There have been several complaints about the posting of supposedly private PM's and emails on the forum lately and in light of events, I think it would be a good idea to post an official stance on this issue for the forum and to address a change in our forum rules.

Effective immediately, and retroactively covering any currently open threads, we are striking rule #7 from our forum.

7. Posting the content of PMs or personal emails on the forum is not allowed. All PMs and emails are deemed to be confidential and cannot be made public except with the prior written consent of the author.

It is not our jobs as administrators and moderators of this forum to police what you or anyone else has said, even if what was said was harmful to your person or business. Our jobs, simply put, are to oversee the smooth operation of the forum. Our goal (not our job) is to keep everyone civil and friendly and we can't accomplish this if you're posting hurtful things and do not expect us to clean up your mess when it hits the fan.

Just as a reminder, rule #2 is still in effect. The posting of someone's home address, phone number, or any other personal information without consent is still against the rules.

To parallel this issue with the big news all over ze internets [see http://penny-arcade.com/resources/just-wow1.html] about people losing their jobs and the public ridicule over "private" emails, I thought it might be good to remind everyone that once you type something and submit it, IT'S PUBLIC. You are responsible for what you type, regardless of if you thought it should remain private or not.

There is no real way to keep that data private. An email, once sent, can be intercepted, copied, forwarded, manipulated, deleted, and misconstrued out of context so be careful and remember that what you type is a direct representation of who you are.

So, here are some social lessons from ZDnet's Eileen Brown, typed much more eloquently than myself: [via http://www.zdnet.com/blog/feeds/ocean-m ... mails/4476]

Social lessons
There are lessons to be learned here for social customer service teams:

• Don’t be shocked if a private email exchange ends up on the Internet. An email exchange is not private if it is sent outside of your corporate boundary.
• Email is not even private if it remains within corporate boundaries. Even if your internal email is protected by Digital Rights Management systems, photographs can still be taken of the email on the screen itself and published online.
• Poor customer service examples can quickly be broadcast to a much wider audience.
• Treat the customer with respect.
• Late apologies mean nothing. Apologise for your mistakes early. Be aware that the damage may already have been done.
• Changing your Twitter alias is simple. Changing perception about your actions is not so easy.
• Be aware that flippant comments can be misconstrued.
• Be aware that your words can mobilise a community to support you — or rail against your actions.

And most of all, anyone dealing with customers online should be aware that when things go wrong, they can go wrong quickly and dramatically — at the speed of a mouse click.

TL;DR: In other words, think before you type!