Is it okay to publish PMs?

Post Reply New Topic

So, how do you do that, make others see the error of their ways?

I am seriously interested. Not at all meaning to sound snarky, in case it does.

Speaking as a moderator, I should reiterate that the correct course of action is to report the PM. Sending a PM to the mod team to alert them to the report is also useful.

Speaking as a regular user, I think generally it is sensible to observe the etiquette that PMs are indeed private, and you should respect the sender’s privacy. But if someone is being abusive or duplicitous then they are abusing the expectation of privacy and it is completely fair to disregard it and publish the PMs. All the same, generally there will be less drama if the matter of dealt with quietly by reporting the PMs to the mods.

Open the floodgates , let it rain - it's the only way

In the case I'm referring to the poster wasn't someone who was comfortable sustaining hostility, so after the first PM where he basically threw a tantrum I pointed out that so far nothing approaching hostility had existed and pointed to where his actions caused things to become hostile and from there began pointing out where escalations had occurred and who chose to escalate. Once he had conceded on that I made my case again, but a little more willing to explain since I now had an engaged audience instead of just someone looking to argue.

I don't believe that approach will always work because some of us are more comfortable dealing with hostility. This was actually one of the first observations I made in that PM chain, that he was less able to sustain this sort of interaction and that basically it had become a matter of how much face he'd be allowed to preserve and since all I wanted was an apology and to not be slandered.

Thank you for your reply, funeral.

I do not have the dynamics of my own responses or those of others sorted enough to do what you did. I respect your ability to do so.

I do manage to do some of what you describe IRL in my work.

Mostly, the best I can do, after one or two attempts to communicate, is to just withdraw and ignore.

That quite normal, I'm certain there are other posters I wouldn't have bothered with because they would have never conceded. I'm also pretty sure that I'm a rather argumentative person who is more comfortable than average at engaging with hostile situations, especially ones that I read as 'winnable'.

As a side note, I just found out that PMs can now be sent to only one recipient at a time.  I guess this change was made to prevent spamming(?).

It sure does make it more difficult to notify all of the mods at the same time when we're being harassed, though.

Thanks for your reply, especially for pointing out the drama issue - it's a very practical point that I was probably missing recently (unfortunately).

Anyone against posting toxic PMs in public, stay off Twitter.

I do.
Toxic trollbattles on Twitter can even make it to courts and mainstream news.
That's not my ambition.