Is quoting the contents of a PM against the "rules?"

About This Message Board
81

Folks, I want to say, I have had enough of this Mickey Mouse tomfoolery about PMGate.

The SDMB should adopt the following simple rules:

“Despite their moniker, a private message is a posting intended, but not guaranteed, to be read by only specific members of this message board. Once a private message is sent the sender has no more control over its further use and distribution than they would any other public posting on the message board. It is not the goal of the Straight Dope Message Board to operate a mail server - private messages are a convenience only, and just like any other posting they are composed at your own risk. Since they are treated as a posting, the rules of conduct for private messages will be the same as that of the general forums of the Straight Dope Message Board.”

If the message board continues down the pitcher plant trap of “W should be private except in the case of X, and not if Y sent it, but maybe if it was official language from Z” this will cause untold amounts of further drama and bullshit which is contrary to the goal of the Straight Dope. Treat the PMs as nothing more than a posting which happens to have a selective, but not guaranteed, target audience, and move on with life and having a nice, drama-free weekend.

And if further privacy is needed in communications, then perhaps people should send an e-mail. Or did Yahoo, Google, and Hotmail suddenly close such that there are no free e-mail servers anywhere on the planet?

82

Your post, quoted above, is bullshit. You know, I actually did think about clarifying what I wrote but I missed the edit window. IOW, I don’t have a problem with an admin losing their cool in rare occasions. My point was that if a note like that was a one-off, I wouldn’t have a problem but it’s a concern if a staffer writes PMs like that on a regular basis.

Why would anyone write something on a message board to “slip something in and see if anyone notices?” How does that make sense? I would hope that every word that I wrote would be noticed. Your contention is that I wrote something sneaky, on a public message board, to try to make a point…and that I didn’t want anyone to notice it? One would have to be drunk for that logic to make sense.

If you’re considering a job as a mind reader someday, you might want to reconsider.

83

I don’t use PM very often. I have posted information (not directly quoted) from PMs after asking the sender if I may. But, per Una’s quote, I expect that anything I write in a PM may be directly quoted without my having been asked. It’s a risk I knowingly take when I send a PM.

This is what I was getting at earlier. While I ‘expect’ a certain amount of privacy in a PM (while recognising that that is up to the recipient), and while I exercise discretion when I receive a PM, these PMs are not offical communications. Official communications should not enjoy the same expectation of privacy as non-official PMs. Once an official PM has been quoted of course, the sender is free to discuss it in an official/professional manner.

84

If poster A sends you a PM, and staff makes a decision based in part or whole upon the contents of the PM, and some poster B unconnected with the decision makes claims that the information in the PM might contradict, that is in no way a justified time to divulge the contents of the PM. The “self-defense” situation you identified in your discussion of bar ethics rules doesn’t apply; that is in relation to a complaint brought against you either in court or before the bar. If I were to make public statements about you in the newspapers which could only be controverted by divulgeance of privileged communications from a third party, you would be violating your ethics to divulge said communications without the consent of the party with the privilege.

If Ed decided to take you to task, and called you before the carpet on what you had done, THEN you could say that the analogous situation you are discussing applied, and quote the PM. But that’s behind the scenes, and no one expects that y’all don’t share what you need from PMs as needed, though I will say that most Mods/Admins have asked me in advance if they could share what I had said by PM, as a matter of courtesy.

85

I think this is a good rule for all but the mod-as-recipient case. All other correspondence:
[ul]
[li]member-to-member,[]mod-to-member,[]correspondence to and from non-members (unless sent to a moderator as an SDMB moderator)[/li][/ul]
should be governed by the rule that, although the etiquette of the situation might be to keep the contents private, the moderators will not redact any post nor punish any members for publicizing the contents. This is a rule of moderator non-intervention and it reflects the important precept that SDMB mods do not guarantee that your time on the board will be all skittles and beer; the usual need for circumspection in your communications with people you don’t know especially well still applies.

I do think a wrinkle should be added member-to-mod correspondence for the reasons noted in another post above (not the quoted post). Namely, members are obliged to deal with moderators on certain issues and so the usual way of dealing will potential PM betrayals (that is, by being selective as to whom you correspond with and what you say them) is not available in the member-to-mod case. Yes, this is asymmetrical, just as the powers of moderators are asymmetrical with respect to the powers of members. When we take on enhanced authority (by being a mod, say, or getting a license to practice law), we also submit to restrictions not placed on those without that authority. It is a tradeoff, and everyone has to decide for himself whether it’s worth it. Nobody is forced to become a mod, after all.

Gfactor does raise a good point. Mods should not be powerless against public crusades against them. One sword/shield rule that could be adopted is: moderators may publicize the contents of PMs they have received or sent only to defend against allegations of malfeasance or negligence or to substantiate charges of harrassment, and then by publicizing only so much as is necessary to meet the charges. While this rule cannot be applied mechanistically, I think it encapsulates the members’ expectations of mods in a relatively uncomplicated way.

86

The messages are either private or they’re not. Certainly the very name itself, Private Message, gives one the expectation of privacy. I understand that there will be times when that privacy must be compromised (Gfactor has outined possible occasions), but on the whole the private nature of the communication should be respected.

It’s hardly a question of rules, simply basic good manners.

87

I answered the question in the OP earlier in the thread, and the discussion is now should quoting the contents of a PM be against the rules?

Originally I said yes, it should. But I’ve given it much thought, read this thread carefully, discussed it with other mods and admins, and I don’t think we should create such a rule after all.

I still think disclosing the contents of someone else’s PM is impolite and you shouldn’t do it, but such a rule on this board would be virtually unenforceable. Besides, there isn’t a bloody thing we could do about people revealing the contents of PMs on other message boards, blogs, Web sites, grocery store corkboards, telephone poles, and call-in radio shows.

I understand what you’re saying, but I just couldn’t go along with being hamstrung like that. You can send me obnoxious, threatening, nasty, stupid, error-ridden, drunken PMs and I have to keep them private, but if I send you a PM where I’ve made a mistake or said something I shouldn’t have in the heat of the moment, you’re free to post it, mock it, and use it against me? Nope. Not buying it.

Even Kimmy_Gibbler’s version isn’t balanced. I’d say, “the SDMB staff should not reveal personal information about members and guests without permission.”

Even that has to have its caveats, and trying to write them all down would require pages of legalese. What if someone threatens legal action? Starts stalking a mod? Attempts suicide? Tells a mod in a PM that they’re going to assassinate someone tomorrow?

No, let’s keep the rules short, sweet, and simple, and allow people to use their discretion.

No. There’s no such rule (unless it’s a part of “don’t be a jerk”). Some of the PMs I’ve gotten are–how shall I say this?–less than polite, and I have never taken action against the sender.

Whoa, Nelly! Who said that? I read every PM I receive, and I respond to most of them. It’s part of our job to read every PM we receive. Unless you’re talking about other people’s PMs, in which case…

I do not know for certain. I can tell you that mods do not have the ability to read other people’s PMs, and on other boards I’ve worked, the admins didn’t either. I think it would be safe to assume, however, that the chief tech on the board can read anything.

For that matter, it would probably be a good idea to assume that at any moment, the underlying board software could issue a massive, reeking, electro-fart and spew forth the contents of every single PM ever sent, making them readable, searchable, and poorly-spelled.

88

How about this “A Private Message is private, and quoting it without permission could fall under the “Don’t be a jerk rule” depending on facts and circumstances”. Even simpler.

89

How 'bout “Don’t be a jerk” applies to Mods and Admins sending hate-mail is jerkish behavior?

Because the word “private” doesn’t mean “Carte blanche to be an asshole in your PMs.”

90

Not if the good manners were already violated by the sender. Your logic appears flawed to me. If I send you a PM calling you something terrible and making accusations about you, I cannot expect that to remain private. If that is the rule the SDMB wants, they should list it as a rule. Not just assume it is a rule.

91

Because “Don’t be a jerk” isn’t really a rule, just like “Don’t do bad things” isn’t really a penal code. People like it when they see similarly situated people treated the same way in similar circumstances, and one thing that requires is that the rules applied have a good measure of predictive power. This isn’t to say that the rules need to be mechanistic, but if not-strictly-objective rules are promulgated, there needs to be some effort put forth toward identifying their contours.

And when the rules don’t conform to these standards of uniformity and predictability of application, people go away.

92

I assume you realize I’m not arguing that legal ethics rules literally apply to this situation. Given that we’re trading analogies, let me give you a real life example, ripped from the headlines, so that we can have some basis for comparison. The **KGS **banning.

For those who missed it, we banned **KGS **for threatening litigation. He did this in an email, but we didn’t post the email. He’d threatened litigation against a poster in a thread, and folks thought that we’d interpreted his post as a litigation threat against the board. So people asked, “why’d you ban him? He didn’t trheaten litigation.” Now if we were applying legal ethics, it would be just as unethical for us to summarize his communication as it would to publish it verbatim. Later, I added some more detail from the email (he’d demanded that we ban someone else as a condition for not suing) Nevertheless, we aren’t lawyers, and legal ethics rules don’t apply, so that’s what we did. And that disclosure was based on the self-defense rule, because in a sense, ATMB is where appeals take place here. In many cases the person whose appeal is being heard either can’t, or doesn’t care to, raise the issue. Of course, we could solve this problem by imposing a standing requirement–only the poster who was the subject of the action may appeal, if they’re banned, they may appeal by email, but I don’t think anybody wants that. Anyway, I’ve gotten off track. You see, the self defense rule is already well-accepted here. People thanked us for the additional details and let the matter drop. There is no practical difference between describing the contents of an email or PM and quoting it verbatim, and the ethical rules in question protect “confidences” and “secrets,” which covers way more than verbatim quotations.

93

This is an excellent point which I think backs up my idea for affirming that private messages have no expectation of privacy. In my time on this board, nearly 10 years, I have seen perhaps 3 or 4 major glitches, both due to human and software error, where one or both of the Moderation forums were made visible to the general public. Imagine the psychodrama which would ensue if a board glitch unleashed everyone’s dirty laundry in public. Members on here get out the pitchforks and torches over just about anything the Staff do; what happens when Jane Poster’s hot beastiality PM’s get dumped out in public?

94

Here’s the difference: if I send you obnoxious, threatening, nasty, stupid, error-ridden, drunken PMs, you have recourse: you can warn and/or ban me for it. It is against the rules for me to abuse the staff and you have the ability to dish out consequences. So don’t pretend you’re just expected to smile and take it.

Also, Marley’s idea that you shouldn’t be held to a standard of professionalism because you’re volunteers is bogus. It doesn’t matter how much you’re paid. You’re representatives of CL and customer service agents for this business. I volunteer to answer phones for the local public radio station’s pledge drive twice a year, and you can bet your ass I’m expected to act professionally. Here’s an analogous situation: if someone calls in and pledges, our policy is to not use their name on the air unless they give express permission. And yet I have zero expectation that what I say to them is going to be secret. You know how I avoid the situation where a caller embarrasses the radio station by publicizing the nasty things I say to them? It’s actually very simple: I keep it professional and don’t say nasty things to them.

95

Dude–as you’ve been told–it wasn’t out of context. Trying to argue this with you is frustrating because you’re not looking at the evidence. The entire PM has been published on Giraffe’s board and you can see how nasty and unprofessional the thing is.

I think it’s ok to link to the specific post–certainly no one has ever complained when I’ve linked to a specific Fathom or Unaboard post. But just in case the rules have changed (again) due to the content, I’ll do the directions and/or broken link thing which has always been legal.

I won’t quote it here, but if you A) got to Giraffe’s board hxxp://www.giraffeboards.com (replace the xx with tt), B) go the “General Blah-Blah” forum. C) Look for a thread titled “Seven Banned (From the SDMB)??” and D) go to post 20. Broken link->

hxxp://www.giraffeboards.com/showpost.php?p=135752&postcount=20 (again, replace xx with tt in the url)

Read Tuba’s message. If you STILL don’t think it’s nasty and totally unprofessional, that’s fine and we can certainly debate that. I’d say it was. You may differ. But it’s not “out of context”. The context is right there.

96

Note the sentence in my post where I say that I understand there will be certain occasions when that privacy must be compromised. Certainly your example would be such an occasion.

97

Well, in that case, we agree. :slight_smile:

98

Something that surprises me is that people are allowed to post threads questioning bans and warnings. I can’t think of another board I visit on a regular basis that allows this. .

I’m not sure how I feel about it. On one hand it gives transparency to the process and can effect a change of decision (see Seven thead(s)) on the other hand, it makes for a lot of divisive conversation.

Apropos of nothing, I supposed.

Carry on.

99

Do you always check with the sender before forwarding an e-mail?

100

Who said the age of miracles is passed! :slight_smile: