Reading users PM's

[SamG]

By the way, apologies for using "principal" where I meant "principle." Basically, I'm an idiot.

[updown]

the whole issue would have been less contentious if the feature did not contain the word "private" in its name. by calling PM "private message" you imply a level of privacy for which you can't really commit, and maybe you don't want to commit.[...]
i used to have a disclaimer somewhere in the "terms of use" that said something like "the PM system is for your convenience. board administrators *can read* your PMs.

That's crap, as long as your users are suggested that there is a conversion between them an someone other, you can call it this way or that way, and write "hidden" disclaimers as much as you want. As long it is not clear for your users the moment they write a message, that it will be read someone else than the recipient, it's unnecessary to change something. See also:

A dutch IT legal adviser has made a nice blog post about it last year.. Google translate version of the post

The only morally adaquate, absolute legally and legitimate PM-Reading MOD would this:

My idea is an experiment, and the best thinkable PM-Reading MOD: Every time when a user composes a PM, an admin or admin-group is automatically added as a "To:"-recipient, visible for the sender and recipient, and not removable (this could be easily modded by adding some minor lines of codes to ucp_pm_compose.php and template)! That is basically the same as an open "CC:" in Emails, informing all recipients that someone else has also got this message. And it is basically the same as a hidden PM-Reading MOD with disclaimer, but more concrete.

But believe me, in most cases you could also disable the PM-function then.

by the lights of conventional open source wisdom, you simply don't set moral or legal terms of use, as a matter of principal, anywhere, at any time. You apply the principal uniformly, not just to MODs in phpBB's case. In phpBB's case, you apply it to the core as well.

That's only theoretically, practically it doesn't work that way. That's not wisdom, that's idiomatic nonsense.

I want the MOD Team to see and accept their responsibility for what they do and don't do, and being responsible for the consequences. Not more, not less. My concern is to make them see the consequences, then they have to decide in the name of the community and with full responsibility for negative consequences resulting from. No "that's not our job", no "we are not the authors", no "it's only technically validated" and other crap. Full responsibility - that's all, nothing more.

I think you've confused something here. We've never said we're not accepting responsibility for this decision.

You never said that you don't, but that doesn't mean you do. How could you, when you are not fully aware of the situation. Does that sound responsible and fully aware to you?:

We will make sure a modification meets our formal criteria. Whether or not we think it is morally right is an other matter. It shall be the judgment of of the admin using it.

Except those rules what people do on our site not what people do on their site with their users.

Validation does not at all imply any encouragement or recommendation for a MOD -- it simply means that the MOD is functional and secure.

Finally, I'm generally opposed to censorship, I'm sure most people here are so why should we censor these MODs?

I'm out of this, let's agree to disagree. If the issue becomes a problem, we'll re-evaluate.

This is the MOD Team's official policy. As Chris has stated, should the need to reevaluate arise in the future, we will certainly do so.

Doesn't sound so to me...

[Cpt. Blackbeard]

I just want to add a couple of comments.
To those who say phpBB shouldn't officially validate these Mods you are in essence saying do it behind the scenes so no one else finds out. It is THAT kind of underhandedness that would give phpBB a bad rep, if you have the Mod be open about it. In Fact it should be coded in so every user can see you have the Mod installed an see what it does, no secrets, no Issues.
And to the suggestion that a copy of every PM be sent to the Admin, I don't want them. I'd much rather have it posted that PMs are subject to Admin review and leave it at that.
phpBB made the right decision, and I thank them for their wisdom.

[DavidIQ]

You never said that you don't, but that doesn't mean you do. How could you, when you are not fully aware of the situation. Does that sound responsible and fully aware to you?

When I said "we" I was referring to the MOD Team and not the entire phpBB team. They don't take responsibility for MODs, we do. I had hoped that was apparent... My statements are in line with evil<3's remarks which you quoted.

[SamG]

That's only theoretically, practically it doesn't work that way. That's not wisdom, that's idiomatic nonsense.

Of course. Silly me. Clearly, non-idiomatic wisdom dictates that phpBB must have a private message feature and that all open source projects are bound to supply morally and legally responsible terms of use for everyone.

As usual, this comes down to the same old line: phpBB-driven communities have a right to PMs. The toggle is a concession of some sort to the extreme and to idealists about something other than privacy and phpBB's reputation--people like me.

I am more convinced than ever by the narrow arguments of this topic that using the PM toggle as appropriate is sensible and helps protect a vulnerable community and its administrators from potential abuse.

[updown]

I'm finished here, all arguments describing the severe problem are on the table, now it depends on the willingness and understandability of the "team" (whichone ever).

One last thing: There has been also a MOD and also a very controversal discussion on our all beloved vBulletin site. The PM-reading MOD is not beeing further adapted for versions that has the pm-reporting function since 2009. Very interesting, seems they are again a little bit further then we are here:

Small note: This product will probably not get updated for 3.8, since 3.8 beta 1 (released today) shows that you can report a private message. The purpose of this mod therefor is void. There won't be a need anymore to get a GUI to list the private msgs that are stored in plain text, to see if a user who's reporting someone manually, is telling the truth or not.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthre ... 815&page=5

[Lumpy Burgertushie]

updown, you keep going on and on about how the team does not understand what you consider to be the issue and that they have not looked at all sides, and that they are not accepting responsibiliy for what they have decided.

were you in any of those meetings? you have no way of knowing what they have or have not discussed, looked at, etc.

It sounds to me like until they make a decision that you agree with, you are not going to think they know what they are doing.

robert

[updown]

were you in any of those meetings? you have no way of knowing what they have or have not discussed, looked at, etc. It sounds to me like until they make a decision that you agree with, you are not going to think they know what they are doing.

Robert: I'm finished here arguing but take some time to respond to you. The team makes many decisions every day, and I don't comply with many of them (still there are many I do comply). That is not the point. I also don't know what they have discussed internally, that also doesn't matter. I only see what they decide, how they communicate this decision, and how they react on severe problems. I also think that this should not be the decision by the MOD-Team, they are there to judge technical and security issues, not questions that affect the whole image of phpBB. In fact this should be a decision of all teams: MOD-team, Devs, Support, Website, Style, QA, etc. and I hope everyone has been involved adequately. I wanted to help, that's all, and every conscious decision is a good decision - hopefully for all of us.

[Cpt. Blackbeard]

I agree Lumpy. I also think comparing a board you pay $350.00 for which only nets you one year of free updates to a totally free board is seriously like comparing apples to Corvettes. (phpBB is the best)

[HGN]

One last thing: There has been also a MOD and also a very controversal discussion on our all beloved vBulletin site. The PM-reading MOD is not beeing further adapted for versions that has the pm-reporting function since 2009. Very interesting, seems they are again a little bit further then we are here:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthre ... 815&page=5

From the link you gave:

Released: 25 Jul 2005 - Last Update: 09 Oct 2008

This was really the first hack for version 3 of vBulletin, and now upgraded to 3.5 because of many .. many .. many requests. ..many.

So this would mean that VBulletin had a severe, severe problem from jul 2005 until oct 2008 and longer and they had a very, very bad reputation amongst forumusers because of that mod?

[arod-1]

...
That's crap,
...

and good day to you too.
it is always a pleasure to read well formed and logical arguments.

have fun.

[stickerboy]

Ok, I'm going to close this off at that note. I'm keeping this closed for the time being and will re-open it once things settle down


Thanks,
Kenny.

*edit* as it seems that this topic cannot stay open without arguments and flames starting up again, it will stay locked. Please feel free to PM me if you have any issues with this.