The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation

[Waratah]

During this whole event I have thought the first and major mistake was the reason for the investigation, that Jacob was thought to be a possible poe. In your opening post I had interpreted that you thought the investigation was done for the wrong reasons, i.e investigation of a possible poe was wrong. See below:

Whilst Rayaan may have initially thought he had good reason to look up Jacob on other forums, he (1) used information that was entrusted to atheistforums.org in a way which was not covered by our privacy policy.

Then you replied to Aractus post:

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Oh I nearly forgot. I would have posted this in the original thread in off-topic had it not been locked (I never posted in that thread):

The privacy policy clearly reads this:

• "You are also required to state your religious views, which is displayed on your profile for the benefit of all members. This information is not checked for validity or accuracy, and is publicly accessible once your account is created."
  

With all due respect what Rayaan did was a clear violation of the present written policy which states very clearly that "this information is not checked for validity or accuracy". To me that phrase is very clear and it means that a person's stated religious beliefs will not be investigated by staff; yet that is exactly what was done in this instance.

Tiberius, since you didn't specifically address this part of the privacy policy in your post, could you please clarify the staff's collective opinion on whether my interpretation of this is accurate or if you have a different interpretation of this part of the privacy policy?

That section was added to the policy mainly to clarify that the "requirement" to state your religious views didn't mean you would be banned if you lied about them. However I see now how those words could have the other meaning that you refer to. We will look into making that section more understandable

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The investigation of religious beliefs isn't usually done, mainly because being a poe isn't against the rules. It only breaks the rules when the poe starts trolling or otherwise disrupting the forum. Usually people only create poe accounts because they want to troll at some point, so looking into poe accounts (even though being a poe is not against the rules) is done on occasion so that the staff are aware of potential trolls.

So am I to understand that the reason why Rayann's investigation into Jacob was wrong not because of the possibility that Jacob is a poe, but because Rayanns suspicions for Jacob being a poe was not sufficient.

Personally I do not think the possibility for someone being a poe is a good enough reason for investigation because no rules are broken. Even if someone is trolling is not sufficient reason to investigate their activities outside the forum. They should be warned and banned on their behaviour on this forum only.

At the moment I can only think(other than security which I know hardly anything) of one thing which an investigation like Rayann did should occur, the possibility of a sock account. The evidence of breaking of all the other rules is all within the forum. Not outside. No need to investigate. I have never known anyone being banned for trolling, spamming or flaming outside the forums, always from within.