Hi All,

I have added a couple of new forum rules.

-Do not publicly post any personal details of individuals who have not explicitly given their blessing for you to do so (for example addresses, email addresses, phone numbers). Such information will be removed as it will be indexed across the internet possibly against their will. Private off line exchange of such information is fine. Linking to contact information which they have posted is also another method that is acceptable.
-Refrain from discussing members who were banned from APUG. Such discussion is unfair when the person in question can not post on APUG to defend themselves or reply.

These types of threads are popping up more frequently so i thought it best we go ahead and solidify our stance and make it policy. Forum rules can be accessed in the submenu directly under the forums tab.

Thanks,
Sean

Other than posting links to Photography related web pages, the only other thing I posted recently was a link to a APUG member's profile here. I have never done this before and will refrain from doing that if it is a problem. I think the user had "other members can view emails" enabled.

Would the software would make a non member login in this case?

--John

...

Can we discuss those people BEFORE they are banned?

I don't see that as a problem, since the person can decide what is visible in their profile. I don't know whether profiles are visible to non-registered users.

The issue is--if someone uses an alias (and personally, I think more highly of people who use their own name, but that decision may be left to each individual user), it is their prerogative to reveal their name in a public forum, but it isn't really appropriate for someone else to reveal their name, city of residence, address, phone number, social security number, employer, etc.

There is an exception of sorts that we make for this, which is that if someone is posting under more than one alias, particularly if they do so in a way that is disruptive to the community, then the moderators might reveal that fact and let people know that trolls "A," "B," and "C" are the same person.

Then the programming that makes APUG work is in violation of this rule. Check out my Avatar, just below it is the city I live in. This is now against rules. But since I filled it in I guess that means I gave permission. Gee I better erase it quick before the bad guys find me.

It is your prerogative to reveal this information about yourself by including it in your profile. It is not your prerogative to reveal this information about someone else in the public forum.