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I always knew they had access but I was under the impression that it was only be used in the role of their admin duties. Seeing an admin browsing around when there has been no need at all for them did seem very much like snooping.Baldy Conscience wrote: »You are absolutely, 100% wrong in assuming that, and the audience is all the Admins, Staff, plus the "special status" normal users who have Admin acces that is not indicated, their name is not in bold/italics. I am aware of at least one user in the past who was like this, I am not aware of any at the moment.0 -
It would appear more likely to see an admin in a private forum than in feedback these days.0
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If you don't allow people to insult non members of your private forum then, you know, problem solved.0
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dr.bollocko wrote: »If you don't allow people to insult non members of your private forum then, you know, problem solved.
Why stop there, why not just ban any form of insults all together, member or non member.
Hell, the comments made would barely have earned an infraction elsewhere and to be honest, the mod would probably laugh at it anyway.
This was seagull moderating from an admin.0 -
Fratton Fred wrote: »Why stop there, why not just ban any form of insults all together, member or non member.
Hell, the comments made would barely have earned an infraction elsewhere and to be honest, the mod would probably laugh at it anyway.
This was seagull moderating from an admin.
From a practical point of view an admin is not going to go reading every post made in a private forum to look to be offended.
Any private forum I've ever been a member of the core rule is always no insulting non-members. There are a number of good reasons for that rule being there. I'm sure you're aware, why bother going into it.
Now I didn't see the post in question where somebody called a non-member a wanker, (insinuated it) but the term wanker does sound somewhat insulting. You can't really turn it around so much. It's not complimentary.
There is a certain level of responsibility that each private forum has to adhere to the rules of boards as a whole. And, you know, digs made in private can lead us down a bad road.
I would wager that the reason the warning was made was to ensure that this is nipped in the bud.
Not having seen the post or the warning, but having been privy to similar before, I would think it best to accept, perhaps in private, that the post may have crossed the line (Perhaps there's a pattern - I just don't know) and also accept that the freedom to post away from the eyes of non-members is there - however you may still be called to account by those tasked with keeping things in check for your posts. Ergo, snip any discussion of non-members that could lead down a bad road.
That way, problems like this don't happen in future. They don't get reported to admins and nobody has to worry.
If you want true privacy and that's a must, I would think that the only way you're going to do that away from admin eyes is by taking the forum off of boards.ie... As other groups have done in the past. I'm not saying "If you don't like it, GTFO", however, as a practical concern, if you don't trust the admins who have access automatically then your problem with your group is not going to be resolved here in feedback.0 -
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dr.bollocko wrote: »If you don't allow people to insult non members of your private forum then, you know, problem solved.
DeVore himself mentioned 5 years ago that if people wanted to do that and it remained in there, that's no problem. Hiding behind an inappropriate (in this case) rule is usually what happens in cases like this, and true to form Dav posted to say that due to the one incident 5 years ago that particular forum was being monitored more closely than others.
We don't expect any sort of anything approaching an apology or admittance of overstepping boundaries, but the long and the short of it is that admins can and do read what they like. Not all of course, but it is not something that only happens when things are reported.
This was a nothing issue. The particular private forum is populated by about 30 or so mostly long serving members, and nothing close to the incident 5 years ago has occurred since.
Dr B's post is far too simplistic, and high-horse-like. How would the admin in question have seen a non reported post without some sustained snooping?0 -
Nobody was called a Wanker though.
Nobody got abused.
Ad Admin was snooping, found a three week old post and used it as an excuse to weild some power.
Dr B, you won't know this, but the Admins will, seeing as they've admitted to regularly reading the forum to make sure all is tickety-boo.
If ANYTHING ever looks like it might even have the slimmest possibility of moving out into the wider boards community, posters are reminded of the "incident". Usually in a jocular fashion, but still, it's there, it's to the forefront of everyone's posting in that forum, and a line is not crossed. That line was drawn by DeVore, it is NEVER crossed - the Admins, of course, know this. Actually, if anyone posts a link to a post on Boards with a "lol, look at this post" very few comments are passed in the forum, and in fact, there is usually zero interaction in or around the post/forum linked, simply because once anything is raised within the confines of the private forum, it is abundantly clear that it is now no longer kosher for any member of the forum to interact in any way with what has been linked - that is simply just in case it blows up, nothing has been "started" in the private forum, and if you mess up, you don't bring the whole private forum with you. It's how we operate, it's how we were told to operate by Admin, and now we are being threatened with closure because of it. It's pretty shítty that people have posted some pretty personal stuff in there, thinking that Admin would only post or read under the auspices which Dav posted above in this thread. In fact, we now find out that they have been snooping around for 5 years.
How is that good? We were told the incident was, essentially, closed. DeVore gave his judgement and we all (we thought) moved on. Now we find out that is not the case.
Not cool.
So why was one post, three weeks old, singled out like this?0 -
dr.bollocko wrote: »They don't get reported to admins and nobody has to worry
I don't know if it wasn't made clear, or what, but nothing was reported to an Admin, nobody asked Admin to get involved, and they've actually told us that they've been "monitoring" the forum for 5 years, and we didn't know about it.
So, in effect, the post that Dav posted above didn't apply to our private hosted forum at all, and the only people who knew that were the Admins.
The Admins have also seemingly moved the goalposts on the rules we are supposed to operate under, again, without telling us. And they have used those moved goalposts to issue a threat of closure.
I fail to see what we've done wrong here, in fact, we've gone over and above what was asked of us, and still, here we are.0 -
My main concern is this is something that wasn't brought to the admins attention, and it wasn't something they seen be accidentally clicking into a thread or link. It was a three week old post, the conversation in thread had long since moved on, and yet the admin still came across it and found it necessary to post a warning about it.
To me it means that admins are deliberately reading private forums, which is against what was stated here, and it is to highlight to other private forums that this kind of activity is ongoing.
We know we won't get much feedback here, and I would expect any feedback regarding our issue with the admins to be dealt with within our own forum. This is to highlight to general private forums that this kind of activity does go on, even though it has been stated otherwise that is all.0 -
How do you know it wasn't reported by someone?. I don't know the ins and outs of reported posts on hosted forums. Can you as a mod see reported posts like normal mods or is it different?.My main concern is this is something that wasn't brought to the admins attention, and it wasn't something they seen be accidentally clicking into a thread or link. It was a three week old post, the conversation in thread had long since moved on, and yet the admin still came across it and found it necessary to post a warning about it.
To me it means that admins are deliberately reading private forums, which is against what was stated here, and it is to highlight to other private forums that this kind of activity is ongoing.
We know we won't get much feedback here, and I would expect any feedback regarding our issue with the admins to be dealt with within our own forum. This is to highlight to general private forums that this kind of activity does go on, even though it has been stated otherwise that is all.0 -
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I'm an admin. Here's some times when I read private forum posts:
1) I'm a member of the forum.
2) Someone links me directly to a post, thread or forum. This may be innocuous (friendly "this is cool") or investigative (report from PM, Clinic thread, etc). Usually for the former, I often don't even notice it's a private forum, for the latter I usually do.
3) I'm looking at a user's post history for some reason, usually investigative. This might be based on a PM report, a reported post, a DRP, or they might be up for a mod nomination. This is occasionally innocuous, someone wrote something interesting and I check their back posts to see what else they posted, but as a logged in admin I will see more than a regular user will do. Note that quoted posts can often come to attention this way.
4) There's a discussion thread in admin forum about a user, post, thread or forum. This is kind of a subset of (2) but worth mentioning explicitly. Almost every incident and "-gate" has a thread about it, sometimes multiple threads. Sometimes these languish in the admin forum history, sometimes they're bumped to the front page because something relevant may have happened. Sometimes they are bumped not because of the forum itself, but because a username was searched and returned posts from that thread in the results, it was replied to, etc.
5) I accidentally find a post via search of some kind.
Apart from the above, I don't specifically look at other private forums, threads or posts. There's simply too many forums and posts, for one thing. But as an admin, I can't guarantee that I won't see them.
If a private forum is brought to my attention for any reason, it's almost guaranteed that at the very least I'll look at the titles of the threads on the forum homepage, and possibly post contents of those threads, depending. One time I did come across a private forum where there was an explicit "admin please read me" sticky, which asked admins not to read the forum contents. I honoured that request because I had no need to read it and it was a fair request. That said, if someone had reported something in that forum I'd ignore it in order to carry out any necessary admin tasks.
TL;DR: don't normally bother with private forums, unless they're flagged, in which case I'll almost certainly look at posts there.0 -
dr.bollocko wrote: »From a practical point of view an admin is not going to go reading every post made in a private forum to look to be offended.
Any private forum I've ever been a member of the core rule is always no insulting non-members. There are a number of good reasons for that rule being there. I'm sure you're aware, why bother going into it.
Now I didn't see the post in question where somebody called a non-member a wanker, (insinuated it) but the term wanker does sound somewhat insulting. You can't really turn it around so much. It's not complimentary.
There is a certain level of responsibility that each private forum has to adhere to the rules of boards as a whole. And, you know, digs made in private can lead us down a bad road.
I would wager that the reason the warning was made was to ensure that this is nipped in the bud.
Not having seen the post or the warning, but having been privy to similar before, I would think it best to accept, perhaps in private, that the post may have crossed the line (Perhaps there's a pattern - I just don't know) and also accept that the freedom to post away from the eyes of non-members is there - however you may still be called to account by those tasked with keeping things in check for your posts. Ergo, snip any discussion of non-members that could lead down a bad road.
That way, problems like this don't happen in future. They don't get reported to admins and nobody has to worry.
If you want true privacy and that's a must, I would think that the only way you're going to do that away from admin eyes is by taking the forum off of boards.ie... As other groups have done in the past. I'm not saying "If you don't like it, GTFO", however, as a practical concern, if you don't trust the admins who have access automatically then your problem with your group is not going to be resolved here in feedback.
It was nipped in the bud though. There was a total of nine posts on the subject, two of which were digs at a moderator, two were in his defence and the rest slagging the poster that made the remarks. The thread then moved on to completely unrelated subjects.
This was three weeks ago. The bud was nipped. This morning an admin threatened to close the forum down when at the very most all it needed was a "hey lads, don't do this again".0 -
I'm an admin. Here's some times when I read private forum posts:
1) I'm a member of the forum.
2) Someone links me directly to a post, thread or forum. This may be innocuous (friendly "this is cool") or investigative (report from PM, Clinic thread, etc). Usually for the former, I often don't even notice it's a private forum, for the latter I usually do.
3) I'm looking at a user's post history for some reason, usually investigative. This might be based on a PM report, a reported post, a DRP, or they might be up for a mod nomination. This is occasionally innocuous, someone wrote something interesting and I check their back posts to see what else they posted, but as a logged in admin I will see more than a regular user will do. Note that quoted posts can often come to attention this way.
4) There's a discussion thread in admin forum about a user, post, thread or forum. This is kind of a subset of (2) but worth mentioning explicitly. Almost every incident and "-gate" has a thread about it, sometimes multiple threads. Sometimes these languish in the admin forum history, sometimes they're bumped to the front page because something relevant may have happened. Sometimes they are bumped not because of the forum itself, but because a username was searched and returned posts from that thread in the results, it was replied to, etc.
Apart from the above, I don't specifically look at other private forums, threads or posts. There's simply too many forums and posts, for one thing. But as an admin, I can't guarantee that I won't see them.
If a private forum is brought to my attention for any reason, it's almost guaranteed that at the very least I'll look at the titles of the threads on the forum homepage, and possibly post contents of those threads, depending. One time I did come across a private forum where there was an explicit "admin please read me" sticky, which asked admins not to read the forum contents. I honoured that request because I had no need to read it and it was a fair request. That said, if someone had reported something in that forum I'd ignore it in order to carry out any necessary admin tasks.
TL;DR: don't normally bother with private forums, unless they're flagged, in which case I'll almost certainly look at posts there.
Since you are here, and I know you have been in for a look in the forum in question today, do you think there was a need to post a warning today, especially considering that in the resolution of the only single incident in there that warranted admin intervention people were told they could bitch and moan about outside members in there to their hearts content? Alternatively do you believe DeV was wrong, or that in the intervening time what is acceptable in private forums has changed, but people were not told?0 -
I don't know how that post "came to admin attention" to use an awful phrase, but it could have been any of the reasons I listed above. When you ask do I think there was a need to post a warning today, well if the implication there is that it would have been ok 3 weeks ago - i.e. when it was posted - but not now 3 weeks later, I'd disagree, it's either deserved or not deserved, which I'll address below. (The other thing is that the 3 week delay shows you that there is not real time admin monitoring.)
You said there was only a single incident there that warranted admin intervention, it might be more true to say that there was only a single incident that warranted admin attention that you're aware has been flagged to admin. There may be many more incidents there that warrant admin intervention, that may or may not have been flagged to our attention. At this point I haven't looked at the forum in any detail, just a cursory glance at that particular thread.
Regarding DeV's position, well I disagree with him on occasion, and this is one for sure. Personally I don't think any private forum should be allowed slag off another user outside the forum, we've seen where that's ended up in the past and it's not a good place.
And on that basis, is it official policy, is that deserved, and if so why were people not told? I don't think it's official policy, but I could be wrong on that. Perhaps it should be, although when introducing rules and policy, there are always concerns about complexity and rules lawyering - I much prefer the old school "don't be a dick" rule of thumb. This is the most heavily moderated forum in Ireland, and it's the most successful by many measures. Is there a direct relationship between the protection of users in this way, and the success of the site? I'd suggest there is. I'm a libertarian leftie in many ways, which makes this an interesting one to think about.
What about you, do you think it should allowed?0 -
Actually this opens up an interesting topic for discussion:
what is a Private forum?
is it:
a: a forum safe from random wandering users
or
b: a section of the site marked as inaccessible to site users that have no need to access it
or
c: a section of the site that is completely exempt from any all site policies or rules and so does not fall under the responsibility of the site admins or staff when it comes to content.
with respect to the issues raised:
no, no one was called a wanker, it was just posted that they sign off their posts like a wanker. they were called a tit and told to **** off in two other posts. And this isn't the first of the "lets discuss other users posting styles/habits and have a group hate-in about people who cannot defend themselves or know that they are being spoken about".
I dont follow football, I don't read PFJ but given this event I had a quick scan. A very quick flick through and I see:
users being ordered to never report a post for fear of admins seeing it.
mods giving moderator forum details to non-mod users (very minor details but still, makes me wonder what level of detail would be considered not-ok to share in a private forum)
links to streaming sites. Not allowed elsewhere on the site.
Grammar Nazi type posts, also not allowed elsewhere posted up with a link for other to join in the ridicule.
User private messages posted on thread without the other users' permission
Then that user discussed and repeatedly called a lot worse than "wanker" as well as repeated laughing and joking about how they get badly treated in other forums.
lets be clear here. I don't WANT to read PFJ. Ever. Its on a topic I don't care about and it seems like its populated by a clique that I really don't want to be part of. I'm sure the posts were fun at the time and are described as "harmless" but reading back on them, I'm genuinely concerned that they may not be harmless and could be considered inciteful.
so please, no high horses here and no pretending that some complete innocence has been lost.
generally , users and mods don't see private forums. Private forums can have a "don't tell" policy enforced by the members - we've seen it already in PFJ (post reported for racism , panic because the admins will see it, reporter who did it for a laugh called lots of names and berated by his peers ?) and we saw it in the Thunderdome - lots of post about the "rat" and accusations flying. That forum was ultimately closed down because of content that had gone unnoticed by the admins because it went unreported by the users. So, yes, things have changed. Damn right they have. I wont take responsibility for content like the thunderdome again and if that means having to skim forums to satisfy myself that everything is ok, then so be it.
What if someone posts something illegal and the rest let it go or, worse, participate and it becomes the acceptable level of interaction? Who is responsible for that content? Does boards.ie have any responsibility? who is charged with looking after the site and its reputation?
As I said, I generally don't read private forums, I have no interest in them and neither do most of the staff or admins. Thing is, we have to to make sure everything is ticking over. A post from 3 weeks ago was commented on by an admin. what does that say? that admins are constantly monitoring posts in private forums? or we didn't know about it until 3 weeks after the fact? Which is it? We cant be berated for constant snooping along with belated reaction times dragging up incidents from the past.
To me, and I think this is the way it should be: Private forum = safe from random users wandering in. NOT hidden from admins or staff who need to check at irregular intervals to ensure nothing bad is going on.
If you want a fully private forum that the boards.ie admins wont look at, then I suggest you host one somewhere else. If I'm signing my name to take responsibility for content then I'm going to do whatever it takes to ensure I do that job correctly and if its on boards.ie then it falls under my remit as an administrator of the forum and it falls under Beruthiel's (who has every right to post a reprimand and no, doesnt laugh about it because she is not the cartoon villain some people like to paint her as because of unrelated incidents in the past) remit and Dav's as a member of staff.0 -
I don't know how that post "came to admin attention" to use an awful phrase, but it could have been any of the reasons I listed above. When you ask do I think there was a need to post a warning today, well if the implication there is that it would have been ok 3 weeks ago - i.e. when it was posted - but not now 3 weeks later, I'd disagree, it's either deserved or not deserved, which I'll address below. (The other thing is that the 3 week delay shows you that there is not real time admin monitoring.)
You said there was only a single incident there that warranted admin intervention, it might be more true to say that there was only a single incident that warranted admin attention that you're aware has been flagged to admin. There may be many more incidents there that warrant admin intervention, that may or may not have been flagged to our attention. At this point I haven't looked at the forum in any detail, just a cursory glance at that particular thread.
Regarding DeV's position, well I disagree with him on occasion, and this is one for sure. Personally I don't think any private forum should be allowed slag off another user outside the forum, we've seen where that's ended up in the past and it's not a good place.
And on that basis, is it official policy, is that deserved, and if so why were people not told? I don't think it's official policy, but I could be wrong on that. Perhaps it should be, although when introducing rules and policy, there are always concerns about complexity and rules lawyering - I much prefer the old school "don't be a dick" rule of thumb. This is the most heavily moderated forum in Ireland, and it's the most successful by many measures. Is there a direct relationship between the protection of users in this way, and the success of the site? I'd suggest there is. I'm a libertarian leftie in many ways, which makes this an interesting one to think about.
What about you, do you think it should allowed?
Thanks for the reply. The fact of it being 3 weeks old isn't really part of my problem with it.
I'm not a fan of too rigid rules, and I'm generally all for the old fashioned "don't be a dick" rule as the overarching principal.
However in this particular case, someone basically said "this guy posting like this is ridiculous, f*ck off!", and someone else said "he does X like a w*nker". That is pretty much it with very little other discussion going on around it and some positive posts about that person too. If there was a concerted set of posts or a thread demonising a person that would be different, but it doesn't happen. Occasionally A.N. Other poster will be called a twat or whatever, but that's about it. I think that for a private forum that is more than fine. There is a line, certainly, but this is far behind it. I would be amazed if similar low levels of this did not go on in other private forums as well.0 -
Ah so the gloves are off and we're naming the forum involved now as well as what else goes on there?
Sound0 -
Trojan, at the risk of "being a dick", Bertie Ahern would be proud of that answer.
How did the particular post come to the attention of the admins that intervention was required at 7:45am three weeks after the event?
Did the post in question warrant that level of intervention?0 -
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Hah, Bertie comparisons. Jaysus.
My apologies for choosing my words with great care, but I know well that the usual anti-admin brigade are out in force to demonise us at every available opportunity. It does rob one of the desire to engage in these threads.0 -
Hah, Bertie comparisons. Jaysus.
My apologies for choosing my words with great care, but I know well that the usual anti-admin brigade are out in force to demonise us at every available opportunity. It does rob one of the desire to engage in these threads.
That's the frustrating thing though Trojan, any one dare question an admin and the ranks are suddenly closed, creating a them and us atmosphere.0 -
Ah so the gloves are off and we're naming the forum involved now as well as what else goes on there?
Sound
Ye started a feedback thread and named the admin involved as well as your version of what went on in there.
If you wanted a discussion in private why not have it with the admin in the private forum?0 -
To me, and I think this is the way it should be: Private forum = safe from random users wandering in. NOT hidden from admins or staff who need to check at irregular intervals to ensure nothing bad is going on.
and here is the point, this is not what we and other private forums were told what was happening, on this very thread.
We were told private forums were only looked at IF something was brought to your attention, when what seems to actually be happening is that admins are checking private forums at irregular intervals to see if something you aren't happy with is going on.
Even then if something is going on that you aren't happy with it, I think its fairly heavy handed for an admin to come and post warnings of shutting down.
Considering "It's up to the mods of the forums to run their own ship" then shouldn't the mods have been made aware if there was issues within the hosted forum that admins were not happy with, and give them a chance to deal with it.0 -
Hah, Bertie comparisons. Jaysus.
My apologies for choosing my words with great care, but I know well that the usual anti-admin brigade are out in force to demonise us at every available opportunity. It does rob one of the desire to engage in these threads.
You'll have to choose them even more carefully because "usual anti-admin brigade" is quite suggestive and accusing towards those posting here about a specific issue.
Name those in this usual brigade.0 -
Hah, Bertie comparisons. Jaysus.
My apologies for choosing my words with great care, but I know well that the usual anti-admin brigade are out in force to demonise us at every available opportunity. It does rob one of the desire to engage in these threads.
Which of us are part of this anti admin brigade?0 -
dr.bollocko wrote: »Ye started a feedback thread and named the admin involved as well as your version of what went on in there.
If you wanted a discussion in private why not have it with the admin in the private forum?
This feedback thread was not started by a member of said forum.
The purpose was to highlight to other private member forums that what was said in here was not actually what goes on in practice.0 -
Ah so the gloves are off and we're naming the forum involved now as well as what else goes on there?
Sound
In fairness, I didn't know what forum was being talked about until I saw Spud83's post and presumed it was the forum they mod. I'd say most people put two and two together before the name of the forum was mentioned.0 -
dr.bollocko wrote: »Ye started a feedback thread and named the admin involved as well as your version of what went on in there.
If you wanted a discussion in private why not have it with the admin in the private forum?
Actually we didn't, let's stick to the facts here.0 -
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"dare question"? Hey, question all you like, I've no problem with genuine questions. The continuous veiled (or not so veiled) insults and snide remarks constantly, that I do mind.
If you see lack of engagement in these situations, it's not normally an issue of a group making a collective decision to close ranks. It's more about individual volunteers making a personal decision on their own not to waste valuable time engaging with the small minority of people who will never be satisfied, and snipe at them time and time again at any given opportunity.0
This discussion has been closed.
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