You are a troll, and other notes
Baron Max said:
Well, how else did String read my PRIVATE message to you ....and then ban me for 7 days for what I said ....in PRIVATE???? Or perhaps you think he just banned me for the pure joy of it?
I want you to think about snail mail for a moment, Max.
Let's pretend you have a problem with your insurance company, so you send off a nasty letter to the adjustor telling him what you think of him. Now, certainly you have a reasonable expectation that the mailman's not going to open up the letter and read it without some sort of probable cause. But when that lands on the adjustor's desk, and he reads it, and he decides that it is a continuing problem, one thing he's going to do is make a copy of it and forward it to his boss, so that the company is aware of the problem.
Now, it seems that you're suggesting that, when you send a complaint as part of an administrative issue, you expect that we will keep the issue to ourselves, and this is an erroneous expectation. We cannot necessarily resolve the issue without administrative awareness.
Furthermore, if that communication only exacerbates the problem, it becomes even more important that others who might deal with you in an administrative capacity be aware of what's going on. To return to the insurance analogy, any adjustor who opens your policy file in a future incident might see that letter.
Private messages at Sciforums take place outside the view of the general public.
That is their privacy. You can communicate with someone directly without having to post it in front of
everyone.
Once that information is in the other person's hands, it's out of yours.
We generally discourage people from airing dirty laundry from private messages in the public fora, but it happens from time to time. If you sent a nasty letter to an ex-wife, she might hand it to a friend and say, "What do you think of this?" And up here in the Pacific Northwest, we have this custom that I've always found bizarre, but for different reasons. At each seasonal holiday, or around the time of one's birthday, people take the greeting cards they receive and put them on display in their home. As a guest, you're welcome, and, in some cases,
expected to pick up the cards and read them. Hell, sometimes the cards even get passed around at the party. And I know it's not just a Seattle thing to do that.
That you have a mistaken and inflated notion of the privacy of private messages does not surprise me, Max. It is, after all, convenient to your habit of complaining. But at what point do you think you continue to have governance over messages put into other people's hands? If someone forwards us a private message including stalking and harassment, should the stalker feel violated? If a disgruntled member decides to cuss out a moderator and expresses dissatisfaction, do you really expect them to keep it to themselves? How can the administration help you if they're not aware of the problem?
It's an interesting notion of privacy you require, Max. It's unrealistic and dysfunctional. Big surprise, eh? But members here have posted private message contents between themselves before, which isn't the best idea. And they've posted private messages from moderators, which isn't as big a deal, since they're complaining. And, in a couple of cases, moderators have felt compelled to post messages from members in open view because they thought it was, in some way or another, appropriate in response to a public complaint.
The one thing you
should not be is
surprised that someone might allow another to view the message, especially if it is a disgruntled expression pertaining to matters administrative.
Briefly, a couple of other notes.
Yes, you
are a troll, Max. Your performance in
#321 above makes that point rather well. It's a classic troll maneuver, to angrily refuse an answer to your issue because it's too long. You asked how we know when someone is pretending. I suppose I could have answered with a single sentence, "Because we
do, Max." Or, "We just know, Max." But what would
that accomplish? It's not exactly a short answer that fulfills the question. Yet you don't want the answer, which suggests that the question itself was bullshit. I don't think you really expect people to believe you're as ... um ...
naîve? ... as the character you play. I've said that before, and I'll say it again as needed. But come on, Max. Your expectation of privacy is overreaching, although it
is convenient to your need to complain. And if you wrote a long, detailed, footnoted post, that would actually be an improvement because it would show you're putting some thought and effort into your posts and complaints.
