Going to follow up on this so if a new user who is legitimately unaware of the rules stumbles on
THIS THREAD, he or she can have some clarification for this instance. First, read the rules
HERE. Make note of rule 4:
4. Do not disclose personal information (applies in all fora)
Do not post any personal information relating another member without their express consent. Any post containing such information will be deleted immediately and a warning issued. A second offence will result in a ban, the length of which is up to moderator discretion.
Hollocron knows Saddam's real name and posted it. Saddam PMed myself and Parsifal asking to have his personal information removed, as he did not consent to it. Parsifal removed the personal info and issued a warning for the violation of rule 4. That should have been the end of it, but Hollocron wanted to argue the point anyway, insisting that he was just talking about a fictitious character and it was a coincidence that it was Saddam's name. He continued to post Saddam's name to prove his point. The crux of his argument was that:
So what you're saying is, if you make a post that happens to contain a real life name of a user, and you are unaware, then that is grounds for a warning? I think you need to amend your rule, because I made no reference to any specific user. For example, if I had said "junker's name is Billy Bob and he lives on 123 TFES Street", that would have been grounds for breaking a rule. Am I to assume whoops lol is a censored word on TFES now? Because if it is, it needs to go in the list of rules. Otherwise, I'm going to keep saying EDIT - the next one is a ban.
The answer to the first part is no. Stating a name that happens to be the real name of a user is not against the rules. Stating a name directly in response to a post where anyone can easily infer that is the name of the person you are responding to is against the rules. For example, if I did not edit his last post containing Saddam's name, anyone who came into the thread and read it end to end would be able to deduce Saddam's name. The rule does not say that you have to specifically say that X's real name is Y. There was no need for the argument to continue further. Parsifal suggested that Hollocron take his concern to S&C, which the appropriate place if you have a legitimate concern or need to clarify how a rule is being interpreted. Hollocron should have been banned the 2nd time he broke this particular rule, but I wanted to avoid that. He was banned on the 4th violation of the rule in the same thread, after 3 warnings. In this case, Hollocron was just being pedantic and pushing the boundaries as he is a long time user who is aware how things work around here.