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The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation
#41
RE: The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation
(January 9, 2014 at 4:31 pm)Cinjin Wrote: I don't care about any of you anywhere near enough to spend time looking your real name up.

We love you too, Cinjin. Big Grin
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#42
RE: The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation
I'm an open book you'll get pretty bored with me once you figure out I'm just a chubby anime otaku with a love of hp fanfiction
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#43
RE: The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation
(January 9, 2014 at 3:05 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Using information that requires escalated privilege should be done only with a) adequate justification, and b) sufficient oversight. Furthermore, I cannot think of many situations where it would be necessary to do so.

Those are all good points.

However, I cannot think of any ways to establish a sufficient oversight, or some way to prove that the admins won't ever do such an investigation in secret unless they expose their investigation as I did. This is also what Aractus said in his first sentence in post # 12. Similarly, you know that admins are also able to view PMs ("Private Messages") and there is no oversight on whether they will go even further by using some of the PM details they looked at for searching up something. I think that a lot of members feel uncomfortable when they learn the fact that admins have access to their PMs in the first place, let alone the possibility of doing an investigation by using those.

Yeah, it's probably very unlikely to happen, but it's just that I don't see any way to know for sure whether this will be ever done or not (i.e. using private information for doing an investigation) unless an admin willingly admits doing it.

Maybe this simply comes down to how much trust you have in the admins?
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#44
RE: The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation
(January 9, 2014 at 1:31 pm)Tiberius Wrote:
(January 9, 2014 at 4:33 am)Waratah Wrote: 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.

Quote: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.
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#45
RE: The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation
(January 9, 2014 at 6:06 pm)Rayaan Wrote:
(January 9, 2014 at 3:05 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Using information that requires escalated privilege should be done only with a) adequate justification, and b) sufficient oversight. Furthermore, I cannot think of many situations where it would be necessary to do so.

Those are all good points.

However, I cannot think of any ways to establish a sufficient oversight, or some way to prove that the admins won't ever do such an investigation in secret unless they expose their investigation as I did. This is also what Aractus said in his first sentence in post # 12. Similarly, you know that admins are also able to view PMs ("Private Messages") and there is no oversight on whether they will go even further by using some of the PM details they looked at for searching up something. I think that a lot of members feel uncomfortable when they learn the fact that admins have access to their PMs in the first place, let alone the possibility of doing an investigation by using those.

Yeah, it's probably very unlikely to happen, but it's just that I don't see any way to know for sure whether this will be ever done or not (i.e. using private information for doing an investigation) unless an admin willingly admits doing it.

Maybe this simply comes down to how much trust you have in the admins?

You're correct - there is no real way to prove that such illicit investigations are not being done secretly. What can be done is to set expectations and responsibilities via policy and once that is done, if wrongdoing is detected, to deal with the wrongdoing in as transparent a manner as is possible.

It ultimately does come down to trust.
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#46
RE: The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation
(January 9, 2014 at 4:31 pm)Cinjin Wrote: Meh, searches - smerches. I don't care about any of you anywhere near enough to spend time looking your real name up.
I am merely a six shooter kept in the proverbial holster.


Draw on 3! Angel

[Image: 3a01641d1db144785381a9370d8d4668.jpg]
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#47
RE: The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation
(January 9, 2014 at 7:17 pm)Waratah Wrote: 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.
Without an investigation, sometimes we don't know if a user is breaking the rules or not. For example, if a spammer comes along and posts a lengthy post that looks copy / pasted, how can we know that they are spamming unless we take part of the post and Google for it on other forums? Sometimes posts that look copy / pasted are actually written specifically for these forums by the member.

Likewise in this case, the suspicion that Jacob was a poe was the reason for Rayaan's initial investigation. The investigation showed that the suspicion was wrong, so nothing happened.
Quote: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.
Yes, that is correct.
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#48
RE: The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation
Quote: However, I cannot think of any ways to establish a sufficient oversight,

Where I work we have a rule on degrees of separation when undertaking disciplinary process. If I, as a line manager, come across one of my team doing something, I do an initial investigation/interview. That's just to establish if there is a need to look into something. Once established that there is, I have to hand over the actual investigation to another line manager so there can be no question of partiality or victimisation.

Just a suggestion, would there be any legs to this? So if a mod has a suspicion regarding a thread they are involved in, they hand it off to a mod who ISN'T involved? That way there is no question that an investigation is undertaken out of pique, or to gain an edge in a debate?

Or is that just going too far.
"Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken."
Sith code
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#49
RE: The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation
Seems like a very good idea. I wonder how much more burden this would place on staff. On the one hand it would probably be more expedient to handle business oneself where and when one finds it. But then I have no idea just how frequently mods have to pursue spammers or how much of their time on site is spent on such tasks. It probably isn't very often that spammers actively interact with the forums (and mods). Spammers more often want to shit and run. Perhaps a distinction should be made between interactive new posters and non-responsive ones.
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#50
RE: The Rayaan / Jacob(smooth) Situation
(January 11, 2014 at 6:07 am)whateverist Wrote: Seems like a very good idea. I wonder how much more burden this would place on staff. On the one hand it would probably be more expedient to handle business oneself where and when one finds it. But then I have no idea just how frequently mods have to pursue spammers or how much of their time on site is spent on such tasks. It probably isn't very often that spammers actively interact with the forums (and mods). Spammers more often want to shit and run.

Technically its the same amount of work, it just rotates it one step to the left so to speak.
Quote: Perhaps a distinction should be made between interactive new posters and non-responsive ones.
Good thought.
"Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken."
Sith code
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