I had a request form a member to add more lines to the member’s profile summery.
I have added fields for Phone number as well as Qualification as this was mentioned in the request.
This specific member feels that other members are being “secretive” by not sharing their location, real names, qualifications, phone numbers ext…
I would like to give my personal opinion on this. In this modern day and time, no one should ever be forced to share more personal info than what he/she is comfortable with sharing… I would never make it compulsory to fill out all the fields in Member preference but would like to extend an invitation to all members to revisit your Profile page and fill the fields in that you are ABSOLUTELY comfortable with sharing…
The member that requested this was very interested in the qualifications of other members, maybe it is seen as some kind of authority…
I don’t see how qualifications are important on a forum like this. Either what you are saying makes sense or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t then maybe you just need to explain it a bit better, or perhaps you will be corrected by another person. I have learnt long ago that people from all walks of life can sometimes give meaningful input and even ‘experts’ can be wrong.
There is more to this, and I think perhaps Stanley and I are in the same boat here. This is not an official support channel. We participate here for various personal reasons. In this respect I keep my forum-persona and my real persona somewhat separate, because that’s how it must be.
Now with that said: For the most part users here behave in a manner worthy of their real names, and that we should keep: Your Nom de Plume should never be an excuse to act like a donkey’s offspring.
some members here know one another personally but other than that, on the internet not much can be taken at face value - even names.
So unless we also run claimed qualifications through SAQA etc. seeing any qualification listed in profiles are essentially meaningless. There are clearly some very knowledgeable (both technical background and practical experience) members here and that tends to be clear from what they post.
This isn’t the only reference one has. Experience also carries a lot of weight.
If you want to try your hand at second guessing what credibility someone has I suggest you check out MyBroadband and their discussions on topics that are discussed on this forum.
The depth of knowledge that members have on this forum is in a different league. So for those who would like to disclose where they are located, what their career is/was etc. is welcome IMHO.
I think with popia coming into effect, having personal details on a public forum opens up a can of worms.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying I am from sandton / jhb just to give an idea of the location but a phone number can often be used for identification purposes and I wouldn’t want to share that publicly.
There are all sorts of creatures crawling the internet and looking for information to scam people with.
What I do believe is that having a profile field for something like “qualification” without the ability to verify it makes such a field potentially interesting at best.
@Richard_Mackay if you have a problem with posts on mybroadband you should probably take it up there? I have seen some questionable posts on many forums and definitely also dropped some clangers but have learned something from all of them. There are also many knowledgeable people who post on mybroadband, powerforum, 4x4community, diysolarforum, etc. (some members here are active on probably most of the mentioned forums and even many others not listed).
The internet also has a very long memory and especially for people who are employed, or have their names clearly linked to their business activities, social media activity can become a minefield in a way or at a time that would not have been clear at the time of posting something.
So as @plonkster said, post as if your mother reads what you post, but even then a snippet of a post removed from context can make something innocent come back to bite you.
I beg to differ!
I like the 4x4 community forum since it has a large following and is well managed. Powerforum is suspect I reckon as many comments on this forum have stated.
I’m not aware of diysolarforum.
I shall tread lightly here… you may need to specify which jaco… one apparently has a tendency to release the magic smoke more frequently than the other… (even has a masters in it)
I suspect whatever people post as part of their public facing profile will be exactly that… in the public domain (might help to have proof of members electing to post info in their profile).
But email addresses, all other personal information, etc., that are not marked for “publication” when signing up should become popia relevant.
But more generally, not necessarily applicable to this site/chat, what someone told me on a POPI course, my words of what he said, remember this lady?
You never ever want to end up in front of such “high ranking” official having to explain why you did/or did not do iro anything relating to the POPI act, with what the act allows as punishment.
I would not want to be anywhere near anyone in charge at TransUnion today.
Again, not necessarily applicable to this forum, but it is better to make sure and never get to “protect me from yourself”.
Point taken about staying clear of POPI!
Getting back to pen names I read this historical bit on the subject:
During the 19th century, women authors frequently used pseudonyms in order to achieve
publication. Many of the pseudonyms used suggested a male author, such as Charlotte
Brontë’s Currer Bell, Marian Evans’ George Eliot or Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cotton Mather
Mills.
Thank you for all the comments, when I was first asked this in private and later in a PM, my first reaction was as below.
“Morning (Name Withheld), i agree it will be nice, but being a public forum, we can not ask that of anybody, i can ask them to share more info, but its up to them if they want to share it.
[/quote]”
When I later heard from someone else that a member feel that I promote “secrecy” on my forum I decided to put this issue in the open. That way the frequent posters on the forum could give their honest opinion about not having to much private info on the forum…
That was the only way I could show that other members felt the same as me and that I am not the one trying to be difficult by refusing to give into the request… I did however create two more fields if any member joins that wants to show his/her qualifications, I admit there is people who would want to and for who its important to have their qualifications known to others.
I am glad the opinions are all in line and see this matter as resolved now…
