex-lovers and blackmailers happy, but the sad truth is ya just don’t commit your words to paper or pixels and send them forth unless you are absolutely, forever sure that the recipient is trustworthy or ya don’t mind having your words shared with others.
IMO, the medium is different but little else. It’s a matter of individual choices and distinctions, e.g. a posting to a message board is analagous to a “letter to the editor”, while private email=a private letter?
The delivery system is just window dressing, IMO. The only real difference is the ease of reproducing and sharing the communication.
“I do not feel it is fair for one party to send venom, lies, or disturbing truths through private correspondence with the intention of silencing the receiving party by crying ‘That was private!’.”
Tom – I’m not sure how to respond, except to say that this sure appears to be a breathtaking departure from yer normal level-headedness. Granted, you prefaced that this attitude refers largely to unsolicited correspondence, but still . . .
A private EMail, sent by someone believing they were close enough or kindred enough to speak freely, certainly merits at least the consideration you’d give to a drunken barroom confession. Perhaps the sending party is entirely misguided, but at least they chose to send their misguided missal to an individual rather than skywriting it for all the beach-goers to peruse at will.
If you feel the confessor needs a good swat on the side of the head, then they have just invited you to give it to them. But they have made that invitation private.
Telling them that they are an ignorant drunken goddamned guano chewing chicklet spewing son of a dingo’s bastard spawn is all fine and dandy, but going further and telling everyone else, after the fact, seems a bit like moral grandstanding.
After all, the only thing that separates the rest of us from the rumor-mongers and politicians is our ability to hold knowledge without needing to tell all we know. If someone privately divulges something that poses a clear and imminent danger if it isn’t revealed, well, that’s certainly a different kettle altogether, but simple, “venom, lies, or disturbing truths,” spewed privately, should be dealt with privately.
Dr. Watson
“Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.”
Manda JO – fine, let’s get hypothetical, and say that YOU sent me an e-mail that said, “hey, I’m just jerking you around on that thread just to see what arguments I can stir up.” Would I post it just to make my own point more valid? No. Let’s say that you wrote me and said that you were a student after a PHD in Psychology and this was part of your thesis. Would I post it? No. Just because you SAY that to me in private e-mail doesn’t make it true.
I’m sorry but it has happened more times than I care to count that someone has “written” to me with their “particulars” and I don’t believe it either way. Just because they tell me something in private e-mail doesn’t make it any more or less true than anything they say here. Obviously, my example above isn’t what happened (MandaJO sent NO private e-mail to me, just so no one gets the wrong idea) but what if I SAID you did? What if I said the above were what you SAID to me, in private e-mail, and I went about making quotes from it, all fabricated? Do you see my point?
Morally imperative? Why? Because they SAID so? I guess my guiding rule here is don’t believe everything you hear, nor everything you read. Any one of these posters at anytime could say that they have a degree in such-or-such and what? We should all instantly believe them because they SAY (or write) so? I don’t know about you but I’m a bit more leery.
Anti Pro – you made my point again. If I had any e-mail that pertained to some current drama on this board I would ASK that person before sharing it; even if it were sent in hate. I’m sorry to those that felt they were “morally impelled” to share such missives but in my humble opinion (get your own if you don’t like mine) they were wrong to do so.
Tveblen – thank you. You and I have shared “private” e-mail. Nothing major just things that we discussed between the two of us that had something to do with this board. More likely than not if you asked me if you could post our missives I’d say, “sure”. But I would want the chance to say yes or no. I would offer the same to you.
I guess my point still stands. You should ask someone before sharing or posting anything sent privately. I make public posts for all to read; I make private posts for one to read.
Best!
Byz
Voted most sex obsessed. (Yeah, blow me smart ass!)
Oops! I didn’t mean to imply that Anti Pro and I disagreed! We agree on that point. I just re-read my post and I don’t think that came out right. Sorry.
Dr.Watson, my second paragraph applies only to a specific set of circumstances. (Back on the AOL/SDMB when we all obviously had one easily identified e-mail address, I got my share of strange stuff–some of it from people with whom I was really not on good terms. As noted, I have never published the text (or even a synopsis) of any of those missives. The same holds true for any number of corporate e-mails going back years.)
I have seen occasions when a person has deliberately sent information to another person with the specific intention of silencing the recipient by relying on the recipient’s basic decency to not reveal private correspondence. (Sort of like the old movies where the most despicable bad guy goes to confession to the priest that could put a stop to his efforts so that the priest has to stand by silently, bound by the seal of confession.)
In that case, I will refuse to be coerced into silence. Having said that, I will also note that such occasions are extremely rare. I have seen them occur maybe twice from the sidelines and despite all the mail I have received, I have never even considered revealing that sort of thing. Where I have seen it play out is not on message boards, but in corporate e-mails with political infighting. It is hard to imagine a message-board related e-mail that I would feel I had to reveal for ant reason short of a suicide note or a murder threat.