Since when? It wasn’t before that one dumb ass sent a death threat to someone over private message with zero ramifications. Have things changed?
Yes, yes, yes. They are required to investigate any call about neglect that they receive and it is unquestionably neglect to allow a 10 year old to be running free (let alone disturbing others) until all hours of the night.
Chimera, thanks for answering the Q. about the neighbors. I guess if you don’t want to go knocking on doors, which can definitely be a drag, you’re outta luck unless you run into one of ‘em in the hallway and are able to strike up a conversation about it. I actually understand the management office not wanting to reveal other neighbors’ complaints; that wouldn’t seem kosher to me either.
Thanks, BigT. But no, I don’t think it’s against the rules. It was just a weirdly hostile reaction on her part, not a threat or anything like that. Didn’t send me into a fit of the vapors… just seemed ridiculously over the top considering my mild and impersonal comment. And as Covered in Bees said, even much worse PMs have been deemed unactionable. I’m pretty sure that Tubadiva has stated that they don’t want to police private messages, understandably.
We really are not capable of policing private messages. We can look at the public posts that are out there for all the world to see, but we can’t directly read other people’s PMs, we can only read PMs that are addressed to us. Now, most people will be fair, and will forward the whole message…however, it’s possible to add, delete, or modify text in PMs without it being shown, and there are a few people who would do just that. They’re just text files, after all. So, since we can’t directly view other people’s PMs, we are not going to moderate them.
How about some of that spray silly string stuff? It would be harmless, but prove she was indeed there.
I would have resorted to the jar of black widow spiders by now. (You all do keep a jar of black widow spiders handy for a last resort for just such situations, don’t you? Doesn’t everyone?)
I find that black widows simply don’t look intimidating enough at first glance. You have to see the little hourglass for the full scariness to take effect. Tarantulas(warning, link leads to a good detail pic of a large hairy scary spider), on the other hand, LOOK scary, even though they’re (mostly) harmless. Thrust a tarantula at someone unexpectedly, especially a typical little girl, and it’s quite likely to make her wet her pants. And since tarantulas are kept as pets, you can innocently claim that you just wanted to show her your newest pet.
Personally, I keep Mace around, but I would hesitate before Macing a child, no matter how annoying. Not because I like kids and don’t want to hurt them, but because of legal complications.
Yeah, their skulls are so soft and…
…oh, you mean chemical mace.
The other mods and the rules themselves say otherwise. Unless you have something you want to tell us, I’m gonna believe them over you. No offense, but you’ve admitted you don’t do much around here anymore. Until I get a pronouncement from someone who does, I’m not gonna take it too seriously.
Because, if I did, I’d be lighting up ATMB right now to get that modification installed. You can’t run a moderated message board with rules that you can’t enforce. Being able to insult someone via PM is a lot worse than being able to do so in public, because at least people can call you out on it.
BTW, you don’t know how hard I’m fighting to keep Pit language out of this. There’s a certain irony in you being the one to allow people to be insulted.
ETA: If you don’t know what I’m talking about, my apologies. I don’t know my board history as well as I’d like.
And now I’m worried that I still may have offended you. I realize you are going through a lot of problems, and I don’t want to exacerbate them. People being able to insult people in PMs and the mods not being able to do anything about it is just unfathomable to me.
And, when I get mad about something, I tend to think of all the ways I could insult the person who said it. It’s childish, and a bad habit of mine I’m trying to work on. I have absolutely nothing against you personally. I thought I was being good by not saying mean stuff, but implying I could have is just as bad.
I just want to make it clear that I have no real reason to insult you, and am sorry for even the slight insult I may have caused. I know it’s not against the rules, but my Conscience is getting to me, and I bow to it.
I hope you can forgive me. Even if you don’t think it’s a big deal, I think I was wrong to say it.
No, private messages should stay private, but have a report functionality added.
I do not want people reading private messages to or from me unless and until one of the people involved reports the post for mod attention.
I hightly doubt your private messages are so compelling that the administration here would be reading them. Same goes for most everyone else. Mods have things to do actually, reading your piddling little private messages is not one of them.
**Alice The Goon **wasn’t funny. boytyperanma, Hal Briston, and **RNATB **were.
On the subject of moderating PMs: any forum that doesn’t allow a mod or admin to read the original message in a way that cannot be edited is severely broken. On a community I used to moderate for, we couldn’t browse users’ PMs, but if they sent us a link to a specific one, we could read it. Granted, this was a custom-built site, but I can’t believe something as commonly used as vBulletin wouldn’t include a similar feature.
Back to the OP’s situation, if I may…
Let me join in the chorus saying, do this! You need to call every time. Be persistent. The police operate on a numbers game (as our police captain told us). The more calls they get on a particular issue, the more resources they can devote to it. Incidentally, we (as in we the neighbors on our block) have had tenants in one of the apartment buildings evicted due to too many noise violations. This only worked because we called. EVERY. time.
Does that work if the police never see it, though?
Well, duh.
I like the idea of calling child protective services. Er, assuming the whole shotgun thing is out.
Water won’t work in this case.
You need holy water. And garlic. And lots of crucifixes.
Iron’s a chemical.
Elementary, my dear Watson 
I’m guessing you’ll have some problems breaking through the blacktop at the nearest crossroads without attracting attention, though, and “What are you doing with that beheaded child, and what’s her mouth stuffed full of?” is not an easy question to answer.
Pepper spray, mace, and a flame thrower might take care of this.
That and a hammer. Its what Chuck Norris would do.