That’s because you don’t generally find them in GD, GQ, and the pit. Yeah - they were becoming pretty prevalent in MPSIMS.
I think the part you’re missing is that the people who participated in the RU and the Previous RU are the same people writing this policy. There’s no disconnect–no who’s guarding the guardians thing. Which is also something we accept when we accept the user agreement.
Not unexpected at all, but still pretty disappointing. Nice to see that you’ve crafted a policy that validates and cements all the poor management and administrative procedures you’ve honed over the years.
Now here’s something we can agree on.
The registration policy cited above is the policy between the members and the READER. The staff policy is quite different.
I’ve got no dog in this fight (being happily, monogamously married and therefore having no desire to meet other Dopers for “romantic or sexual” purposes) but I am curious: what’s the reason for banning “personals” threads? Other user’s annoyance? Liability fears related to sex offenders? I was never really bothered by such threads, but since I didn’t participate in them, I won’t miss them-- I just wonder why they have been set in stone as banned.
How does that invalidate Lord Vor’s point? The staff policy is meaningless to the members in terms of the member’s view of the new privacy policy. Ed’s already gone on record stating we’ll never see the staff policy, so you really can not use the contents of said policy to support any claim that Lord Vor doesn’t have a very valid point. Not to mention the fact that Ed also gone said straight out that the staff policy is “designed to protect The Reader”. So how is that supposed to reassure anyone?
We walk a fine line here. On the one hand I’m trying to avoid precisely the situation you describe. No disrespect, but it’s my job to supervise the staff, not yours. No business routinely makes staff contracts available for public inspection. On the other hand, in light of recent events, it’s unreasonable for us simply to say “trust us.” To walk you through my thinking here, the original privacy policy was overly broad and could be construed to cover everything we know about you, including information you yourself had made public. I wanted to redraw it more narrowly to avoid making our job impossibly complicated. I also wanted to avoid a repetition of the recent incident. The staff agreement contains a number of rules intended to do just that, most of which come under the heading of “don’t do crazy things.” (Naturally the agreement expresses this in more elegant terms.) My initial idea, which as I think about it now was naive, was that I would revise the privacy policy and post a summary of the staff agreement. Logically, however, I can’t expect you to repose all your trust in an agreement the details of which are unknown to you and on which you are not entitled to place any legal reliance. That being the case, I’m going to have to add something to the privacy policy along the lines of, “In the course of doing business we may acquire sensitive information about you, some of which is confidential as defined here and some of which is not. Regardless of how we acquire such information, we won’t broadcast it publicly in other venues,” etc.
Anyway, I’m going to have to think about this some more. I’ll have only limited access to a computer over the next few days so this will not be a quick process. If I don’t respond immediately please be patient; I’ll take care of this as quickly as I can.
Well bang goes my chance of ever becoming a mod.
This kind of thing potentially gets us into deep waters. The Reader has a “matches” section in the newspaper catering to people trying to hook up. But we felt that, for now anyway, that kind of thing required more careful oversight than we were prepared to devote to it. (For one thing, we have minors reading the board.) Perhaps we are being overly cautious, and we may revisit this later. However, particularly in view of the recent incident, we decided this was one thing we did not want to worry about right now.
Thank you for being logical about this, and understanding my concern. I eagerly await the resolution.
One other point, was the definition of “confidential information” intentionally made to exclude information sent directly to the staff via email or other methods? I think that’s a really bad idea, all of a sudden it’s legal for the staff to start answering questions like “who reported my post?” It basically prevents anyone from telling a staff member about anything without the fear of it becoming public knowledge.
And while I realize that it’s your job to deal with your staff, you must admit that history has shown that you seldom get directly involved unless an issue is escalated by either a staff member or a user.
[sup]1[/sup]Footnote required:[sup]1[/sup]With the exception of Star Wars, Star Trek & Comic Book topics within the Cafe Society Forum
This is getting closer to what I believe the policy should be and although it is not my place to dictate to you please understanding our concerns. Asking us to trust you is stretching it a little in light of the recent happenings. Having worked with data maniupaltion and communications the policy I was held to was very similar though more along the lines of.
“In the course of doing business we may acquire sensitive information about you, some of which is confidential as defined here and some of which may be interpreted as not being confidential. Regardless of how we acquire such information, we won’t broadcast it publicly in any other venue except as waranted in reporting illegal and suspected illegal activites to the proper authorities.”
I am pleased to see the issue of privacy is being dealt with properly, you may or may not understand that to some of us it’s not just about our privacy but also about keeping this place around for at least one more year and hopefully longer.
This is covered in the staff agreement, but you’re right, it ought to be covered in the privacy policy as well.
Ed, I for one welcome this agreement. I think you guys are doing a good job with this board.
Too bad, though, you didn’t use the word “carbetbagger” in the agreement somewhere. I would have liked that.
Just so that it’s explicit, does the current privacy policy cover, say, the link between a person’s screen name and their name in meatspace? I don’t believe we’re required to submit our real names in order to post here (I might remember incorrectly) but I’d still like to make sure that unless we give out our names, or have our names, in full, as our emails addresses, that our anonymity won’t be compromised.
I’m not sure I understand this question. As a part of doing business, the Straight Dope does not ever find out someone’s “meatspace” name. However, it can, in many cases, be deduced by an intelligent individual (which, of course, the staff are presumed to be). As an example, my listed e-mail address does not contain my full name, but it’s quite adequate for anyone so inclined (moderator or not) to learn my full name. Likewise, my publicly-viewable Web page, and one could probably also assemble such information from things I’ve said in posts here over the years. Heck, some members use their full real names as their screen names. Should these be considered “confidential information”?
Not necessarily true. I’ve used an email address which is my name in order to talk to the mods sometimes.
Possibly, but let’s say Random SDMB poster name’s email is BSmith@blahblahblah.com
I don’t think the mods/admins should be able to clear up exactly who that is. “Ah hah! Random is really Benjamin Smith, not Bob or Buddy or Buck!”
I do think that it is important that information in posts which are made under the condition of anonymity is not made public and linked with someone’s real name. If people who posted in TMI threads, for instance, could have their bosses/community members/what have you, made aware of things said with the expectation of anonymity…
Let’s say, for instance, that we’re not talking about TMI, but politics. If I end up working somewhere that’s not friendly to my politics, I’ll keep my mouth shut. I don’t think it would be right if, due to mod/admin action, someone were to link me with my screenname and make an issue of my political views. Just as an example to get away from TMI examples.
Yes yes, I know, don’t post anything you wouldn’t want to see on a billboard. But I think we can have a reasonable expectation the if someone is going to clue into our real names, that it won’t be a staff member who helps them do so.
Obviously, if someone removes their own anonymity by choice it’s not an issue.
And to elaborate: I’m not standing on ceremony, I’m not going to get angry, I’m not going to stop subscribing. I just want clarification as to what the privacy policy does and does not protect. Sorry if I’m being dense.
If you want a guarantee that nothing you say can ever be traced back to you IRL – I’m not sure it’s the Dope’s responsibility to provide such a guarantee. It’s up to you to cover your own tracks as necessary – and to think about what you say before you say it.
They’re trying to make it clear that they’re not going to gratuitously publish your info. Beyond that, it’s your responsibility, not theirs, to protect your anonymity.
By trying as hard as possible to make certain that the privacy policy here is air tight, one is trying to establish that our privacy will be maintained. So far the privacy policy has been as clear as mud, some of us are just trying to emphasize that the policy should be crystal clear. Protecting your privacy starts with making certain that companies you give your information to will not share it with others needlessly. The Reader is a company to whom I give my information, so why is it not alright for me to make absolutely certain that the policy is bullet proof. I would think this is my responsibility don’t you? If I had given my information to any old web site and they had no PP then I would have no reason to complain. The policy here was brought into question recently, so now it is my responsibility to make certain the policy is beyond doubt. Does this not make sense?