There’s been a slight stir around the forum about privacy and content. I’ve been working on a few things today and I’d like to address a few things and clarify some others.
Responsibility Firstly, I’d like to remind everyone that you are responsible for what you post. This goes for both “worlds”, the forum world and the real world. It’s your responsibility to ensure that what you post is in line with the forum rules and guidelines.
Safety It’s completely safe to post on Talking Sober. From a technical point of view we are running the latest software and security updates. We also use encryption (https) to ensure that no one can intercept your traffic. If your goal is anonymity, don’t post anything that can personally identify you. Honestly though, we have users who post where they work, full names and more. They are fine. It’s up to you to decide how much you want to share.
Control You have complete control over what you post. You are able to edit or delete any of your previous posts and you don’t require a moderator’s assistance to do so. This does not mean that you can post whatever you want; your posts still need to follow the forum’s rules and guidelines.
Moderation Moderators are responsible for looking after the forum and the community. Besides myself, we have @JustL and @Steve92. We organize the forum by changing the categories, moving and merging posts. If we feel a post or topic breaks the forum’s rules, we will address it by removing that post and reaching out to the user. In more serious cases I will issue official warnings or suspend the user’s account. We also rely on flags from the community to help us quickly identify problem users or posts.
Open forum. Talking Sober is an open forum. You do not need an account to view or read posts, but you do need one to create posts. The first time any member of this forum visited, they saw a list of topics and posts. This is a clear indication of an open forum. The forum is on the internet, and things you say that are not in private messages can be seen by anyone in the public. This includes Google. Google “crawls” websites to find out what’s on them and then displays it to people when they search for something. So if someone Googles “sober forum”, this website might come up. The forum being open is one of its greatest strengths. The majority of our visitors do not have an account. Thousands of people are getting help and support from here without ever making a post. As @JustL said, she was on here for 3 months before she made an account. I am definitely keeping this forum open.
Private Messages. If you’d like to discuss something privately, you can start a private message. These can include multiple participants. A user recently spread a rumor that moderator’s can read your private messages. I’m not sure where this came from, but it’s a false statement. Private messages are private unless they are flagged to the moderators by one of the participants in that conversation. In that scenario we would need to be able to view it in order to take action. For example, I’ve had issues in the past where a member has sexually harassed another member over private messages. Besides a scenario like that, the messages are private
IP Tracking. For those who aren’t sure, an IP Address is unique set of numbers that your internet service provider gives you. Any website or internet service that you use (literally anything that you communicate with on the internet) can see your IP Address. It’s basically how systems know what data to send where. IP Addresses are not necessarily tied to a location, but these days certain ranges are associated with certain geographical areas. So you could see, for example, that someone lives in New York city if you had their IP address. You can’t see which street and house he lives in though. When you log into the forum, the system remembers your IP address. The primary thing this is used for on Talking Sober is security. Spam bots will use a certain IP address and can then be blocked. It’s also a way to tie different accounts to each other. If a certain user was suspended for an X amount of time for whatever reason and he makes a new account using different details, I can still see it is him and remove the fake profile.
Leaving the forum Just as you were free to join, you are also free to leave. 99% of the time it’s better to simply leave your account as is. You never know when you might want to return. Due to the effects on the forum (such as broken links and mentions), we do not permanently delete accounts. Instead, we turn them into anonymous accounts with a random username. The posts stay intact. If you want these posts removed, you should do so yourself before asking for your account to be made anonymous.
Duplicate Accounts Do not make duplicate accounts. If you have been suspended, or your account is frozen, you need to get that account restored in order to post again. If you ignore that and make fake accounts, those will be removed. This is one surefire way to get your IP blocked.
Terms of Use. Lastly, I’d like to remind everyone of the forum’s terms of service and privacy policy that you agreed to when creating your account.
