This place is a public forum, and everything is out in the open or else you wouldn't be here. You control what you post publicly, and control the amount of data you make available to the public. The software hides your e-mail address, but not your chat client details.
Administratively, we record some additional stuff in various logs, but are too lazy to use it except for when we run out of disk space or bandwidth.
(Except for me), we can't access your U2U's but that doesn't mean they're private - security bugs might exist, and members can forward your messages to others. I don't have time or the inclination or the lack of ethics to read your U2U's as I have a hard enough time reading my own let alone yours.
Information the forum software collects about you
Any personal information we have about you is up in your profile (Click on "UserCP -> Edit Profile and Options). You can enter as little or as much as you like. We like to see your location particularly if you buy and sell a lot, but beyond that, the rest is up to you.
The forum collects usage information in various logs when you use the system. This ranges from your IP address when you post (see the IP button on each post), to web access logs when you do anything with our site, which also collects things like your browser type and referrer information if you have any set. Some privacy software strips these last two out, but that's okay, I don't bother with it much.
When you post to the forum, your posts are public. Google and all the other search engines can index them, so don't say something you'd prefer your Mum not to know. However, there are two private forums (Bad Attitude and Moderator's Paradise), and these are not generally reachable.
U2U's, a close cousin to e-mail but contained solely within this forum, is considered private by many, but it's not really that private. So be careful of what you say to others, and only keep in your inbox / outbox stuff you wouldn't mind seeing on the front page of the Age.
How we use this information
* Forum posts - everyone can see.
* Your e-mail address is protected by this software unless you write it into a post
* Your chat addresses and blog details may expose your e-mail address (eg MSN)
* U2U's - generally only the sender and receiver can see
What the staff can do
There are three categories of staff on this forum:
* (super) moderators
* super administrators
* me. I'm special.
Moderators (of all types) are just normal members, and can only:
* moderators can edit, move, delete any post only in "their" forums
* super moderators can do this to any post or thread in all forums
Most moderators are super moderators.
Super administrators (Jim, Brad, Me, a few others) can do pretty much everything, except read people's u2u's. That function was removed back in 2004. It has never been used.
Me. I am a special case as I'm the system administrator. It's my job here to look after the place from a technical point of view. My duties are behind the scenes and include:
- keeping security up to date with patches and so on
- writing the software
- keeping the data integrity high (ie no data loss)
- keeping the site availability high where possible (most of my upgrades occur when most of you are asleep, for instance) and
- ensuring that the little bugs are worked out between the ISP and the software.
Web logs
There are two ways to see the web logs - statistically via a log analysis web program, and in raw format. I use the analysis program to determine if anything is a space or bandwidth hog. I don't care about the rest and it's not that useful. From your privacy point of view, your info doesn't make it into the logs as no one makes it into the Top 50 pages on this site.
No one has ever bothered with the raw logs. I've never looked at them this way, as it's a waste of my time and it's too unrefined to be useful.
Database
All of this site is stored in a big ol' database, which is simply a structured file, upon which the software (and me) can make queries, inserts, updates and deletes. When we were having data corruption issues, I've dealt with the data that represents this site in that very raw form as it is necessary from time to time.
I also use that very raw form when it's time to do backups. Without backups, we would be stuffed if our hoster really screwed up.
Theoretically, it's possible to view U2U's (and all data!) through this method, but it's really very painful to do so. It really is quite arcane.
Code of Ethics
My personal set of ethics prevents me from accessing your data improperly, and when I do have to access it, I keep it confidential. I used to be the President of SAGE-AU, the System Administrator's Guild of Australia, and even though I'm not a current member (it's not what I do professionally any longer), I still abide by their code of ethics, which is available here:
http://www.sage-au.org.au/ethics.html
Any of you who use e-mail or Messenger products have system administrators looking after your interests and protecting your privacy, even though, they too can read all your e-mail or read your most "private" of communications. There is no difference here, and no conspiracy or secret cabal.
Encryption
This site does not use SSL (like your bank does with Internet Banking) as the value of the data is *different* - it's a public discussion forum. not a transactional system worth billions of dollars.
Therefore, do not use a logon or password you use elsewhere that you actually care about. This is not to say that we don't take care with them - the passwords in the database are transformed using MD5, so no one can see them, but still please don't use a really sensitive password as it travels across the Internet in the clear. The Internet is not a private medium, never has been, never will be. That's why SSL is in place for things that should be protected.
Legislation
We don't earn any money from this site. I make every effort to comply with all applicable laws, such as the Privacy Act and the National Privacy Principles as I believe in them.
thanks,
Andrew
[ Edited on 5-7-2006 by vanderaj ]
[ Edited on 5-7-2006 by vanderaj ]