Boards.ie email address issue July 2021

retro:electro · 05-08-2021 8:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712324#Comment_117712324

This is what I am genuinely shocked about. PMs from years ago that I had long nuked, things that contain personal and private information are now there and not only that, but recipients can now add other people to the conversation and view them. This needs to be dealt with asap

05-08-2021 8:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712367#Comment_117712367

That is terrible.

Tork · 05-08-2021 8:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712367#Comment_117712367

Knowing this, you'd want to be mad to use the few Talk To forums that are here now.

Esel · 05-08-2021 8:50pm

05-08-2021 9:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712244#Comment_117712244

Ive just submitted a form to them. I wasn’t left with any choice seeing that nobody from boards even acknowledged it today.

Dave0301 · 05-08-2021 9:34pm

I suspect the lack of an update about these issues is most likely because Boards.ie have really messed up and are possibly in over their heads.

I think they were sucked in by Vanilla's sales pitch, which when combined with a lack of beta testing has resulted in the issues that we are seeing at the moment.

It could well be a result of the fact that Boards.ie was bloated after all the various tweaks over the years. The lack of communication though is doing as much, if not more damage to the goodwill of users as the privacy issues.

Leg End Reject · 05-08-2021 9:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712610#Comment_117712610

At the very least they could have posted that they were seeking legal advice/advice from the DPC and would update asap. Ignoring it makes them look guilty.

I'm not buying it's all Vanilla's fault here either, because messages "deleted" on VBulletin were very obviously not permanently deleted. Vanilla didn't just pull these out of their arses.

Signore Fancy Pants · 05-08-2021 9:39pm

I have seen my share of clusterfcuks in my time, but talk about holding the grenade and throwing the pin.

At this stage, Boards HQ should be fcuking ashamed of themselves. I genuinely cannot see how there is any way back from these shenanigans. What the hell is next like?

ASOT · 05-08-2021 9:46pm

Wasn't aware of the PM thing until reading this thread.

Sure enough deleted mails with sensitive details have been restored, great.

Leg End Reject · 05-08-2021 9:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712638#Comment_117712638

Next we'll probably see other people's PMs magically appearing.

Dyr · 05-08-2021 9:56pm

Where's yer man Devore in all of this? Great man for piping up until the **** hits the fan. 🤣 I assume everyones in boards HQ been told to keep their yaps shut while solicitors are called in

There doesn't seem to be any way to delete PMs now, considering lots of people have deleted PMs reappearing which contain personal details, that's a "bit" of a problem

05-08-2021 10:03pm

DeVore hasn’t been part of boards ownership/management for a long long time.

Wibbs · 05-08-2021 10:18pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712324#Comment_117712324

+1. The lack of ability to delete PM's is IMHO a serious issue, especially because in Board's culture the P in PM's was considered sacrosanct and in my time here both in front and behind the scenes they were treated as such. Outside of helpdesk and with caveats even there, anyone who posted a PM in a thread got a bollocking at best, a ban including siteban at worst.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712335#Comment_117712335

Nothing you put on the interwebs is ever truly private Leg. It's cached somewhere. And yep Boards devs could have dig down into PM's if required, but as I said the founders were very specific about privacy of PM's, DeVore in particular and he is a chap very particular indeed about lines being drawn and crossed. So unless there was something major like a legal request for disclosure our PM's were indeed private and within our control at the front end.

The first mod role I had was Personal Issues and when I first started the mods we were able to see more than we can today(that was changed and rightfully after a few months that I was there), the forum was searchable and would show on the front page. The mods argued against that on privacy grounds and DeVore and the other lads agreed and changed that. As I say privacy and user control over that was sacrosanct. Was sadly seems to be the tense involved, what with some emails being visible and beyond the site and our inability to delete our own private messages.

Necro · 05-08-2021 10:28pm

I think the issue with the PMs is that Vanilla see 'Messages' as a Facebook Messenger hybrid where nothing ever gets deleted just pushed down the pile, whereas Boards PMs are very, very different.

Not sure how the old ones have reappeared, possibly it was an old function on the previous platform of a 'soft' delete similar to posts in threads and the Vanilla platform just spat them all back up as it doesn't have that function built in... which is ridiculous, but it's becoming ever more obvious in my opinion that Vanilla is just NOT equipped to cope with a forum the type and size of Boards.

It's all a horrible shame. It's been very difficult trying to process it all over the past few weeks since the changeover since this was basically the only place I hung out online, and had made many good friends over in Forum Games. But it doesn't look good going forward :(

brimal · 05-08-2021 10:44pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712632#Comment_117712632

Good point, but I would also add that *none* of this shiitshow is Vanilla's fault.

Vanilla are some random company on the other side of the world, who offer their (apparently piss-poor) services to Boards.ie

It all rests on the Boards team. If they tested, communicated properly, did their due diligence, etc. and had a successful migration, then we shouldn't even know who Vanilla are.

But every update we get is Vanilla this, Vanilla that.. kind of has a hint of passing the buck or at least sharing some of the blame.. it's also extremely amateur of Boards.ie to keep referencing them.. again if the migration is any way successful then majority of users shouldn't have any idea or care who Vanilla are.. the site would just work

Jeff2 · 05-08-2021 10:48pm

Just catching up and not read all posts but someone messed again but don't close you account in case pm is fixed and you can delete all youself.

What if you close account and it's still saved somewhere.

Mine go back yeary but I'v had a friend here help me with a friend that ended up in mental hospital.

Family member.

We both deleted most pms before the change and they should not be there.

Now if I take to long to post it seems to save as draft. Every few minutes.

Esel · 05-08-2021 10:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712821#Comment_117712821

I think you missed the main point in @banie01's post - that (all?) PMs that had been previously deleted on old Boards have suddenly appeared back again under Vanilla. WT actual F like!

Leg End Reject · 05-08-2021 11:00pm

@Wibbs I get your point about nothing online being private, but we were always assured that PMs were. Hell, even the limit and the fact you had to delete them suggested they disappeared. But they didn't.

I'm not a techie and a lot of the background stuff goes over my head, but I'm genuinely shocked that zombie PMs are resurfacing.

What happens if we close our account? I now know you can search the old username of a closed and, supposedly anonymised, account and get to their profile. Sure, the name is scrambled but all their posts are there. Was their data deleted? Are their PMs still searchable?

And how the hell do we know our own data will be deleted if we close our accounts? I'm not really full of confidence.

Tork · 05-08-2021 11:08pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117712821#Comment_117712821

It's true that once you submit any sort of data online, you've got to hope that the people at the other end handle it properly. What's disturbing about this migration is that these things seem to have happened by accident. The way things are going, I wouldn't trust Boards or Vanilla to organise a piss-up in a brewery, let alone handle people's data responsibly.

SouthWesterly · 05-08-2021 11:11pm

Looks like Odhran posted an update yesterday but failed to mention the email issue.

I'm sure it was just an oversight 🙄

Leg End Reject · 05-08-2021 11:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117713028#Comment_117713028

He said he's in the loop because of Niamh and writing to the DPC, but didn't go near the relevant thread, nor engage with any concerns.

Tork · 05-08-2021 11:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117713067#Comment_117713067

Odhran likes to post in random threads where only a small number of boardsies will see what he has written. You'd swear he was hiding or something.

Leg End Reject · 05-08-2021 11:27pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117713071#Comment_117713071

Yeah, it makes his quick getaway easier. 😄

fritzelly · 05-08-2021 11:35pm

I should just partner with Ads by Google and write a new boards forum up over the next fortnight before boards.ie dies from exsanguination

SouthWesterly · 05-08-2021 11:37pm

MICKEROO is posting his updates here

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058202425/state-of-the-site-updates

No more hiding 😂

Jeff2 · 05-08-2021 11:42pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117713121#Comment_117713121

TBF MICKEROO has been doing a good job and is only helping.

Has nothing to do with the mess up.

Leg End Reject · 05-08-2021 11:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117713143#Comment_117713143

I think @SouthWesterly was agreeing with you?

Hotblack Desiato · 05-08-2021 11:56pm

My speculation on what happened with PMs:

Under vBulletin, you had an Inbox and a Sent folder and that was it (and by default, messages you sent weren't even saved in the Sent folder unless you'd ticked that option in your profile.)

But Vanilla has this hip and trendy Conversations bullshít, where you don't have an Inbox or a Sent folder, just a messages folder and sent and received stuff is all stuffed in there. Apart from looking like a big mess, "so what" you may think?

Because it's now Conversations, you could delete your sent PM (or never have saved it in the first place) but of course the recipient has it in their "inbox". If they never deleted it then, now that the site is "under new management", it's now a "Conversation" involving you and it shows up in your messages folder.

Big problem for Talk To forum stuff as afaik they had/have unlimited PM boxes and lots of PII in there. Stuff you may have sent to a mod or admin (which could sometimes be of a personal nature - e.g. in relation to anonymous accounts in PI) would have ended up the same way unless they deleted it at their end.

Stuff sent to a normal user was much more likely to be deleted, due to the limit on a PM inbox size.

The 64,000 dollar question is what happened under vBulletin when a Talk To.. company left boards and closed their accounts - it's quite possible that the PMs remained undeleted, and now as a "Conversation", involving you, they're back from the dead and in your messages!

What is a LOT more worrying to me though is that a future, or even possibly a past, "Private" Message "Conversation" can have other people added to it without you knowing. That's just not acceptable and is wide open to all sorts of nasty abuses.