Banned member asking to retrieve private messages.

[yrreg]

I have been trying to retrieve my private messages in the Internet Infidels Discussion Board.

Earlier one admin who entertained my query told me he might see if the private messages can be sent to me by email.

Just now I received an email from another admin, not so cordial and rather uncivilized, telling me the following:



From: "The Other Michael" <TheOtherMichael@infidels.org>
To: "gerry" <gertes@hotmail.com>; <iidb@infidels.org>
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 9:50 AM
Subject: IIDB Re: how people get banned


> I am Pachomius2000, banned member.
>
> I am doing a study of how I got banned in IIDB, as part of a project on =
> penology in web message boards.

I think you'll find that as a banned user the staff at IIDB has no particular interest in communicating with you or accomodating you in any way.

good day,
Michael



And this is the message I sent earlier by way of an email to the administration of the IIDB.



From: gerry
To: iidb@infidels.org
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 4:28 AM
Subject: how people get banned


I am Pachomius2000, banned member.

I am doing a study of how I got banned in IIDB, as part of a project on penology in web message boards.

I realized that I had been banned when I wanted to post a message and the screen returned the message that I have been banned and the ban will never be lifted.

Consider the following post from The Other Michael.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 12, 2006, 11:32 PM #3664369 / #329
The Other Michael
II Officer, IIDB Admin


[Banned]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

pachomius2000
for failure to follow the forum rules after agreeing to do so.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


What I knew is that there is consultation among mods and admins before a ban is hurled on a user. From the above message, is The Other Michael the prosecuting officer arguing for the sentence of ban on a user, or is he just assigned the task of writing the notice to the public of the banning?

The IIDB is a private board owned privately, therefore it can do anything it wants to do according to its discretion to members who are not like citizens in a state, whom the government cannot do anything the government wants to do to, because the government does not own the country or the state.

Is there some fixed set of operating procedures in the determination of banning a member, meaning like some kind of ballot among the mods and admins, the judges, whereby the user to be banned is voted on by these judges, and what kind of majority vote is required, one more than one half of all judges voting, or two-thirds, or what?

Thanks for any information, it will be a good contribution to what I am doing for a study I hope to publish on message board justice and penology.

Pachomius2000

PS I had contacts earlier with RBH when I wrote to several personalities of the Internet Infidels organization, asking for my private messages, and he is the one who corresponded with me. He told me that it might be allowed to release my private messages by email to me. I need them for my work in the said project.



What do you guys here in the JREF Forum know about the possibility and the entitlement of even a banned member to retrieve his PM's in the board which banned him.

The internet is a most recent environment of interactions among humans, and a lot of disputable issues have not been settled yet; just the same, what do you guys here think, does a banned member have any entitlement to his PM's still in the hold of the board which banned him?


Yrreg

[tkingdoll]

My personal opinion is: this is a matter between you and the other board. I doubt you have any legal entitlement to your PMs.

[Beady]

My personal opinion is: this is a matter between you and the other board. I doubt you have any legal entitlement to your PMs.

Ditto. These boards are generally private property, and the only rights you have are those granted by the owner.

[geni]

What do you guys here in the JREF Forum know about the possibility and the entitlement of even a banned member to retrieve his PM's in the board which banned him.

Zilch. You have no rights in this area.



The internet is a most recent environment of interactions among humans, and a lot of disputable issues have not been settled yet; just the same, what do you guys here think, does a banned member have any entitlement to his PM's still in the hold of the board which banned him?


Nope.

[Piscivore]

I would doubt the PMs in question even exist anymore.

[Lisa Simpson]

Every forum is run differently. What might happen on the JREF has no bearing on another board.

[Beady]

Every forum is run differently. What might happen on the JREF has no bearing on another board.

Yup. From what I've seen of other boards, you've got bloody fewer rights there than here.

[CaptainManacles]

yrreg is banned in the Internet Infidels Discussion Board? Peace out yo, I'm heading over there.

[Ian Osborne]

Why were you banned?

[El Greco]

In a related query, does the private nature of such forums make it legal for people with access to read PMs of forum members ?

[yrreg]

My personal opinion is: this is a matter between you and the other board. I doubt you have any legal entitlement to your PMs.

I have not searched yet among the rules in IIDB; but there the rules as I know them from casual acquaintance are rather very flexible and allow for much latitude in their application by mods and admins. For example, the first rule imposed on members signing up is: "You promise not to be jerk." I wonder if that preamble required promise is still there. So, it seems that mods and admins getting the feeling that you are a jerk is justified in applying punitive measures on you and your posts.


I am not saying that the rules in IIDB are analogous to the ones in this JREF Forum; but I find the following provisions here quite enlightening for my purpose.

Registration Agreement


Copyright

Any post or article published on the JREF forum by a Member is the copyright of the Member and may not be reproduced, copied or otherwise re-published without the express permission of the Member. By posting on the Forum a Member grants the JREF a non-exclusive licence to publish, republish or reproduce their work, in its entirety or as the JREF sees fit, in perpetuity. The James Randi Educational Foundation is the copyright holder of the JREF Forum.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=45132



Moderator Agreement

Note for Members: PMs or emails sent to a Moderator or Administrator regarding the JREF Forum or a Moderation or Administration action may be shared with other Moderators or Administrators and recorded in the “Coordination” Moderator and Administrator only forum.

Note for Moderators and Administrators: Permission should be sought from the Member if you believe their PM or email reveals private or personal information not already known to the Moderation Team.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=27572



If I were banned from this JREF Forum, I think I am entitled to retrieve my PM's in the hold of the JREF.

Now, don't get the idea that I am going to give the admins and mods a tough time here. I write here exactly and even more freely here, than I used to write in the IIDB; and so far not even a shadow of any lasting warning* has ever been hurled on me by the admins and mods here.



Yrreg

*Only one for long quotes which are however not under copyright law, and the warning was later removed or it disappeared.

[Piscivore]

If I were banned from this JREF Forum, I think I am entitled to retrieve my PM's in the hold of the JREF.

But they are in no wise obligated to maintain them. I imagine once a ban is effected they are scrapped to free up disk space.

If you want to retain them in perpetuity, that's your obligation, not theirs. Same would go for the other board.

[Bill Thompson]

This is food for thought and self-reflection. I think we can get carried away in something we devote so much of ourselves into. Perhaps if we feel ourselves getting too deep into a webforum we might consider taking a step back and going back to the old school of writing a book, if we really have something profound to offer mankind.

[yrreg]

This is food for thought and self-reflection. I think we can get carried away in something we devote so much of ourselves into. Perhaps if we feel ourselves getting too deep into a webforum we might consider taking a step back and going back to the old school of writing a book, if we really have something profound to offer mankind.

I know a message board owner who to all appearances maintains a message board, on comparative religion matters, precisely to obtain materials for his book, and more importantly to make sure that his book does not become obselete by publication date.

And if you are writing a dissertation, you'd better join several message boards focused on your topic of interest in your dissertation.


Anyway, you are right: I am getting too interested in free inquiry, free thought, and free speech, and more so because I think that I have been given a rotten deal from the IIDB board and others also, sporting the proclamation in their logos of being in advocacy of free inquiry, free thought, and free speech.

I am thinking of giving all my time to reading about artificial life extension and artificial life creation and artificial restoration of life and personality or personhood.

Thanks to all who do contribute useful and wise posts to my concern here.


Yrreg

[geni]

If I were banned from this JREF Forum, I think I am entitled to retrieve my PM's in the hold of the JREF.

Umm no. You have the right to prevent JREF or anyone else republishing them but that is it.


Only one for long quotes which are however not under copyright law

not always the case

[Pyrrho]

Never post anything in a private message that you don't want stored in a database.

[yrreg]

This is food for thought and self-reflection. I think we can get carried away in something we devote so much of ourselves into. Perhaps if we feel ourselves getting too deep into a webforum we might consider taking a step back and going back to the old school of writing a book, if we really have something profound to offer mankind.

Dear Bill Thompson:

Reading your post again, I can see it to be a very worthy piece of counseling for me; I will keep it always before my eyes, like those orthodox Jews who tie a small box to their forehead containing Yahweh's words.

Thanks.


Yrreg

[Jekyll]

Dear Bill Thompson:

Reading your post again, I can see it to be a very worthy piece of counseling for me; I will keep it always before my eyes, like those orthodox Jews who tie a small box to their forehead containing Yahweh's words.

Thanks.


Yrreg

Do they walk into things a lot?

[Starthinker]

Just my two cents. I think it was in the way you asked. Had you just asked for your PMs with no explanation they may have been more open but when you say you want them for a study on why people are banned they may have taken that as you are going to criticize them for how they banned you. Now, I'm assuming you pissed someone off to get banned in the first place (whether you think it's justified or not) so anything that may provoke them or let them percieve you were going to "out" them somewhere else may have just made them more pissed off.

Here's a forum story that we should all learn from. I'm a treasure hunter and when the last treasure book came out a person created a forum for people to share clues and discuss strategies about this particular book. Of course, alliances were forged and PMs started to fly. Well, the admin created the board with sole purpose of trying to get the treasure himself and the accusation was made that he was looking at PMs to gather all clues unto himself. It was very ugly. Now, I've had forums myself and don't even remember seeing an option to read private messages between users but I suppose it's possible. I just don't trust PMs at all, on any forum I don't control.

In any case, the lesson is that you should never use PMs for anything serious, and expect anything not in your care to get lost, deleted, or molested.

[geni]

Now, I've had forums myself and don't even remember seeing an option to read private messages between users but I suppose it's possible. I just don't trust PMs at all, on any forum I don't control.


Can be done if you have root acess to the database.

[yrreg]

Just my two cents. I think it was in the way you asked. Had you just asked for your PMs with no explanation they may have been more open but when you say you want them for a study on why people are banned they may have taken that as you are going to criticize them for how they banned you. Now, I'm assuming you pissed someone off to get banned in the first place (whether you think it's justified or not) so anything that may provoke them or let them perceive you were going to "out" them somewhere else may have just made them more pissed off.

Here's a forum story that we should all learn from. I'm a treasure hunter and when the last treasure book came out a person created a forum for people to share clues and discuss strategies about this particular book. Of course, alliances were forged and PMs started to fly. Well, the admin created the board with sole purpose of trying to get the treasure himself and the accusation was made that he was looking at PMs to gather all clues unto himself. It was very ugly. Now, I've had forums myself and don't even remember seeing an option to read private messages between users but I suppose it's possible. I just don't trust PMs at all, on any forum I don't control.

In any case, the lesson is that you should never use PMs for anything serious, and expect anything not in your care to get lost, deleted, or molested.

Thanks, Starthinker, those two cents are worth in exaggerated but appreciating terms, millions.

This is one of the most important purposes I am pursuing in signing up for membership in message boards, to get to know myself and -- don't laugh now, to improve myself. I should start a new thread in this so far the most accommodating board I have ever signed up with, on "What I am after in message boards."

Dancing David says that I am duplicitous, others here have called me troll, some have used the a and the s and the f words on me, they know who they are; it is also Dancing David who call me a poseur. At this point I will just say to all of them:

All I am doing is just to exchange ideas, personal ones, and to hear from you, and to examine yours, and also point out how your ideas are good or bad (meaning instructive or not, call that educational), logical or not, worthy ones or unworthy ones for civilized men after learning and good fellowship with other humans,

And in all almost all exchanges with people here, except for the few ones which are instructive like the one here from Bill Thompson and also the present one of Starthinker, my impression is that they don't give the appearance of being able to exchange ideas, but instead they resort to name-calling, or more often arguing endlessly to not be seen as being in error on facts or logic, like for example the Buddhists here who keep arguing that they don't exist as selves, because in every moment of their 'existence' they are changing, even though they know that there is a lump of living and thinking matter in each of them that is always present to make of themselves selves.

(About this issue, it is enlightening to me to have come across a book on Buddhist Illogic, by a Buddhist sympathizer, Avi Sion I think, who tells us that Buddhist thinkers in the past have proclaimed enthusiastically that Buddhism is a system above and beyond logic; now I can understand why they twist words in order to not admit that they do exist like the money they keep in banks and the wife or husband they love and also children.)


About pissing off people in the Internet Infidels Discussion Board, I admit to a style that can piss off people, and that is why recently I started to put in my signature the statement that my words may not be soothing but consider the ideas.

What do I say about people in power in the IIDB banning me for being pissed off with my style instead of my ideas, and here is what will piss them off further, they are onion-skinned.

I think the trouble with mods and admins and owners is that they love to join in exchange of ideas, or they have their own pet ideas even though they don't directly contribute to the discussion on an issue; and I can see them very clearly even as a child can see his dad or mom being attracted to a person of the opposite sex, that they allow themselves the luxury of getting influenced by their ideas, in performing their duties to moderate, like editing, deleting, closing, and even banning a member.

That is why they will not -- my experience also in all boards I have been to and been suspended or banned, tell you in just one page why they have banned you. This is what I understand by the opposite of transparency.

I think the closest thing to the message board in the Internet is the medieval society up to M. Luther's time of the university where they had public debates, the disputatio solemnis. Luther invited the university to dispute with him about his ideas of Christianity (here is one instance also where it is impossible to discuss intelligently with many people here, they use the words theist and Christian as a one word argument, when they should be spelling out step by step what they cannot accept of your ideas).

The people running those university disuputations practiced nth times more transparency than the owners, admins, and mods in today's message boards. Things should change in a society dedicated to free inquiry, free thought, and free speech.

I guess I am going to piss off some people here, and being now emotionally worked up, I might as well piss off some more and see what they are going to throw at me. Some people here who pride themselves in being skeptics, don't know what is the skepticism practiced in the CSICOP and also by the owner of this JREF website, it is rational and scientific skepticism, it is not fanatical skepticism so that when evidence and logic have been seen by non-skeptical people but professional and non-partisan researchers, they still continue to oppose the idea or practice, grabbing as I told Dancing David, at straws.

If mods and admins don't join in discussions not even indirectly by being sympathetic to some ideas and antipathic to others, then that will be fifty percent less of their work in editing, deleting, transferring, closing posts and threads, and suspending, and banning people.

I have mods or admins closing my threads in other forums because to all obvious appearances they don't like the way the discussion is going on very personalistic terms, whereas we know that a thread will wind down when all parties have already spoken to hoarseness and realized that they don't have anything further to add.

I have a mod or an admin using very big font size, one inch high, to throw insults at me, and when I complained to the mods and admins en banc, the party concerned surreptitiously edited his offensive post so that the evidence disappeared. I tried to have a public thread on the matter -- when I joined the IIDB, they had public ventilation of complaints from members against mods or admins, now no longer because they I guess will say that the noise to message ratio is too large...

What happened on that occasion? As I thought blissfully that I would be able to produce the evidence, after some four posts from me on the thread I introduced to expatiate on my 'beef', out of nowhere I got suspended by one mod, and through contacts by PMs I was repeatedly told that mods and admins are very busy and can't waste time with silly in effect gripes from disgruntled members -- that is the substance of their pleading.

Here is what the present board reminds or imposes on the mods and admins, which I have not read anywhere else in all the boards I had been to:


Moderator Agreement


As a Moderator or Administrator

Posts:

You may post, as a Member on any subject and in any manner or style allowed by the terms of the Membership Agreement. However if you post on a matter regarding the Administration and Moderation of the forum, you will endeavor to ensure your personal opinions and comments are clearly distinguished from any official Administration and Moderation posts.[/I]

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=27572

You have been, Starthinker, inside a board in its inner innards among owners, admins, mods, and you tell us that these folks get pissed off as to not react rationally but emotionally to satisfy their pique. That is what I am trying to verify and also write about maybe a piece for the print media, justice and penology in internet message boards.

And hopefully, when people from the IIDB read about my observations covering them, they will get more pissed off but also do some very serious and deep self-probing.

Smile.


Disclaimer: All impressions about the members here of the JREF Forum are about those with whom I have exchanged ideas or just words, and again to my impression, not instructive to my learning and grooming.

Yrreg

=========================================

My words may not be soothing, but consider the ideas

The Buddhist non-self, and its implications, living the everyday non-self existence?
http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/ind...ost&pid=500486

[From the Kalama Sutra by Gautama]

1. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it long ago.
2. Do not believe in traditions simply because they have been handed down for many generations.
3. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
4. Do not confirm anything just because it agrees with your scriptures.
5. Do not foolishly make assumptions.
6. Do not abruptly draw conclusions by what you see and hear.
7. Do not be fooled by outward appearances.
8. Do not hold on tightly to any view or idea just because you are comfortable with it.
9. Do not accept as fact anything that you yourself find to be logical.
10. Do not be convinced of anything out of respect and deference to your spiritual teachers.
11. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reasons and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

See: http://www.buddhistinformation.com/the_kalama_sutra.htm

[Starthinker]

You have been, Starthinker, inside a board in its inner innards among owners, admins, mods, and you tell us that these folks get pissed off as to not react rationally but emotionally to satisfy their pique. That is what I am trying to verify and also write about maybe a piece for the print media, justice and penology in internet message boards.

Well, there are thousands of boards out there and they are all run by humans. Each human is different so you can't lump them all into one category. Some will react emotionally and some will react rationally and some unpredictably. Take The Samba's (http://www.thesamba.com) forums for example. Just under 78,000 members worldwide and they rarely ban anyone. It's a technical forum for VWs and yes, sometimes there are heated exchanges that end up with name calling and threats but the mods do a good job there. Like I said, it takes a lot to get banned and it rarely happens. I know some of the mods there and they are very rational about things. Sometimes people come on the Samba just to say, "Hey, I hate VWs in all their forms and I'll keep saying this until you ban me." Even these folks don't get banned because 1) The mods and forum members will just keep responding "that's your opinion" and the person gets tired and goes away or 2) Other forum members respond and they just keep ragging on the person until they go away. Either way, no one got banned and the forum self-moderated itself with no intervention of the owner or moderators. The moderators know this, respected the person's opinion, didn't ban them, and still the problem went away.

Okay, so that's a technical forum created many years ago for a single purpose - to talk about the VW. It was done for community. Contrast that with a forum created by a single person soley to promote what they want. I'm sure that person will be more emotional when you attack their ideas because an attack on their ideas is an attack on themselves (or that's how they see it, anyway).

So if Joe Public creates a forum to talk about cars and two people start fighting it's water off a duck's back, but if Jack Doe creates a forum because he loves Jesus and someone starts a fight then he'll take it personally.

I guess what I'm saying is, was the forum created for the exchange of ideas, or because the owner wanted to promote only his/her ideas and only chat with like-minded people? There's a huge difference. The first type may prosper, the second will just be one ban after another.