@Sythe

[SuF]

What is unfair about this? Staff are deliberately and repeatedly targeted by a wide variety of malicious people as a result of simply doing their job. I think its quite fair to afford them additional protection and exclude users who cannot behave themselves amicably toward staff.

If you think the personal information rule should be bumped up as well then post it in rule reform.

I have two major issues with this rule:

1) It's unfair
2) It is not well written

Who else besides Ryan has had a large problem with their personal information being posted? I don't recall anyone ever having that problem. If the goal is to prevent people from posting the information, then you need to do better moderating. Hattez posted that criminal record multiple times without having anything done other than deletion. If he had been warned the first time and then banned the second time for an appropriate amount of time, this whole situation would have been avoided. In addition, you can just stack the personal information postings on top of one another. Three postings = three punishments. Throw in some other rules and you can ban someone for quite a long time if you wanted, all without making a new rule. In addition, why should the staff get the extra protection from a stronger rule and not normal users? What this rule strongly implies is that the personal information of users is not important to the staff. It implies that they only care about themselves. It implies that they are self serving. All it does is create a divide between the users and the staff that causes unhappiness which will cause someone to get mad and try to get revenge by posting personal information. There is also no reason to just protect the staff from personal information leaks. If you are going to say people deserve different treatment you need to give a very good reason why. You have not.

It also requires that any person that posts any personal information about any staff member be banned for six months. I posted your name in the other thread. This rule requires you to ban me for six months. There is no room for interpretation. You can't decide to not ban me. That would be breaking the rules. You can't decide that it was minor and I should only be banned for a month. That would be breaking the rules. You can not post private information about yourself. If you do, you are breaking the rules and have to be banned for six months.

I wrote the rule about personal information. It is worded very carefully to cover as many angles as possible. It gives the staff a wide range of freedom in how to apply it because it was clear after that website whois incident that we needed that. It was discussed at length over a long period of time and was revised many times to be as good as possible. This new rule was thrown together without any thought. It has obvious flaws that are super easy to prevent if anyone took any time or thought about it. I'm only frustrated because it is super clear that the current staff is incapable of doing a good job. There has been a near constant shitstorm about something or another.

 

Completely agree with SuF in this case.

If this is going to be a rule it should apply for everyone, not just staff. The ban length should be a range instead of a flat 6 months as well.

I've read through the other posts and agree, so I don't feel that its necessary to reiterate all his opinions.

This is just more protection for untouchable n4n0, honestly he can do no wrong in your eyes richard.

 

[iAGZzzz]

It's the same points as the previous thread, and yeah I agree with pretty much all of it too. Instead of keeping this in the feedback thread, why not move it and create it into the personal information rule reform? See what others contribute/think as well and go from there?

 

Oh my, a wall of text. I will try to climb it.

I have two major issues with this rule:

1) It's unfair
2) It is not well written

Who else besides Ryan has had a large problem with their personal information being posted?

I do.

I don't recall anyone ever having that problem.

I have.

If the goal is to prevent people from posting the information, then you need to do better moderating.

Why? Why should staff waste their effort running around tidying up a deliberate smear/personal leak campaign put against them by one or two users?

Hattez posted that criminal record multiple times without having anything done other than deletion. If he had been warned the first time and then banned the second time for an appropriate amount of time, this whole situation would have been avoided. In addition, you can just stack the personal information postings on top of one another. Three postings = three punishments. Throw in some other rules and you can ban someone for quite a long time if you wanted, all without making a new rule. In addition, why should the staff get the extra protection from a stronger rule and not normal users?

Because staff are targeted disproportionately to normal users precisely because of their job. We have always had a policy to perm users for maliciously targeting staff. This rule codifies that policy.

What this rule strongly implies is that the personal information of users is not important to the staff. It implies that they only care about themselves. It implies that they are self serving. All it does is create a divide between the users and the staff that causes unhappiness which will cause someone to get mad and try to get revenge by posting personal information. There is also no reason to just protect the staff from personal information leaks. If you are going to say people deserve different treatment you need to give a very good reason why. You have not.

What this rule does is recognize that staff put their neck out when they go about their normal tasks of being a staff member. Users who cannot respect staff and their right to privacy are simply not welcome. This has again, always been our policy. Yes staff are a separate class of user to whom additional rules apply. This has also always been our policy.

It also requires that any person that posts any personal information about any staff member be banned for six months. I posted your name in the other thread. This rule requires you to ban me for six months. There is no room for interpretation. You can't decide to not ban me. That would be breaking the rules. You can't decide that it was minor and I should only be banned for a month. That would be breaking the rules. You can not post private information about yourself. If you do, you are breaking the rules and have to be banned for six months.

Where in the rules does it say we have to enforce every rule 100% of the time to the letter of the rule? Oftentimes we just give people a warning if the offence is minor, unless the victim comes forward and insists on enforcement of course. Further, staff can certainly post things about themselves. If this concerns you I'll add a clause for that.

I wrote the rule about personal information. It is worded very carefully to cover as many angles as possible. It gives the staff a wide range of freedom in how to apply it because it was clear after that website whois incident that we needed that. It was discussed at length over a long period of time and was revised many times to be as good as possible. This new rule was thrown together without any thought. It has obvious flaws that are super easy to prevent if anyone took any time or thought about it. I'm only frustrated because it is super clear that the current staff is incapable of doing a good job. There has been a near constant shitstorm about something or another.

I actually think your rule is a bit weak. It would be better to split it out into two rules. One for posting information which is otherwise public and one for posting information which is otherwise private. The distinction between posting whois info, or a phonebook record and posting private photographs from a hacked email for example is quite a large distinction. One serves only to dissolve anonymity, whereas the other is a massive invasion of privacy and theft of property to boot.

I would also keep the special staff rule because I am sick of staff being targeted. I have been targeted as have many other staff. It is not acceptable behaviour. I will not tolerate it. The large ban time serves as a strong deterrent for people even trying it, whereas a meager one month ban in certain circumstances may be seen as 'worth the risk' 'for the lols' ... not an acceptable state of affairs IMHO.

 

[Laptop65]

I'm on level with this. Mainly the "staff > normal users" part. I don't see how staff should get special treatment just because they're staff. Yes they do a lot for the site but at the end of the day they are no more different to any random user.

I'm going to use myself as an example here. Back in 2012 / early 2013 I was constantly harassed and bullied in the SF. Now the staff did remove threads when I asked them to, but rarely were infractions ever handed out. At one point towards the end it was near impossible to get a hate thread removed because most of the staff at that time simply did not like me, even some staff were PARTICIPATING in harassing / e-bullying (whatever you want to call it) me at that time. I had to go pestering admins to get a thread removed because sectionals / globals were either ignoring me or paid me no attention.

Now let's use a normal staff member as another example. If you started making hate threads on them, you were gonna get kicked off the site very very quickly.

Now obviously this is a different rule being broken here ^, but the behaviour and judgement is still the same. Staff do do a lot for the site and they do deserve special credit and recognition in most cases, however at the end of the day they are no more 'different' to a normal user. Take away their staff rank, and what are they? A normal user.

 

I just don't see why there can't be just as hard of a stance towards regular users information. This issue is not exclusive to moderators at all.

If the rule is meant to be applied with moderator discretion it should be revised to portray that. That it will be handled on a case by case basis, with a temporary between x any y months.

edit: I know you said put it up for discussion in your rule revision thread, its the fact that the rule was released like that in the first place that is disturbing.

 

Completely agree with SuF in this case.

If this is going to be a rule it should apply for everyone, not just staff. The ban length should be a range instead of a flat 6 months as well.

If we implement a range then you will bitch and moan that the decision regarding the ban length is arbitrary and driven by personal bias of the staff member giving the ban. This is a very bad idea.

I've read through the other posts and agree, so I don't feel that its necessary to reiterate all his opinions.

This is just more protection for untouchable n4n0,

I have had personal information repeatedly plastered over my own website by the absolute scum of the earth. I would not wish it on anyone. If I were some dropkick regular user I have no doubt I would not be targeted. It is a massive waste of staff time and attention to deal with these personal information vendettas -- creating the exact sort of drama the people behind them want. It is much easier and simpler to provide a large deterrent for this behaviour. If people value their Sythe accounts they will stop going after staff member's personal lives.

honestly he can do no wrong in your eyes richard.

My staff have autonomy, I do not micromanage them. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they get drunk and do something stupid. If I went around to your workplace and continually reminded you every five minutes of that time you got drunk at a Christmas party and did something inappropriate, do you think that would be fair? What if I went up to your boss and kept trying to hand him a folder of your personal documents to get you banned?

This is outrageous behaviour. If I weren't raining outside I wouldn't even bother debating the issue.

 

[Sanctuary]

I'm not entirely sure what the huge deal is about this? Just respect people's privacy and it won't affect you.

 

If we implement a range then you will bitch and moan that the decision regarding the ban length is arbitrary and driven by personal bias of the staff member giving the ban. This is a very bad idea.

So make the distinction that you described between making public information known and hacked information available. The latter seems to deserve the six months, the former doesn't seem to deserve more than a month or something along those lines.

I have had personal information repeatedly plastered over my own website by the absolute scum of the earth. I would not wish it on anyone. If I were some dropkick regular user I have no doubt I would not be targeted.

That's shit, I've been doxed plenty of times on various sites for pissing off some neckbeard. My family has been called, my internet connection compromised, pics of me passed around, etc.

Obviously the more noise you make the more likely you are to have this issue, but don't think its just you.

I don't disagree with punishing harshly towards people posting sensitive information, but that should apply to everyone.

The rule should be genuinely to help protect people here, not to make a statement.

It is a massive waste of staff time and attention to deal with these personal information vendettas -- creating the exact sort of drama the people behind them want. It is much easier and simpler to provide a large deterrent for this behaviour. If people value their Sythe accounts they will stop going after staff member's personal lives.

I never disagreed with this. Personally I don't think legitimate and reasonable negative feedback should be deleted, even in the heat of the situation but that's another issue.

If people are doing this they should be stopped.

My staff have autonomy, I do not micromanage them. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they get drunk and do something stupid. If I went around to your workplace and continually reminded you every five minutes of that time you got drunk at a Christmas party and did something inappropriate, do you think that would be fair? What if I went up to your boss and kept trying to hand him a folder of your personal documents to get you banned?

I don't really get the analogy, I'm not saying we rail every staff member for every mistake that they make.

I'm just bringing a feeling to light that I know a lot of people have, that there doesn't seem to be any end to this guys power. If he fucks up you let it slide, all the posts get deleted, and the mod actions happen behind the scenes. The users get banned and pushed out of the spam forum. New rules are made to better protect him. You cover for him publically. Etc.

I understand this is your forum, you can appoint someone to delete every single users account if you wish. That's up to you, but I don't have to agree with your decisions.

When does it stop? If he "gets drunk one day" and deletes 2-3 active accounts? You'd probably just laugh about it..

This is outrageous behaviour. If I weren't raining outside I wouldn't even bother debating the issue.

Trust me I understand the reasoning for more rules against posting personal information, that in it of itself isn't what I'm arguing with at all.

 

[Emperor Nero]

I'm not entirely sure what the huge deal is about this? Just respect people's privacy and it won't affect you.

I think SuF's point is that 1) things like this are creating an ever widening divide between staff and users 2) affording staff sanctioned favoritism to certain individuals. It is also poorly worded so it could be stretched to ban someone for the smallest breach and the person who banned them to step back and be like 'well that's what the rule said' this creating a limper drama. I think instead of dividing the community even further there needs to be done attempt at cohesion. Staff approval and user dissent is the lowest and highest it has ever been because of the lack of transparency and assumed corruption.

 

[Sanctuary]

I think SuF's point is that 1) things like this are creating an ever widening divide between staff and users 2) affording staff sanctioned favoritism to certain individuals. It is also poorly worded so it could be stretched to ban someone for the smallest breach and the person who banned them to step back and be like 'well that's what the rule said' this creating a limper drama. I think instead of dividing the community even further there needs to be done attempt at cohesion. Staff approval and user dissent is the lowest and highest it has ever been because of the lack of transparency and assumed corruption.

I think it's safe to say staff are the targets more often than not when it comes to this type of abuse. If someone accidentally breaches it, give them the benefit of the doubt and give them a warning. If it's a clear, blatant breach of it (spamming information in numerous threads, or something similar) go ahead and apply the 6 monther.

Again, what's there to worry about if you simply respect people's privacy?

 

I'm just bringing a feeling to light that I know a lot of people have, that there doesn't seem to be any end to this guys power. If he fucks up you let it slide, all the posts get deleted, and the mod actions happen behind the scenes. The users get banned and pushed out of the spam forum. New rules are made to better protect him. You cover for him publically. Etc.

I understand this is your forum, you can appoint someone to delete every single users account if you wish. That's up to you, but I don't have to agree with your decisions.

When does it stop? If he "gets drunk one day" and deletes 2-3 active accounts? You'd probably just laugh about it..


Trust me I understand the reasoning for more rules against posting personal information, that in it of itself isn't what I'm arguing with at all.

He fucked up once....

You users make a huge fucking storm in a teacup ever few years about whoever is second in command. You think I don't watch what they are doing?

Power is a two way street. This is not a concept that comes easily and in my experience most staff have to experience it first hand, it cannot be told to them. -- You don't learn to drive by reading a textbook. Likewise you don't learn how to manage a community by being instructed. You have to learn by doing it. I let Ryan give out those fun ranks -- an obvious abuse of power. I let him do it, I was even on facebook at the time talking to him, because it was harmless and I knew the community would give him blowback and he would learn from it. This would help keep him in balance.

Unfortunately you guys are a bunch of sadists. So instead of a proportionate amount of disapproval the blowback you gave him was 100,000 times what was warranted and then you got blowback on your blowback. This continues to this day like an echo chamber.

Unfortunately things can't go back the way they were. What was done has had a permanent impact and so compensation should be paid where it is due.

Your views on what happens behind the scenes are frankly simplistic. It takes a lot to keep this community together. Good admins are rare. In my opinion Ryan is a good admin, that is why I keep him on.

 

[Donald Duck]

@Sythe, So if someone wants to dig up personal information they might as well do it to a normal user rather than a staff member?

It's like robbing bank A instead of bank B, and only robbing bank A because the consequences are less, even though you take as much money (if you get what I mean.)

 

He fucked up once....

And continues to fuck up to this day?

I'm looking at him as an Admin as a whole, not just the way he acted last year.

You users make a huge fucking storm in a teacup ever few years about whoever is second in command. You think I don't watch what they are doing?

Response to the actions, not the user.

Power is a two way street. This is not a concept that comes easily and in my experience most staff have to experience it first hand, it cannot be told to them. -- You don't learn to drive by reading a textbook. Likewise you don't learn how to manage a community by being instructed. You have to learn by doing it. I let Ryan give out those fun ranks -- an obvious abuse of power. I let him do it, I was even on facebook at the time talking to him, because it was harmless and I knew the community would give him blowback and he would learn from it. This would help keep him in balance.

Interesting to get some insight into this from your end.

Unfortunately you guys are a bunch of sadists. So instead of a proportionate amount of disapproval the blowback you gave him was 100,000 times what was warranted and then you got blowback on your blowback. This continues to this day like an echo chamber. Unfortunately things can't go back the way they were. What was done has had a permanent impact and so compensation should be paid where it is due.

Both sides we're at fault, I'd disagree that the community response was 100,000 times worse. Maybe those few BA hackers response was, but the community being upset wasn't particularly disproportionate imo.

Your views on what happens behind the scenes are frankly simplistic. It takes a lot to keep this community together. Good admins are rare. In my opinion Ryan is a good admin, that is why I keep him on.

There is no attempt at transparency from the staff, obviously I have no idea what goes on between you guys off-site. All I can comment on is what happened publically, and how you personally responded to it.

Anything else I say on the matter is speculation.

As far as his role as an administrator goes, I believe if you were to measure his approval ratings they would be absolutely dismal.

Not sure if either of us would like to continue this, please consider my suggestions though.

 

[Abarta]

I think I'm actually on sythe's side on this one .

If people mind their own business and not dox staff members it shouldn't even be a problem. Maybe raise it for regular users to 3 months? But, the wording on the IRL part is kinda confusing.

Like could doing that to Trin count as an IRL acquaintance to n4no because they were e-dating or whatever?

 

[Trin]

I think I'm actually on sythe's side on this one .

If people mind their own business and not dox staff members it shouldn't even be a problem. Maybe raise it for regular users to 3 months? But, the wording on the IRL part is kinda confusing.

Like could doing that to Trin count as an IRL acquaintance to n4no because they were e-dating or whatever?

WRONG- Just because Hattez says it doesn't make it a fact.

It should read: significant other (which would include girlfriend/boyfriend, spouses) and family.

Though, I might agree with a 3 month ban for regular users.

Also, using a "range" for bans for public vs. private information is arguable. Using the name Trin doesn't bring up any personal information (that may be public) but using an IRL name that was hacked from a private email might or does.

Side note: I was wrongly accused & found innocent, therefore I am not a convicted criminal. Does it humiliate me? NO. Does it make me a better person? Yes.


#factsstraight

 

And continues to fuck up to this day?

I'm looking at him as an Admin as a whole, not just the way he acted last year.

Examples.

Both sides we're at fault, I'd disagree that the community response was 100,000 times worse. Maybe those few BA hackers response was, but the community being upset wasn't particularly disproportionate imo.

Spamming personal photographs from a hacked email is a proportionate response to giving out a fun rank?

There is no attempt at transparency from the staff, obviously I have no idea what goes on between you guys off-site. All I can comment on is what happened publically, and how you personally responded to it.

Anything else I say on the matter is speculation.

As far as his role as an administrator goes, I believe if you were to measure his approval ratings they would be absolutely dismal.

Not sure if either of us would like to continue this, please consider my suggestions though.

If people are unhappy with the way the site is run they are welcome to post legitimate reasoned feedback. If they are still unhappy with the response they are just as welcome to close their browser window.

 

[funbox]

harassing / e-bullying

You really must be either a child, or a sensitive 16 year old if you're capable to get "e-bullied" by people you don't know nor ever will meet with on a black marketing forum on the internet.


As for this topic, what he did by posting personal information was break a law. I do not give a fuck in his response where he states "once you put something on the internet it doesn't belong to you". The law is called Information privacy law/data protective law, which is different in every country.

Staff will always be targeted for anything. If someone makes a scam report and the scammer is banned, the scammer will have a grudge on the moderator who banned him, and this counts for any type of ban.

in the spam forum "rules" it states Personal Information of other members
Including but not limited to: names, pictures, social media links, emails and contact details etc or quotes from the Personal Support forum, regardless of whether or not the information is publicly available.

One of the things he did was post a criminal record, which itself is WHOLE NEW LEVEL above the "spam forum rule". You're claiming that posting private information like "your name" is similar to a "criminal record"?

Also, I don't even think he should have a warning like you've stated, because it's not a laughing matter to post personal information. There's a reason why he doesn't show his criminal record and most likely wouldn't want too, so why does he think he should have the "right" to post other's.

And to close it all up, I'm mainly focusing on the "criminal record" post because it's the only one of the threads i saw before they got deleted.


And also posting like an illiterate invertebrate doesn't help his stance giving retarded statements like "once it's on the internet it's not yours" (referrance to http://i.imgur.com/wfEUNQm.png)

 

[Xier0]

IMO, this thread is degenerating into another discussion about Hattez, which for all intensive purposes, most of the persons involved have reached as close as their going to get to a mutual agreement.

People should be focusing on the rule itself - pointing out vulnerabilities or making sure that it can be interpreted clearly by users who are supposed to follow it, and by the staff who enforce it.

The reason it should be worded in this way is because when someone is a member of the both the groups "IRL acquaintance" and "Sythe.org" member, it would be realistically impossible to discern with certainty whether or not the personal info attacks against the non-staff member were personally against that Sythe.org regular member, or personally against the Staff member.

Also, the potential for abuse is greater because it extends staff benefits to non-staff Sythe.org users. Let's say Roary is staff, and regular Sythe user goldseller123 isn't. Let's say goldseller123 is an "IRL acquaintance" of Roary. If I leaked goldseller123's information, why should I be punished on the same level as if I leaked Roary's information? I could make the plea for ignorance that I had no way of knowing goldseller123 and Roary knew each other at all, etc.

Someone's status as a Sythe.org member overrides their status as an IRL outsider.

 

[funbox]

5char

Because leaking criminal records of a staff member taken from a hacked email account(being hattez or not) is exactly the same as

Your logic is flawed.