I have my pms set to notify me by email when I receive one. The notice contains the text of the PM. I would assume that the notice probably exists somewhere within the SDMB as well as in my email account. If not, the notice could be emailed to an admin for verification. If the routing stuff is all there, computer wizards should be able to tell if it was faked, right?
I don’t think the issue is whether computer wizards could tell if something was faked – it is more of a question of how long it might take, and whether it is worth the wizards’ time and trouble.
Are you aware of any death threats issued in the past? Maybe a better question – do you even consider the PM in question a death threat?
I certainly didn’t. Apart from anything else, I am The Incredible Gutless Man- my body goes thighs, waist, shoulders, with nothing in between- so I am quite literally unguttable.
ETA: Don’t tell Gfactor I posted here!
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I’ve dealt with threats before as a moderator. I’ve explained my approach upthread. I know you disagree with it.
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Neither the user agreement:
Nor the Pit rules:
includes the phrase “death threat.”
- Please review my previous posts for my explanation of my decision. I’m not going to reconsider it a second time.
I believe this is right. As I said, we’ve never had to call in the questioned PM examiners because we’ve never had an argument about authenticity. 
Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest you need a re-do in this particular case. I was asking about frequency of occurence and other stuff to try getting a handle on whether some kind of rule or procedural change might be beneficial for the next death threat delivered through PM.
Fair question. I’m sorry if I came off as dismissive. To my knowledge, this was our first reported threat of any kind by PM. But these things tend to get reported to the moderator of the forum from which the argument arose. Moreover, it’s possible there are some that didn’t get reported.
Retrieiving PMs would be a simple query. Maybe an admin can’t do it, but Jerry could do it in five minutes — if he dawdles.
Jerry has other things to do – many, many other things to do. Taking care of the SDMB is a minor additional task for him, not his main job, and we only go to him when there’s an active, immediate problem, like the boards being down.
Which is not to say we couldn’t go to him for help with this if we needed to, but the current situation has been resolved, and it’s not at all clear whether this is a recurring problem. Certainly asking a theoretical question about what he can and cannot do, when we don’t know that we need him to do it, isn’t an active, immediate problem.
Would it help if we PMed Jerry threatening to gut him, too?
How guttural!
d&r
Fake Moderator Warning:
Puns belong in MPSIMS or the Pit, and have no place in ATMB, which is for serious discussion of really boring topics.
I leave it up to the reader to determine whether Fake Moderator Warning means I’m a Fake Moderator or that I am warning a Fake Moderator, as it were.
The stumbling block for many changes to the Dope has always been that Jerry has other priorities, due to the parlous finances of CL.
Does anyone have any updates on the financial situation?
Due to financial considerations, Jerry has been replaced with “Cardboard Cutout Jerry”.
Updates on the financial situation have been cut due to the financial situation.
Essentially, the corporation has been gutted.