:rolleyes: is right. She chose to reveal contents of a PM just to make it easier on herself. It was not necessary in any way. So, she took the easy way out and made PMs less likely to be respected for the amount of privacy associated with it. It’s a degradation of a useful tool.
I’m not “inventing” anything. Twickster took the pussy way out and a useful tool is degraded. Fact. Proof of its usefulness is demonstrated, I think, by Marley23’s post that I last responded to, which highlights the fact that there was, in fact, an expectation of privacy with PMs. Most people had the good sense and common courtesy to understand that what was sent via PM was expected to remain private. Twickster’s lame excuse that “Oh, I was insulted” might be justification for a warning or a banning, but not for breaching the confidential nature of PMs. The tool is/was useful. It shouldn’t be compromised just because a mod is lazy, wants to avoid questions they might view as annoying, or wants to get back at the poster. She had legitimate tools at her disposal to do that.
Talk about “inventing” excuses. Wow. The truth is we look to real life to look for cues as to handle the virtual world. But in real life you can look into someone’s eye, you can shake their hand, get a good sense of the person they are and get a much better sense of both them and their relationship with you. The internet experience, as good as it may be, lacks that dimension, In real life you can ask someone to keep a confidence. And you may not have to do so explicitly because you have setting tone, volume, facial cues, body language, etc. We take that all in. Not having that here, it is very helpful to have a tool like PM.
And I don’t think this was your argument, but the defense that keeping PMs private could never be enforced is one of the stupidest things to appear on these boards. Since when has the ability to reach 100% compliance been the metric for the sense of a policy. As I pointed out, if that was the case we’d have no speeding laws. Just a tiny fraction of speeders get a citation, yet as a society we seek to minimize what we view as bad behavior bad having laws against it and punishing offenders when the authorities do find out about it. That should be the policy here. Especially since even one or more of the mods seem to need a rule to prevent them from behavior that erodes a useful tool, this damaging the board.
To my mind the only forms of communication that are private are those that are agreed to be private in advance by both parties, or where the disseminator has the power to control the situation, such as in a boss-employee relationship.
Neither apply here.
The fact that a PM is used certainly indicates that the sender did not wish to publish the contents (which can be for multiple reasons, not just a desire for privacy). However, it is perfectly reasonable for the recipient to decide what to do with the message in the context of its contents.
It’s still useful. Fact. If you want to have a conversation one on one, but don’t want to give out your e-mail address to all and sundry, you have PM. As long as you don’t labor under the illusion that it’s confidential, then you can use it that way just fine.
Twice just this year people have done to me exactly what twickster did to DudleyGarrett-- they spoke publicly of what I said to them in PM. Nothing happened. All it did was make me less likely to PM people I’m not friends with.
You realize that you are making up the idea that PMs are confidential, right? They aren’t. They never were.
How has the behavior changed ANYTHING that you were currently doing with PMs?
Nothing has really changed, and it’s not some big conspiracy that EVERY PM is going to be revealed any more.
The only thing that’s really been done is now you know if you send an abusive post to a Moderator- they will call you out on it. And also to some of the other Posters.
That’s it. No one is saying that every PM must be revealed, that every PM is now open to viewing. I really don’t see how there’s anything to get butthurt over in here unless you REALLY felt like you needed the right to abuse people in total secrecy w/o others finding out. And if that’s the case, I’m sure there are other places off boards where you can have that joy and anonymity.
If you really feel your PMs have been degraded- why not just send a PM to each of the people you normally use the PMs for and ask them “Would you reveal the contents of my PM?” and then see what they’ll tell you. Because there’s been no real board changes, no global far reaching rule change or anything here. So I’m not seeing what the problem is in discovering that Hey- some people feel that not sharing PMs is a courtesy, and not a Mod-Given Rule.
So in this case you are okay with breaking the supposed private nature of the PM? Why is it okay for you to forward this private message between you and I to a mod? What part of private are you not understanding? Either it is private and you keep it to yourself or it isn’t private and it is okay to forward. But once you forward it to a mod, then you have violated that privacy haven’t you? Seems you aren’t very consistent on what you want this privacy to mean.
Not using abusive language in a PM seems pretty simple too, and if you don’t use abusive language in a PM then it won’t be made public. I can guarantee you that if you sent me a abusive PM, that I would publish it. There is no privacy if you send me something that is unsolicited.
You must have made a mistake. This obviously was intended the poster who claimed a conspiracy of sorts.
It could be the Great Debates version of “Keep On Fucking That Chicken.”
You know, we had a couple of discussions here about whether or not PMs should be Private and would quoting one be against the rules. Most of the Members came down in favor of them not being Private. Of course many of them were only doing that to support a recently banned poster.:dubious:
However, in any case, I don;t remember the OP joining the discussion. magellan01, if you really feel so strongly about this, why didn’t you join one of those discussions? You are a very prolific poster, I am sure you saw the threads.
No, I don’t recall seeing any discussion of that nature. Then again, I come to this forum only very rarely. As far as I can recall the only exchange I had about this had to do with a poster innocently revealing the contents of a PM I had sent. And, I think, a mod pointing out the inappropriateness of that, before I was even aware of it.
Magellan, with respect, your battle has been lost. Best to let it go. The powers that be are already constructing language, and the notion of message privacy has been discarded by fiat. There is nothing more you can say or do to change minds. This one is over. All that remains to be seen is whether members can publish mod PMs in the same manner that mods can publish member PMs.
It has not been discarded by “fiat”. Unless you think that everyone else’s opinion in this thread is irrelevant. This thread is running very close to 100% against Magellan and other, similar threads (dating back to 2000) have had similar outcomes (there have been others, but that’s the earliest I could find).
If someone sends you unsolicited abusive e-mails or messages, they’re fair game to hold up to the light of day. The fact that Magellan can’t grasp that “private” means “apart from others” and not “confidential” in this case, doesn’t mean that the mods have suddenly handed down a ruling by “fiat”. Twickster followed a long standing tradition supported by the bulk of the membership. You disagreeing with it doesn’t mean they’ve discarded anything, let alone in a vacuum. :rolleyes:
Magellan, one last try: If you go into one of those confession-things that Catholics use, you have an expectation of confidentiality. If you just grab some dude out of a party and talk to him in a side-room, you don’t. And yet both are “private” conversations–private: no one else can hear them. Confidential: not to be shared with others. See the difference?
I find it very amusing that this conversation is still going on.
The question of twickster’s action and the definition of “private” in “private messages” has been reviewed by the admins and moderator group, respectively, and we’ve decided the way we’ve said. We’ve also said that we’re going to devise a clarification in the Rules (or Etiquette) so that this needn’t come up again.
That’s should pretty much be the end of it, n’est-ce pas? I know, some people here think that bringing up a dead horse over and over and over and over and over and over again will somehow magically bring the horse back to life, but still.
That only works if it’s a Jesus Horse. 
Now, Dex, you know I generally support the Administration here, but I hope you are joking or at least your tongue is firmly in cheek. This is the SDMB, dude, not only do we keep beating a dead horse, we dig them up and whip the skeletons. Geez.
Here is a post from last August, when Oy! had shared some information I sent her in a PM. I wasn’t even aware of it until I got back in to town. InvisibleWombat acted on his own accord.
So, this notion that I am fabricating some link between PMs and private correspondence and the confidentiality that implies is nonsense. Also, what she shared was very, very, very minor. So that fact that InvisibleWombat felt the need to point out the reason for PMs is particularly noteworthy.
Speaking of which, InvisibleWombat, I find your post in this thread here…
…to be curiously at odds with the action you took last August (above). Why abandon the correct opinion you had an adopt this new one? Do you find being part of a crowd that comforting?
Also, I am still waiting for responses from both tomndebb and Marley23.
What is the question?
Nothing of any substance to add, except you couldn’t pay me to be a moderator, (not that I actually *could /I]) and y’all do this for free???
Dude!
As the ending in my e-mail Dope notification states:
“All the best!”
Thanks
Quasi
(snipped and bolded)
I move that we replace the “Figthing ignorance …” motto for this one.
Post #96. Feel free to answer any actual questions therein and to respond to the comments I made in response to you.