How To Run A Forum Online! Don't Micro Manage It!

I understand and totally support online user privacy. So let me say I was really shocked when I joined a forum not to long ago to help people struggling with living an "alternative lifestyle." Why was I shocked or why did I join? Before I answer this question, I am about to be very transparent here in my blog post, which I advocate to clients, but this is really being transparent.

I joined because another part of my life is being a Life Coach for Men and Women who are "coming out," late in life, who have been married. So I thought I would join this site (name is being with held to protect the site and those on it) to see if I could provide free advice. I wasn't doing shameless self-promotion, just doing what I love to do...help others.

I was shocked by this forum when I started getting emails from their administrators (administrator plural), almost every day, and a different one everyday.

First email received: "You can't say you're a life coach in your description about yourself, so we have removed your description from your profile." Ok I get it. But, if someone really likes what I said in a post where I helped someone and they decided to private message me, "They could ask what I do for a living that I am so able to provide insightful and great advice." And then what? Are they reading all the private messages too? And does that mean if someone says they are a "master chef" in their profile that they have to remove it because someone might google "Master Chef" and assume they found the person on this site.

Second email received: "We encourage you to share and communicate with the community but you cannot share any off site information." Well forgive me for saying, "I read a blog post on...(again, not going to mention the site that I read the blog post on for fear I might infringe on their privacy rules and get someone else mad at me, even though I actually recommend them). Ok so strike two but i will just be more aware...DON'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT ANYBODY OR ANTHING ON THIS SITE.

The final straw: I received an email, from yet another, different site administrator, and remember this is the site that is so concerned about user privacy, and here are the exact words from the email. "I would like to ask you to change your user name as a google search with your user name brought up a couple of your websites. This violates the Code of Conduct and the security rules that we have in place and ask every member to follow." Hmmm, now who violated whose privacy by conducting a user name search on Google. They must have a lot of time on their hands to Google every members user name and discover how many users use the same user name for their Flickr, MySpace, YouTube accounts...and ask each of those members to change their user name! I guess the person running the Google User Name searches has real job security!

Enough said! Well not really! If you are going to run a forum and be so concerned about privacy, EAT YOUR OWN DOGFOOD!

At least I showed integrity and didn't mention this forums name. Why? Because I do respect the privacy of the members on that forum.

Am I off base on this one?