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Every now and then, we do see some question like this one, which revolves around trust issues in a couple, asking us to collaborate as to "unmask" the unfaithful party.

I personally believe that the users of our site should not concern themselves with this sort of questions, belief that makes my question rather similar to iBug's one.

The difference, is that questions which are unethical may very well be of use in the future, whilst those similar to the one in the first paragraph, are probably not.

What is everyone's take on the matter? Should questions whose context is trust issues be closed or ignored, or should any potential answerer decide by their own accord whether to answer or not?

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  • Trouble with those is, they're not strictly off-topic – though most of them would better see a therapist. The one you linked is indeed close to iBugs concern, as it explicitly asks for help to commit a crime (computer fraud; breaking into someone's else's computer in order to extract data). If there were 5 close votes, I'd not intervene …
    – Izzy Mod
    Commented Oct 26, 2017 at 9:39
  • @Izzy Pardon, did not see the reply. So, you suggest not to take action?
    – Grimoire
    Commented Oct 28, 2017 at 19:54
  • See my comment on Dan's answer: I'm simply unsure how to deal with it. I fully agree with Dan for the "usual suspects" – but the first question you've linked is a special case in itself …
    – Izzy Mod
    Commented Oct 28, 2017 at 20:01
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    @Izzy Indeed. This was a matter I wished to bring up sooner, but I decided to procrastinate. My take on all of this, is that we might want to avoid acting, and let the system itself clean up the question as it gets obsolete. Still, as the topic overlaps with what iBug talked about, it seems to me that any potential answerer should weigh the pros and cons by themselves. Cases like this are not parametrizable.
    – Grimoire
    Commented Oct 28, 2017 at 20:05
  • If @Izzy or someone else wants to write an extra answer that's maybe more specific to the linked question, that would be good. I don't want to have the only opinion on the table!
    – Dan Hulme Mod
    Commented Nov 7, 2017 at 9:14
  • @DanHulme As I wrote, I mostly agree with what you wrote. And I'm unsure about that specific case, as it slightly deviates from the general one. Which doesn't make an answer :)
    – Izzy Mod
    Commented Nov 7, 2017 at 11:10

1 Answer 1

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It's not for us to judge people's relationships, so in cases like this, I'd prefer to "look through" to the Android question, and ignore the context completely.

The most frequent example of this kind of question is the "inaccurate location history" question, for which we have a canonical question. If the core of the question is about whether location history can be wrong, we typically close as a duplicate of that one, regardless of how hysterical the question is or whether the point of view is "my spouse is cheating on me" or "my spouse thinks I'm cheating on them".

For questions like the one you linked, don't forget that cheating and divorce are real things, and especially in divorce cases, the facts of who did what when can be important legal evidence. If it were a solicitor or detective asking how to get evidence from the phone legally, or trying to establish if use of particular information could possibly stand up in court, I think we'd try to help them the best we can, and I'd like to see people have that same attitude regardless of who asks the question.

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    You raise good points. I'm going to examine things from this point of view for a bit.
    – Grimoire
    Commented Oct 26, 2017 at 10:04
  • Good points indeed, Dan. Just with the first question linked, I have my problem even "looking through to the Android question" – as it effectively asks for advice on performing an illegal activity, intruding in someone else's "computer". To me, that's beyond "gray area". I'm not sure how to deal with that: as often pointed out, we're not advocates …
    – Izzy Mod
    Commented Oct 28, 2017 at 19:59
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    'D better edit the background out as it's unrelated to the specific Android problem, before closeing as dupt.
    – iBug
    Commented Nov 3, 2017 at 15:38

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