Hello Folks,
Welcome to your 4th community update - which also happens to be the 1st by a non-TC staff. The long story short: Moderators (who also happen to be non-TC staff), will help in providing the monthly update from time to time.
Right, back to the update.
Disclosure of affiliations and Interests
We’ve all seen this scenario many times - people acting/posing that they’re unaffiliated to a product/post that they’re pitching/bringing to the attention of the community. In reality, they have a close connection e.g financial or personal, which should have been disclosed.
As this has cropped up on numerous occasions, e.g. here and here: it’s occurred to us that maybe, just maybe, a few people don’t know this is wrong and frowned upon by the community. So what we thought will be useful, is to remove ambiguity - by providing some guidance on the preferred approach.
First of all, why is this even a big deal? Radar thrives as a community where people can exchange ideas, opinions, and interests. When a new product/service is introduced, we’re genuinely curious and usually provide feedback or ask questions. So it’s a bit disingenuous to act like you’re not connected. We implicitly trust you to disclose your affiliation, if one exists.
Okay, we get it, but what’s the expected way to correctly disclose: No hard and fast rules, but implying you’re behind a product, is the least you can do. It might look like semantics but saying ‘We built this product and think you would like it’ is totally different from 'I stumbled on this product and think you would like it’.
Wait. But you know some people will still carry on, right? Well, good luck to them! To the best of my knowledge, they’ve always been eventually found out. And whenever that’s happened in the past, I personally always think: what a dodgy person - He/She must be peddling a shady product. So here’s my free advice to you - it’s counterproductive. It harms your product (which is the opposite of your intent). In short, it doesn’t pay to be shady or appear to be shady.
Request To Delete Threads:
In previous updates, we’ve touched on requests to delete threads, posts, and accounts. We would like to reiterate that whenever a request is made to delete a thread, we regard it as a serious issue, which goes to the very heart of Radar. For the avoidance of doubt, we strongly implore you to desist from asking a thread to be deleted. Henceforth, if a request is received to delete a thread, if we agree to do so (decided on a case by case basis and with reference to the deletion guidelines in community update 0003), we will do the following:
- Inform the Forum of which thread has been deleted and who requested it
- Provide a summary of the rationale that informed our decision to comply with the request.
- Thread deletion notices will be posted to the meta/updates category.
So here’s the thing; we wouldn’t want to be self-censored. Ultimately, the integrity of the forum is understandably a priority for us. Deleting threads make a mockery of that. They are also a pain to do, so it certainly will not be happening often.
Relevant items from the previous update
Community Manager
The search is still on. We still need a community Mgr and if you’re interested, here’s your chance.
HTTPS is coming
It’s on the roadmap…and you know what that means! On a serious note, TechCabal takes this seriously and this will be rolled out with the other TC assets. Your patience is applauded.
Radar Offline
The next Radar Offline is around the corner. If you/your company would like to sponsor, please contact @lordbanks
As usual, happy to have your feedback and comments.
Cheers,
p.
