The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation

[Waratah]

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.

Rayaan's investigation into Jacob was wrong because he used private information (i.e. his email address) to do a search.

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.

I think you misunderstood me. At no point did I suggest that someone's behaviour outside of the forum would be cause to have them warned or banned. The only way you get warned or banned is by breaking the rules of this forum, on this forum.

However, we do occasionally search on other forums in order to verify suspicions about a member. For example, if a new member posts a long chunk of text that looks like a copy/paste, we will take sections of that text and search for it on Google. If it shows up in a number of other forums, especially if it was posted recently in those forums, then we know that the person is just going around forums and posting the same thing, which is effectively spamming.

In this situation, Rayaan suspected Jacob to be a poe, and looked into him. If he had just used his username / other public info to do the search, there would have been no problem (anyone on the forum, staff or not, can do the exact same thing). If after searching, he still suspected Jacob to be a poe, he would have informed the staff. At which point, we would not have issued any warnings or bans, because being a poe is not against the rules. Instead, we would have likely just paid a bit more attention to his posts, because as I've stated before, the main reason people create poe accounts is to ultimately start trolling at some point.

I still disagree with the investigation of someone who has broken no rules, as I believe it could create a bias. I believe judgement should be totally based on this forum only. A confirmed poe's (from outside the forum) posts will be treated differently compared to others. I do not think it is fair.

If I understand what you have written above correctly, I think this is ok(privacy wise). Just to confirm I am understanding correctly.

You will only use publicly accessible information to confirm suspicions about a user's intent.