Avast Forum Moderation Policy

[MikeBCda]

The Avast forums have been around for years, and have long had a reputation for helpfulness to users that in many cases has been the deciding factor, or at least one of the major factors, in a new user's choice of avast over some other anti-malware product.

Sorry we can't oblige you with a formal statement of our policies ... as has already been pointed out a number of times, we're here to help users, not to argue with them.  If you insist on iron-clad rules, check out places like Wilders Security forums, if you're not already familiar with them; it will be made quite clear to you there that they flatly prohibit discussing, let alone questioning, board policies.  We're fairly informal in comparison, and pretty obviously (to most of us, anyway) that works quite well for us. 

[ManyQs]

Excuse me, are you speaking for the company?

The Avast forums have been around for years, and have long had a reputation for helpfulness to users that in many cases has been the deciding factor, or at least one of the major factors, in a new user's choice of avast over some other anti-malware product.

Sorry we can't oblige you with a formal statement of our policies ... as has already been pointed out a number of times, we're here to help users, not to argue with them.  If you insist on iron-clad rules, check out places like Wilders Security forums, if you're not already familiar with them; it will be made quite clear to you there that they flatly prohibit discussing, let alone questioning, board policies.  We're fairly informal in comparison, and pretty obviously (to most of us, anyway) that works quite well for us.

And the question about who can see the IP addresses of the group identified on your board as "Registered Users" is still waiting for an answer.

[polonus]

Hi ManyQs,

A counter question. Why did you come here? You only react to posts and reactions of others. I want to hear from you. Be clear about this, please. What is your mission?

polonus

[mchain]

+1 polunus,

If you care to, you could choose to conduct yourself in a helpful and amiable manner, so as to best help other Avast! users in distress and difficulty.

So far, I am not seeing that good helpful attitude from you at all.  You seem to think at times this forum should revolve and center itself around you.  Sorry, but you speak for yourself and yourself only.  I do not share your view here.

So, why are you here at all? 

You are free to come and go as you please.

As for the IP address issue, one of the best ways to resolve that is to never connect to the internet. Also using an IP anonymizer proxy, or use a VM or sandboxed machine, would work too.

[ManyQs]

This is where the problems begin.  We have a moderator asking for personal information.  We have moderators, on whom is placed the authority to issues warnings backed up administratively with penalties, that are free to make editorial comment and then make moderation judgements on their own editorializing.

Regular members have no published guidelines here from the company upon which to know when one of these moderators' posts are a warning or simply an editorial comment which carries no administrative authority, thus no penalties are levied based upon those posts.

We then have a situation where some of these individuals working outside the confines of an employee non-diclosure agreemnt have access to IP addresses which they can place with personal information posted here on this board and that is regulated under various data protection laws in various legal jurisdictions around the world and this is a company in the security business.

But instead of concern for the well-being of this company being posted above, we only see attempts at obfuscation and character assassination.  As if the thinking is if we can hound ManyQs off the website all these issues will magically go away.

I don't think you gentleman quite understand the seriousness of the situation here.  Just wishing for something to not be doesn't make it so.  And it does not make any difference how many years the company has been operating like this.  Somebody made note of 10 years.  Data protection laws have been updated and revised in many legal jurisdictions around the world in just the last 5 years.

Now I am going to make one statement about one of the posts above and I want this to be clearly understood.

A moderator on this site has no legal right to ask me (a member in good standing in this community for seven years and until about 24 hours ago without any warnings or administrative actions against me to sully my reputation) — a moderator on this site has no legal right to ask me why I am here, and if I see that once again I will file a legal complaint against this company.  There's no place for that kind of business on a security company's website and I'll have no more of it directed at me.  And I hope it will not be directed at any of my fellow community members.

But I am confident the company owners and/or executives will see to it that sort of behaviour doesn't continue.  I think we've had just about enough of that.

So let us summarize what we have so far, so we can get back on topic.

1.. There is no Moderation Policy.  Confirmed by an Avast employee.

2.  Registered members here had no way, until this thread, of knowing that certain members here without the Avast logo attached to their User ID could issue warnings that carry weight with administrative authority here and that can be used to justify penalties and/or banning.  Now we have that in this thread.

3.  It still is not clear under what guidelines this group without identifying moderator badges operates.  We have a post by one of them done on April 21st of this year that indicates confusion as to what their jobs are.  Now we have a vague statement about now knowing "his" job.  What exactly that means is not yet clear.

4.  The issue of who can record IP addresses on this site has not been answered.  It is clear that I cannot see the IP address of any other member on this website.  That is clear.  Who can see my IP address is not clear.

[CraigB]

This is where the problems begin.  We have a moderator asking for personal information.  We have moderators, on whom is placed the authority to issues warnings backed up administratively with penalties, that are free to make editorial comment and then make moderation judgements on their own editorializing.

No moderator has asked for your personal information and we have ever right to ask questions about what your reasons are for being here, so the question was what is your reason for being here? other than to promote your absurd illusions that avast are breaking privacy laws
This forum is for helping people with computer related security issue's and so far we have not seen any response from you that requires help to solve a computer problem nor have you offered any advice to help or solve anyone else's problem, you simply appear to be here as an activist and cause disruption.

[polonus]

Hi ManyQs,

I think with your interrogative style, your behaviour is rather impertinent. What forum would tolerate such an investigation for instance? What do you think? Is this the proper way of starting any polite discussion? I think it is not. It is being self-propelled and not considerate.
And what is your authority to evaluate the way avast is running their own private business support webforums? For me the level of information you give is just plainly based on assumptions....

polonus

[ManyQs]

Gentleman, don't you think it's impolite to quote portions of a text I wrote that only you and I can see and not the general public viewing this site or the regular members, and to keep badgering me when I can't post?

EDIT: I would suggest/request this post be deleted as it was meant only for you moderators.

EDIT #2 in response to the answer about the delete that is posted below by bob3160 and to clarify to the general public and general membership.

You will see a little orange triangle with the word "Moderated" next to it and these are placed below my avatar.

I had received no PM warning and did the post just above before I was aware that I was on Post Moderation.  I placed in the post in the queue.

While it was in the queue a moderator quoted from it.

I am informed I am now on Post Moderation for the following offense:

Today at 04:01:11 AM __ Activist post style and causing disruption __ +24

[CraigB]

Gentleman, don't you think it's impolite to quote portions of a text I wrote that only you and I can see and not the general public viewing this site or the regular members.

Fixed, now everyone can view.

[bob3160]

Gentleman, don't you think it's impolite to quote portions of a text I wrote that only you and I can see and not the general public viewing this site or the regular members, and to keep badgering me when I can't post?

EDIT: I would suggest/request this post be deleted as it was meant only for you moderators.


.

Very few posts are ever deleted. They usually become inactive and simply roll out of sight.
Inactivity will only happen when you stop provoking people into posting.

[schmidthouse]

Gentleman, don't you think it's impolite to quote portions of a text I wrote that only you and I can see and not the general public viewing this site or the regular members, and to keep badgering me when I can't post?

EDIT: I would suggest/request this post be deleted as it was meant only for you moderators.


.

Very few posts are ever deleted. They usually become inactive and simply roll out of sight.
Inactivity will only happen when you stop provoking people into posting.

Well, or people stop becoming provoked by such nonsense.

[__perplexus]

I had thought it was unlikely to have been about my own internet security service when I read about this on the other website, yet here I am writing this.

I'm not sure if I'm writing this piece out of altruism, or out of laziness. I don't want to have to shop around for a new internet security provider, but if the attitude displayed by some of the moderators persists I will. A company can't survive in these tough times with staff members treating customers in such a manner when the customer is simply asking questions about company policy. Aren't we told we can be safer when using the Internet by reading company documentation carefully and being sure we understand the policies of a company we may interact with on the internet?

A recent column by Rachel Sylvester came to mind with her description of "digital mob rule". _www.thetimes[.]co[.]uk/tto/opinion/columnists/rachelsylvester/article3598170.ece_ I think you have to have a subscription to read her column on The Times website.

Possibly a simple word such as bullying would be more appropriate here, but it is those that are charged with protecting the community members that are doing the bullying. That these protectors are given their mandate by the company allows us to assert the company is responsible.

In my profession we usually see that companies in this business are extremely careful on legal issues, because they already have a difficult enough time weaving between a number of laws that are not helpful to their business. So reading some of the rather strange responses by company appointed moderators is puzzling, and if I were on the company's legal staff I don't think I would be too happy.

Let us take the issue brought up about IP addresses that certain staff members on this site are able to see. Although the issue of staff members who are not employees complicates matters, a determining factor was well defined in 2001 by the then UK Data Protection Registrar / Information Commissioner, Elizabeth France*.

"If dynamic or static IP addresses are collected simply to analyse aggregate patterns of website use they are not necessarily personal data. They will only become personal data if the website operator has some means of linking IP addresses to a particular individual, perhaps through other information held or from information that is publicly available on the internet. ISPs will of course be able to make this link but the information they keep will not normally be available to a website operator."

We already know there is "other information held" through a customer's registration on this website. That is the email account.

One must also consider the issue in the broader context of other information held by the company in its role as the customers' internet security provider. If the issue were actually to be brought before a commission or judicial body for review it would not be such a simple process to decide if it is "nonsense" for a customer to have concerns about the apparent lack of transparency on this issue on this forum.

I do not understand why this company would allow itself to be placed in a negative light because of an issue that could easily be rectified. Some might think there is another related issue that has yet to surface.

*from Wikipedia* _ Elizabeth France CBE is the chair of the Office for Legal Complaints. She was appointed in February 2009. From 1994 to 2002 she was the Data Protection Registrar / Information Commissioner and from 2002 to 2009 Chief Ombudsman and Chief Executive of Ombudsman Services Ltd.

Elizabeth France is also chair of the UK Public Affairs Council, a member of the British Transport Police Authority,[4] vice president of Aberystwyth University[5] and a member of the General Assembly of Manchester University.

[bob3160]

Do you have a problem with avast! Do you even use avast??
Considering that this is your first post, I wonder who sent you here
This is a support forum for people that use the avast! AV and other products.
Coming here to write a novel on your apparent favorite subject isn't what this forum is all about.
If you need help, we would be happy to provide it.
If you're here to vent, forget it and consider this a friendly notice.

[Asyn]

1. Considering that this is your first post, I wonder who sent you here
2. If you need help, we would be happy to provide it. If you're here to vent, forget it and consider this a friendly notice.

1. Hmmm, let me guess... It was...
2. +1

[.: Mac :.]

This is absurd. The Uberevangelists are not Avast employees, which seems to be the base of the argument here. We are not employed or paid by avast in any way, our opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Avast and its Employees. 

We were given the ability to delete posts that are considered SPAM and to block the user accounts that are made for the proliferation of said SPAM when a huge wave of SPAM posters came here and the Avast staff were unable to keep up with the number of posts. This is the limit of what we do as far as moderation of the forum.

Now everyone lets get back to the reason why we are here, helping other Avast users