Two Rule Updates

[Tiberius]

In both those cases, it wouldn't be a rule violation.

So you can talk about your relationship with Johnny even if he is a member of the forum? And you can call him by his name if he had disclosed it on the forum himself?

If Johnny is a member of the forum, then no, you can't talk about your relationship unless you have his permission to do so. Neither can he talk about his relationship with you without your permission.

However, if Johnny is not a member of the forums, and you only refer to him as "Johnny" and not by his full name, then you can talk about your relationship.

In addition, if Johnny is a member of the forums but he hasn't revealed his name, so nobody knows that "KingArthur22" is Johnny, then you can talk about your relationship with "Johnny", but you can't talk about your relationship with "KingArthur22". This circumstance might be cause for some debate though.

[Jackalope]

So you can talk about your relationship with Johnny even if he is a member of the forum? And you can call him by his name if he had disclosed it on the forum himself?

If Johnny is a member of the forum, then no, you can't talk about your relationship unless you have his permission to do so. Neither can he talk about his relationship with you without your permission.

However, if Johnny is not a member of the forums, and you only refer to him as "Johnny" and not by his full name, then you can talk about your relationship.

In addition, if Johnny is a member of the forums but he hasn't revealed his name, so nobody knows that "KingArthur22" is Johnny, then you can talk about your relationship with "Johnny", but you can't talk about your relationship with "KingArthur22". This circumstance might be cause for some debate though.

Suffice it to say, regardless of any of the above, if you have explicit permission to talk about the relationship, you're good. If you're in doubt as to whether you have permission, there's a simple remedy for that. Problem solved.

The issue only becomes an issue if you don't have consent.

[Tiberius]

Honestly, the best way to think about it is this: don't reveal private / personal information about a person that can be directly or indirectly linked back to that person, unless you have permission from that person to do so.

So stating "I am in a relationship with <insert member name here>" is against the rules unless the member in question has given you permission to reveal your relationship. You could alternatively say "I am in a relationship with a girl named Sarah" and not break the rules, because "Sarah" is a name that could apply to countless people, even if she is a member of the forums.

[Excited Penguin]

Fucking great.

I will go kill myself now.

[Shell B]

So you can talk about your relationship with Johnny even if he is a member of the forum? And you can call him by his name if he had disclosed it on the forum himself?

If Johnny is a member of the forum, then no, you can't talk about your relationship unless you have his permission to do so. Neither can he talk about his relationship with you without your permission.

Um, but you just said that wasn't a rule violation. I literally posted about both cases where Johnny is a member and not a member. My entire argument is that you'd be policing what people can say about their own personal lives if that personal life involves someone on the forum, which I argue is something people should police themselves, though I'm not invested enough to actually call for that to be policy. If Susie and Johnny are in a relationship and everyone knows their names, and Susie says "I'm fucking Johnny." what does that have to do with the forum? Sure, Johnny can feel put out with Susie if it wasn't something he wanted disclosed, but it's not doxxing, and not hurting Johnny more than the typical pangs of gossip. Johnny can do exactly what he could do in any other social situation–confirm, deny or ignore. Does Susie get banned because she's fucking Johnny, but Johnny doesn't want anyone to know? That's weird to me. Those are the kind of things I think grownups can and should handle themselves. Feasibly, you could disclose to the forum that I'm grieving the death of a family member or something, and I could report you for disclosing personal information, even though it's not doxxing, when I should just ask you privately not to talk about things I don't want you to talk about. See what I mean? I'm not trying to make your jobs more convoluted or get you to change a rule. I'm just expounding upon my earlier off-hand comments.

[Shell B]

Fucking great.

I will go kill myself now.

Well, that escalated pretty quickly. I'm fairly certain it's not going to affect you that much, EP.

[Thumpalumpacus]

However, if you said, 'Johnny Carstairs, that short bloke with the pointed beard who is the assistant manager at Unpainted Widgets Limited - the location on Elm Drive, not the one on Main Street - is TOTALLY into moose-play', you'd be bounced out of here so fast the air would crackle.  And rightly so.

Boru

What if I said that Boru is a notorious sheep-shagger?

Pretty sure doxxng only refers to confidential info, not common knowledge.

ETA-- damn you, Boru, for de-winding my sails!

[Tiberius]

Ok, so to be clearer, if "Johnny" is the username, then you can't say you're in a relationship unless you have his permission. If "Johnny" is the real name of a non-member, or the real name of a member and people don't know you are talking about that member when you say "Johnny", then you can say you're in a relationship with them because it doesn't lead back to that person or that member.

To use a real world example, say we are in a relationship (which we are) but for whatever reason you didn't want people to know yet, and nobody on the forums knew. Here are some statements I could make that are both against the rule, or not against the rule.

1) I'm in a relationship with Shell B - AGAINST the rule, because I'm revealing private / personal information about you, the member.
2) I'm in a relationship with a girl named XXXX - NOT AGAINST the rule, because the name "XXXX" doesn't directly refer to you, even though it's your name. It could refer to any other person named XXXX.
3) I'm in a relationship with a girl named XXXX and her phone number is XYZ - AGAINST the rule, because it's revealing private / personal information.

To be even clearer, the only reason this is under the "doxing" rule is because it kinda made sense to put it there. We couldn't have created an entirely new rule for it, maybe we should have in hindsight, but I think for now it's fine.

[Excited Penguin]

If Johnny is a member of the forum, then no, you can't talk about your relationship unless you have his permission to do so. Neither can he talk about his relationship with you without your permission.

Um, but you just said that wasn't a rule violation. I literally posted about both cases where Johnny is a member and not a member. My entire argument is that you'd be policing what people can say about their own personal lives if that personal life involves someone on the forum, which I argue is something people should police themselves, though I'm not invested enough to actually call for that to be policy. If Susie and Johnny are in a relationship and everyone knows their names, and Susie says "I'm fucking Johnny." what does that have to do with the forum? Sure, Johnny can feel put out with Susie if it wasn't something he wanted disclosed, but it's not doxxing, and not hurting Johnny more than the typical pangs of gossip. Johnny can do exactly what he could do in any other social situation–confirm, deny or ignore. Does Susie get banned because she's fucking Johnny, but Johnny doesn't want anyone to know? That's weird to me. Those are the kind of things I think grownups can and should handle themselves. Feasibly, you could disclose to the forum that I'm grieving the death of a family member or something, and I could report you for disclosing personal information, even though it's not doxxing, when I should just ask you privately not to talk about things I don't want you to talk about. See what I mean? I'm not trying to make your jobs more convoluted or get you to change a rule. I'm just expounding upon my earlier off-hand comments.

This is pretty much everything I want to know on the matter, myself. Thank you, SB.

[Shell B]

Ok, so to be clearer, if "Johnny" is the username, then you can't say you're in a relationship unless you have his permission. If "Johnny" is the real name of a non-member, or the real name of a member and people don't know you are talking about that member when you say "Johnny", then you can say you're in a relationship with them because it doesn't lead back to that person or that member.

To use a real world example, say we are in a relationship (which we are) but for whatever reason you didn't want people to know yet, and nobody on the forums knew. Here are some statements I could make that are both against the rule, or not against the rule.

1) I'm in a relationship with Shell B - AGAINST the rule, because I'm revealing private / personal information about you, the member.
2) I'm in a relationship with a girl named XXXX - NOT AGAINST the rule, because the name "XXXX" doesn't directly refer to you, even though it's your name. It could refer to any other person named XXXX.
3) I'm in a relationship with a girl named XXXX and her phone number is XYZ - AGAINST the rule, because it's revealing private / personal information.

To be even clearer, the only reason this is under the "doxing" rule is because it kinda made sense to put it there. We couldn't have created an entirely new rule for it, maybe we should have in hindsight, but I think for now it's fine.

This is absolutely silly. There was a perfectly fine doxing rule in effect and now there's a nanny rule that could logically prohibit members from talking about their own relationships, a topic which, again, has nothing to do with the forum. Why can't this be left to people in their own private relationships to decide in their own private lives?