Well, here is the thread that was spawned by the incident: Is quoting the contents of a PM against the “rules?”
I once got a PM from Dex.
It had the word “the” in it.
feels like a rebel
“Might” have? Almost certainly would have.
Frankly, this is the main reason I quoted the PM – no one would have been satisfied with “he said something nasty to me but I’m not going to tell you what it was.” No one.
(Which I linked to in my first response, in post #4.)
Well, Sleeps, there seem to be conflicting opinions and I think Marley has reversed himself although I cannot be sure. His firmly stated opinion from the thread Gfactor was kind enough to link:
and in post 22:
Both very clear and difficult to misinterpret.
This sounds…situational, to be generous. From what I can glean, either
a) Marley has reversed his position from 7/30/09
b) This is one of the ‘rare instances’ Marley was addressing on 7/30/09
c) Invisible Wombat’s post on page 2 is currently what is being used as a guideline.
It is difficult to tell as the thread sort of fizzled out with a question unanswered. Certainly this is just my opinion, but as it concerns the entire board population I think it would be wise if this ruling were made clear. Preferably in an announcement. Word it however you like, but everyone should be aware that PM’s are not actually ‘private,’ and there is no rule or expectation ensuring privacy on either side although it is strongly encouraged. I understand why you may not want to do so, but if you don’t it’s a fair bet this scenario will play itself out again.
So what? No, really. When has that ever stopped a moderator here from defending their position? ‘I did it that way because it was within the rules to do it that way and it was what the situation called for’ seems fairly standard here. Why should this situation be any different?
I agree, on both points (that we should clarify the guidelines, and that if we don’t this issue is going to come up again and again).
I would say this is part of an evolving shift towards transparency on the part of the Mods/Admins. We’ve reversed ourselves on decisions over the last 2-3 years, much more than we ever did in the first 5-7 years. We’ve only decided to publish notices about the reasons for banning/suspending rather recently, say the last 3-4 years. And given the dust-up about the banning-changed-to-a-suspension of seven, it’s probably better to show all the evidence than to have to go through a week of being nibbled to death by ducks. Just my opinion, not discussed with any other mods/admins.
It is. I could think of situations where it’s okay to post a PM or disclose its contents, like if a poster needs some help from the SDMB community. I didn’t think of this scenario. In this case, twickster gave DudleyGarrett a warning and sent him a notification through the PM system, like we’ve been doing for the last few months. He responded to the notification with “shove it up your ass.” To me, that’s really the same as saying it in the thread where the warning was given.
I said in the PM privacy thread that I thought there was an understand it’s against the rules. I think the rest of that thread shows a lot of people don’t see it that way.
Why on earth should abuse be kept private just because it was communicated via “private” message? Domestic abuse may occur in private. Does that mean that the recipient of the abuse is under some confidentiality obligation to keep it private? Seems to me that gives the abuser way more control than he/she ought to have or deserves. Do any of you really believe that you should be able to say absolutely anything you want in an unsolicited private message and expect the recipient to respect your “privacy?”
sets his stopwatch to count until someone mockingly derides this post as trying to equivocate profanity in a PM with wife-beating
For what it’s worth, this is how I see it. Waaaaay too much is being read into the ‘private’ part of ‘private message’. Would there be an implicit expectation on confidentiality if a telephone was known as a ‘private caller’? Only two people can hear the conversation, does that preclude one of the parties from telling someone else about the call?
Ah, my mistake; I remembered (wrongly, obviously) that discussion on that was only as a part of the threads the OP in that particular thread mentions.
You know who else equated profanity in a PM to wife-beating? Yeah, you know who I’m talking about!
[sub]c’mon, SOMEBODY had to say it.[/sub]
Twick’s turning out to be a pretty ballsy mod. (And I mean that in a good way :))
OMG. And what would you have done!!! How would you have handled such a crisis?Please tell…
I call bullshit—again. You just chose to take the easy way out. Another mod would have handled it better. And many have. There was no need to do it. You were just being lazy. I doubt you’re the first mod to be insulted—“Oh, heavens, the vapors!!!”—and you won’t be the last. But your actions have made PM less private.
Congratulations.
Y’all keep asking for more “transparency” (to use the latest buzzword) in our moderation, and then when we – I – act in ways that make it clear what we’re doing and why, you bitch about that.
I honestly don’t think I’ve made private messages less private – that privacy wasn’t there to begin with. That fact needs to be clarified and added to the FAQs for the forum; the mods are currently discussing the specific wording of that FAQ.
But you’ll do it the other way around, right? We can publicize what mods PM to us, right? Do emails count as well?
Since you seem to be unable able to grasp some pretty easy stuff, let me spoon feed it to you. All you had to say was that, “He was insulting to a mod in a PM. And since PMs should remain PRIVATE, that’s all the administration will say on the matter.”
Holy shit! Did you really type that nonsense? It seems a logic class is in order: just because said privacy may not have been absolute does not mean your behavior didn’t lessen the degree of privacy one might have previously expected. So, please dial down the bullshit, not UP.
But if you’re taking the purely ridiculous position that PMs enjoyed zero expectation of privacy, I’d ask you to reconsider that until you see just how absurd it is. Not that I’m optimistic that with your particular bent you will be able to.
How about: “PMs should remain private. Except if revealing the contents of a PM makes twickster’s life a little easier and gives her cover.”
In fairness, Magellan, “Private Message” wouldn’t be the world’s first oxymoron. However, it probably is (or was) the general understanding of most people that private messages would be private, unless they violate some law. Regarding Twicks, the balls are big, but the scrotum may be a mite thin.
I think Twickster came through her baptism of fire just fine. You’re not a proper mod here until you have the duelling scars. 
magellan01, you and I see this differently, and neither of us is going to convince the other. I understand what you’re saying, I just don’t agree with it.
Lib, yes, the clarification will be a reminder that the sender has no actual control over the content of the message once it’s sent; this will obviously apply to all members, guests, mods, and administrators equally. As I said, the draft of the statement is still in the mod loop right now – it would probably be best to wait to see what the specifics of that are before everyone starts analyzing it.