Private messages

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As we rebuild the board, one thing that has us a little concerned is the private messages. See, at the moment they're not so private. They're in a big backup file and I could, if I wanted to, just go and look at them. Fortunately I don't want to, because I never told you guys that you shouldn't be having PM sex, or PM bitch sessions about me. I suspect that a full quarter of those messages begin with some derivation of this theme: "God, is she on the rag today or what?" I have no desire to read them, I assure you.

We are also a little nervous about importing them back into the forum when the user list is fucked up, even after we've fixed it. If anything else gets screwed up -- passwords, e-mail, profiles, whatever -- it's either fixable or not that important. (Passwords are encrypted, but the private messages are just a big text file right now.) Jeremy said that he would kind of prefer to just trash the private messages so we don't have to worry about them being read by the wrong person or anything. That also removes one step from the restoration process.

My question: would this ruin your life? Are there things in the private message list that you desperately need? If there is some information that you need that isn't private and secret, we can probably pull it out for you (although we might necessarily see the contents of some of your other messages in the process). E-mail me if that's your situation. If a whole bunch of you have important stuff in those messages and you'll be devastated if it's lost, we'll do our best to import them without, you know, looking at them. If you all start screaming, "No! No! Delete them! Make them go away! Don't look at them! Burn the house down if you have to," we'll try to deal with individual urgent requests for specific information, and otherwise we'll just nuke it and start from scratch when we get back online.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Answers

How the hell am I supposed to blackmail Curtis when he runs for President if you clear out my private messages?

(Okay, seriously, I personally would be fine with losing my PMs if it meant you could get the board up with less hassle.)

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


I had some that I saved for sentimental reasons, but nothing earth- shatteringly important.

There were others, though, that I'd saved just to perversely remind myself occasionally of what forum-based relationships are not. I should've gotten rid of them long ago. Good riddance to them.

(Also, I can tell just from writing this post that I don't need to actually have them to conjure up that same pissed-off feeling, I just need to thinking about them. I should probably remember that when it comes to all the junk I keep around the house, too.)

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


Trashing them would cause me no problem whatsoever. If you don't restore them, I can delude myself into thinking I had many exciting PM's back in the day.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Okay, Plin, you've now made me curious and I want to accidentally end up with your messages.

I had deleted anything that had personal information in it already, and anything else isn't important. Pout. I want messages that remind me what forum-based relationships are not supposed to be, dammit.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


Wish though I might that I had a whole inbox full of fascinating top secret PM's, the sad truth is that there was maybe a total of two which you may feel free to delete at will.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


Nothing in my PMs that's earth shatteringly important. Trash the suckers.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Heh, maybe I should just get Beth to include them in the new FAQ, so we can all be reminded.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

You're saying you can make Jeremy's life easier, save you from worrying about not accidentally making anyone's life uncomfortable and save everyone else from the risk of seeing something that might make them want to stab out their eyeballs, all by hitting 'delete' on a text file?

This is even a question??

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


Yeah, I know, I make everything so complicated. I should have just said, "Unfortunately, we were not able to recover the private messages, which were irrevocably corrupted in the server crash."

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

The PMs I had saved (hadn't yet deleted is more like it) were boring & contained no personal information, so feel free to trash them.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


I don't think there's anything in there I desperately need. Trash the fucker as far as I'm concerned.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

I have one that I'd really like -- an address of an attorney in Austin. Any way you can find that one?

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

I'll have Jeremy take a look tonight, Lisa.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Cocksuckers. All of you are cocksuckers. I had PM'd my heart and soul to some of you people, and now you just want to trash my words! Our special moments! Jesus, this is going to leave a mark.

(Oh, all right, hit the button, Beth.)

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


On the other hand (just to be perverse) you could make them all public.

That might take care of that leetle Back Alley lovefest problem...

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002



But guppy, how do you know that we didn't already print your heartfelt PMs out, put them in a glittery pink heart-shaped frame, and hang them over our desks for inspiration?

Oh, wait. That was Loony and her photos of 'N Sync. Never mind.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


Hmm. I'm thinking of a fund raiser -- I could auction off the whole damn text file ...

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

You know, now I'm kind of wishing I had partaken of steamy PM sex sessions or super-bitchy catfights or something, just so I could give y'all permission to read them. With the hell you're going through for us, you at least deserve the amusement of reading our PMs. Sadly, I think all of mine are boring.

Although I believe one of them may contain evidence of Curtis saying something nice.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


Beth, trash them. Less headaches for everyone. New servers, clean slate, kinda like being baptised, all our sins magically washed away.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

I deleted what few PMs I had on a pretty regular basis, so I don't care if the few remaining are gone. They weren't particularly titillating either.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

I don't actually care about any of the PM's I did have saved, but if you could provide me with one with (even just a little part of) guppy's heart and soul, that would be great.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

I am so jealous of all these people guppy's been PMing. Beyond that, I vote "trash" as well.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

I don't care what you do with my private messages, but I want you to forward Plin's to me.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Like I care what any of you cocksuckers ever said to me.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

I'll have you all know that, in addition to the pissy forum-based relationship messages, my file also contained PMs from Guppy.

You have no idea how special I feel right now. I'm such an A-list wannabe.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


Damn, am I the only one sentimental about my PMs around here? Heartless buncha cocksuckers.

Still. Enforced housekeeping is a good thing. In fact, if I give you more money, will you come to my house and throw out more stuff?

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


Dude (sorry, been saying that all day), I feel so left out. I had a grand total of 6 PMs, I think. That included the read receipt for a couple. I think I'll slink off to the unpopulars' corner now!

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Come back, Jayran! We were just scared you'd kick our asses if we said something stupid.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

I get PMs hardly ever (sob) so other than a stylesheet template I had, I didn't have much in there. So delete away, I can always get the stylesheet again if I need it.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Nah, I've got a handful off PMs I'll be sad to lose. Y'all were really sweet to me when I was going through The Great Cheating Debacle of July, and it was nice to have those PMs saved. But the level of sadness I'll experience just isn't enough to warrant causing Beth any extra trouble.

Besides, I'm sure I'll have some other life trauma before long, and then you guys can be nice to me again. Or kick my ass. Either way, I'm sure there will be new PMs soon.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


That's it, I'm enabling my PMs when the forum comes back. I'm not sure why I disabled them in the first place. I think I felt that it was bad enough I was reading all these people's posts at work, but actually _talking_ to them on company time would be beyond the pale. What the hell; my work ethic is officially shredded anyway.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

I think I deleted all of mine myself, but in case there were any left you have permission to trash them. Hell, read 'em first if you want - most of it is along the lines of "What time do I have to show up to get tickets for Chicago on a Saturday nite". Although I did just PM stacey right before the forum crashed, so Stacey, check your email.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

pinkstinky, I would have sent you tons of PM's about how sexy you are when you're bitching about people crushing on each other, but I'm shy.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

All two of my PMs were from Beth. So, un - unless BETH wants to save them for sentimental reasons, go ahead with the nuke button.

Oh wait. I deleted those messages a long time ago. Oh well.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002


Damn, I had recipes from Otterkat in my PMs that I never copied out. No big deal though. I think I still had Guppy's address in there too, so there goes the idea to auction it off on ebay and enjoy an early retirement.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2002

Squeaky, I'd never kick anyone's ass over here. This is the place for me to be all warm and fuzzy (and occasionally get my own ass kicked-- but in a nice way!)

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2002

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