Oh my, a wall of text. I will try to climb it.
I do.
I have.
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?
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 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.
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 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.
Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. Girlfriend and all was keeping me busy. And the knowledge I was already going to only get 5 hours of sleep. Anyhoo. I didn't mean for it to be a wall. Sorry about that.
So it seems like there only has been a couple people actually targeted. I'm not sure if we really need to make a rule for only that number of people and even if we did, you are the owner and can remove anyone you want so it really does not even apply to you. Everyone already knows that if they fuck with you, you will fuck them right back.
The moderating comment was directed at the Hattenz situation. Rules only keep people from doing things when they are enforced. If the personal information rule had been used against Hattenz before he posted multiple times, he likely would have stopped, and been sorry, and he wouldn't have to be banned for 6 months. Really the comment was just to say that rules are only as effective as the application of them. Pretty obvious stuff and I think it should be the staff's goal to minimize the number of people that end up being banned. If we can control them another way and let them stay, it is better for activity and likely better for the site in the long run.
I still do not recall other you and Ryan anyone who has been attacked for their role as staff. Are you saying something like Tyro's "Finn is dishonest" thread counts in that or are you scoping to to personal information leaking? I think if you are referring to the former we could simply strengthen the notion of "do not fuck with staff" rather than strengthening a specific piece of that idea (the personal information rule). As long as it does not get abused I would not have any problem with that. Perhaps some sort of public discussion or explanation when such a rule was used would also be beneficial just so the community is very aware of what is going on and we avoid shit storms. I think more transparency would help users trust the staff more.
Staff of course put more of a foot forward than the average user but I do not believe that this is specific to privacy concerns. I would say the same I said in the above paragraph in that we could strengthen the do not fuck with staff policy while extending privacy rights to the wider user base.
I am concerned about the required punishment because the staff generally do follow the rules to the letter. The ban evasion rule is an amazing example of this. People used to evade infraction bans a lot and the staff would perm them for ban evasion. It was not until quite recently that the rules were adjusted so that this would not happen. Codifying into the rules the idea of staff flexibility is something that I think really helps and reduces the number of people pardoned since the staff have another way of not perming someone they do not feel should be permed.
Now to the rule, which is really what I care about in this thread. I never liked the wording "whether it is public or not" but I stuck with it because I could not think of a better way. The rule came about as a response to posting whois information on Sythe. I like the idea of different rules for public and private but I'm not sure it will work well in the context of Sythe.
The important part is below:
What I would suggest is the following:
1) Amend the blackhat rule to include a punishment for knowingly using, selling, disclosing, buying, etc anything that was obtained through any blackhat means. The punishment could range from a temp ban to a perm ban. This would make it clear that Hattenz was responsible for using Trin's name (which was found through blackhat means) to find out more information and would be responsible for that even though he did not have any part in the actual hacking (I think...?). We really already apply to this to gold sales and steam sales and shit, just more on a don't talk about it status, much like pins back in the days.
2) Amend the personal information rule to a privacy rule. Anything that a user has not themselves disclosed or posted in the public view on Sythe is not to be posted. That covers whois information. That covers public records like arrest reports. It covers phone numbers, names, facebook links, photos, essentially everything and I think that is better wording than the current rule. The punishment should be written as "up to 6 months" or "at least a one week ban but no more than a one year ban" or whatever. Give the staff a range because posting a picture from a known Facebook is a lot different than posting someone's address or bank information. I would be perfectly happy to have a clause at the end that was something like "Due to the nature of being a staff member, privacy violations against any staff member will have a minimum ban length of _______".
This accomplishes:
1) Being very harsh on using hacked information or stuff for any reason.
2) Keeps users and staff on the same playing field but just varies the punishments. As long as they have the same rules, I do not care.
3) Makes it really fucking clear what can and can not be posted. If it has not been posted, you can not post it.
4) Makes it really fucking clear that you can repost shit that has already been posted without a privacy rule violation (but flaming rules would apply and stuff).
