The Personal Information Rule

Although I'm pretty much on the side of radically liberalizing the rule, I think this is a valid point. Many of us might have posted things in the past or accepted friend requests on Facebook under the belief that a firewall existed between that and Red Room shenanigans. Part of my reason for using a John Castle picture for an avatar over the weekend was that I wanted to troll him, but another part is that I wanted to make a statement about the problems we create when we leave so much to interpretation by a few rule makers. Before Tamar ruled in favor of such avatars, it would never have occurred to me that it didn't violate the privacy rules. Yet at the same time, I can't say that it should bother anybody on a small familial board like this one if we make fun of each other's pictures.

The fact is, you're telling everyone on the internet unless the forum is hidden.

All the rules in the world can't stop people who want to from doing it anyway.

It's basically pretending you have privacy when you don't.


Oh, and protecting internet handles....that's just really out there.

true. whether or not a person sticks around is also subject to change. If the personal information rule is loosened too much, a lot of people will leave.

I've no problems at a glance with the parts I've snipped, but as to these two, that makes no sense. Previous incarnations on wordforge offer highly relevant information that isn't particularly personal, and there's no reason to treat an image posted on wordforge differently than any other deliberately revealed personal information. Making fun of a voluntarily revealed picture by editing and reposting it is not significantly different than making fun of someone's profession or sports team preference.

Just a starting point; please pick away.

I thought (6) might be going too far with the "or previous incarnations on WF" part, but I think people should be able to change their identity.

As for (9), I should clarify: images posted in protected areas.

I realize that. It doesn't make it any more right or creepy if, say, people take information that you voluntarily put out there in one context and misuse it in another.

Such is an argument against any given rule against any given behavior, and not a particularly strong one.

A rule has more functions than simply preventing a given type of behavior. It also makes a statement about what an organization's values are and provides punishment for rule breakers.

I would prefer, personally, if WF were a place that said, "Trolling people based on what they say in the non-Blue Room parts of WF is OK. But you can't go hunting IRL or elsewhere on the web for people's personal information to troll or harass them. If you do, you will be banned."

It's not pretending that the other stuff isn't "public" in that sense of things. It is creating a disincentive to go hunting for info off board.

Maybe you're misreading what I said. I don't think I said anything about protecting Internet handles. If in the hypothetical example we talked about, I said somewhere here, "My e-mail is raoulhomes.net," I don't have a problem with someone trolling me by calling me "Raoul Homo" or "Raoul Homely" or something (at least as a policy matter. I'm sure I would be broken inside.)

I would have a problem with someone extrapolating from raoulhomes.net that I sell homes, chatting up my officemates and coming back to WF and saying, "Guess what I found out from Raoul Homo's co-workers? He had an affair with a co-worker and returns his library books late!"

I consider the latter stalking and would prefer a personal information policy that would punish rather than reward it.

That is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Finding people IRL, getting information and putting it on the internet is not something anyone can find in a simple Google search. There is no way that would be acceptable in any context.

Yeah, I don't see how any of what Raoul mentions wouldn't be protected even if we did away with the policy all together. I guess we need to spell out the difference between expectation of privacy and freedom from stalking.

Wait a minute...what the hell is www.raoulsmanlylove.com?

Don't forget that what's done here can also be found elsewhere. You might think its cute and fun to troll someone with an image here, but you and you're trolling target can be associated with that image beyond WF now, for example through TinEye and Google Image search.

It's probably where Duke Jr. and his duals get together for a circle jerk.

As usual you have no point nor do you even pretend to have one. That in no way differentiates trolling by images from any other trolling. In any event, your own posts are far more dangerous to you than anything anyone's ever posted mocking you.

Keep up this asshattery and I might have to revert my avatar.

I would suggest you reorder some of the points and reconsider others.

What I would suggest is some sort of preamble explaining what the policy is about, going into specifics yet simplifying it.

For instance:

Well, personal information in this sense is posted all the time. Some posters use what is purportedly their real names in whole or in part. Certainly, people have divulged what field they are in.

What I might suggest is something like:

"Abuse of Personal Information

WordForge policy is to set reasonable limits to the use of personal information to troll or mock its posters. The goal of the policy is to allow some trolling, but to penalize or ban posters who go too far. There are numerous grey areas here, and WordForge reserves the right to decide on a case by case basis when to penalize or ban members for their abuse of personal information of other posters. The owner and/or his representatives has the final determination about what constitutes abuse of personal information.

For the purpose of this policy, "personal information" refers to information about a poster's real life, including (but not limited to) the poster's name, physical address, the poster's photograph, employer, spouse, family members, phone number. Information that directly hints at personal information, such as a poster's initials, is also considered personal information.

Personal information that is voluntarily revealed by the poster in a public area of Wordforge other than the Blue Room may be used freely for trolling.

Personal information that is revealed only in the Blue Room or on private messages will be considered protected.

The WordForge administration takes accusations of abuse of personal information seriously. It will investigate them fully.

To bring an accusation of abuse of personal information, a member must provide evidence to support the claim.

To defend against an accusation of abuse of personal information, a member may show that the information was available in a public area of WordForge other than the Blue Room."

The last part of your proposed policy I had some questions about:

I guess this is supposed to be some sort of grandfather clause, but I suppose it should be written more clearly. I'm not sure it needs to be explicitly said, given the other part of the policy.

So someone could go after Tamar, say, for releasing information 8 years ago?

It doesn't make sense to explicitly prevent there from being a limitation on retroactivity, especially given your 3rd point in this section:

This part of the policy doesn't make much sense to me.

How "immediately" is "immediately"?

Why is relevant that the person didn't report it immediately? If the behavior is something that we wish to penalize, surely we should penalize it regardless of whether the person took a day, a week, a month to report it.

Why is it tied to the member (presumably) whose personal information is leaked? If I say, "Paladin's real life name is John Jacob Jinkleheimer Schmidt and he's a big jerk," I don't see why, say, Packard could not make a complaint.

Not sure such a component would be needed or wanted. Also don't know how you could in the context of this prove that someone intentionally lied about the release of personal information.

People should be able to change their username, sure, but this is like saying I get a warning for calling Megatron Tasvir, or John Castle Visionrazor, or one of his many other incarnations. That's an insane rule.

I guess I see using information I find out here to find people IRL and getting information to troll them not significantly different from using information I find out here to find people elsewhere on the Internet and getting information to troll them.

Or perhaps more clearly, it's a difference in degree and not kind.

And some people do put out enough information out there, unfortunate for them, that you could probably piece together something about them with a simple Google search.

I don't think that "it's so easy even a caveman could do it" vs. "This takes mad Internet skillz to find out about" should be a factor in what is allowed and what isn't.

Hey! His name is my name too!

But are you also a big jerk?

Not sure -- whenever we go out, people always SHOUT!

Okay, scratch that one.

That's personal information!

This. You don't just rip the foundation of something out and expect people to not leave.

Fair enough. This was my first cut.

I make an allowance for personal information that the member themselves disclose. If I tell you my name's "Fred" in the Red Room, I can't really complain if you call me "Fred."

A little different in the wording, but pretty similar.

It's exactly that: a grandfather clause. If it's been let out of the bag before, so be it. If we start a new policy today, no fair claiming your personal info was out there three years ago.

Perhaps I should qualify and say this is only for new incidents. I wouldn't want to penalize someone retroactively especially if there was no violation of the rules at the time of the occurance. But for new instances, no time limit: do something today and it can be held against you in the future.

Let's suppose "Fred" is my real name. And you (somehow) know this and call me "Fred." And I don't object or report it. And other people start calling me "Fred." And, after six months, there's hundreds of instances of people calling me that. IT'S TOO LATE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT IT THEN. He who is silent, consents.

How soon would you report exposure of information you wanted kept private? Let's just say "immediately." It might be three weeks if you don't long in regularly. It might be five seconds if you're in an active thread.

For several reasons. First, if you don't object, you're essentially accepting the release. And if you don't report IMMEDIATELY, the information will spread and may become public or even--like with a name--commonplace. It's TOO LATE to punish anyone then.

Packard could (and should). But the final determination would rest with confirming that my name is, in fact, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.

Personal information is not to be toyed with; anyone who wastes our time making false claims about it should be penalized. As with all things, the burden is on the prosecution to show that the person knew it was false.

Hell, that stupid pedo Apostle violates "e" with me all the fucking time. Why the hell hasn't his ass been banned multiple times now?

http://wordforge.net/showpost.php?p=2410559&postcount=66

That's an example (one out of dozens) from just a week ago. The admins here seem to selectively enforce rules only against people they don't like. That is my guess any way since they're so inconsistent.


http://wordforge.net/showpost.php?p=2394340&postcount=25

There is Asyn breaking the same rule. How about we see some action on consistent rules enforcement, eh, mods?

How about a "starting now, no more of that or anyone who does it can expect x" announcement? Followed by consistency. No more loopholes, no more, "everybody already knew". We're trying to get new blood in here, people who DON'T know.

No thanks, visionrazer. First, it's basically saying we can't use nick names. What if I call a certain English barrister El Chub, because he's so damn fat. Right now, that's flaming, and though he may whine about it, the name would constitute free speech, something we supposedly care about here. With the no screen names from other boards rule, he can just claim that he uses the name elsewhere, and I get in trouble. I reserve the right to call anybody here whatever name I'd like, with the exception of their real name.

So in the event he claimed it was a screen name from somewhere else, he'd be asked for evidence in the form of a URL leading to a time stamped post that precedes you using it here. Easy as that.

It's the internet, you're screaming it to the world. If you don't want the entire world to have access to it, don't say it.

This is a discussion about NEW rules...that is not the current rule and I still think protecting alternate internet handles is an insane level of "protection".

This is an idea so ripe for abuse it isn't funny and apt to reveal more than it protects. We have had several incidents of this happen and many go completely unnoticed because we do our best to not draw attention to it. Since El Chup mentioned it himself, Muad is doing it right now. Now...Sokar also has the same avatar. Should they be punished for having avatars of a famous person because their initials happen to be the same as a poster? How about posters where we don't know who they are and they get a grudge against someone...they could just pretend their initials or some other personal information is "hinted" at in something their "enemy" posted.

That would also discourage free speech.

Free speech doesn't protect us from consequences. If somebody announces he plans to commit a crime, for example, his right to say it is not infringed by the possibility of police investigation. If you say it on the Internet, it is public speech.