I am pursuing accusations of infiltration

[Sanis Prent]

against one or more members of this forum.

[TheHolo.Net]

I am fairly certain I know what this is about. Correct me if I am wrong but I believe it is in regards to Lynch and his repeated pursuits of obtaining information about what goes on in Dale’s locked forum. It may also include other parties revolving around what Lynch has been doing.

I myself have seen proof that he has gotten either access to the forum first hand while not supposed to, or at the very least pestered other people who were allowed access to the point where they gave him word for word copies of some of the topic’s contents.

Proof in that he has smugly discussed such knowledge with me in IM convos in the past and ever time refused to tell me, or anyone else how he obtained such info, except for the very first occasion which was an incident that we managed to figure out how occurred and confronted him with it. He denied we were correct at first, probably so his source at the time would be lost, but eventually (after his source lost access) he gave in and admitted that had been his source on that occasion. It had been a member with access to the forum that he had badgered to the point of discussing things with him.

There have been a couple of more recent times when he has suddenly come up with knowledge of posts made in that forum and again when confronted would not say how he got the information, but in talking to all the people with access, we figured out at least one of the possibilities.

The fact that he continues to invade our privacy at Dale’s locked forum and continues to be so smug and nonforthcoming about how he obtains the information is indeed in my eyes infiltration, but my own personal involvement in this situation makes it very difficult for me to ‘officially’ rule it as being a violation of the SWFans FAQ.

Many of his actions in the OOC forum as of late have also made me think that his attitude is not conducive to a constructive communicative atmosphere around here, there were fairly recently a few topics in which he made personal OOC attacks on members of the forum even after I warned everybody of the severity of such things as stated in our FAQ.

I will answer any questions that anyone has to the best of my ability, but do find it difficult to say that this is or isn’t infiltration officially because of my own personal involvement.

[Champion of the Force]

In this regard it would appear that the 'standard' infiltration rule is inadequate. I just had a re-read over the FAQ and it only deals with creating dummy accounts to gain access to private forums. Nothing about gaining information via other means or even hacking into other people's forums. Though one would guess that they would also be disallowed, in this day and age some people just thrive on technicalities.

Since we're on this topic, I'll make a suggestion. Why not delete all rules regarding infiltration and multiple memberships from our SWFans FAQ here, and simply replace it with a brief definition of Infiltration and that it is a bannable offence? Most groups now have a copy of the infiltration rules already, and some have even edited them to suit their own needs and wants, so it may no longer be necessary to have their inclusion here as though we're trying to enforce some universal standard.

The bottom line is that infiltration and such matters are probably best left up to the groups to figure out and decide upon, however SWFans still retains the right to wield the banning sledgehammer if a group/individual complains to us since all the groups are part of the SWFans community.

Food for thought.

[Sanis Prent]

My last act here is to suggest that the infiltration rules become much more modernized and restructured.

In leaving, my investigation into these matters is concluded, with no results.

[TheHolo.Net]

In all instances of accusation of infiltration in the past the results have been inconclusive and formal charges never brought forth, so I am not certain of the actual helpfulness of having the rule at all. I do agree that invading the privacy of another group’s forums is a major issue, but a rule that is so difficult to completely understand and implement is pretty useless really. :\ At least that is what is seems like to me.

[Champion of the Force]

So perhaps we should just delete the rule altogether and leave it be?

I think amention would help since it would clearly state that infiltration on other boards is punishable here on SWFans - one of the few actions that can occur elsewhere but still be dealt with here.