Alright, some of you are probably confused.

I'm pretty sure there's only a few of you that haven't seen the lovely locked topics in both the CCC and the GC concerning PMs. While some of you don't know what happened, some of you do know, and are simultaneously making falsified statements, so this should clear things up.




I already told RII a while ago, this took place about 2 months ago. He made a topic in the mod forum, talking about admin changes. I figured he'd say why, but he just left it at "recent circumstances," so I thought it was fine to just leave it as hidden, because the members wouldn't know, so it felt unnecessary to bring it up, not to mention there wasn't really any "good" time to bring it up in the first place.


Anyways, what is this thing that happened? Well, before, admins had access to the MySQL tables and databases, which includes many functions of the forum, including PMs. Reading them in their native format wasn't necessary bad or against and security violation, because the PMs only showed previews of the PMs, not the whole PM.

However, there was also the download option available, which downloaded the PM cache database as a SQL database. At that point, I knew there were a number of members that weren't fond of me or what I did, but wouldn't tell me what exactly it was that they didn't like to my face, even after I made topics asking what members wanted. So I performed a search on my name to see if there were any members complaining about me to others, that way I could IM them and ask how I could make it up to them, or attempt to solve their dilemma with me or my actions.

But, alas, there came no results. At least, none from whatever PMs were retrieved in the database. Apparently, it doesn't cache all the PMs, because there were a lot of my PMs missing in the database, so I assume the same for everyone else.


I've long since then told RII and before that, deleted it and wiped it off my hard drive.


Though I already realize it wasn't exactly right, and already recognized that fact a while ago, it doesn't mean that I looked at any other PMs for malicious intent or did/am currently looking at other people's PMs. As I said, I deleted the file a while ago (and not to mention I can't even do so again, as RII changed the admin group, and even if he didn't, I'm just Global Mod, so I can't do anything there), and I only searched for my name, I didn't start going through them and saying "Alright, time to find out what juicy info I can get, mwa ha ha!"




Meanwhile, there were also complaints about MetalMan's ban. It was not on the fact that he made a suggestion, that isn't against the rules anywhere, it was, as the banlist says, the fact that he made three flames in a row, and while the first one was mild, the other two were uncalled for. The other statement about me being too lazy to move/delete the WiFi topics is only a sliver of a possibility, I already stated the primary reason in the topic, if you wish to check it again. Second page, to be precise.



Other than that, yeah, that's what happened, don't worry about your personal messages. They can only be accessed by the root admin and your two current admins are not root admins. In fact, the group "root admin" is not being used by anyone. Consider this topic a news report about that change.

so basically a root admin can now look at any PM sent to anybody now?

There are no root admins. It's an uninhabited member group that used to be the standard admin group.

I should have also mentioned this. In fact, let me edit that in.

I knew this was blown out of context as soon as i went in that topic, but this just clears everything up even more, so i feel re-assured now that my in mind assumptions were correct, good to know that this vile image some people have of the mods is actually just a mirage... well, i hope so anyway

Figure I'll bump this so that it gets a bit more attention.

I just finished reading those topics, and I have to say, I can't believe some of you. I'd almost like to think you were acting that way just so you wouldn't get banned by Yoshiman or something.

What the hell are you talking about?

EDIT: Oh wait this is actually Press Start now?

This post has been edited by AppleQueso on May 6 2008, 04:02 PM

Yea, this is actually me (totally not redundant).

Knowing the facts, that isn't what you were looking for, or what you found.
I guess it is a lot more convenient to say people were meaning to you, but the reality is personal insecurity led to a bit of digging in certain PM boxes.
My guess is you found what you were looking for.

No, I did not.

except that IS what he was looking for.

That's been his story since the very beginning.

I don't know, even a seemingly harmless act such as searching yourself (which in itself is alittle paranoid) is an invasion of others privacy, and definitely constitutes power abuse.

I'm uncomfortable that you did that, but seeing as it won't happen again, I can't say much.

slander or truth???

I searched for the name Jas while telling Jas about it for the same reason I did mine, and at about the third reference of her name was some private stuff (I saw the screenname of a certain member being the first word in the PM, and stopped reading), to which I asked her if she wanted me reading it, and when she said no, I closed the file and didn't look at it again.

This entire matter was blown way far out of proportion, and I think more people should have listened to Nova's posts in that other topic, as they made a lot of sense.

I was a bit hesitant to say anything about this matter at first, because I really do not want to risk getting back into bad relations with some members again after getting back onto good terms with them a while back (for example, Mugen). I hope that Mugen and the others who were so exercised (except probably for people with hardcore negative attitudes like Nightwing and Trasher, since I really can't hope for much in this way in their cases) will see now that this all wasn't that big of a deal and that we can just get along.

I would not expect them to let this issue disappear. They want blood and it doesn't matter if the root problem has already been addressed.

No such thing as ignoring the past and focusing on the present!

wow i just read that entire thread an I'm surprised that some of the people didn't get banned

I'm surprised that the topic wasn't locked that quickly.