-SpectraL's PI in this thread

[-SpectraL]

Jeff Hunter had a policy that no personal information at all was to be posted, not eve your own, not even if you just said it was, and that worked perfectly for decades. If it ain't broke, don't try and "fix" it.

[Slave of the Beast]

Why did you ban RisiR but only edit Lanny's post? Did Spectral confirm that wasn't his PI?

I didn't want to ban RisiR but he kept posting that "PI" as I was trying to get things worked out with him in PMs.

What part of 'get verification before making a decision' do you not understand?

If you got trolled into banning someone then you're too stupid to be on staff.

[Spectre]

That's not the rule though. PI, per arnox's definition, is only identifying info that pertains to people who post here. If my info doesn't identify someone who posts here then it's not against the rules. The only way you can tell that it identifies someone is if you verify (again, per arnox's edict). How long do I have to wait on the PI verification process before I can repost the info in my OP?

Instead of testing things like this to the detriment of all involved, let's just chat about this stuff and try to come to a reasonable solution.  I kinda like the democratic approach where everyone votes in the end.  You've highlighted some important issues here to be sure.

Well we tried all PI being off limits and it clearly didn't work out very well. Zok had very strict PI rules and it didn't keep him from getting doxxed. Let's make all PI free to be posted and just have people willing to walk away from an account if their PI is leaked. Easy.

And I really don't want people to get their PI leaked, I know it sucks, my own PI is floating around the site and that's not fun. What we can do is make it possible to delete an account, which will limit the amount of damage PI can do. I understand why arnox doesn't want to do that but it should be clear that he's putting thread coherency and SEO before the well being of people who have had their PI leaked.

But what about the extreme cases, like what happened to Zok?  The policies are in place to protect people from having things like that happen.  I guess you would say that it doesn't matter too much because if it gets out and people want to share it it's going to happen on some medium regardless.  But if you ask me, the fewer people involved the better.  Stuff posted here publicly is a lot different from things being shared privately.

That said, if everyone thinks the PI rule is stupid then I don't see why we couldn't change the rules and simply allow it.  My vote is that PI sharing sucks and shouldn't be allowed.  I'll talk to Arnox about this and see how he feels about polling the community and discussing things in a more official thread.

Rules are never a perfect solution, and they all bring with them problems of their own.  When a rule is worthwhile, the net benefit outweighs the net detriment.  'Course that's all subjective, but yeah.  I'd like to hear more opinions.

hey fucker this was discussed at length when the rules were "in beta" these are all points people brought up before this is what Arnox decided not the users

[Spectre]

Why did you ban RisiR but only edit Lanny's post? Did Spectral confirm that wasn't his PI?

I didn't want to ban RisiR but he kept posting that "PI" as I was trying to get things worked out with him in PMs.

What part of 'get verification before making a decision' do you not understand?

If you got trolled into banning someone then you're too stupid to be on staff.

this also you still are not to delete posts

[Lanny]

But what about the extreme cases, like what happened to Zok?  The policies are in place to protect people from having things like that happen.  I guess you would say that it doesn't matter too much because if it gets out and people want to share it it's going to happen on some medium regardless.  But if you ask me, the fewer people involved the better.  Stuff posted here publicly is a lot different from things being shared privately.

Zok's case is exactly my point. It was not a failure of moderators removing PI that led to zok being run off. Zok's info as never actually posted on the forums as far as I know and even if it was it was obviously quickly removed and he still had to bail.

As for public posting vs. PM I think the distinction is effectively non-existent. You know how quickly word spreads on this site. And who do you need to worry about getting your PI? It's the people who PM eachother PI anyway.

Back on zoklet a T&T poster, fractals, made this little script to delete posts. After a while I ended up maintaining the thing. I regularly got people requesting that I delete their posts. A lot of the time, even when I was a mod, after getting their PI posted people would ask me to delete their posts and specifically asked me not to do anything about the PI because it's obviously out there and deleting it would just set off the person who posted it.

[Spectre]

if you don't want pi out there don't have a ridiculously huge internet footprint

maybe if you're worried about what people would think if they connected pi to who you are you shouldn't post pics with curtain rods and assholes

[-SpectraL]

For Lanny, posting people's home address and full name and phone number is the central core of a great BBS.

[victimthrax]

spectral has a telus talk 45 pay as you go in someone elses name that he registers for all documentation because he's super 1337

is that PI?

[equanimity]

Zok's case is exactly my point. It was not a failure of moderators removing PI that led to zok being run off. Zok's info as never actually posted on the forums as far as I know and even if it was it was obviously quickly removed and he still had to bail.

As for public posting vs. PM I think the distinction is effectively non-existent. You know how quickly word spreads on this site. And who do you need to worry about getting your PI? It's the people who PM eachother PI anyway.

Back on zoklet a T&T poster, fractals, made this little script to delete posts. After a while I ended up maintaining the thing. I regularly got people requesting that I delete their posts. A lot of the time, even when I was a mod, after getting their PI posted people would ask me to delete their posts and specifically asked me not to do anything about the PI because it's obviously out there and deleting it would just set off the person who posted it.

I was thinking about this some today, and I really disagree.  Those posters here who share and seek out PI are some of the worst that could get their hands on it, but public is a huge huge difference.  Zok's PI was insane.  I saw it the night before Zok posted his TTFN, and it included names, addresses and social security numbers of his parents.  Of course not good for the BI crowd here to have, but that kind of thing accessible by anyone is so much worse.

Same goes with sort of minor stuff, like RL names.  Sanctuary could show up from a google search of their name, and that really might be bad for employment or any number of things.  To set the precedent that any and all PI is not against the rules would likely cause problems in the future when something serious gets posted and we then decide to remove it.  Everyone's a rules lawyer, and a lot of people are actively looking for reasons to be upset with us.

Honestly though Lanny, I don't really see anyone else saying they have an issue with PI being against the rules.  If you guys are out there, please speak up.  The people complaining here are more complaining about me acting on my own to remove those posts of RisiR's than they are the larger issue of PI being allowed/disallowed.  Which is totally a valid concern in its own right, and one we might need to address soon.  Until then though, I don't want to create more drama where none really exists.  I'm glad RisiR's not banned and hope we can continue having not-banned members.  I hate banning our regulars.

This meta forum posting stuff is getting tiresome tbh.  I'll for sure be here to discuss concerns anyone has, but really wish we could all just chat and be our cool laid-back selves instead of inventing and feeding internet drama.

[-SpectraL]

It's the staff causing the drama by not making the right decisions and being so weak and undecided about the mission statement here. That has nothing to do with any member or the userbase.

[DaGuru]

really wish we could all just chat and be our cool laid-back selves instead of inventing and feeding internet drama.

Bullshit....those are the emptiest words off of your keyboard possible. Because 95+% of the drama on here is the fact you were modded and your constant fucking up as a moderator. Along with derailing just about every thread you touch. If you had any sense of sincerity for even 5 seconds backing those words, you would resign and just post like every other member. You don't NEED to be a mod to post, but you know damn well you'd eventually be infracted/banned for your constant attention whoring and toxic derailing. The drama/attention is ALL you care about, or else you would do the obvious and right thing and quit prolonging this absolute farce.

[HaitiSpaceAgency]

There should be absolutely no tolerance for PI offenders. Maybe a little bit of tolerance if the offense is something benign like "hey i found TimmyMcDumbFuck's account on mylittleponyforums.org, lets all laugh this weirdo" becuase that could be kind of funny. But anything that possibly lead to their real life info should a  PERMANENT BAN.

[Slave of the Beast]

...really wish we could all just chat and be our cool laid-back selves instead of inventing and feeding internet drama.

Well said. As a starting point you could stop derailing threads. Then work your way up to stepping down as a mod.