We wish to make a few points clear regarding this situation, since a good deal of you know about it, and worse, are having misinformation about it. Normally we do not do this, but seeing as this could lead to a very unfair outcome for one of the participants, we figure it is better to provide this information than to keep it an internal matter, as we normally would.
As some of you surely know, Neir posted information on an IRC channel we do not moderate on June 21st, that as it turned out, linked to Mike's Facebook profile. No actual real information was obtained, short of his actual name, and a picture, as that profile had been set to private.
At this point, we began following the paper trail, and we found (at the time) what we had thought to be the answer - namely, that Mike had jokingly challenged nobody could find his Facebook, and Flame took it as a sarcastic challenge, set out, and did it, followed soon after by a later-deleted post indicating "PM sent." A week and a half later, Neir put the profile link in that IRC channel.
Based on that information, we banned Flame for 3 days (for passing the information on to Neir) and Neir for 7 days (for actually spreading it).
At this point, Neir protested. His information led me to finding that what had actually happened, which was the following:
- The PM that Flame had sent was to Mike, not Neir. Mike then asked Flame to remove that post, so he deleted it some hours later.
- All remained quiet for about a week and a half, until, by Flame's own admission, he became angry at Mike for some reason. As a result, Flame sent the Facebook link along to Neir, completely and 100% unsolicited.
- A minute or two later, Flame then PMs me, asking me if it was okay for one member to send another member's facebook profile to a third member.
- Neir then linked this information in that IRC channel about 10 minutes later, and according to Neir, he did not even know for sure that this was Mike's actual Facebook, but he linked it anyway.
With that new information, we upped Flame's ban to one week. However, Neir is not the one who "stalked" Mike for this information - Flame was.
Currently, what we are doing with Neir is up to debate. I have provided the information to the other admins, and personally, I do not feel he deserves a one-week punishment (at most, 1-3 days, because he should have used better judgment) but two other admins feel the incident is serious enough that Neir should keep his one week ban as we had originally handed out. They do not want Beast's Lair turning into the sort of site where members stalk other members and try to get information on them - a justifiable concern, I will admit.
Assuming the last admin agrees with the need to bring up a reduction in Neir's punishment, at that point, we are deadlocked, and in an attempt to resolve it, the decision goes to the mods, who will either pass it (thus reducing or removing Neir's sentence), fail it (thus keeping Neir at his original one-week ban), or likewise deadlock. If they also deadlock, we consult Evospace, fill him in, and his word is absolute and final.
If anyone has questions, we will try to answer them as best as we can, but please stop blaming Neir as the stalker. Plenty of people are accusing him and angry at him, and it's really not his fault. He's guilty of spreading the link, yes, but he is not the one who sought it out.
P.S.: Obviously, we don't want anyone else doing this ever again. If you're linking Facebook profiles of other members anywhere, you'd damn well better have their permission.
Originally Posted by eddyak
