Members,
I appreciate your expressing your concerns over the IP address issue with the new Chairman Membership. I take the suggestions and concerns of all of our members very seriously.
The IP address feature was designed to help our Chairman Members some of whom are also sponsors. In threads discussing their brands, members lacking the courage to confront our sponsors directly with their real usernames, have been creating alters to make false criticisms and outright lies about our sponsors' products. The IP lookup feature was designed to level the playing field so that Sponsors would not have to defend themselves against the bogus accusations brought about by alters. And instead, the Sponsors could devote their time to addressing valid issues from real customers and real members.
Here is something to remember. The Chairman Members are hand selected by me. I know them, their real names, and I even know where they live. Really. Unfortunately, the only thing anyone knows about any Moderator on any forum on the Internet is that they make thoughtful and informative posts. Who would your rather entrust your IP address to? Someone that I know or someone that no one knows?
One more thing about IPs and Privacy. When you are on the Internet, you need to assume that everything you do is public. It is naive to think otherwise. We have done more than any site that I know of to protect member privacy. We go to enormous expense keeping famed steroid lawyer Rick Collins on retainer and enormous expense sending our Systems Administrator outside the country to work on our servers which are located offshore. But, if you want absolute privacy, use EliteFitness.com Secure Encrypted Email - not PMs or Posts.
With this said, I hear what you are saying and since I always listen to you, not only am I going to take the IP address feature away from our Chairman Members, I am also going to take it away from our Moderators. Going forward, the only people with access to IP information will be Admins and Elite Moderators.
I appreciate your bringing this concern to my attention, because it made me realize that you are absolutely right. Chairman Members don't need IP addresses - it adds almost nothing to the value of the membership. And you also made me realize that Mods don't need IP addresses either. If there is ever a valid reason for one of them to know an IP address, they can ask an Elite Moderator or an Admin and it will be reviewed on a case by case basis.
Please also remember that I am not perfect and what seemed like a good idea to me initially became apparent that it was not such a good idea upon further review. Although this is certainly a humbling experience for me, I appreciate your bringing your perspective to my attention so I could address it.
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