Spyrorocks (brad) potentially join mod team

[JLSE]

Guys, seriously. I cannot read anyone's PMs, nor can any of the other mods. Avery is the only one that can read people's PMs. I'm sure Avery can confirm this, but none of the moderators can, or have ever been able to, read other people's PMs. AFAIK it's not even possible to allow the moderators access to PMs, at least on my forum there is no way to do it. Even admin has to go to the server's database and fish them out.

Let me just say that I am by no means a programmer, and that
I have no reason to think that my PM's have been read or
tampered with.

My point was just to address the possibility, and some odd comments I
had read in the past on the subject.

I do recall TJ talking about this, and still wonder why it was never openly denied.

Regardless of what is said, I personally, do not trust the system.

A quick google search reveals that there are 'hacks' for VB software
that will allow PM's to be read, without the need to login to the
account of interest.

These 'hacks' can be found on VB's own forum. Seems there are many ways
to do this very thing.

My original point was not that PM's should be 100% private, but competing vendors
being modded, and possibly having such ability, is a conflict of interest. Nothing
more.

Like I said before, my trust dropped out the moment mod status was given
to some members, and all the 'juicy' stuff is kept to emails.. :eg:

 

[csshih]

juicy stuff? whaddya got to hide? I'd like a peek. :yh:

 

[comradmax]

Firefox + gpg + FireGPG: problem solved.

 

[WLHostage]

wlhostage, your definition of vendor is a little constrewed... you do not have to creat a product to be a vendor. i am a vendor to all of my customers and i don't create a damn thing LoL.

This was just how "I" defined a vendor in relation to LPF and general laser products, this is not necessarily meant to be an accurate definition for all vendors.

The real key difference is that Dave is in no way emotionally or financially tied to the product he is working with. He has nothing invested in it other than the time and effort to remove it from the projector.

Compare this to someone who has spent time designing, building, and improving a product that they created (LPM's in this case). And you have someone who has both an emotional and financial tie directly to their product. These are the ties that create the conflict of interest that people are worried about.

I think it's safe to say that we will all support whoever Avery assigns the position of moderator to, but he asked our opinions on the proposition at hand so he got it. Spyro seems to be a stand-up guy and if he were not a vendor I would have no objections at all with him becoming a moderator. As I mentioned before I am only worried about the conflict of interest that inevitibly creates for Spyro. I don't think it's fair of us to ask him not to help promote his business, but I also don't think it's fair of us to put other competative vendors at a disadvantage to sell thier products on this site. I think the products should stand on their own mertis, and I think the Radiant Alpha has plenty going for it to make it a success regardless. But I think having a product that is for all intents and puproses backed by one of the forum moderaters automatically gives it a sense of quality and value above any other similar products regardless of the reality.