"Guested" accounts and safety, security, privacy, and discretion in the hobby

First, a refresher (highlighting is mine):

#28 - At any time, you may ask to cancel/disable your account here for any reason, or "guest" your account for security reasons. Please submit your request to the staff and include the reason for the request so we may better assist you. In cases where you are asking for your posts or threads to be removed, you will need to submit a list of URL links to the posts you have specified for removal. We will attempt to assist in these cases, but please understand that this process takes time, and due to the amount of work involved, no timeframe or deadline will be given for completion of this task. Additionally, should you wish to return to the board under a different username at a later date, this must be done only after first making contact with staff and receiving staff blessing. (in some cases, a 90-day grace period will be assessed before issuing a new account) At that point, we will be be happy to assist you with the transition.

As a moderator here, I have had to deal with my share of requests, from both ladies and gentlemen, to have their account "guested". In the cases of ladies, that can also mean the removal of reviews and other possibly incriminating ads and posts from public review.

If you notice that your favorite lady or favorite hobbyist now has a handle of Guestxxxxxx, please don't start a thread asking what happened to them. Guesting implies that a security threat to the individual exists and that's usually accompanied with a need to quickly disappear from this site. Such inquiries are best handled by PM or email... not in any of the public or private (semi-private?) areas of the site.

Thanks for your understanding, and I hope you share my hope that there is a special place in hell for those individuals who feel the need to "out" any member of our little community.

ztonk
AustinModStaff

May I ask why when it's guested you don't remove the sig line info so it isn't known who's account it was? Otherwise the reviews and everything else is still there.

Their avatar and signature should be deleted when the account is guested.

PM me (or any of the Austin mods) if you know of a handle where that isn't the case, and we'll get it fixed.

ztonk
AustinModStaff

Thanks for the info. I hope you mods are paid well to deal with all this "stuff"

I hope you mods are paid well to deal with all this "stuff" Originally Posted by chuckles

You are joking, right? We do this out of the goodness of our hearts...