Abuse of power ?

I had an interesting question come up today.

Would a moderator of a forum using their position of authority to obtain a members email address, and using that email address to contact the member outside of the forum to "Give them a piece of their mind", be an "abuse of power", or "Crossing the line" ?

I've left re-voting on the poll open in case anyone wants to change their vote as new points are made.

You know what, I don't think it's crossing the line ... I'd rather the moderator do this all through the forum, but sometimes someone who just doesn't care or who only uses the forum to annoy people wouldn't reply or return to the forum often, if at all.

Personally, I think it would only be reasonable under extreme circumstances. The circumstance you've described here (an act of petty revenge) doesn't seem to fit under that category.

Generally, it's not really in the best spirit of being an administrator or moderator of a public forum, IMO.

So, if it's done only to "give someone a piece of your mind", then I vote "Yes, crossing the line."

Crossing the line for the same reason dM stated. Besides, what goes on in the forum should stay in the forum. You can state your mind just as easily in PM. In all the years I've moderated, the only times I've ever used a members email is if they were already a good aquaintance/friend, and then mostly by invite only.

Alternately I have used email addy's to track down spammers.

yeah I must say that a PM seems to be the better idea, except if that user keeps on spamming the board or something, but even then that account/IP should just be banned rathert than telling someone you have never seen what you think of him/her through an email ...

Crossing the line. PM is the way. If it continues ban the account.