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are private messages safe or not?

Shaddock

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
I always thought: private messages are safe, because only sender and recipient can read them. there is one exception: admins usually can read them too, but don´t do it under normal circumstances (only for crime and so on). I was in many forums, thats why I know this. And if you trust the admin there is nothing you have to worry about.

thats not the question. the question is about trackers and so on. there are trackers on the website (like in other forums partly too), thats ok.

but in all other forums there were no trackers in the conversation area. in this forum there are trackers??

see the screenshots (you can see the firefox addons "ublock origin" and "duck duck go privacy essentials."

does this mean that google and other trackers analyze our private messages here in this forum or am I wrong?

let me repeat: in other forums (the forums I know) there are no trackers in the private message area, there is only the site on its own "autismforums.com" for example. but in this forum there are google and others.

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I suspect Google is one of the robots you see on the forum. In order to avoid them I use Privacy Badger and Ghostery in my main browser while in the other I have a script blocker to control what sites are allowed to do. This may not be available for your specific browser and it can break sites if too much is disabled.

Some browsers do have a facility to block trackers in their settings.
 
As one of your administrators, I can assure you that we have no access to your private messages unless you share them with us.

All we ask as staff members is that you don't use them to offend or attack another member.
In the event that one of the parties involved has an issue, they can share the contents of a message if they so choose to.

I can honestly say that during my tenure as a staff member which has been over five years now, that has only occurred a couple of times where it was very important to know the nature of the offensive wording.

Private is simply that, private.

The web crawler bots, trackers or other covert methods utilized by outside sources do not have access to any of the private information of anyone as well, so I hope that clears things up for you.

I know for a fact that we have very strong spam filters in place, but even those can be tricked by a few that try to be clever, so we also have access to assessment tools that enable is to keep ahead of them.
We have some pretty trick tools for identifying where the communications have originated too.

Generally my days here start by looking over new member activities in order to sort the real members out from the spammers who may have arrived while I was sleeping.
That same type of activity occurs during the course of the day here as well.

We as staff members are entrusted with maintaining the privacy and security of everyone involved here and all work on a volunteer basis with nothing to gain beyond knowing we have provided service for all and the pride of what we have accomplished.
 
newest users.JPG


This is an example of a new user list from the admin forum, edited to block private info.
 
Looking at that list my 'dodgy email address radar' is going mad. You must spend ages going through trying to find all of them every day.
We do in fact spend a lot of our time here for that purpose.

Another part that consumes time is the reading of new posts to determine if they fall outside of our guidelines, correct those that can be corrected by simple editing or taking further action when necessary.

I know for a fact that at some times we may appear a bit heavy handed, but it is for the good of our community, conducted in a business-like manner and never taken personal.

Some would be astounded to see how a slight few react to what actions we take.

One thing we don't feel the need to stress is that we are acting as a private entity and each of us that signed on knew that it is a club where we as staff members are only doing the jobs as outlined by our owners.

At times it can sure feel personal, so I draw on my business management experience to guide my hand instead of my heart.

There is a lot of activity that goes on behind the scenes here, in fact, enough that there are times when I don't even have the time to respond to my own posts.
 
The membership here does an amazing job of using our report function to help us maintain decency here, so we can't take all of the credit for how things run.
 
thank you very much Nitro for your good and detailed answer. that significantly increased my trust in the staff and this forum.
 
Just like each of you, I started off as just a mere member.

My goal was to gain insight to what made my brain work the way it does.
My education went well beyond that as I saw how vast our differences actually were.
At the same time, I saw how similar we can each be in spite of our unique features.

At times I do get upset by the us and them mentality some display and often admit how funny it is that people that claim to be free thinkers can dogpile on someone in a follow the crowd manner.
A prime example is when the term neurotypical gets tossed around in a generalized manner as if they are the sole enemies out to make another person's day on the spectrum a living nightmare.
Really?
Do you honestly think people can do spectrum assessments on the fly and at the same time, do you honestly believe that you have that capability to determine their neurology as well?

If you hold that superpower, please share that with us, because I believe that we would love to learn more about it ;)
 
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We do in fact spend a lot of our time here for that purpose.

Another part that consumes time is the reading of new posts to determine if they fall outside of our guidelines, correct those that can be corrected by simple editing or taking further action when necessary.

I know for a fact that at some times we may appear a bit heavy handed, but it is for the good of our community, conducted in a business-like manner and never taken personal.

Some would be astounded to see how a slight few react to what actions we take.

One thing we don't feel the need to stress is that we are acting as a private entity and each of us that signed on knew that it is a club where we as staff members are only doing the jobs as outlined by our owners.

At times it can sure feel personal, so I draw on my business management experience to guide my hand instead of my heart.

There is a lot of activity that goes on behind the scenes here, in fact, enough that there are times when I don't even have the time to respond to my own posts.

This is the champion of websites, IMHO. Is there an Oscars or Emmy for websites? I'd nominate Autismforums for the award.
 
Unless you're sending nudes*....I wouldn't worry about it.

*:sweatsmile: Yeah....you don't want to do that.
 
At times I do get upset by the us and them mentality some display and often admit how funny it is that people that claim to be free thinkers can dogpile on someone in a follow the crowd manner.
A prime example is when the term neurotypical gets tossed around in a generalized manner as if they are the sole enemies out to make another person's day on the spectrum a living nightmare.
Really?
Do you honestly think people can do spectrum assessments on the fly and at the same time, do you honestly believe that you have that capability to determine their neurology as well?

If you hold that superpower, please share that with us, because I believe that we would love to learn more about it ;)

thats true. I heard that it is called autism-spectrum-disease since a while and this means that everyone is on the spectrum, even so called "NTs", but most people are so less autistic, that they are not called autists. but this also means that there is no exact border between neurotypical and autism. its a spectrum, there is no border.

and autists can be bad people too, like "NTs." autistic does not mean that you have to be a good guy or something. I have and had "NT" (I don´t like or use this term) friends and I don´t care if someone is autistic or not, both could fit sometimes and sometimes not.

it is true that it is often hard to live in a world as an autist as a minority, but you can not say that it is the fault of the "NTs", both "sites" have to draw near to each other. there are also autistic forums where autists are bad to other autists.
 
Wow, what an atypical morning it has been.

The typical part:
Eyes opened at 4:45 AM
The necessary room visit was the first part of my day, per usual.
Washed my face and brushed my teeth.
Ok, all set.

Sit down, open a page for autismforums at 5 AM
Saw a spammer alert that got flagged overnight.
Entered the admin forum to take action on it.
Was simple enough, toss it into the spam grinder then take a look over the incoming new members.
Next the atypical part begins:
Light morning so far, only two noobs arrived overnight.
And that one nasty spammer that got caught in the trap.
Next stop was a review of the latest threads.
Simple enough, no foul language, no attacks, only polite conversations.
Next up, a review of the potentially caustic threads.
Once again, all cleared for takeoff.

So here it is, now 6:08 AM and so far, so good.
The start of a very easy day in the life of your forum admin.

I sure hope it stays that way ;)
 
Could there be a thread for more urgent mod/admin attention? Or does the report button send an instant notification to you guys?
 
Just to say thank for what you do to make this space what it is. So much of your work is behind the scenes (understandably) but I know that you are there. Thank you
This might be my opportunity to point out that I am not alone in this.
We have what I consider a fine staff that possibly works harder than I do to maintain this place.
A lot of you as members deserve credit as well for your contributions that help us perform our duties, so we are all a part of the same team if you think about it.

Sometimes I feel it is easy for some to forget that no matter what our titles are, each of us are still a work in progress with our own individual challenges and above all, still humans who all have a long history of making mistakes alongside any good decisions we happen to make.
That is what makes us individuals.

Here we all are, a grouping of individuals who often have difficulties expressing ourselves trying to communicate in simple text on a front where more often than not it comes across wrong in other's eyes.
It's amazing how well it actually works, considering the challenges going in.

My time spent here is just a way of giving a little back to a small part of the internet I call my home.
I'm pretty sure a lot of you that post here feel the same.
The other part we may never know about is those that merely visit and never post, but likely hold this place as a part of their routines too.



Here's an FYI some may not know yet:

When you see bold and blue text in a thread, it is official staff business and never personal.

When you see me post in normal font in black, I'm just another member and likely to be as opinionated as the best.
Or even stupid for that matter :p
 
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