Thanks for writing this! To clarify a few points even more:
moderators can’t just go into a user’s account and check their voting history even when we do have reason to look into that user. We require one of the Forum engineers to run some queries on the back end to yield this information.
I confirm this, and just want to highlight that
this is pretty rare; we have a high bar before asking developers to look into patterns
usually, one developer looks into things, and shares anonymized data with moderators, who then decide whether it needs to be investigated more deeply
If so, a subset of moderators gets access to deanonymized data to make a decision and contact/​warn/​ban the user(s)
On
like a regular user, a moderator cannot see into anyone else’s direct messages.
I confirm this, but I want to highlight that messages on the forum are not end-to-end encrypted and are, by default, sent via email as well (i.e. when you get a message on the forum you also get an email with the message). So forum developers and people who have or will have access to the recipient’s email inbox, or the forum’s email delivery service, can see the messages.
For very private communications, I would recommend using privacy-first end-to-end encrypted platforms like Signal.
Also writing in a personal capacity.
Thanks for writing this! To clarify a few points even more:
I confirm this, and just want to highlight that
this is pretty rare; we have a high bar before asking developers to look into patterns
usually, one developer looks into things, and shares anonymized data with moderators, who then decide whether it needs to be investigated more deeply
If so, a subset of moderators gets access to deanonymized data to make a decision and contact/​warn/​ban the user(s)
On
I confirm this, but I want to highlight that messages on the forum are not end-to-end encrypted and are, by default, sent via email as well (i.e. when you get a message on the forum you also get an email with the message). So forum developers and people who have or will have access to the recipient’s email inbox, or the forum’s email delivery service, can see the messages.
For very private communications, I would recommend using privacy-first end-to-end encrypted platforms like Signal.