The need for personal detail when submitting feedback about a CHOICE article

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First name possibly mandatory, Surname not mandatory, Allow the use of the CHOICE membership No. but again not mandatory. If the membership No. is supplied then no other detail required other than perhaps first name?

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Perhaps the email field should be only activated if the person requests a reply from CHOICE? I.E. If the answer is “Yes” then the next field is displayed to request the email address.

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Not really “life story”. Name and email address is not onerous is it?
But I agree that there will be occasions when someone may wish to remain anonymous. Even posting under one’s CHOICE membership number does not guarantee anonymity.
My suggestion is that we all post under our real name, but that we have the opportunity to post with anonymity, but that such posts be flagged for approval by moderators before being displayed online.

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Are you suggesting we all provide our full name and email on all public posts?

I don’t have a problem if the personal identity of each community member is secured behind a public meme or ID.

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Without taking sides, there is anecdotal evidence people tend to be more reserved, respectful, and polite when their real identities are out there, not hidden behind an opaque avatar where they become armchair warriors or trolls.

Unfortunately it would be near impossible to implement as people sign up with increasingly clever made-up names. As for publishing an email or any contact details in a public manner? A step too far excepting for the ‘privately held’ institutional records IMO.

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An observation of the local free rag that publishes submitted personal opinion under ‘you said it’. With a few exceptions the writers full name and local community detail is published. The subject content is often very narrow. It’s likely all the neighbours know even if anonymous. Which may discourage important issues being raised.

Is this effective in self regulating? IE supports an assumption publishing a writers full name moderates behaviour? IMO it only works for the moderate.

In the interests of serving the more vocal at either end of the spectrum of public opinion - expedience/necessity requires space is also found for their voices.

What might be gained and what might be lost?

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The fabled ‘silent majority’ that only surfaces during an election ?

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Very silent and grateful mostly.

A well muddled mix of locals relying variously on mobile data, ADSL, FTTN, NBN FW, NBN Satellite, and FTTC.

Except those who have no mobile coverage at home, or wear aluminium foil covered hats to avoid mind control. For both though the local rag is the only outlet. We do know who THEY ARE!

P.S.
I’m all for friendly first names, rather than imagined personas if that helps. Pics of local frogs optional.
Calling out surnames reminds me of school, usually on a negative way and forewarning of flying blackboard dusters or worse. Might be an Aussie thing. Which is why I use a second initial on mine.

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I checked.

Nothing has changed so I guess it was deemed unimportant.

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It’s not that we deemed this as unimportant. This was taken to the privacy committee and we considered the full discussion on the forum here. There are a lot of details required by the form, however name and email are the only personal details.

Having these details may help us - we can send thanks or reply to the kind folk who have helped keep our site free from error! However, should someone wish to report an error without providing a real name or email address this is also possible. You can also call our customer service team via phone, which will negate any interaction with the form.

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And let’s be honest … if the submitter of the feedback doesn’t want a reply, neither the name nor email address needs to be “real” (depending on the level of validation).

If the submitter of the feedback wants a reply then the email address has to work but it can be a one-off throwaway address with any of the freemail providers if it is really that desirable to withhold that information from Choice.

1 Like