The Rule of What?
(Sorry to keep this thread side-tracked, but the other one appears to have been deleted. You've been doing a good job Mod2, unlike the regime which prevailed before you started.)
I have to admit that when I first saw the text of the famous PM from SL, my immediate thought was that this might be covered by some policy of the Board. However, after reviewing the posted rules and guidelines, I found that there was nothing specifically applying to the use of PMs that would have prohibited this alleged misdeed. Furthermore, after reading all the pronouncements of Fred Zed on the issue, all I see invoked are nebulous general references to "rules of your ISP", "the rules of your webhost", and "the rules of the internet". So, it was thus on the basis of these supposed violations (only suspected in some cases) that Fred Zed arbitrarily proceeded, on the pretext of a "security breach", to ban or suspend a number of members and to access someone's PMs (notwithstanding a supposed policy on privacy -- I say "supposed" because while none is posted, there apparently exists an "exception" justifying the Administrator accessing PMs).
In keeping with the principle of the Rule of Law, we are constantly exhorted on this Board to respect the posted rules and guidelines. We would have accepted them when we became members. However, even if it was only Fred Zed who determined what are those rules and guidelines, it is necessary that they be made known, and not improvised along the way after the fact, as we have witnessed from this recent incident. In effect we have the Rule of Fred, not the Rule of Law.
The main point of this post is to underline how this incident exposes the uneasy co-existence within the Board of two separate realities -- on the one hand, the community that has been created through the online interaction of those who engage in essentially altruistic acts of sharing information, and on the other hand, and the commercial self-interest of the owner of the Board. The community would not exist if the infrastructure was not provided by someone. By the same token, the creation of the Board was a business decision, and its size and participatory success financially benefits the owner.
So, what happens when something on the Board threatens the commercial interests of the owner. Although the Board is described as essentially self-regulatory, some here apparently would accept that the owner of the Board can basically do whatever he wants in reaction. I disagree, especially if no published Board policy or any Canadian law was violated. If the transgressions were otherwise deemed to be unethical or unacceptable, then let the perpetrators be reproached in the same way that shills and proxys are usually dealt with here -- exposed, reproached, ostracized, and then if they persist, ultimately ignored. If it is believed that the acts were so "reprehensible", then in the better judgment of each member, the message would have backfired. I have more faith in individual members to decide for themselves, than in the Administrator, if this incident is demonstrative of a proper exercise of his discretion, not to mention what I see as a disappointing choice of words in announcing how he intended to deal with the situation.
I make no comment on whether any of the banned members should return, except to say that, based on the above, they were improperly and arbitrarily treated. Members come and go, and it appears unlikely they would come back in any event. However, I personally see nothing prohibiting or wrong with the owner or manager of another review board being a member here, provided that such status or involvement is known or declared. Accordingly, I had always scrutinized anything posted by Tom in light of his business interests, but nonetheless appreciated some of his insights. For the same reason, I would have preferred that Cool Amadeus continued to post, even after being outed as Pierre, and I was more suspicious of the supposed information sources and motives of the accuser in that matter.
Of greater concern though is the invasion of the privacy of the PMs because of a supposed breach of security. Security of what? Apparently only of the commercial interests of the owner of the Board. What is undeniable at least is that the integrity of the content of PMs which were received, read and stored in members' in-boxes was subsequently tampered with by the Administrator, even if it was only as a global "fix". Unlike other boards which have a specific policy about including advertising links at least in public posts, no such similar rule has been stipulated here for either posts or PMs. Furthermore, it is questionable whether the PM in question could be labelled as "spam" if it was (at least in my case) transmitted as a PM between persons who had previously communicated in this manner about questions and business arising from the discussion threads.
So, if it is to be the Rule of Fred, then let it be clearly stated as such, and then we can all make our own decisions accordingly.
