Bizarre Accusation by a WP Moderator
03 Nov 2011, 12:49 pm
I haven't been here in forever because I just got tired of the BS. It just all got old for personal reasons. I wasn't agreeing with the outlook that a number of the posters here have and found myself limiting where I interacted on the forum more and more. One day I just realize it wasn't my thing so I stopped coming here. I did recommend this forum to an aspie friend and helped her set up the account. That was months ago. I haven't been on here since and, actually, when I came here to post about this issue, my computer was still logged into her account from when we set it up! That's how long it's been! She says she posted a little bit after she went home but she told me today that she hasn't posted in months. She says it didn't interest her and she has her reasons but that's a separate thing.
My problem was that out-of-the-blue I received a message from a self-proclaimed moderator claiming I was both my friend and me. Or maybe it was that my friend was both herself and me because she received the same message. It was pretty offensive and, knowing this particular person from my previous interactions with her, such an accusation would not have happened without a lot of gossip beforehand with a number of different people. This moderator wanted to delete the accounts.
This moderator's reasoning could be frivolous and stupid, based on views shared on the forum (I posted a lot of opinions when I was active) or just that we both live in Florida (very odd for friends, right?) or they could be alarming, like that I used the same password for her account that I used for mine when I helped her set it up at my house many many months ago. Are moderators looking at passwords?
My point is that I don't want to be harassed or accused or maligned by insane people for stupid reasons. I left this forum because I didn't want to deal with that and I spent time debating whether or not I was even going to bother coming here to share that this violation happened. Since the risk remains that anyone could be harassed, that moderators have access to people's passwords and they are looking to delete accounts, I decided to extend the courtesy of letting others know that this happened to me.
Don't expect me back here and I don't want to hear from any of you ever again.
Thanks.
03 Nov 2011, 1:14 pm
My problem was that out-of-the-blue I received a message from a self-proclaimed moderator claiming I was both my friend and me. Or maybe it was that my friend was both herself and me because she received the same message. It was pretty offensive and, knowing this particular person from my previous interactions with her, such an accusation would not have happened without a lot of gossip beforehand with a number of different people. This moderator wanted to delete the accounts.
This moderator's reasoning could be frivolous and stupid, based on views shared on the forum (I posted a lot of opinions when I was active) or just that we both live in Florida (very odd for friends, right?) or they could be alarming, like that I used the same password for her account that I used for mine when I helped her set it up at my house many many months ago. Are moderators looking at passwords?
I'm not a Wrong Planet moderator or anyway associated with them but I am very familiar with forum software.
Every time you connect to a website like this and login/post a message your internet address is stored. This is because forums have a lot of problems with spammers and trolls that use multiple accounts to do bad things. It is such a problem that ALL forum software does this and practically ALL forums will have a 'no duplicate accounts' rule in their terms and conditions.
When you created your friend's account on your computer the address exactly matched the address that was associated with your account, so the software identifies your machine as having being used to create multiple accounts. Which in fairness, it has been, even though the accounts were for different people. Computers are very stupid.
I know of no forum software where moderators have access to passwords, none. Server admins do but they are usually not a member of the forum but hired professional help there to do a technical job, spying on their customer's users would be a really serious sacking offence.
Moderators on the other hand are UNPAID volunteers that are part of the community and as such probably sent the emails out to you and your friend while also trying to cook their kids dinner.
I'm afraid you are building a big conspiracy theory over a trivial event due to not knowing how things work and a touch of paranoia.
spongy
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Joined: 17 Jul 2010
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,055
Location: Patiently waiting for the seventh wave
03 Nov 2011, 1:16 pm
My problem was that out-of-the-blue I received a message from a self-proclaimed moderator claiming I was both my friend and me. Or maybe it was that my friend was both herself and me because she received the same message. It was pretty offensive and, knowing this particular person from my previous interactions with her, such an accusation would not have happened without a lot of gossip beforehand with a number of different people. This moderator wanted to delete the accounts.
This moderator's reasoning could be frivolous and stupid, based on views shared on the forum (I posted a lot of opinions when I was active) or just that we both live in Florida (very odd for friends, right?) or they could be alarming, like that I used the same password for her account that I used for mine when I helped her set it up at my house many many months ago. Are moderators looking at passwords?
My point is that I don't want to be harassed or accused or maligned by insane people for stupid reasons. I left this forum because I didn't want to deal with that and I spent time debating whether or not I was even going to bother coming here to share that this violation happened. Since the risk remains that anyone could be harassed, that moderators have access to people's passwords and they are looking to delete accounts, I decided to extend the courtesy of letting others know that this happened to me.
Don't expect me back here and I don't want to hear from any of you ever again.
Thanks.
Not a self proclaimed moderator but an actual one( have a look at the list on this thread if you dont believe my words http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt158661.html), we just happened to start pms in an awkward way when we started moderating because most people werent aware we were mods.
Im sorry you find it offensive but when an ipcheck provides two posters from the same ip members are contacted. We know it could be a family member a so... so we are understanding towards any explanation that makes some sort of sense(we are just trying to avoid issues that may arise from members that have 2 acounts).
I can assure you that there wasnt any kind of gossip and it was dealt on a secret section most members dont have access to.
The whole which account would you like to keep is our usual question.
Now let me ask you something, before making a public thread explaining the situation and how you feel mistreated did you try to talk things with that mod without creating any hype around it? This is an average problem thats usually sorted by one pm. Instead you decided to make it a public issue, you have every right to do so but it strikes me as odd, to say the least.
FYI moderators cant access people´s passwords(used to be able to in the past but apparently they overused that function and getting things back the way they were was a pain).
I for one will miss your posts.
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03 Nov 2011, 8:44 pm
the posters above me pretty much explained everything. i'd like to add that if you would like to post up the actual PM i sent you, feel free to do so as i think the contents speak for themselves.
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