Well you never know definitively what people do with your info but I feel like thus far I have only joined safe sites & I hope in the future to be able to avoid shady sites where mods use your personal info inappropriately

 

helpful hint for everybody on the interwebnets - change your email to something nonsensical after you first register (or delete it altogether if the site lets you). Forums in general are not bound by any privacy regulations and moderators are after all just anonymous members with responsibility and access. I use beavis@aol.com

we had a banned member come back with an alter ego this week. it was clear who it was and the IP check confirmed. Silly idjit used his work email to register. Good thing he did....he just threatened one of my mods via IM after he was banned again. We know where he works, who runs the company, we have his picture and we know his full name, phone number, etc. Crooks are stupid. If he keeps it up, we'll contact his employer and the police...searching his username, it's clear he's an e-bully and has been banned from multiple forums.

 

MBE I should start using butthead@aol.com

Yeah but that's a little different... using registration information after someone has threatened you or similar. To take someone's info when they first sign on & go snooping for every other post they have made at other websites, their myspace account, Etc... is just creepy & wrong. Plus I would hope that our personal information is protected. I mean when I make a purchase thru the NAM store I would hope that my address & credit card information are adequately protected.

 

One thing I would like to address on this subject. We have never sold or used email addresses for anything other than communicating with members. If you change your email address to something that doesn't work a couple of things will happen:

• You'll no longer receive private message notifications via email (if you have pop-up PM notification enabled you'll at least get that if you visit the site)
• You'll no longer receive updates from subscribed threads or forums
• We won't be able to notify you when we launch something new on the site (and we have a lot of new features coming soon)

Just wanted to make you aware of the possible side effects if use an email address that isn't valid.

Mark

 

I hope he means 'lurk' vs 'troll'

Doing Google on 'Deviant' is probably not a good idea in any case.

Welcome back dave and goaljnky!

As for staying on topic, uh, I thought I could be a moderator until I say this:

 

To address your NAM Store concern... We use SSL (encryption) on the pages when you enter your credit card information and the data is encrypted in the database. We also delete the credit card information from the database after we've processed your order.

I take my and everyone's privacy on the site seriously and make every attempt to keep it private. If you haven't looked at it our Privacy Policy is a link at the bottom of every page of the site.

Mark

 

sorry...I was speaking in general, not specific to NAM. I'm sure most reputable sites like NAM don't share info, but looking at a previous post, it's obvious some moderators (not on NAM mind you), use your info to check you out even when you've done nothing to warrant it.

obviously, not using a valid emails means you lose funtionality. I check my userCP for thread updates and PM's so the email notice is usually redundant (and given the number of forums I'm on, it's nice not getting 500 emails a day )

 

I just read the NAM "Security Policy" & while I am not even sure if the all?/any?/some? of MODS have access to our info, it does appear as if here on NAM they are bound by a privacy/security policy of course I have no idea what that policy is

 

my buddy owns both actually he worked in AOL IT back in the early days and grabbed both

 

Not fair

 

Only Administrators, not Moderators, have access to email addresses and any other info you store in your Member Profile (remember, not all data is listed in your public profile). At the moment, that includes Mark, dave, Sam & myself.

We are bound by and agree with Mark's policies - the email addresses are only ever used to convey NAM matters, that's it. Same goes for any other info you put in there (like your age, for example... should you choose to hide from public view).

 

Only the admins (right now that is Edge and Dave) Sam (for contact with vendors via their email) and I have access to email information. Based on past experience the only time we even look at email is when people sign up on the site (the email is often an indicator if the email is a spammer, vendor, etc.). In the past I've also looked at a user's account information (email in particular) to get the address to directly send an email rather than a PM.

Regardless we don't pass your email around and share it with others on the site.

Mark

 

Thanks guys, that makes me feel better I didn't want anyone to uncover the fact that I thought **** was an acceptable means of supporting myself in my younger days...





I'm kidding

 

Yes...we wouldn't want that secret to get out

 

Back on topic for a sec...

This morning this post was reported. I think is a great example of what doesn't feel like community to me. I responded by calling out the user and by including information so that others may add him to their ignore lists if they see fit.

Thoughts on this approach? Ideally I would like to see other members calling people out for their actions so that something like this doesn't require moderation intervention. Having members do that will not only reduce the moderator load but will archive the level of interaction we accept/don't accept as a community.

Mark

 

I don't know Mark. Ideally most of the forums should be dedicated to discussion of the MINI, although a little humor or the occasional OT thread doesn't hurt.

But as with most subjects, opinions are going to vary considerably as to what is or is not acceptable. If threads get filled up with various interpretations of the rules of conduct, we all lose.

One post from you will have a greater effect than 100 from members. Chances are you're still going to get a report on posts like that. A post like that is probably better off ignored by members. The poster is looking for attention. Responding will only get him what he wants.

When I started a thread on a little stoplight challenge, I quickly learned the meaning of IB4TL, and the points I got on my account will prevent me from doing it again.

 

OT for a second - what does IB4TL mean??

 

in before the lock. usually used to up post count haha

 

Ah. Thanks.

 

I realize that my posting may have a bit more impact than others but I can't be on the site all the time, policing, and still hope to do any of the strategic things I want to do for the site and community. I need assistance, in some way, to help set the tone on the site so that its not just me that calls people out when they say or do something that isn't in the spirit of the community as a whole.

Moderation is one way of doing this but everyone has to react in a similar way, assess similar consequences, etc. to make it work effectively. If we are to stop over-moderating then the members of the site have to step up. Otherwise we are left with no option other than to intervene with some type of moderation action.

Mark

 

If you ever need help lemme know

 

Self-policing is a good concept, but I have to wonder how effective it would be with some posters. I'd think it would work fairly well with most regulars - if I posted something that generated a lot of negative response, I'd be inclined to think, "Oops, I guess I've pissed off a bunch of my friends", and would likely revise/edit/explain/apologise... whatever.

Someone who's a newbie, though, who comes in and starts posting inflammatory remarks is less likely to be brought into line by people who don't have some official title under their name that would imply the ability to enforce discipline. Of course, some people like to stir things up, and don't care who chastises them; they're going to argue with anyone. I would expect a lot of, "Who the heck are you to tell me what not to say or how to behave?! It's not your site - you can't tell me what to do."

 

reminds me of that commerical with the contrarian.

do you like good service? no

 

Yeah, remember the STUPIED guy :impatient He didn't seem to care much what we all thought but he is a rare & extreme example.

 

IB4TL is a form of self-policing...all you have to do is see/post this and everybody knows there's trouble. So make up some others:

WYSWI - What you said was inappropriate.
YONUH - Your Opinion, Not Universally Held
BOT - Beware Of Troll
RB Post #345 - Reader Beware of Post #345
PEAP - Please edit above post.
VOSGON - Violates of site guidelines of NAM
OYJEY - Oops, you just embarassed yourself

Maybe one will catch on.