you can never tell *what* someone posts that might make an insane lurker decide legal action is necessary.
This, too. I mean, someone could post a link to a fan site and say something mildly critical about it, and we could be off to the races if the person who ran the site was a)reading and b)overly sensitive. Threatening legal action is kind of the grown-up equivalent of calling in mommy for certain people.
If it's a question of protecting the board itself, would a statement to the effect of "Buffistas.org is not responsible for what individual posters say" do as much good?
I'm more concerned that we had to handle the response backchannel because we didn't want them seeing the debate on what to do about it.
Understood.
But if something like that did happen again, would we want it to be up for a week's worth of discussion while we figured out what to do? ISTM that, if it's not posted here, it SHOULD be handled backchannel or in the forum where it comes up.
Mails were few, but the fact that it was there did help in terms of cyber-molesters, I think. It's existence was a huge sign that read, "Adults are watching, and we'll crush you like a bug if you try to hurt these kids, you fucker."
Sounds like what the admins email account is already used for (on occasion). As an admin, I've no problem with acting as an impersonal advocate.
it SHOULD be handled backchannel or in the forum where it comes up.
I agree. At the risk of seeming elitist, I didn't see the need to bring up that particular issue in front of all registered users.
t edit
Plus! How do we know whether the folks threatening legal action are registered or not? Maybe they've used a different email to send their threats. Again, a false sense of security is worse than keeping things open or in backchannel, IMO.
If it's a question of protecting the board itself, would a statement to the effect of "Buffistas.org is not responsible for what indivoidual posters say" do as much good?
We've done that.
I can't find it. We talked about it briefly here:
ita "Bureaucracy 1: Like Kafka, Only Funnier" Mar 22, 2003 11:47:49 am EST
but it looks like we got sidetracked, and never followed through.
I have to say, whenever I've used email--and it's been a personal email to a stompie's own account, response has been swift, even if said response was just "we know, we're on it."
I know it's more of a hassle, but I still think backchannel is the way to go if a discussion needs to be not-public. If the admins don't want to handle things without a discussion, then we need an offsite account to discuss. But I don't think the login should be available to anyone who a)isn't registered here, and b)doesn't ask for it.
If that's exclusionary, so be it. I think the overwhelming majority of posters don't concern themselves with the nuts and bolts of board maintenance, either mechanical or ethical. And if they choose not to participate, there's no reason to disseminate a login/password. Those who are motivated to take part can apply for login. Is there a non-admin-intensive way to do that?
I'm with Jon, and I don't think it's elitist to say so. At the time, and still, it seemed like an administrative matter. We got email that was obviously an empty threat, we doublechecked with a couple of Buffista-lawyers to make sure it was, and we told the threateners to stuff it. It was as clear a matter of applying the existing don't-be-a-demon policy as the sporking of christiandollarstore.
OK-- this doesn't have much to do with the vote, but I think it is generally unclear whether or not you can e-mail the stompies with some sort of complaint. From the prior procedural vote, it is clear that official action is taken in thread and in Bureacracy and you need to complain in the open about it.
However-- what to do in the case of a complaint about something that is occuring via email (harrassing of posters) or if someone does use "email an admin" to complain about a problem poster.
