Be cautious with off forum communications.

Please exercise caution whenever you communicate offline via email or other means with someone you have met on this or any forum. People who first arrive on MB are usually emotionally distraught, isolated, fearful, depressed, etc. and are desperate to talk to people who understand. There is a very real need to reach out to others in similar situations who have "been there."

Using personal email to talk to other members happens often, and in most cases it provides an opportunity for concentrated one-on-one support. Most members who email offline are trustworthy and will keep your confidentiality.

Taking your communication off the forum and into private email or chat may make you feel "safer" and "more private" and you may share details that you would prefer stayed private and confidential - just between you and your corespondent.

There is danger, however, in discussing your most traumatic and sensitive issues and details of your life via email with members you have met on the forum. The forum's private messaging was deactivated due to misuse by a few members. However, misuse can continue via private email and chat.

In just the past few months some members privately emailed and communicated with more experienced members offline and were later dismayed to find that their personal information they thought was private was not kept confidential by their email respondent.

Their confidential information was emailed to other members and/or was explicitly revealed on the public forums *without the writer's permission.*

Don't let that happen to you. Do not expose details about you, your family, your identity, or your life to people you have met on a public forum if you would not want to see those details in public for everyone to read about you.

Whatever you email or post to an individual privately may end up being read or used by others who have little regard or concern for you.

A good rule to go by is to never email anything about your personal life that you would be uncomfortable seeing plastered on the front page of the forum.

Be wise in your communications. Seek support and wisdom as you strive to save your marriage. Do not be naive and leave yourself vulnerable.

Graplin
Slight OT tj...
I haven't been able to find your story. Would you mind posting a link? I've been reading alot of your posts lately and wondered. Thanks.

another thread meant to cause trouble.

Looks like timely advice to me.

LA

Me too.

Depends on your POV. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

L.

I imagine at this moment it might to you. But then again, it is the author of this thread that brought attention to you in previous threads.

I see nothing but stirring the pot. But hey, it's your soup so stir away.

My personal opinion is that newbies need to watch out for the wolves in sheep's clothing.

I guess I was LUCKY! I got in email contact with a member that helped me more than any amount of money could buy!

Graplin,

For the most part...I agree. One can never be to careful with their personal information. I've gotten plenty of emails from persons off this board which were sent to me from their own personal email addresses revealing much about themselves with a simple google search or even the company that they worked for. I've never revealed such but somebody else COULD. Newbies would be wise to set up an anonymous yahoo address or other web-based email address using their new MB name to correspond with herein...if they so choose.

However, I think the following excerpt needs to be changed a bit:


Instead should read:


Lesson is...share information and then try to lie about it or be disingenuous thereafter here on MB...you may end up "dismayed".

Sorry...

Allow me to give an example...

Let's say you and PosterXYZ were emailing each other. Perhaps the two of you were conspiring to take down Mark...I don't know why...maybe it's just Mark's turn. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> Now within those communications, XYZ comes to understand that you are emailing her from a mental institution and you have revealed to her that you have been diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia. Now, considering such diagnosis I can imagine that you'd be VERY dismayed and upset if such personal, even medical, information was revealed about you here on MB...but exactly how long would it be ethical and moral for XYZ to allow everyone else here to NOT know we (the collective board) were conversing and posting to someone that had little to no grasp of reality...especially, if she saw you reaching out and trying to communicate off-line with other newer unsuspecting BS's.??? Sometimes...off-line information NEEDS to be revealed.

Thus, be careful what you share and especially HOW you share it but for the most part you can trust most of us that have been here for a long time as long as you are NOT a foggy lying unrepentent adulterer NOT really seeking to change.


Sidenote: This is an interesting tactic Graplin...but again your logic falls you. Just because some information given privately was used to refute lies or disingenuousness posted on MB thereafter and the poster so revealed was dismayed does NOT make the revealer a BAD, UNCARING and/or untrustworthy person. MANY, perhaps hundreds, of people I've personally been in touch with off the boards don't regret for a second sharing their personal stories with me securely and privately. Who they are is none ya and that, in itself, refutes your implied logic (reveal secrets and they WILL be exposed).

****edited TOS violation---harassment of poster***

Respectfully,

Mr. Wondering

p.s. - I seriously like the new more authentic signature line someone here has. [I edited out the name] Something as simple as that MAY have been a way to avoid being "dismayed". You see, I have a theory about OC's. Knowing that one will LOVE their children, they make it very hard to regret immoral choices. Tough to repent and wish you NEVER made that mistake when you've got a beautiful child to look at and love with all your heart. It's a "I am good today and all of my past choices, good and bad, made me who I am today...I'm sorry but I fully embrace my past" versus "I am good today, in spite of some of the poor choices I previously made that I have repented of and truly wish I could go back and change". I sincerely sympathize with the inherent ethical, religious and moral dilemna of this possible theory and having no experience, offer no solutions NOR criticism. But, IMO opinion it's very nice to see you accept that label in your signature line and allow others to draw their own conclusions about your perspective. It's a wonderful truthful step in the right direction FOR YOU. Carry on. No judgement intended (I even checked my intent several times before I posted) <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Let's ALL get along.

[sorry Lux for editing behind an edit]

I agree with you, Mr. W. Actually, I agree with Graplin to a certain point. Perhaps the best policy would be to be totally honest both publicly and in private. Oh, not the nitty-gritty details that can possibly identify one...but in regard to the general situation that brings one to MB.

Having an OC is not unusual for FWS on this board, so being honest about having the OC should not bring condemnation. We should all consider our children to be blessings, no matter the circumstances of their conception. Perhaps, at some point, [Edited] would like to share how she dealt with having an OC.

My wife and I absolutely agree with Graplin.

It is highly unethical to publicly post or publish privately communicated or transmitted information of any kind, without the communicant's permission.

This goes for telephone conversations, personal conversations, emails, personal letters, photos, etc.

Since the ethics of strangers are entirely suspect, confidential information should not be shared with strangers.

*****EDIT******
MrGGW

I think that is often true. Many members have given generously of their time and knowledge via email. They have also honored the confidentiality of the communication and did not publish the private email or make references publicly on the forum to confidential material contained in those private emails.

Not every one who has emailed members here has received the same consideration.

I would suggest in the future, than any newer member who communicates with another member off forum receives a written assurance that your privacy will be upheld. The promise of confidentiality of your communication should be agreed to in writing before you share any personal information that you do not want to see promulgated to others.

Page 45, Wayward Handbook

Even if each agreed in WRITING to keep the e-mail information private, there is no assurance it WILL INDEED BE KEPT private.

If you want to take a chance and e-mail someone you meet on a chat or message board, go ahead. But there is nothing to stop them from using the information.

I guess if you are good at reading other folks "characters" and your judgement is OK at the time, you could take a risk.

But WHY? You can e-mail someone freely from a remote e-mail and protect your last name, city, state, and identity. And still get good or bad from the communication. You can say a lot without having to reveal your identity. So why not do it that way.

If you are looking for trouble, start revealing your identity to others (strangers you have met on message boards like this one) . Then, watch out!!!

I'm a lawyer and I'd be happy to write one of these up for ya for a nominal fee. Just email me if you are interested. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Of course, if anyone emailed me off MB seeking my FREE assistance with their predictament and asked ME to sign such silly agreement, I'd presume they intended to be deceitful and disingenuous. I'd simply pass.

Not to mention...how legal would it be unless it included REAL FULL NAMES...something, I, nor they, should be sharing in the first place.

Disparaging implication noted.

Mr. Wondering

Mr. W,

If you, as an experienced member encourage people to email or correspond with you privately, their confidentiality should be honored, period. To take information that was gleaned from private, personal correspondence and post it on a public forum is unethical and has always been considered poor netiquette.

To use the private email solicited for any purpose other than the presumed purpose of providing additional private support - not a hidden purpose of later using anything you receive to coerce or manipulate the people who were naive enough to believe in the integrity of the people they were emailing, is unethical IMO.

Members of this forum should be aware that they may be emailing members who believe as you do. Some members believe as you do, that private communications will remain private only until such time that you deem it justifiable to publish that information publicly.

That you will publish that information both publicly on the forum and via email to other parties at any time you determine that they haven't done something to your standards. And that you will publish it and email it to others *without any warning and without permission* of the person who trusted in you.

That was the purpose of this thread. People in the middle of betrayal or waywardness aren't always operating at their peak, and to take confidential information you obtained via private communication and later publish it on the forum or pass it around to others without the knowledge or permission of the member who trusted you, is indefensible, IMO.

They should be made aware that what they think is private, is only as private as the integrity and ethics of the person they emailed to will determine.

We are talking about email privacy ethics of the Marriage Building forum, not former wayward wives.

E-mailing off the board is risky. It can be like gossip. It can become a tangled, gossipy web.

Best never to do it and if you do, dont get sucked into someone elses dysfunctional manipulations enough to give your personal information out to them.

If someone wants your personal information, tell them NO.

It is strange but I have heard of people e-mailing others they met on MB and then later meeting them and even marrying them!!!!!

Is it a dating mating board here? W-O-W! Is all I can say about that.......!

One time I gave my e-mail address to one of the "Christians" here who use Bible verses as weapons.

I was very sorry but was vulnerable at the time. Lucky I did not give my name or anything. But then every day I was deluged with verse after Bible verse after verse. And thier explanation for things. I could not stop it from coming.

I had to block the offensive e-mails finally, there was no other way around it. People sure have a lot of time to bat me again and again with verses! Crazy!

Opinion noted:

Let's restate your warning:



Come on Graplin...discuss this and try not to disparage. This isn't a debate.

Mr. W

HOW MANY PEOPLE HERE ON MB HAVE ACTUALLY E-MAILED OFF BOARD?

HOW MANY HAVE MET?

HOW MANY HAVE HAD SEX?

HOW MANY HAVE HAD AFFAIRS WITH PEOPLE THEY MET ON MB?

HOW MANY HAVE HAD CHILDREN WITH PEOPLE THEY MET ON MB?

I bet a lot of this has happened. My estimation is that about 400 folks have met, there have been over 100 marriages and maybe 50 children born of MB parents who met on MB. I could be wrong, there may be more or less. There are quite a few.