litphoria

I mean, telling someone privileged info about me IRL they could later disseminate is also a judgement call and a question of trust. If they break that trust, they're a jerk, but we can't exactly write rules that specifically address this because good luck judging what information is actually privileged - which is kind of already what the proposed rule is doing by suggesting revealing alts is only okay if it's not public info (which is not a black/white thing).

Based on the examples on the rule, the leaning is more towards permanent public affections, such as statements on the profile and alt lists.

My initial drafting of this rule was more severe and restricting, in that listing alts was expressively forbidden except for when a character list was provided. Some concerns were raised this would be unwieldy for people who had, say, 30 profiles.

Really I'm just saying we can achieve the spirit of the suggested rule without including a bunch of specifics which really only seem to encourage rules lawyering ("see, but they were public about it here!") when really what it's supposed to be stopping is revealing for malicious purposes or casually without thinking - both of which a more general common sense rule would do equally well or better at, in my opinion.

I think this is great. It's simple and so long as the moderators have logs of the given permission it's pretty cut and dry. Achieving the "spirit" of the rule is next to useless because people can and will hide behind the "I was joking" excuse. It opens the door for people to try to be clever and twist the meaning. Much better to have a clearly stated rule, even more so this requires there to be logs of permission given to the moderators. With this proposal if a person reveals another person's alts and there are no logs of permission given then it's a clear case that the person who revealed the info is in the wrong.

A person should not have to lie constantly, or become a master of subterfuge in order to have their wishes respected in the case of keeping their alts private. On other websites revealing a user's alts without permission is a ban-able offense, and with good reason. I'm glad to see this rule proposed and fully support protecting the ability of a user to have thair alt's treated as separate entities.

So then, Quen, how do you deal with situations like I raised, where it's disputable about whether someone "went public" with it or not? For example, posting it in a room where I'm hanging with all my buddies, but then someone doing it maliciously in other rooms has a screenshot of that.

Very simple. If there are no logs of that person "going public" then the person who revealed their alt is in the wrong. Very simple, very straight forward.

Requiring logs for the moderators/channel owners to keep track of whether or not permission was given makes all of that very simple. No logs? No permission.

But in the situation they do have a screenshot and there are logs, because I said it among my friends?

Then you made a mistake. That's on you. If you want your alt's kept private then do just that. Keep them private.

I mean yes, one way to remove the ambiguity is to say "if you ever did anything that could be potentially conceived as making it public, it's public". If that's how the rule is to be implemented, though, I'd add something to that effect in the rule text.

You're seeking to create a loophole for abuse and I won't support it. You're borderline punishing people for having more then one account without making them all public and that's just silly. So if I switch from Quen to a new character and the user list shows that Quen leaves and "XYZ" suddenly joins would that qualify as making it obvious and public? I should think not but under your idea it might slip through the cracks. .It's much much better to err of the side of caution here, then abuse the people who are trying to keep their profiles separate. Under your idea anything could be considered "potentially conceived as making it public" That is FAR to vague. I support WA's idea that a user must give a moderator direct logs of permission given.

For this, I think the real points of contention are:

• Do we have an exception for friends where the slighted user has to approve the use of their alternative name (to moderators or room owners)?
• What exactly qualifies as "publicly available knowledge by the profile's owner"? A strict interpretation might not even allow chat logs, and only insist on more permanent storage (like on profiles)

I don't think in any scenario, joining and leaving coincidences would count. The information would have to be willingly and intentionally provided by the profile's owner, not something that you simply infer based on timing coincidences or personality quirks.

• Do we have an exception for friends where the slighted user has to approve the use of their alternative name (to moderators or room owners)? I suggest no. This could be abused and used as a cover to shield the offending user from consequence.

• What exactly qualifies as "publicly available knowledge by the profile's owner"? A strict interpretation might not even allow chat logs, and only insist on more permanent storage (like on profiles) This can get so vague as to be useless. That's why I like the thought of the only permission being logs of said permission given to moderators. People will always infer/socially engineer ideas as to who's alts are whose, but at least this method prevents them from asserting it in public to others without the consent of the user in question.

Let's assume good faith here please. We're trying to figure out how we can have the site work well, without backfiring on us, while meeting our reasonable needs. Accusing others who are expressing their concerns and input of malicious intent and attempting to rule in abuse is not OK - it's effectively bullying them out of the thread for expressing their concerns.

Shorter version without bullet points:

You may not reveal alternate profiles ("alts") of another individual to others unless the profile's owner has made it publicly available knowledge, or given permission (deference will be given to the profile owner in this case to confirm).

or

You may not reveal private information about alternate profiles ("alts") of another individual to others, unless the owner has given permission (deference will be given to the profile owner in this case to confirm).

I use "reveal" to make the intent clearer -- it shouldn't be seen to prohibit joking that you and someone else are secretly the same person, but that could be read as indicating an alt (shock!) despite being a harmless joke I've seen multiple times. Less bullet points also makes it a bit less rules-lawyery-feeling to me -- it is a bit like that, like Otaku said, but really this whole thing is fairly common-sense case-by-case.

I stand by what I said. Deliberately trying to pass on a vague rule setting is opening the door for abuse and loopholes. Even joking that XXX is YYY is dangerous because if that person gets even the slightest bit defensive then it turns into "SEE I KNEW XXX was YYY" which in and of itself is a loophole to the rule. Asserting these things under the guise of a joke isn't ok.

That's your stance, mine is it should be fine. :/ It has never lead to that.

I have seen it happen several times.

I feel like this

• You may not reveal private information about alternate profiles ("alts") of another individual to others, unless the owner has given permission (deference will be given to the profile owner in this case to confirm).

Should be how the rules works. It makes it clear and removes the ability to hide behind loopholes. Logs of permission should be available, and if they are not then revealing the alt should not happen. Jokes about this an easy way to side-step the rule.

Quen, you were the one saying "if you made it public, you fucked up". I was pointing out the loopholes in the current suggestion as reasons why the current rule might not work. I don't know if you misread, but the original rule suggestion does not require logs of permission if the information is already judged to be public. That's the whole point. WA's post doesn't mention requiring permission either.

Do we have an exception for friends where the slighted user has to approve the use of their alternative name (to moderators or room owners)?

Yes absolutely.

There are characters I will leave off my character list, such as Velus, but I want my friends to be able to refer to Velus's existence and the fact I play him regardless.

It would be a big problem for me if my friends are unable to refer to my alts after I've given them carte blanche to do so lest they're hit with moderator action despite there being no victim in this scenario. That would leave a bad taste in my mouth. People complain about F-List moderation being unjust and draconian and this would feel like the same. I don't want my friends to be walking on thin ice around me and getting suspended for friendly conversation.

If they were not able to ever refer to Velus's existence as my alt, I'd be forced to list him in my character list publicly despite having good reasons to wish to not do that. So, a rule that's there to ensure people have the privacy they need forces me to compromise the privacy I need so that my friends don't get suspended for friendly conversation with me, which is not really an OK result.

What exactly qualifies as "publicly available knowledge by the profile's owner"? A strict interpretation might not even allow chat logs, and only insist on more permanent storage (like on profiles)

Honestly chat logs aren't going to be super reliable anyway. Character X could join the chat and say "Hi everyone I'm Y", and people say "Hi Y nice character". An active half hour of chat later, the "Hi everyone" message has been pushed off the backlog (pretty achievable!). Person A says "Hey Y, what do you think of so-and-so movie?" "Whoops I mean X, what'd you think of that movie?". Evidence of the "hi everyone" is gone. Is there a problem here?

I actually lean towards making only 'permanent' information count as public, like WA says. If I put on my profile that X is my alt, then presumably I'm okay with anybody knowing that.

If we want hard, clear rules that seems like a much safer, and clearer line to draw.

The issue is much more about protecting people from being revealed then it is about harassing people who are self-revealing.

The logs where permission is given should be screen shot and given to moderators to avoid the logs scrolling out of the chat logs.

In the case with Velus it's rather simple to send a PM to a moderator and let them know you are ok with it. If it's just assumed to be ok then you're removing any chance of protecting those who do not want to be revealed like that.

Exactly why drawing a hard line like "info on profiles only" is better than trying to judge what's said in public chats counts or not. If the rule is "express permission or it's listed on the profile" then that seems fine.

And if you want a profile to be allowed to be referred to in relation to alts, without placing it on a character list simply provide permission of that to the channel owner or moderators.

It bears mentioning, in relation to Korra's issue that this is part of the rule "the profile's owner has given you permission to do so; deference will be given to that owner in this case to confirm."

If a user has a character that is not on their character list but if revealed, that should be up to the user in question to report. In Korra's case it wouldn't make sense for a third party to report that reveal since it's purely The user (Korra's) responsibility. In the case of Korra and Velus it's a simple matter of moderation to confirm that permission.

It occurs to me that deferring to the profile owner - the theoretically wronged - to see if they actually consider what happened to be a problem, is like our legal model of seeing if the supposed victim wants to press charges. If they do not, then no legal action is carried out. I'm not a lawyer though, I know there's cases where law enforcement takes action regardless of the choices of those involved. But it seems like an appropriate scenario for "if the theoretical victim doesn't consider there to be any wrongdoing needing action, there should be no action taken."

In the case with Velus it's rather simple to send a PM to a moderator and let them know you are ok with it. If it's just assumed to be ok then you're removing any chance of protecting those who do not want to be revealed like that.

I'm not going to make pre-emptive legal declarations about every alt combination I'm ok with. It's assumed to be OK if I say it's ok. If you personally know I've granted permission to refer to Velus, you should be able to do that without getting in trouble for it.

Also, in the case where permission is unclear (I wipe out information from my profile then report someone, and other cases of misunderstanding or bad faith acting) there's potential for someone to... somewhat wrongfully be punished for referring to another's alt. I don't think penalties should be severe at first, and I think this is also a case of "don't sue your friends, if you want them to stay your friends" people can manage socially.

I think the first part of your post is pretty relevant. If people refer to one of your characters with another name in casual ooc or something then you should be the one to report it, or decide not to. In the example of Velus it would be a 'victim-less' offence and therefore not pose a need for moderation to get involved.

I also agree with the last part. Wiping a character from a list purely to get moderation to discipline someone is not acceptable either.

Yeah, even the hardline approach has a few holes, which is part of the appeal of the "common sense" approach, but that's more vague and thus down to subjective moderator judgement and has its own issues. I imagine WA probably has profile edit logs if it really comes to that.

Both sides can be abused. I think the important thing it that the rule is clear, and that users who are ok with revealing alts, or not ok with it, make that clear. Clarity here will serve to erase a lot of the ability for abuse.