He's in senior leadership there. Weren't you ever curious about why we weren't permitted to exchange e-mail address or contact information via the BF message system? Why they even go so far as to snoop said message system and then "discipline" you if you were "caught" exchanging contact information with another member? There were things that happened that they could not have known, except via snooping. If I was you I'd delete every single message from there. They're not private. They're very good at doing things around back and hidden. Very, very good. That's why you don't hear the horror stories about IHOP, except years later when people leave there and heal up from the abuse to where they can actually open up about its inner workings. Which is pretty disturbing. They have a 24/7 prayer room where young people come to pray and worship. These young people pay good money to actually do that while they attend the school there. Thousands and thousands of dollars. These same students, who pay thousands of dollars to worship God and attend a "school of theology" are then purposefully sleep deprived and under-nourished (by way of telling them they're "watchmen on the wall" and having to agree to regular "Bridegroom fasts") so they become weakened and ever more susceptible to manipulation and exploitation by the leadership. The promise of an "intimate connection with God" (read: "emotional high") is used to dangle a carrot that doesn't exist in front of these young people. The connection they're promised with Jesus, and which the leadership freely talks about as an attainable and amazing goal, is always *just* out of reach. The "prophecies" that are being continuously altered, because of course they're false, but nobody cares because the old versions are carefully destroyed and updated. It's terrifying, terrifying stuff. Once the veil lifts and you see past the very well polished veneer which they are careful to not let anyone see except inner circle type people, you see the rotten bones for what they truly are. They're as 2-faced as they come. Truly. Perhaps they actually believe their own lies. I have no idea. I'm just thankful I'm far away. Do some googling and you'll see. Just doing my part to expose their works of darkness manifesting as "angels of light" (hey, looky there, I'm actually keeping with the angel theme and sort of in flow with this thread ).
I've exchanged emails, phone numbers and other contact info via the PM system and not worried about it for a second. And of course I know that the PMs aren't private. I couldn't be on the team that many years -way too many years- and not know that. I don't know of a forum software that -doesn't- allow admins to view them if they feel the need. I didn't care then and I don't care now. Edit to say: I'm not about to defend or slag off David or anyone else on the team here. It's just not going to happen. I gave you my perspective and I'll let it go at that. Reread my last post please. I looked into as much as I feel I needed to for my needs.
Personally, I feel it's a grave injustice to spy on guests of whatever forum if that is the case. Don't believe that will ever be the case at PCIM. Just thought I'd mention that folks...
It's fine. That's why I make my statements out in the open. People are free to take it up with me if they so choose. Also out in the open. Moving on ...
Welcome to reality. Do you think the admins here couldn't read your PMs if they wanted to? Fact is admins and mods just plain out don't go snooping around in peoples PMs. We have far more important and better things to do and personal integrity and morals play into it as well. It can happen when a problem arises and the need is felt. My brain has been scarred forever because of some of the sickos that join that site and want to spread...let's just say things have to be dealt with that can leave you bawling your eyes out. I'm just trying to say that there is a legitimate reason for that ability to be there. Some can abuse it of course. But if someone murders someone with a hammer are you going to try to ban and melt down all hammers?
You are so right Brian. You'll very seldom hear me say it, but as owner of the board and your host (God actually owns this board), I wouldn't allow it under any circumstances. That's been my policy since back in the day... Privacy is a big thing with me, and I'd have to be forced to violate that privacy for it to even happen.
You are defending the indefensible. PM stands for private message. Abusing that privacy is a giant step and a slippery slope to the next step which apparently has been taken if I take Dani's example as a fact. Sickos you ban, no need to read their sicko PM's.
When you need to find out how many and to who the sicko sent their sicko PMs to so you can delete them before people open them up and have to see that mess, yeah I'm defending it. If you're even faced with that kind of situation then you can judge whether it's defensible or not. Until then it's just your opinion. And I'm just talking hypothetical here based upon things I had to deal with in threads and situations that happened. I didn't have access to PMs myself and didn't want to be in a position to need to. The admin thing wasn't something I ever wanted because having to be a mod was bad enough.
More in the way of a healthy exchange of viewpoints and actual edification - even with the disagreements - than 10,000 redundant, endless and often nonsensical threads, anyhow. And without getting one's head kicked in. While debate and reasonable discussion is essential, about 95% of the typical back-and-forth on many (ahem) sites is unecessary, unedifying and a waste of time, IMO. The most inane positions and arguments can go on seemingly forever, having stopped making sense 10-20 posts in. This insatiable need for argument and one-upmanship.
Well, I expect the leadership to be honest and open about the possibility your PM's are not private. But then watch the exodus.
We could if we really wanted to, but currently we can't, and the functionality itself (which is granted through a XenForo extension) isn't installed. I've quit more than one forum because of this kind of thing, and sincerely hope it never becomes a reality here.
When/if your traffic gets up to well over a thousand visitors a day + your member base ( and usually even more than that. A LOT more) you get a high volume of trolls and evil, sick people who think it's funny to threaten, harass, send porn including child pornography etc. Are you guys telling me that if you knew someone had sent a bunch of any of the above ( especially the porn) you wouldn't access the PM's and delete them before even more members have to see that garbage? And remember- we wouldn't know about it unless the sicko sent something to one of the team, a member reported receiving something or they had posted some of the stuff on the forum. I'm NOT talking about periodically or randomly checking people's PM's ( or just out of curiosity ) like some seem to imply. Why the heck would people do that? And if your answers are still the same - never touch PMs for any reason- then I feel sorry for your members when and if you grow. Be thankful you aren't hit with and facing this stuff on a daily basis. The porn is the extreme and is rare thank God, but the harassment and trolling is frequent. The fact that most of you guys are former mods at "the other place" I'd think you know all of this. If not then things got a lot worse in my time on the team. To the ones who don't know because you never had to deal with it, you're being a bit ridiculous IMO.
Here's the deal... If we did find someone that's placing porn, rest assured, any part of their account could and would be totally removed. Actually, when someone is determined a spammer, his/her account is history along with any residual. Been there, done that, bought the tee shirt. And yep, you probably remember my mod days at BF. As for trolls, I don't remember any to date.