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UER Forum > Archived Forum Announcements > Reminder: Private Boards (Viewed 725 times)
metawaffle 

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 20 on 11/18/2010 12:06 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Okay, I bit just a little...

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trent 

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 21 on 11/18/2010 12:42 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
(Some responses in red because I'm lazy)
Posted by metawaffle

A valid complaint, and I would post this in Contact a Mod.
I did. The result was mods telling me they can see private boards. I also PM'd the mod who did it expressing my concern. That mod continued to post a couple more times in my board. If it can happen to me with uninvited reading and posting what's to stop other mods from doing some reading now and then?


You're always at the mercy of site administration, or even your hosting provider. Like DW said, it's a risky proposition to expect privacy on the internet.
Abovesome where I pointed out that there is always going to be an administrator or hosting provider. The good ones keep their nose out of things. It's a lot easier to hope you can trust one person than the admin and a whole mod squad who's proven they've gotten a bit curious in invite-only boards at times.

I understand that on the internet you can't expect full privacy, but here at UER I would hope that we would all be for that.



The problem is, people have complaints against board owners, too.
Those people aren't forced to continue to stay on that board. It is a private board. Let the the board take care of itself. In this scenario the user could just as easily be informed that the moderators don't patrol private boards.




So you guys don't want to give up power to see in private boards. That's fine. But wouldn't you agree it should be proper to minimally inform users at the time of creating private boards that UER moderators can still see in the private boards they create?

You would have to support that idea right? Giving a heads-up to the user is non-controversial, right? Because if not that would pretty much mean you support some users signing up for private boards not knowing you're watching them, and that would be creepy.

It's one thing to expect privacy on the internet. It's quite another to allow a user to create a 'private' board which is actually the farthest thing at all from being private and expect the user to find it in the fine print (or randomly have a uninvited person post in their board). Hiding things in fine print or deep in user agreements is crap evil corporations pull. It shouldn't be something on a home brew niche forum community.


[last edit 11/18/2010 12:44 AM by trent - edited 1 times]

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hydrotherapy 

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 22 on 11/18/2010 12:44 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Has someone pinged Av yet? This is just starting to sound stupid, to me.

It's a private board, on a board run by an administrator who has a tight knit circle of people to track things for him.



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TurboZutek 

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 23 on 11/18/2010 12:57 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by trent
So you guys don't want to give up power to see in private boards. That's fine. But wouldn't you agree it should be proper to minimally inform users at the time of creating private boards that UER moderators can still see in the private boards they create?


I personally always thought the reason we didn't spell it out in black and white bold text was because it's completely and utterly 100% totally fucking obvious? Site administration and moderators can moderate and administer the site; of which private boards are but a section.

I'm not saying your idea doesn't have any merit, but it seems akin to a warning sign by the pool stating that the water used in said pool is wet.

Posted by trent
You would have to support that idea right? Giving a heads-up to the user is non-controversial, right? Because if not that would pretty much mean you support some users signing up for private boards not knowing you're watching them, and that would be creepy.


Uhmmm, did you read MistFits post (it's post #1) where it states we can do exactly that? Sorta adresses the whole disclosure issue; with it being pinned for all to see and all, hey? I'd say that's a heads up for the user, no?

Posted by trent
It's one thing to expect privacy on the internet. It's quite another to allow a user to create a 'private' board which is actually the farthest thing at all from being private and expect the user to find it in the fine print (or randomly have a uninvited person post in their board).


It's one thing to have a fully private board that not even mods can see but quite another when Mary Jane Shit for Brains sets up her kiddy porn private board and gets UER in a butt load of trouble. The TOS has to be enforced SITE-WIDE, for a host of reasons, not least the legal aspects and that means that, sorry, mods will have to see that's the case all over the site, as Av can't be all places at all times.

/Though he can be in most places at most times. He's magic.

Personally I couldn't give two fucks less what goes on in the private boards, but that's NOT to say I can't be called in to one to clean up, enforce the TOS or keep the peace there.

Chris...


We all had ostriches. My dad had an ostrich farm! I remember one day someone came in and said the high altitude bombing of Kosovo had been a limited success, so we all went out and celebrated… by killing an ostrich and boiling it in kiwi fruit.
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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 24 on 11/18/2010 12:58 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Not sure if that helped, but it got everything straight in my mind! I'm utterly stunned that anyone, anywhere would think mods couldn't see private boards?

We all had ostriches. My dad had an ostrich farm! I remember one day someone came in and said the high altitude bombing of Kosovo had been a limited success, so we all went out and celebrated… by killing an ostrich and boiling it in kiwi fruit.
trent 

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Not on UER anymore.

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 25 on 11/18/2010 1:10 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by TurboZutek


I personally always thought the reason we didn't spell it out in black and white bold text was because it's completely and utterly 100% totally fucking obvious?
Why is it obvious? I am a full-time forum WHORE yet I've never joined a forum where users could create their own 'private' board. This isn't exactly like a normal webforum with that functionality. So no, it is not obvious. Especially when the thing is called 'private' yet is not private.


Uhmmm, did you read MistFits post (it's post #1) where it states we can do exactly that? Sorta adresses the whole disclosure issue; with it being pinned for all to see and all, hey? I'd say that's a heads up for the user, no?
You as a moderator should very well know that often new users don't read shit before posting or attempting to do things. You expect them to find some forum post about it?


It's one thing to have a fully private board that not even mods can see but quite another when Mary Jane Shit for Brains sets up her kiddy porn private board and gets UER in a butt load of trouble. The TOS has to be enforced SITE-WIDE, for a host of reasons, not least the legal aspects and that means that, sorry, mods will have to see that's the case all over the site, as Av can't be all places at all times.
I can agree with that. That is why I'm now shifting to either having the board not be called 'private' or better informing users that they are not private.

Personally I couldn't give two fucks less what goes on in the private boards, but that's NOT to say I can't be called in to one to clean up, enforce the TOS or keep the peace there.

Chris...





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hydrotherapy 

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 26 on 11/18/2010 1:28 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by trent

It's quite another to allow a user to create a 'private' board which is actually the farthest thing at all from being private and expect the user to find it in the fine print (or randomly have a uninvited person post in their board). Hiding things in fine print or deep in user agreements is crap evil corporations pull. It shouldn't be something on a home brew niche forum community.





(3) PRIVACY OF CONTENT

(b) PRIVATE BOARDS
Information you post in user-created private boards may be viewed by the other members of that board, and by the administration at their discretion. Information posted here is not publically viewable, and will never show up in a search engine or archive.

It took me less than a minute to find this. If you've been a member of this board for four years and never bothered to look at that, it didn't mean it was hidden, it meant you were lazy. This, as Misfit stated, was a reminder. I'm fairly sure most everyone here understands 'private' meant normal members couldn't join or post, or view, and it isn't cached in web archives.

I'm really not sure where anyone could possibly get the idea they're in the complete clear on as large a forum as this for mods not to have access to everything, that's why Av put us here. I'm starting to think you're arguing for argument's sake at this rate.

And what everyone else said, we really don't care to peruse private boards unless someone sends us a complaint. So continue to post pictures of nudes in drains or whatever it is you're doing that has you so upset. Maybe start your own forum if you don't like this one? DrainCetacean.com, perhaps?

Because surely you've never complained about someone starting up a parallel group when they didn't feel UER was to their liking.

Get down, girl, go 'head, get down.
hydrotherapy 

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 27 on 11/18/2010 1:30 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Fine. I posted.

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 28 on 11/18/2010 1:47 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
As far as I know, the only time users were informed of the nature of "private" boards (aside from the TOS) was when they were first introduced. Which is why I posted this thread.

That said, I agree that a reminder when creating a board would be useful. And there's really no point in arguing this back and forth. I'm sure Av will pop into the discussion soon.

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trent 

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Not on UER anymore.

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 29 on 11/18/2010 1:54 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by hydrotherapy



(3) PRIVACY OF CONTENT

(b) PRIVATE BOARDS
Information you post in user-created private boards may be viewed by the other members of that board, and by the administration at their discretion. Information posted here is not publically viewable, and will never show up in a search engine or archive.

It took me less than a minute to find this. If you've been a member of this board for four years and never bothered to look at that, it didn't mean it was hidden, it meant you were lazy. This, as Misfit stated, was a reminder. I'm fairly sure most everyone here understands 'private' meant normal members couldn't join or post, or view, and it isn't cached in web archives.

I'm really not sure where anyone could possibly get the idea they're in the complete clear on as large a forum as this for mods not to have access to everything, that's why Av put us here. I'm starting to think you're arguing for argument's sake at this rate.

And what everyone else said, we really don't care to peruse private boards unless someone sends us a complaint. So continue to post pictures of nudes in drains or whatever it is you're doing that has you so upset. Maybe start your own forum if you don't like this one? DrainCetacean.com, perhaps?

Because surely you've never complained about someone starting up a parallel group when they didn't feel UER was to their liking.


I've read the document you're referring to months ago and referred to it in some of my posts above. I'm not really sure why you don't see how the user might be confused about the 'private' forums not actually being private if they haven't intentionally looked for the privacy policy which is something people often don't do. It's happened to me. I didn't know until a mod started posting in my board. You can't be telling me that I'm the only one that didn't know mods could see inside private boards and everyone just knows or has read the policy themselves. If everyone knows, why included it in a reminder?

Well I figured I'd just bring my concerns up. I guess it's clear that UER is standing firm behind not adding a one line comment to the invite-only board creating screen which fairly warns users what will happen by creating that board. It doesn't make much sense to me. It's a trivial thing to add and could better inform users of their privacy, but nah. Oh well.

Oh, and hydro, I'm not sure why you're making up rumors in yours last paragraph. I honestly despised that kid. But I could give two shits if someone goes and creates their own website/forum. I was quite fine with him and him outta here. This whole thread has been on topic until now until you swayed to personal attacks. Please keep it rational.



[last edit 11/18/2010 1:56 AM by trent - edited 1 times]

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trent 

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Not on UER anymore.

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 30 on 11/18/2010 1:58 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by -MisfitStyle-
That said, I agree that a reminder when creating a board would be useful. And there's really no point in arguing this back and forth. I'm sure Av will pop into the discussion soon.


Thanks for trying to see this from my point of view.

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 31 on 11/18/2010 2:19 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Completely different question but related to privacy:

"Open-To-All" boards (aka the ones that aren't invite only)...

They are still indexed by google; which means they are NOT "private" in any sense of the word. Even though they are all grouped together under the "your private boards" section. It's a bit misleading.

Can something be done about that?

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metawaffle 

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 32 on 11/18/2010 2:30 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by TheVicariousVadder
Completely different question but related to privacy:

"Open-To-All" boards (aka the ones that aren't invite only)...

They are still indexed by google; which means they are NOT "private" in any sense of the word. Even though they are all grouped together under the "your private boards" section. It's a bit misleading.

Can something be done about that?


Interesting, I didn't think those were open to indexing, but sure enough Google brings them up.

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cinemetog 


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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 33 on 11/18/2010 2:34 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by TheVicariousVadder
Can something be done about that?


A robots.txt file will take care of that, but any robot can choose to continue on anyways. Another site could mirror all the content so that Google could view it, or even worse, they could use their own robots to crawl the site and pick up keywords to alert local LEOs of unlawful behavior. Why is this worse? Because people might think it is safe if Google doesn't crawl the site, but it is just a false sense of security. Really thought a robots.txt would be nice, but it just keeps it off of Google and not out of prying eyes.

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 34 on 11/18/2010 2:37 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Humans can read robots.txt files though and peruse directories/content not meant to be seen. Ideally if a user is not logged in, then the script should stop dead in it's tracks - meaning robots will also not be able to read the content.

Interesting though is that Google has been known to cache content from forums where you NEED to be logged in with a user account in order to view it. I'm not sure how they do this (at least on my site they can't) but I am more than confident AV could fix this if he wanted.


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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 35 on 11/18/2010 2:42 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by cinemetog


A robots.txt file will take care of that, but any robot can choose to continue on anyways. Another site could mirror all the content so that Google could view it, or even worse, they could use their own robots to crawl the site and pick up keywords to alert local LEOs of unlawful behavior. Why is this worse? Because people might think it is safe if Google doesn't crawl the site, but it is just a false sense of security. Really thought a robots.txt would be nice, but it just keeps it off of Google and not out of prying eyes.


I was under the impression Av can easily change access restrictions for any part of the site; it's his own code and not a robots.txt file that enables different levels of access.

I never bothered to bring it up because I didn't see a point before but figured I'd mention it while we're on the topic.

Obviously until google updates their index they will stay as-is but it's never too late to adapt better privacy protocols.

"No risk, no reward, no fun."
"Go all the way or walk away"
escensi omnis...
metawaffle 

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Location: Brisbane!
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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 36 on 11/18/2010 2:49 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by Intrinsic
Interesting though is that Google has been known to cache content from forums where you NEED to be logged in with a user account in order to view it. I'm not sure how they do this (at least on my site they can't)


Some sites do this to boost search results - they facilitate access to the search engine, but present a "you must be a member" message to regular users. experts-exchange.com is a notorious one: they require subscription in order to see responses to questions, but one can simply refer to the google cache of the page to read the full text anyway.

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metawaffle 

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Location: Brisbane!
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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 37 on 11/18/2010 3:02 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Oops, we seem to have veered offtopic

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Speed 


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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 38 on 11/18/2010 3:39 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
I did not read all the replies in this thread so please forgive me if someone already said this.

my understanding of message board privacy is pretty simple.

this board is privately owned...period!
Av (or any site owner) is responsible for its content. He is also providing you with a service that you are agreeing to use

NOTHING here is private, right down to your "private messages".
nor should you(the user) have any reasonable expectation of privacy, doesn't matter where you are in this site.

your time here shouldn't be viewed much different than if you were sitting in Av's living room with the mod. team and the other users shooting the shit and sharing photos.
you're in his house.



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TurboZutek 

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Re: Reminder: Private Boards
<Reply # 39 on 11/18/2010 9:43 AM >
Posted on Forum: UER Forum
 
Posted by trent
You as a moderator should very well know that often new users don't read shit before posting or attempting to do things. You expect them to find some forum post about it?


Yes, it's called the TOS and everyone should read it every now and again. If you do not, I have zero sympathy if your idea of how something works isn't how it actually works.

Sorry!

Chris...

We all had ostriches. My dad had an ostrich farm! I remember one day someone came in and said the high altitude bombing of Kosovo had been a limited success, so we all went out and celebrated… by killing an ostrich and boiling it in kiwi fruit.
UER Forum > Archived Forum Announcements > Reminder: Private Boards (Viewed 725 times)
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