Avitus Romanis optimis suís S·P·D
I have privately received the following message from Draco. Please see below for comments.
Tiberius Dionysius Draco wrote:Salve Avite,
This private message is regarding one of your posts in
this thread.
A. Gratius Avitus wrote:In the meantime, some sodales have written to me privately. Please notice that in the present state of confusion and anger on certain parts, I will not accept private discussion of these issues. Messages sent privately to me will be either deleted unread or copied and pasted onto this public board and discussed here.
Copy and pasting private messages is against the Forum Rules and Posting Guidelines of the Societas Via Romana forum. The following quote is from the guidelines themselves (to read them, click
here).
Ædiles wrote:§ Use common sense when posting. Be aware that you always have two options: responding through the forum or to a member personally. The content of your message should determine which of these you choose.
While it isn't expressly forbidden, it is common courtesy not to do so unless you have permission from the sender. I advise you to keep private messages what they are, private. I trust you will be able to solve this matter with whomever sent you the private message in a civil manner.
Should you decide to post the aforementioned private message anyway, you post will be edited or removed and you will receive a warning.
In case you have any more questions or remarks, feel free to PM me.
Vale bene,
Tiberius Dionysius Draco
First of all, it's good to know that it is not expressly forbidden to do what I said I would do with private messages sent to me, so it remains a question of common sense.
Now, Draco goes on to say something that doesn't seem to be in the guidelines either, but which is undoubtedly in perfect line with that common sense request in any case, which is that it is common courtesy not to do so unless one has permission from the sender. I can obviously see this and agree completely. Bringing to the public fore a message that the author has chosen to send privately and in confidence, and to do so against the authour's expectations would be absolutely unacceptable. That is precisely why, when one of the sodales (I used a generic plural, but it was only one in fact) sent privately to me a totally unwanted tirade, I did actually
not transfer it to the public arena nor did I even publicise his name. I would have never done so, and can surely not do it anymore as I just deleted it half-read. I do have common sense.
But once I have warned that I have a right to protect my privacy from stalking and that as a result I have determined to transfer to the public fore any further messages sent to me privately, it follows that any person henceforth deciding to write to me privately, as Draco has done, for instance, or any other one, is accepting that set condition (as they could now just choose not to write to me at all or do it through a public channel). Common sense therefore, in these circumstances, makes it absolutely clear that sodales (certainly those who have been participating in these ridiculous discussions) who know what I have publicly announced I would do with messages sent to me privately, if they do go on to write to me privately, are in fact giving their consent to my publicising their messages. This is perfect logic and absolutely common sense.
The "aforementioned message" therefore, sent before my public warning, will never be disclosed (it can't now as it's deleted), but your own, my cherished Draco, and all others received after my public statement of intentions, are sent and received in the knowledge, and therefore acceptance, that they will be not considered private by me. In fact, to make things even more clear, where I said "messages sent privately to me will be either deleted unread or copied and pasted onto this public board and discussed here" I now say "messages sent privately to me by anyone having intervened in the collegia names discussion will be automatically copied and pasted onto this public board". All are warned, so writing to me privately implies acceptance of this condition. Please follow the guidelines and do use common sense when posting.
Of course, I have not so far, and will not either in any forseeable future, write to any sodalis in private.
Now, how much longer is all this nonsense going to go on for? Can we use our time in a better way? Good I'm going on holiday tomorrow in any case! Goodness! Whoever asked me to suggest a few improvements to your Latin!
Curate ut valeatis!