Is roll call a good idea?
 

I was posting this as a response in the Tippiechick thread, but then it disappeared.

I am not blaming the victim; I don't think it's Tippiechick's fault at all.

It just might be a weakness of GreekChat that we could correct since we now know that sometimes members of your group might use the info to make you uncomfortable or do actual harm.

I know that in my GLO's forum the suggested info is, I think, first name, chapter, and favorite memory, or something like that. Depending on your database, first name and chapter might be enough for someone to find your real life info.

And, if in another thread, you mention that you were at school in around such and such a time or you mention anything that can give away your age, it makes it even easier.

I wouldn't think that it would be normal for someone to go around collecting your data to "out" your personal information in real life, but it seems to be what happened here.

Maybe we should encourage people to protect themselves better under the circumstances.

I think it boils down to the personal integrity of the sister. People might know your info. But, posting it changes everything.

And, we all know in this case it was just to prove a point.

I will fully admit that I dig around on google. But, if I find personally identifying information, I don't post them. I know the names of a LOT of people. But, I DO NOT use that info to hurt them on here. That crosses a line. Posting things put out there by people is one thing. Getting info from a confidential site is another.

Roll call is a fine idea. It helps keep perps out. But, sisters should have some integrity.

I think it is always upon each individual user to guard their info appropriately. People who don't have some special connection to me might still be able to pin me down. But then they'd also have to know that I have no compunctions about using lethal force even in unnecessary situations. (TAKE THAT STALKERS)

But I don't think our roll call threads are a particular threat to safety. If someone knows that they're being cyber stalked they should definately avoid posting info, but for the rest of us, it's up to the individual. At what point do you just talk about the weather because your age, sex, location, GLO, alma mater, etc. are all off limits.

ETA: this was also an abuse of the ZTA site, not of GC itself..

QUESTION: Is roll call a good idea?

Answer: NO and neither are other things that could be used against people. It's easy to get comfortable on the internet and forget that these boards can be accessed by anyone, including people with bad intentions for whatever reasons.

I see nothing wrong with a roll call because when you post in your sorority's (or fraternity's) roll call thread, you assume that your sisters/brothers aren't going to dig up information on you and use it to stalk you or put it out there on a public site for everyone to access it. Personally, I can think of at least one instance where I pm'd a new member to GC to tell her to edit her post in a roll call thread because it had too much revealing information about her (chapter, year in school, hometown, and university email address in the firstname.lastname@university.edu format).

Oh yeah, totally, you don't think anyone will turn out to be crazy; you assume that people in your GLO group will be respectfull, but apparently some people are nuts and some are disrespectful of the lines you want to draw for your own privacy.

We can see a disrespect for privacy here; and there's some suggestion that it's a pattern that existed on GreekChat before this most recent event with Blueangel.


Under those circumstances, maybe we should encourage people to be more cautious, even in roll call. Or point out that they need to make choices: if you post your first name in roll call then you need to be super careful about any other info you give out.

Once again, Alphagamuga decides to start a thread because she wants to cry foul at the fact that I thought she was a perp before greeklawgirl verified her membership. She got pissy at the fact that I called perp on her because she refused to post in the Roll Call thread.

Admit it. :rolleyes:

For the record, I figured out your identity without the help of the Roll Call thread. YOU mentioned your first name in a PM. YOU mentioned the time in which you were in school. And oh yeah, your chapter is in your username!

Did I dig up your info in Sister Search to use it against you? Of course not. I'm respectful enough not to do that even thought I think you're a piece of shit. I was merely making sure we didn't have another case of IowaHawkeye/mullet81/kdlady00 on our hands.

But hey, if you want to start this shit up with me again...be my guest. It's only 7:15 PM here.

I'm all for the Roll Call thread. If you don't want to post in it, fine. But just be sure to verify membership if a sister asks for it. If you don't want to reveal that info, be prepared to get shit until you do.

This wasn't really about you. It was an observation based on what seemed to be going on here.

I think sometimes people make decisions based on assuming good behavior on the part of other people. If we know that some folks aren't going to follow the good behavior, maybe we shouldn't suggest that new people disclose additional information.

At the time, I registered, I had no idea that I needed to be concerned about guarding my privacy so carefully. I've since learned that I probably should have been more careful.

It might be a good idea to spread the word so people could maybe learn based on the experience of others.

Really? Considering the shit you pulled in the AGD forum the other week, I don't believe you. At all.

You might as well say, "See? That's why I didn't want to post in the AGD Roll Call thread because psychos like OTW's gonna find my info in Sister Search and then post it on GC for everybody to know who I am!"

I know that's what you REALLY meant. :)

It's not what I meant, and I sent you a pm to explain.
Do you ever accept an apology because I think I've expressed my regret about that post?

Please refrain from sending me PMs in the future.

Your last two were promptly deleted before even being read.

Thank you and have a nice evening. :)

Sure enough. You too.

Jen, what makes it different than basic online safety is the sister's online web databases.

I could be wrong, and if I am, please don't prove it to me by posting my information, but I think it would be harder for the average person to put it all together, especially if you went to a big school.

But when you narrow things down to a searchable group database, it gets a lot easier.

WOW....just wow! That's really wrong that you'd think that she'd try and prove a point by posting your information!!

I don't think anyone could have ever thought that another sister would use information that was supposed to be for sister's only and post it on a public message board. That's the last thing on someone's mind when they post information in a roll call thread. Now everyone will have to be more careful after the recent incident.

I didn't mean Jen particularly, and I'm sorry that it seemed that way. I just have seen stuff in the rush threads that when someone says, if "I don't say blah, blah, blah, then what the problem with posting my rush story?"
And then someone takes that as an invitation to show that posting is a bad idea by putting together all the information that they had just warned the PNM about.

I didn't what ANYONE to think that I was inviting them to prove me wrong by revealing stuff.

Sorry if it seemed like I was particularly accusing anyone. I meant it in a generic you kind of way.

Please cut Alphagamuga some slack :) She was just concern about everyone's safety, especially after what happened to Tippie. Of course I'm not saying it's life threaten to Tippie at this point, but hell, it could be a possibility, right?

I personally think it's good to have a roll call, but only limit info to year, nickname, and school. Then sisters can search in their database. Of course I realized that not everyone has a nickname. Then in order to prove whether or not you're a member, just PM each other then search. Like Jen said, give them a choice. :D

And remember do a serach on google on your real name once in a while to make sure you don't have false stuff on the internet. I do it every so often :)

Googling my real name on the internet at work could get you fired, evidently there is a famous porn star that goes by the same name. :p

You know what, mine does the same thing too, haha. And it was my dad who found out, lol...ehhh......though that porn star doesn't sound famous to me, lol......ehhh....*hides in corner* :p

OTW (aka GAE) speaketh the truth... I <3 OTW

There's not a damn thing wrong with roll call threads on GC. If there was I don't think ONE OF MY NATIONAL OFFICERS would have posted in one.

Roll call threads are not mandatory. If you don't want others to know your info, don't post in them.

Oh, and someone on here was able to figure out my first and last name BEFORE my first name was common knowledge (I've never used my last name on here) and BEFORE I posted it in roll call. But since I know they only meant it for good and not evil, I could care less. The knee jerk reaction of "OMG roll call is bad because Blueangel is a crazy evil spawn of Satan" is on the same level as never using a public toilet because you heard when you were 5 that an alligator came out of it and bit someone's butt.

I knew what you meant.

You never know WHO would do something like that b/c people have their own things going on in their heads. It's cute to say you trust usernames but unless you know people personally (off of the internet), you don't know what they will or won't do. Hell, you can't be 100% about what people who you do know off of the internet will or won't do--you can only pray that you can trust people who you've known to be trustworthy.

I think people are taking Alphagamunga too literally.

Sure, there's nothing "wrong" with roll call threads. We don't need national officers to post in them to know that. And roll call threads obviously are not mandatory--although some GCers are aggressive enough to make newbies think that if they don't post in a roll call thread they will be terrorized or something silly. But the general point that Alpha is making is for people to be cautious either way. Obviously people can find out info whether or not you post in roll call threads.

I agree completely.

People who I converse with and deal with offline (like, say, chapter brothers, friends, etc) have relatively high access to 'personal' information - by necessity, because I'd like those people to be able to contact me if needed, etc. I personally would prefer not to be contacted by others - and not just for 'crazy' purposes, but because I don't need spam, junkmail, or Idi the Nigerian knocking on my door with SPECIAL OFFER MY FRIEND MAGIC MONEY MY FRIEND.

I think a large part of the divide here shows the strong differences between people, in terms of public face, career needs, and all those interrelated things that really make us different. I don't blame a single person for not posting in a roll call thread - the whole argument seems somewhat petty, and really seems like we're "fishing" for "perps" . . . I especially don't blame people who work in a well-connected industry, or rely on clientele or reputation. My company, we personally search for myspaces and livejournals for every analyst we hire . . . most people don't even consider that. They probably should - it's insane.

Giving people the tools to capitalize on their insane insane insane-ness might not be the best Internet strategy, and hostility against those who are trying to prevent that seems somewhat near-sighted.

Agree, unless you want to be like Erica Rose from The Bachelor, that's a different story:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...ndid=107462729

That's her myspace. :p

On the other hand, if an individual starts posting on GC and self-identifies as a member of an organization, the members of that organization then have an interest in determining whether or not that person actually is what she says she is.

If you post under a name and don't claim an organization, it's no one's business. Once you start speaking as a member of that organization, the organization itself has a vested interest in knowing whether or not you have the authority to speak as one of them. For a place like GC, I think this matters a lot. Parents and potential new members come here to research organizations. I sure as hell don't want a non-member making members look bad.

That said, I can understand the issue with self-identifying to anyone who claims to be a member of the organization which they are verifying for.

There are definitely competing policies at work here, but since this is "Greek Chat," a place which as you know is for members of GLOs, I think the concerns of organizations ought to win over individual concerns every single time (when reasonable).

Obviously, I don't really give a damn about my privacy here. It would take very little effort for anyone here to figure out who I am, where I live, my phone number, etc. I really don't care though. I try not to give anyone a reason to want to hunt me down.

DITTO! Same goes for people who try to speak on other organization's policies & such!

I have been on GC longer than most people - there aren't many that are left of the originals - so if I ask an alleged AXO via PM to fill me in on her info, then she shouldn't have a problem with that - I'm not someone who just showed up on GC the day before asking for that information. And I sure the heck would NEVER dream of using that information in the way that BA did.

That's also why I like knowing who members are. When I first joined GC (holy crap, 6 years is coming up!), I was a collegian and there was only maybe one or two AGDs already here that actively posted. Up until recently (and maybe it's because I voluntarily removed the 'Moderator' next to my username), I haven't had a problem with PM-ing people asking who they are.

There's a fine line between your argument (essentially, "they speak for my organization so I deserve to know if they're legit"), and the constant battle against 'policing' in the name of "representing the org" - this is a really, really bizarre conversation, to me, because of this.

i'm not even really sure how I feel, to be honest - it's just weird.

I don't think anyone has any problem with an established member politely inquiring via PM - I'm not sure it needs to be a public event, though, until and unless someone is making a fool of themselves, if that makes sense?

Sorry (that's sarcasm btw, helping you out here, there will be no apology in this post), but this thread is total BS. In case you haven't been paying attention lately, let me recap:

BA googled my screen name. She found my journal and then began to spread around my personal information, my life, on greekchat, WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. She found out enough that if she wanted to, she could easily, EASILY find out who I am, where I live etc. This has nothing to do with rollcall and everything to do with a complete psychopath who will stop at nothing (as was proven) to make a petty little point. The rest of us can all let things go and keep grudges to GC. She can't.

Roll call is fine. It's the psychopaths who aren't.

The problem arises when the psychopaths take the information from roll call and use it for their evil purposes. On a public message board like GC, nobody can stop this from happening.

I'm really glad she didn't take anything further with me. Three distinct pieces of information are all that's needed to track me down.
Don't worry Chris; I'm sure Tippiechick will forgive you eventually. ( Or get you thrown out of ZTA.).

At least it would be her own sister - and therefore HER BUSINESS - instead of random old self-admitted impotent geezers on a message board.

People can probably get as much info about you on your myspace links on this site as they can your roll calls.

Tommy's been pretty silent on this whole matter, I wonder what he has to say about his BFF's psychopathological behavior this time...

Probably nothing remotely coherent, anyway.

That's probably why he's been silent. He knows if he comes to her aid he'll get thrown to the mob for the bullshit he pulled with the FORMER international president. I have a feeling he's hoping that we'll all forget that he pretty much did the same thing to me as well, only on a more subtle level. But we won't forget...nuh uh.

I'm actually quite surprised that MY contact/personal info wasn't put out there for everyone to see, you know, since my membership was so important that it had to spread it via PM last summer.

OTW
-who's still waiting for admission of guilt and an apology from both parties

I think you're going to be waiting for a loooong time for this. People like this never admit they are wrong. They twist the truth so far beyond the scope of reason, only their warped minds can understand their logic. The rest of us simply shake our heads and hope they get help.

Exactly - I don't think it's feasible for every member to be able to post or share enough personal information to confirm their membership in said organization; I think that reluctance throws up a red flag to a number of people on the board. It's a fine line between looking like a "perp," and keeping your identity sufficiently hidden so as not to jeopardize job/scholastic/outside interests.

If I had come to GC now at this point in my scholastic life and career, I probably would not have shared as much information about myself as I did when I first started on GC in 2001. The fact is that anyone with enough time on their hands can probably figure out who I am (not even mentioning the fact that I've met a handful of GC members in real life).

I guess I can understand both sides of it, and it comes out as a no-win situation. People want to protect their organization, but individuals want to protect themselves as well.

I don't think I was asking for roll calls to be banned or anything; I was questioning if they might be a bad idea because of how easy it makes folks to find out more about you. (not that they can't do it other ways by combing each of your posts, searching other sites, putting parts of pms together with other public information, etc. Roll call just might make this easier.)

And I thought that groups might make an effort at warning people that there had been problems with people crossing the lines in regard to other people's privacy.

I get the impression that this has happened more than once or twice, but maybe I'm wrong.

If membership verification serves a valuable service, maybe it would seem better to go to a confirmed list by user name. You verify with the moderator, and he or she can maintain a list of verified users just by "screen name" in the forum.


I realize that this doesn't help in cases of moderators who don't respect privacy, but it would be a way that verifying membership could be emphasized to new members, but they would feel comfortable to be more guarded with other information.

Oh, I'm no fan of psychopaths; I just think roll call makes things easier for them.