Hi,
may we please configure SMF to not send the plain text of a PM by email? I hope this is configurable/possible. I personally would prefer to get a notification but not the PM plain text by email. I feel rather uncomfortable with this due to obvious reasons.
Thanks a lot for your consideration!
Sorry, I disabled the PM function. We already had it disabled in the old forum.
If there was abuse, such as discussing nasty very much off topic things here, we probably won’t be taken responsible since we won’t be taken responsible for user content we’re not aware off, but having the server confiscated, having the to fight in the legal system to get it/domain back, is still something we’re not looking forward to. To stay out of trouble we decided to not allow user content which is hidden from public. This is the sad reality website owners are living in. Please advocate a common sense legal system.
While disabling the PM function altogether actually wasn’t what I was looking forward to (I’ve been in a - just slightly off-topic - discussion with another community member), I understand (and respect) your decision considering the reasons you outlined - haven’t thought about actual abuse, but what you said makes perfect sense to me.
Thanks!
OMG! Thinking about this twice, I have to say that I currently feel terrible that I have utilized the PM function in the first place. I totally understand your very concern from a website operator perspective, i.e. what you said about a potential abuse of the PM system and a respective threat to whonix.org. I mean, while my/our very own utilization of the PM system has been all but nasty (i.e. without any threat to whonix.org), I haven’t considered the whole issue of non-public discussions for the website/project. I wrote a PM to provide some advice to another community member and I did it as I considered it not to be of so much (general) interest to the community.
That said, please accept my apologies for using the PM system in the first place. Also - certainly assuming the prior OK of my conversation partner - feel free to have a look at the messages that were exchanged to feel comfortable. I can assure you - by my word of honor - that nothing at all has been exchanged that would endanger whonix.org but to testify this, I herewith explicitly offer (again, the prior OK of my conversation partner assumed) to have said messages reviewed by site admins.
Thank you for understanding. After writing that I thought my action might look quite offending. (You make a suggestion and this results in disabling the feature.) No offense intended. I mean, we (fortasse and me) forgot about disabling the PM function when we migrated to the new forum. Your suggestion reminded me that we forgot that. If we wouldn’t have made that mistake in the first place, we know might have another discussion.
No need for feel bad about this. How could you have possibly known about this? It’s not your fault, that there are stupid non-intuitive laws. Also it is no secret, that I am playing these things very safe. Much safer than others who have another opinion on that but that is okay. The only people who should feel sorry, are the ones making stupid laws that make the lives of other people unnecessarily difficult. But I’d be even more happy if they weren’t sorry, but insightful and fixed the mess they created. From user perspective almost any forum has a PM function. When it’s enabled, by all means, use common sense and feel free to use it. It’s a bit like anarchy. Works without having giant regulation. Also in my opinion there is no need to ask in advance if you want contact someone. Just as if you approach someone in real life. Use common sense. You can always say hello. Just if they ask you to stop, then stop.
Also no issue with discussing very much off topic things. As long it doesn’t attract unwanted attention from law enforcement or lawyers everything is fine. I also wouldn’t mind if we had an offtopic sub forum. Lately, being non-political seems like a strange idea to me. I would have to ask if fortasse agrees as well, though since he’s in charge. According to current law, we only have to remove illegal content as soon we’re made aware of it. When it’s in public, there is no reason to seize the server. We got no reason to believe anything went wrong yet. The forum was just created. Therefore no need to review existing messages or posts.
Thank you for clarifying this.
Cerberus, maybe we can continue the discussion in a different format (either here in an open thread or elsewhere perhaps).
Any suggestion?
@adrelanos
thanks for your comprehensive response. I absolutely support what you said. I very much like the idea of an off-topic sub-forum btw. Would be nice if you could discuss this with fortasse if time allows.
@whonixgeek
sure thing! actually I’ve been waiting for you to show up as I very much disliked the idea of disclosing my actual PM conversation partner without your agreement. that said, i’d propose continuing the discussion by email. I already tried setting up a virgin email account for this. unfortunately my provider of choice currently is in “maintenance mode”. will get back to you.
@whonixgeek
screw it! seems to be in “maintenance mode” forever. anyways, there you go:
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Offtopic forum created.
Thanks Cerberus. Will be in touch shortly.