Chat Room
05-28-2014, 01:09 PM
This comes up from time to time, so I figure it's about time to make a sticky of it.
As the administrator here, I would really appreciate it if you, as a new member, would use an anonymous email address when you register.
For two major reasons and a lot of secondary reasons. Both of which deal with your security here.
Bear in mind that in normal day to day chatter no one but the staff ever see your email. However, if "Allow members to email me" is checked, which is the default, and someone decides to email you then they will see your email. As most of you know, I monitor the forum to try to keep all of us safe from people we'd rather not have know we're here.
Often, business, schools, religious and civic organizations monitor the user names (at least) of message traffic going into and leaving their systems. They have to do this to protect themselves from people who really shouldn't be on the internet - trolls, physhing, hackers, etc. If you use a business or school address - do you really want the administrators to see that you've been on ChronicSuicideSupport?
The other major point is that I don't want to have to explain to any police department that I knew someone here was contemplating suicide and I didn't let them know. ( That's the law in most of the US states and that's where most of the user base is from ) if I don't know who you are, if I don't know where you are then I can honestly say that "We discuss suicide as an option, but I wouldn't know who to contact nor who to report." If I don't know who you are.
If you use an email that contains your name ( JoeBlow@MyCompany.com, for example ) and most school or business emails do, please change it to an anonymous email ( Stuffed@yahoo.com, or gmail, or MSMail or Hotmail or ... )
In the five years I've been here, I've been contacted by only one police department - and that a minor ( we have a few ) attempted and they looked at his computer to see who he had been contacting. I was able to convince them that I knew he was unhappy, but not eminent - but I'd rather not have to do that again.
//al (Dragon / Administrator )
As the administrator here, I would really appreciate it if you, as a new member, would use an anonymous email address when you register.
For two major reasons and a lot of secondary reasons. Both of which deal with your security here.
Bear in mind that in normal day to day chatter no one but the staff ever see your email. However, if "Allow members to email me" is checked, which is the default, and someone decides to email you then they will see your email. As most of you know, I monitor the forum to try to keep all of us safe from people we'd rather not have know we're here.
Often, business, schools, religious and civic organizations monitor the user names (at least) of message traffic going into and leaving their systems. They have to do this to protect themselves from people who really shouldn't be on the internet - trolls, physhing, hackers, etc. If you use a business or school address - do you really want the administrators to see that you've been on ChronicSuicideSupport?
The other major point is that I don't want to have to explain to any police department that I knew someone here was contemplating suicide and I didn't let them know. ( That's the law in most of the US states and that's where most of the user base is from ) if I don't know who you are, if I don't know where you are then I can honestly say that "We discuss suicide as an option, but I wouldn't know who to contact nor who to report." If I don't know who you are.
If you use an email that contains your name ( JoeBlow@MyCompany.com, for example ) and most school or business emails do, please change it to an anonymous email ( Stuffed@yahoo.com, or gmail, or MSMail or Hotmail or ... )
In the five years I've been here, I've been contacted by only one police department - and that a minor ( we have a few ) attempted and they looked at his computer to see who he had been contacting. I was able to convince them that I knew he was unhappy, but not eminent - but I'd rather not have to do that again.
//al (Dragon / Administrator )
We live by each other and for each other. Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.
-- Helen Keller