[Question for Mods/Admin] Does Boards have an objective definition of "stalking"?

Iwannahurl

A questions for the Moderators, if I may.

The Boards Terms of Use charter includes a rule that members must not "defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others."

Can you provide a detailed, and preferably objective, definition of "stalking" please?

For the sake of clarity, if possible, could you also refer to some examples? It's not a concept I'm familiar with on Boards.

Thanks in advance.

Overheal

operationally I think it's been found best to leave some terms purposefully broad: if everything was explicitly definable, there'd be no point in human volunteer moderators; simple terms mean its easy to address casy-by-case. But I've seen cases where users will use another user's profile to conduct post searches, follow that user into other forums to continue arguments/just generally rile the other up. I've also seen it where they use other identifiable information, sometimes pieced together among posts, to follow the user to other websites. Myself, there was a guy here in feedback who was apparently so put off by me that he tracked down an account I use on a completely unassociated site just to post personal abuse. I've seen it where other users get their blogs attacked, and I've even heard where people from here end up getting real life altercations for whatever reason. I'm wary to dig into such details. Less disturbingly I once had Nerin mention he had seen me IRL but I hadn't seen him. So that's creepy.

AltAccount

Iwannahurl wrote: »

The Boards Terms of Use charter includes a rule that members must not "defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others."

Can you provide a detailed, and preferably objective, definition of "stalking" please?

For the sake of clarity, if possible, could you also refer to some examples? It's not a concept I'm familiar with on Boards.

Thanks in advance.

I'm curious as to why you want "Stalk" clearly defined, but aren't concerned by "harass" or "threaten". They're all equally broad terms!

Is there something specific on your mind?

seamus

In full context:

You agree, through use of this service, NOT to use boards.ie to:
...
defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the rights

In this case, it would include the usually understood definition of deliberately following someone around boards in order to gather information about them. For example, if Person A started posting on Person B's facebook account, referencing a load of stuff they'd posted on boards, I believe that would fall well inside the meaning of "using boards.ie to stalk" and Person B could be sitebanned.

Of course there's a lot of overlap. A lot of stalking could be considered harrassment, a lot of harrassment could be considered threats or abuse, and so on. They're different words used to cover all bases, so if someone had been stalking another poster on boards they can't say, "I didn't harass them!" to get out of it on a technicality.

Iwannahurl

No offence folks, but I want to hear from the Mods on this one.

seamus

No offence IWH, but the mods are no use to you here. The only person who can answer your question is Dav, or maybe Nicola.

Dav

Boards.ie has very little by way of objective definitions.

Once you define something, you will have a slew of rules lawyer muppets who see it as a target to "get close to but never quite cross." We already have enough of that nonsense to be dealing with and have no interest in wasting our, or the mods' time dealing with that sort of tripe.

This site cannot operate with a blanket approach to things, that would be far too inflexible so things are dealt with on a case-by-case basis and where's no guarantee that if we site ban Muppet 1 for something that we'll siteban Muppets 2, 3, 4 and 5 for the same thing in what might appear to be similar circumstances.

Iwannahurl

I can see your point, from the Admin perspective.

Perhaps examples could be used then, to clarify.

The flip side is that vague accusations can be made, with no need to substantiate.

X then becomes X because I say it is, not because I can refer to an objective or independent standard.

Wikipedia definition of "stalking":

Stalking is a term commonly used to refer to unwanted or obsessive attention by an individual or group toward another person. Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person or monitoring them. The word stalking is used, with some differing meanings, in psychology and psychiatry and also in some legal jurisdictions as a term for a criminal offense.

According to a 2002 report by the National Center for Victims of Crime, "Virtually any unwanted contact between two people [that intends] to directly or indirectly communicates a threat or places the victim in fear can be considered stalking" although in practice the legal standard is usually somewhat more strict.

TouchingVirus

Stalking is a term commonly used to refer to unwanted or obsessive attention by an individual or group toward another person

Pretty good description to be fair - are you following posters about the place and obsessing over what they post or who they're talking to? Do you respond to everything somebody posts? If not you're probably not stalking

Iwannahurl

TouchingVirus wrote: »

are you following posters about the place and obsessing over what they post or who they're talking to? Do you respond to everything somebody posts?

"Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation", are intended to "directly or indirectly communicate a threat" and "place the victim in fear."

No, I quoted (accurately) four statements from a member's posting history.

Zaph

Iwannahurl wrote: »

No offence folks, but I want to hear from the Mods on this one.

As an ex-admin Seamus is as qualified as anyone here to give an opinion on this. As for providing specific examples, data protection would preclude us from doing this, even without mentioning names, in case anyone was identifiable.

Could I ask why you're looking for such a specific definition of stalking?

AltAccount

Iwannahurl wrote: »

No, I quoted (accurately) four statements from a member's posting history.

Four posts from the same thread/forum, or did you go out of your way to trawl through previous posts unrelated to the current conversation and drag them into the conversation at hand?

If someone did this to you in a pub conversation - drag in things you had said to other people in other contexts - would you consider it stalky/creepy, even though no threat of harm was implied?

Iwannahurl

AltAccount wrote: »

Four posts from the same thread/forum, or did you go out of your way to trawl through previous posts unrelated to the current conversation and drag them into the conversation at hand?

If someone did this to you in a pub conversation - drag in things you had said to other people in other contexts - would you consider it stalky/creepy, even though no threat of harm was implied?

No and no.

Iwannahurl

Zaph wrote: »

As an ex-admin Seamus is as qualified as anyone here to give an opinion on this. As for providing specific examples, data protection would preclude us from doing this, even without mentioning names, in case anyone was identifiable.

Could I ask why you're looking for such a specific definition of stalking?

Boards is cautious about naming names, yet here is a thread with a person's name in the title, and which includes some choice comments about her:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056868086&page=41

seamus

On the subject at hand, what you did would IMO fall into the realms of stalkerishness - you had either accumulated the information that you posted up, or you went looking for it. Either way it's slightly weird and creepy.

The moderator was right to call you out on it, but given the relatively benign nature of your actions, the moderator was also right to take no punitive action.

I know a number of people have "special" memories which lets them recall stuff about other posters for years, but frankly it comes across as creepy when you use this information out of context.
Dragging in information and quotes from unrelated discussions and forums is creepy and would at least fall loosely into the definition of "stalking".

IMHO.

HondaSami

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Boards is cautious about naming names, yet here is a thread with a person's name in the title, and which includes some choice comments about her:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056868086&page=41

The story is all over the papers and the internet, it's not a secret.

You deliberately posted magicsean's post to discredit him.

Iwannahurl

HondaSami wrote: »

The story is all over the papers and the internet, it's not a secret.

You deliberately posted magicsean's post to discredit him.

Boards/AH-style comments are not all over the papers.

None of my posts are accidental.

What was the "discredit" you refer to?

HondaSami

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Boards/AH-style comments are not all over the papers.

None of my posts are accidental.

What was the "discredit" you refer to?

AH style comments happen all the time on boards and in RL.

What did you hope to achieve by quoting the poster? he was not the only poster who commented on that thread, why him?

Iwannahurl

seamus wrote: »

On the subject at hand, what you did would IMO fall into the realms of stalkerishness - you had either accumulated the information that you posted up, or you went looking for it. Either way it's slightly weird and creepy.

The moderator was right to call you out on it, but given the relatively benign nature of your actions, the moderator was also right to take no punitive action.

I know a number of people have "special" memories which lets them recall stuff about other posters for years, but frankly it comes across as creepy when you use this information out of context.

Dragging in information and quotes from unrelated discussions and forums is creepy and would at least fall loosely into the definition of "stalking".

IMHO.

Fall loosely into what definition of "stalking"?

Are the posts below, for example, weird and creepy? Am I weird and creepy for quoting them? If keeping a record of posts is weird and creepy, why does Board do it for every member?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=68537647&postcount=50

Mod: "You made the noose for yourself through your posting history."

Iwannahurl

HondaSami wrote: »

AH style comments happen all the time on boards and in RL.

What did you hope to achieve by quoting the poster? he was not the only poster who commented on that thread, why him?

What was the "discredit" you refer to?

My post speaks for itself. Read it in full, including its starting point, which was a question asked by another member.

seamus

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Fall loosely into what definition of "stalking"?

Are the posts below, for example, weird and creepy? Am I weird and creepy for quoting them? If keeping a record of posts is weird and creepy, why does Board do it for every member?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=68537647&postcount=50

Mod: "You made the noose for yourself through your posting history."

This is pretty much exactly what Dav is talking about when he mentions "rules lawyers". People who seem incapable of understanding a fluid definition and needing to "box" everything into a rigid definition and argue it to the nth degree.

In both instances you've linked, neither poster has quoted the person they're talking to. Is going through someone's post history weird? For a non-moderator, yes it can be. It's considered bad form to do so, but can be useful if you're pulling someone up on blatant bull****.

In terms of a moderator, it can be completely appropriate for them to do so in the investigation of an incident or making a call.

Why does boards keep a post history? Because it's a mindless internet forum.

If you can't see the difference between boards storing posts in its database, and individual members making note of posts made by other members for use later on, then there's not really much point in having this discussion.

It's kind of funny that you linked to 2 posts which are nearly 3 years old. That's odd. How did you come across those posts?

Iwannahurl

seamus wrote: »

This is pretty much exactly what Dav is talking about when he mentions "rules lawyers". People who seem incapable of understanding a fluid definition and needing to "box" everything into a rigid definition and argue it to the nth degree.

In both instances you've linked, neither poster has quoted the person they're talking to. Is going through someone's post history weird? For a non-moderator, yes it can be. It's considered bad form to do so, but can be useful if you're pulling some up on blatant bull****.

In terms a moderator, it can be completely appropriate for them to do so in the investigation of an incident or making a call.

Why does boards keep a post history? Because it's an internet forum.

If you can't see the difference between boards storing posts in its database, and individual members making note of posts made by other members for use later on, then there's not really much point in having this discussion.

It's kind of funny that you linked to 2 posts which are nearly 3 years old. That's odd. How did you come across those posts?

Boards provides a search function to enable users to search the Boards database of every single word that every Boards member has posted.

So keen is Boards to provide a powerful search engine, it even includes facilities such as being able to search using modifiers like Most Thanked, Newest First, Find all posts by, Find all threads started by, Find all posts that quote etc.

As a former Admin, does it strike you as being slightly odd that Boards would make searching easy while at the same time suggesting that actually using the search function for factual accuracy (as opposed to vague and unsubstantiated allegation) is "weird and creepy"?

You've just provided the justification for using the post history, by the way: "can be useful if you're pulling someone up on blatant bull****".

"Why does boards keep a post history? Because it's an internet forum."

What is the essential form of an internet forum? A written record of what people have said.

What is the relevance of what people have said? That should be readily apparent.

AltAccount

TBH, you're the classic Rules Lawyer IWH, you are the reason these things are left broad - to allow mods to deal with this kind of messing without losing hours of their own personal time trading PMs over pedantics/semantics.

Dav

You know what, the more I read what you're posting here Iwannahurl, the more I'm of the opinion that you're trying to be one of those Rules Lawyers I mentioned earlier and I'm not going to indulge you any further.

The question you asked has been answered in as far as it can be answered. You seem intent on dragging it into some sort of specific battle and if you're going to be that guy, feel free to make use of the "Close Account" function cause I don't want you here.