I owe you an apology. I extrapolated from "Don't do that any more" to "termination".
Let me explain my view of this problem a little further. You find a post by someone and link it in a post you make. That post contains what they regard as private information. It doesn't have to be their name; it can be the town they live in, their employer, their mother's maiden name, whatever. It may not even occur to you that it's "private information"; they posted it on a public bulletin board, how private can it be? But they see it and complain to you. You issue a warning to the person.
Then it happens again with another post written by another person with different information. This time you get suspended.
And a third time you link a post and blow it. The boot.
The situation created is impossible. You must decide to never again include an SI link or put yourself at risk. That's exactly what one person has said they will do.
While the danger is greater with advanced search, it is hardly limited to that. Someone can just have changed their handle, going from their real name which they signed their posts with to an alias and you don't know it. You find and post one of the old ones with the real name. You just blew it without using search and without knowing it. I asked if their was a time limit past which posts were radioactive and got no answer.
One suggestion I received was to replace the name with "X" or "XXXXXX XXXXXXX". You are now subject to the "You edited the post!" and "You made the whole thing up!" charges or the person can say "I never said that!" (true, because it's been edited) and you have to produce the link to defend yourself.
And you are wide open again!
Now again, the only ways out I see are the Momma Jill approach or "Once you post it, it's public domain and available forever".
Otherwise, from my POV, the rules are arbitrary, capricious, and subject to Admin's whim and dependent on who you offended. (In this case X, probably with coug's involvement. OTOH, those people claim to be so offended by this thread that they pay it no attention. How, then, did they know that post was there?)
This is like having a highway where the speed limit changes randomly and only the cops know what it is at any time.
I'm not seeking perfection. I'm just seeking clear rules that I can apply and use myself. One of the hallmarks of good law is it is clear enough that an average person can know which side they are on at any given time. We don't have that. |
