Reputation and private messages

[RyanMcE]

Here is a private message somebody left me while reducing my reputation from -74 to -80: "It's really not appropriate to post private comments that people leave you."

I would disagree. When you choose to influence my reputation, which must I remind you is seen by everyone on the board, I think the people that see that reputation should have a right to know why I have it. If you don't like that, then don't leave a comment when you degrade my reputation. I'll probally still post your name, since that really seems to get you people who care about reputation going hot and thats kind of funny, but the point is, this is not some sort of secret election, its my reputation, and when it goes down I think people deserve to know why.

What do you think?

[Katie Reynolds]

If you want people to know why your rep is so bad, that's entirely up to you to post. Meaning, "My rep is so bad because I bashed something in this post." Not, "So-and-so says, 'You should ....'"

When someone sends you a private message about it, generally they want it kept, well, private. If they didn't, they would have posted it on the boards. It would probably be in your best interest to keep sender's name between you and them.

If you have a problem with something someone has sent you, PM them back and talk with them about it, rather than posting their message for everyone to see. I can think of very few people would wouldn't be willing to talk to you about what's bothering them.

*chucks two cents in*

[KenWittlief]

personal messages and rep comments are there so people can have side discussions and send short notes that the rest of the forum wouldnt necessarily be interested in

if someone is using them to attack, insult or berate you, I think it perfectly within your rights to make those comments public - just because someone has abused or insulted you in private that doesnt oblige you to keep it a secret

dont say anything to anyone that you do not want repeated in public, whether in private, on the phone, in a PM or rep comment, email...

you never know when it will come back to haunt you.

If someone explicity says something like, 'Please keep this to yourself - and divulges personal information about themselves, thats different - they have asked you to protect private information (for exaple, we are having a party for Dwain, or my grandfather had a drinking problem... that sort of thing).'

but that does not apply if they are 'privately' insulting, attacking or abusing you.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by RyanMcE

Here is a private message somebody left me while reducing my reputation from -74 to -80: "It's really not appropriate to post private comments that people leave you."

What consequence does what your reputation score is really make, anyway? It's just a ploy for pity, I suppose, as I doubt you'd be complaining if someone reduced things from 900 to 872 or something.

When you choose to influence my reputation, which must I remind you is seen by everyone on the board, I think the people that see that reputation should have a right to know why I have it.

The people that look toward and see a person's reputation have every right to investigate what sort of behavior warrants such reputation. They have available to them myriad options to investigate a poster's contributions to these forums and discern why a person may have a poor reputation.

There is a difference between someone's "right to know" and their desire to know; something you've completely ignored. By posting comments left for you in private in these public forums and doing so without anyone expressing their desire to know about such comments, you're not doing some great service and disclosing information -- you're illustrating your immaturity as you grasp for any justification of your childish behavior.

Stop using the supposed "right to know" as justification for your perceived "right to tell." If there's some enormous concensus that your low reputation is undeserved, we'll fix it by voting it higher each time you take the time to make a useful, thoughtful post to the forums here. I don't anticipate that happening.

Any way you slice it, none of the reputation you receive, short of a coordinated, meditated attack on you by many individuals, is unwarranted.

I'll probally still post your name, since that really seems to get you people who care about reputation going hot and thats kind of funny, but the point is, this is not some sort of secret election, its my reputation, and when it goes down I think people deserve to know why.

I think people already know why.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by RyanMcE

Here is a private message somebody left me while reducing my reputation from -74 to -80: "It's really not appropriate to post private comments that people leave you."

I would disagree. When you choose to influence my reputation, which must I remind you is seen by everyone on the board, I think the people that see that reputation should have a right to know why I have it. If you don't like that, then don't leave a comment when you degrade my reputation. I'll probally still post your name, since that really seems to get you people who care about reputation going hot and thats kind of funny, but the point is, this is not some sort of secret election, its my reputation, and when it goes down I think people deserve to know why.

What do you think?

This is one of those wonderful "everybody is wrong" types of situations.

In my spare time I like to climb mountains. Many years ago, someone asked me the question originally asked of Sir Edmund Hillary: "why do you climb?" (to which Hillary provided the famously simple response "because it is there"). My answer was more pointed - "if you have to ask the question, you could never understand the answer." This was not an insult toward the person asking the question, but a simple statement about something that was intuitively obvious to those that could understand the ephemeral joy of climbing, and forever opaque to those that could not. You either get it or you don't.

If you have to ask why making a public posting of an obviously private message is inappropriate, then I am not sure that you would ever be able to appreciate any answer that was provided. Respecting the sanctity of a private communication - even when the originator may be insulting or showing disrespect - takes restraint and integrity on the part of the recipient. You can either behave maturely and respond privately (or not at all – which is sometimes the best answer), or you can behave as if you are telling everyone "if I think you are mean to me I am going to tattle on you to all the other kids and I am going to make you look like a big poo-poo head." You either see the difference, or you don't.

But what about those writing PMs? At an early age, I learned an important lesson from my grandmother. I had written a note to a friend in school, and it was intercepted by the teacher and read aloud to the whole class. It involved something terribly personal to a 7-year-old like "spinach makes me puke" or something similar, and I was very embarrassed. Afterwards my grandmother sat me down and gave me one of those simple rules for life that stay with you forever: "never, ever write down anything that you would not be willing to have published on the front page of the newspaper."

Once something is written, the author rarely has complete control over the distribution of that material. Particularly important in this environment is the understanding that there are absolutely no guarantees of privacy involving IM, PM or e-mail exchanges. When I use the e-mail system of my employer, or my ISP, or a public source, they all have written policies that include the statement "users should have no expectation of privacy." Any public-access forum will have the same restrictions and limitations. When originating a message, you should always assume that there is a chance that it will become public. Write it accordingly.

This does not mean that you should shy away from giving harsh messages when they are deserved. But it does imply that you should choose your words and phrasing carefully, so that your message and intent are as clear as possible. If it does get released, then at least you are prepared to stand behind your message and not be embarrassed. This is NOT to say that you should EXPECT the recipient to betray a confidence and publish every message you write. But if they do, your prose should always be written such that your character is never in question (although that may not be true for the person that released the message).

-dave

[MOEmaniac]

If someone was to disagree with you about one of your posts, I feel that it is only polite to leave a message saying why you disagree. But if someone agrees with you, I feel that there is no need for a reason because when they agree with you they are pretty much giving you their reason right there.

[Chris Fultz]

I believe there is an implied / assumed agrement that private messages and comments will remain private. The reason I send PMs and comments in Reputations is because I want them to be private and they are like a conversation between two people.

I often give positive rep points and then constructive criticism or advice - meant to offer some guideance to the person I am sending to. I am not interested in a public statement and I don't think the recipient would be either. Most of the time the responses back to my comments have been positive. Often, I just offer the view of someone else and the way a message was interpreted.

If the norm here becomes a public display of private comments, then the private comments will soon go away. And along with them, any ability to offer someone some guideance in a nice, non-threatening way.

[RyanMcE]

Ok guys, I'm sorry I started this thread. The entire thing really backfired at me. Let me explain...

When I made my first post this year, it was about entanglement. It was bitter, inflamatory, and generally not in the spirit of FIRST. I was aware of all of this, but I didn't really care because I was pissed and I thought a little flame war on CD would be a fun way to blow that steam. I was right, it was fun, but as it dragged on, I noticed that I was having a negative impact on the reputation of my team (thus I eliminated references to my team) and even worse, I caused some people to think worse of 93 (our very gracious alliance partners).

Also, it turned about that, because of the nature of the post, many people missed the underlying point of the post in the first place. So I decided that, having cooled down by writing many replies with dripping sarcasm, it was time for me to write another post that more clearly addressed one of the underlying issues I had in ind when I wrote the post.

This is where it gets interesting. You see, that post generated for me more negative reputation than I knew it was possible to recieve. And then I discovered that one post alone had made the the second most infamous person on CD. I wanted to keep that standing and even expand on it if possible, so, since I figured my new post would generate a small amount of positive reputation, I would counteract it with largely meaningless posts like this one, which I was certain would continue my negative reputation slide.

Well, I was dead wrong. I was very surprised to read, that "Your reputation on this post is Very Positive." I'm actually really confused about this, but I guess I just haven't figured everyone at CD out yet. It seems that a lot of people feel the need to post messages sent privately publically or something. Who knows. So I'm sorrry to have to tell you that you all replied to post which was largely meaningless to start out with. I am impressed, however, with some of the responses, especially dlavery's. Way to put just about everything in perspective, and actually answer the question at the same time. Hopefully others get something out of it as well.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Dave says "If I think you are mean to me I am going to tattle on you to all the other kids and I am going to make you look like a big poo-poo head." I couldn't resist...