Future of the Forum

[RemieV]

So, you're saying you actually registered with your real name and DOB?

Huh, never occurred to me...

I'm playing catch-up, so sorry if this has already been answered - but if the person approving registration thought that your name was fake, you would not have been allowed to register and you would've been told that you had to produce photo ID proving your identity.

This happened with many posters, particularly ones suspected of being socks. But if it had been a blatantly fake name, it would've happened with you, too.

 

[Belz...]

I absolutely will not give until a statement is released by the JREF saying what they are doing and when and how user information will be treated.

May I ask what's the big deal with the information ? Now, I registered way back in the dark ages of 2005, but I don't remember ever giving the JREF any sensitive information. They have my e-mail address and my birth date, and that's pretty much it, as far as I can remember. You seem to make a huge deal out of it.

 

[RemieV]

May I ask what's the big deal with the information ? Now, I registered way back in the dark ages of 2005, but I don't remember ever giving the JREF any sensitive information. They have my e-mail address and my birth date, and that's pretty much it, as far as I can remember. You seem to make a huge deal out of it.

I've said this over and over and over again, but let's do this once more...

There have been posters on the forum who have told things about themselves that they believe have the potential to get them fired, divorced, disowned, etc. Things about their atheism, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc. They did this with the belief that they had anonymity, because according to the JREF Forum privacy agreement, the JREF will not hand over the information to any other party unless the law requires it.

While I believe that icerat has the best intentions, these posts combined with real names and locations have the potential to ruin lives. icerat is not someone that the JREF vetted. icerat is just the first person who said they will take the forum.

I do not have any sensitive information, because having been employed by the JREF, my name is all over this forum. However, for those who did post sensitive information, it is not right to hand over the piece that identifies them in their real life to a person who was simply the first to arrive on scene and offer.

It has been proposed that the forum transition does not include real names, and that only our usernames and passwords will be sent. This is good, and I have no problem with it. However, the JREF has yet to make a statement saying that is how it will be. The commenters in this thread have suggested it, and no ruling has been made.

 

[madurobob]

I'm playing catch-up, so sorry if this has already been answered - but if the person approving registration thought that your name was fake, you would not have been allowed to register and you would've been told that you had to produce photo ID proving your identity.

Heh. If you knew my real name (very easy to figure out via google, not that anyone would care), you might think someone would suspect I made it up (think "John Doe"). So, I often use something more unique when registering on various internet sites.

But, whatever name I used when I registered way back when, there was no request that I prove I that was my *real* name. Not that I remember, at least.. its been a while.

 

[Turgor]

I think too many people are sniffing conspiracy and nastiness where there is only confusion and miscommunication.
Yes, Darat has a right to be angry . I can tell he's angry because there are typos and grammatical mistakes in those emails, which by Darat standards implies that his head had swollen up, turned red and steam was billowing from his ears like Tom the cat when Jerry hit him on the head with an anvil.

But Darat isn't calling conspiracy. He's calling years of inefficient management, to which Sharon Hill has agreed. He has stepped aside to let the folk who are trying to fix things do so.

Those of us who have not spent over a decade trying to herd the cats involved in running and using the forum might take a leaf from his book.

In any case, we have no option. I have no choice but to take the word of Jeff Wagg (whose word I do take), that Sharon et al are doing their best. Even if Jeff is wrong and they are actually demons incarnate plotting the end of the world, I still have no choice.
So I will await events. I may have a beer.

In fact, I will have a beer.

Soapy Sam, I will join you in having a beer and everything you wrote above that excellent suggestion.

 

[John Jones]

My son belongs to Something Awful and I guess they have a policy of if you get "banned" you have to pay $10 to come back and the money goes towards running the forum. I'd like to see something like that, and also for people who've been banned here. Pay $10 and we'll lift the ban.

Please tell me you don't agree! GodLikeProductiions has a similar policy. They promise to not auto-ban you if you pay for a premium membership.

But they ban whole top level domains - like .au. They ban for anything you can imagine, and for nothing at all.

No. You're wrong on this one.

 

[RemieV]

Heh. If you knew my real name (very easy to figure out via google, not that anyone would care), you might think someone would suspect I made it up (think "John Doe"). So, I often use something more unique when registering on various internet sites.

But, whatever name I used when I registered way back when, there was no request that I prove I that was my *real* name. Not that I remember, at least.. its been a while.

I actually didn't register with my real name either. It just sounds enough like a real name that it didn't get flagged. And I had a Facebook under the same name, and had written articles under the same name. So, it would've passed a Google inspection too. However, then I became JREF staff so everybody knew my name anyway, and my efforts at concealment failed.

But yeah - Lisa said earlier in this thread (or one of them, anyway) that she went ahead and deleted the file containing copies of the IDs of everyone who had been held up in registration due to suspected sock puppetry or fake namery. It wasn't all that uncommon, I don't think.

 

[Michel H]

...
There have been posters on the forum who have told things about themselves that they believe have the potential to get them fired, divorced, disowned, etc. Things about their atheism, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc. They did this with the belief that they had anonymity, because according to the JREF Forum privacy agreement, the JREF will not hand over the information to any other party unless the law requires it.

While I believe that icerat has the best intentions, these posts combined with real names and locations have the potential to ruin lives. icerat is not someone that the JREF vetted. icerat is just the first person who said they will take the forum.
...

The name information should not be published, revealed to the general public, icerat surely knows and understands this.

 

[RemieV]

The name information should not be published, revealed to the general public, icerat surely knows and understands this.

Irrelevant. Users made the choice to trust the JREF. They did not make the choice to trust icerat. The JREF is an organization with an official privacy policy (which, if they give out names, they are in violation of) and accountability should they break it.

Look - icerat doesn't even disagree that this is how it should be done; that all identifying information should be removed before the data is in his hands. I am responding to people asking why it is important. This is why.

 

[Foolmewunz]

I registered in 2011 and was required to provide a DOB as part of registration, so that is NOT the case.

It might have been decided not to require it but such a decision certainly was not implemented.

The FIELD is required. It is not verified. Wait until January 1 and check out the number of Birthdays showing on the forum index page. Many people are evidently over 100 years old.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Heh. If you knew my real name (very easy to figure out via google, not that anyone would care), you might think someone would suspect I made it up (think "John Doe"). So, I often use something more unique when registering on various internet sites.

But, whatever name I used when I registered way back when, there was no request that I prove I that was my *real* name. Not that I remember, at least.. its been a while.

That's the thing that has always baffled me. People complained back then that they had to provide their real name. You could provide any name, there was no way the JREF forum knew if that was really your name.

 

[Belz...]

There have been posters on the forum who have told things about themselves that they believe have the potential to get them fired, divorced, disowned, etc. Things about their atheism, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc. They did this with the belief that they had anonymity, because according to the JREF Forum privacy agreement, the JREF will not hand over the information to any other party unless the law requires it.

Do you know any of these posters, or is this a hypothetical ?

 

[RemieV]

Do you know any of these posters, or is this a hypothetical ?

Sure. One posted in the thread already. While it would no longer threaten his employment (which was his concern when he first joined) it would still make real-life relationships strained.

 

[icerat]

icerat is not someone that the JREF vetted. icerat is just the first person who said they will take the forum.

Not quite how it went down. Calls for assistance were made, and quite a few people volunteered, including myself. I have no idea what information others gave at that time, but I included my background and name and corporate contact details. It was several days of working together before I was asked to consider taking over. I have no idea what other "vetting" they may have done in that time, it may have been crystal ball gazing. I also don't know if they made the offer to someone else first who turned it down, or what. I am frankly humbled that somebody with Rick's background clearly respected me enough to entrust me with the roll and I'm flattered at the level of communication we've had - something which I've come to understand can be rare with Rick.

It has been proposed that the forum transition does not include real names, and that only our usernames and passwords will be sent. This is good, and I have no problem with it. However, the JREF has yet to make a statement saying that is how it will be. The commenters in this thread have suggested it, and no ruling has been made.

Well I'll make a statement. I don't want the forum transferred to me with the personal information included. Even outside of the ethics of it, it puts my company and I at legal risk. As I noted in the other thread, as a consultant with JREF working on the challenges I can technically get access to the information now (though it would not be easy). Don't want it.

The draft proposal is that either Darat or Rick log in to the database and do something like -

UPDATE TABLE user
set email = null
etc etc

for everything but userid and password before ownership of the site is transferred from JREF. As you likely know, JREF has a contract that forum admins are required to sign that I'm told includes privacy clauses. If it's decided I need admin access to the forum before the transfer (it would be useful in troubleshooting the problems, but I'd rather avoid this), I too will need to sign that contract.

 

[lionking]

Do you know any of these posters, or is this a hypothetical ?

I've certainly posted things, sometimes when drunk, which I certainly would want not my family, friends or employer to know. I also had a member who attempted to find out my address from other members in order to, I believe, threaten me. He posted a fairly accurate description of my street (he was immediately banned).

I don't feel particularly concerned about my privacy, and I doubt that any new ownership would release identifying information. But I sure understand the concern of others.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Do you know any of these posters, or is this a hypothetical ?

People do get fired, divorced and ostracized for being an atheist or homosexual. Most people here post with a level of anonymity while posting in support of these worldviews. Surely a safe assumption that a number want to keep things that way.

 

[Michel H]

Irrelevant. Users made the choice to trust the JREF. They did not make the choice to trust icerat. The JREF is an organization with an official privacy policy (which, if they give out names, they are in violation of) and accountability should they break it.

Look - icerat doesn't even disagree that this is how it should be done; that all identifying information should be removed before the data is in his hands. I am responding to people asking why it is important. This is why.

If icerat revealed some information that he should not reveal, he might get in legal trouble. But he is not a stupid fellow. He said:

... I was given access to the server (not the forum itself, I've never had admin access and still don't) to get an understanding of the issues involved in transferring it to a new server to solve the immediate, critical, problems. This is just like any other technician working with web servers or your computers or any websites that you access, that would theoretically give me the ability to rummage through the data - but it would be quite a time consuming and difficult thing to do. Every person at the data center where the server is stored has potentially the same ability, much like technical staff at Hotmail or Google or anywhere else. I have not looked at any personal data, and I will not look at any personal data. To do so would be both unethical and illegal and put myself and my company at legal risk. Companies all the time must make decisions on who they trust to handle their data, in this situation JREF trusted me - note: not anonymous forumite "icerat" - but real world me. From the beginning we have been dealing with these issues using my corporate email account.
...

 

[sadhatter]

You know i wanted to read the whole thread before posting this, and i know others have posted similar, but for my two cents...

I don't feel betrayed by the decision, but i do feel sad, both personally, and for others who were in a similarsituation to mine.

I was hip deep in woo, one day a friend of mine asked if i had ever honestly talked to people with the opposite view points, articles, studies and what not didn't sway me, there was nothing personal
about them, in my woo addled state i could justify them as made up by whoever suited my fancy at the time.

But upon seeing the plethora of folks willing to engage in debate, and more so the differences in debating styles on both sides i was swayed. When i saw people like myself acting like children and those on the opposite side being rational, and nice, it was a real eye opener and saved me from dozens of delusions from the harmless to the mentally crippling.

I think the dissolution of this forum will have a negative impact on people that were like myself, it was one of the best resources in regards to digging myself ( and later some friends) out of the woo cess pit.

I honestly think the whole is more than the sum of is parts, the crowd the branding and the moderation made this hands down the best place.

 

[icerat]

I think the dissolution of this forum will have a negative impact on people that were like myself, it was one of the best resources in regards to digging myself ( and later some friends) out of the woo cess pit.

The forum is not getting dissolved.

 

[lionking]

The forum is not getting dissolved.

The JREF forum is. Yes, the Foundation didn't take much notice, but the link gave credibility and status. I believe a new forum without that link will be diminished, even if all members remain.