Privacy concerns from [split] AF Hall of Shame (Post Edition)

[Jacob(smooth)]

I second Lemons motion for action.

This:

---

---

did the trick.

Haters.

Hating is both unnecessary and irrelevant. And as I've said I have no interest in anyone's resignation. To me that would be both unnecessary, redundant and more importantly, tangent to the issue. That issue being the interpretation of the privacy policy and how far it is extended.

I don't think that looking up users on other forums is needful, and I certainly don't think that it's implied within the privacy policy, which specifically refers to use of information INTERNALLY.

I think "your information is used internally only when necessary " infers exactly that. Monitoring people's activities on other forums is clearly EXTERNAL. The example given, keeping IP addresses, is germain, I can see the application because it can directly lead to a" conviction" for sock puppeting. I can't see the need to see what people are saying on other forums.

Let's say there was a user who claimed atheism here but espoused strong religious views on another forum. Is that against the forum rules? Don't see how it could be. The best that could be said for finding that out is that it might alert the staff to the possibility the person MIGHT be LIKELY to break a rule. But until they do, nothing can be done. So really, how needful is it?

I will be interested in the mods deliberations on this when they are ripe. If might be so presumptuous as to make a suggestion. If as Rayaan suggests such investigation is necessary, even of established board members, a rewording of the privacy policy to reflect this might be in order. Something on the lines of :-

"in order to protect the smooth running of the forum, it may be necessary to use information given to the Admin team to investigate your activities elsewhere on the Internet and to check posts you've made on other forums to identify if the Admin team needs to keep a closer eye on you"

That would be an honest reflection of what seems to be going on and would be a t&c I would not have agreed to had it been so written.