Are anonymous comments on websites OK?

Should people who post comments on websites be allowed to be anonymous?

 

A few weeks ago I wrote a column focusing on an email from a reader I called Lil. She was seeking advice on what to do, if anything, after noticing a landscaper working on several luxury condominiums in her neighborhood had attached a hose to a public fire hydrant so he could water the newly laid sod in the front yard of the condos.

 

My advice was fairly straightforward and mostly involved checking with her city’s public works department to make sure the landscaper had permission to use the water. Her city happened to have a 311 number to call or an app to use to file such questions.

 

The online reader response to the column came swiftly. Some commenters agreed with Lil’s concern. Others suggested that perhaps the landscaper had permission and a temporary meter had been attached to the hydrant. But it was other commenters that led Lil to get back in touch and ask if I agreed with their assessment that she should mind her own business. One wrote “you go, Karen” using the in-vogue name used to describe people who are perceived to be do-gooders who get righteously indignant over petty issues. (Apologies to Karens everywhere.)

 

It’s not irrelevant that the commenters were not required to use their own names, and most hid behind an anonymous and sometimes goofy moniker. On some websites you can click on these names and see how many posts they’ve made on articles on the site so far. (The “you go, Karen” commenter had made 1,191 comments in seven months.)

 

I’ve written about allowing anonymous website comments before. I’m not a fan of anonymous posts online. The anonymity itself does not concern me. Readers might have any number of legitimate reasons to not want their names made public to a large readership. I still believe it shows more integrity to put your name behind the stands you take, but it remains an individual’s choice whether to do so or not on many sites, including the one I keep that’s associated with this column.

 

It seems wrong to allow anonymous comments if the commenter is using anonymity to avoid responsibility for being offensive, obnoxious, name-calling or shaming. Since many sites, including the one on which Lil saw herself told to mind her own business, allow readers to see other comments a poster has made, it seems relatively simple for the owner of the website to assess whether a commenter has a pattern of abusive comments. If they do, the site should consider removing the offensive comments or restricting the poster after making clear what crossed the line.

 

The website featuring Lil’s question also allows readers to “report” commenters for spam, profanity, abuse or harassment, misinformation, violence, inappropriateness and several other categories. If Lil believes any of the anonymous commenters fall into any of the categories, the right thing is for Lil or any reader believing similarly to report them. And the right thing for the website moderators is to take any such reports seriously even if it means losing a voluminous poster of anonymous and sometimes offensive reactions.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2022 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

How much should I disclose to future employer?

 How fully do you need to disclose information about yourself to a prospective employer?

 

A reader we’re calling Mary posed the question to me after she interviewed for a job via Zoom and was called back for a second interview in person. She wrote that she wants the job, but she is concerned that if she fully discloses health challenges she’s had in the past, it might affect her chances of landing the new job.

 

This is the point in my response when I feel obliged to disclose I am not an employment lawyer, nor an expert in employment law. But judging from her question, Mary knows these limitations and in posing her question to me was more concerned about how forthcoming she needed to be from an ethical perspective.

 

“Would it be dishonest not to tell them that I’d gone through some serious health issues in the past?” asked Mary.

 

If the job for which Mary is applying requires some physical qualifications such as the ability to lift objects of a certain weight and Mary knows she is not capable of meeting these qualifications, she should disclose the limitations to her prospective employer regardless of past illnesses. If the advertisement for the job or job description she might have seen included specific qualifications she knew she didn’t meet, Mary should have considered not applying.

 

But unless Mary’s health issues pose a danger to her prospective colleagues, it’s not clear to me why it should come up in the process of her job interview.

 

She raised a slightly different question when Mary said: “I’m worried that if I get sick again and it comes out that I had been sick before that my bosses would be upset that I hadn’t told them that I had been sick in the past.”

 

Here Mary seems to be concerned she must anticipate and disclose any future event that may have a negative impact on her ability to do the job for which she’s applying. If the health issues she experienced were indeed in the past, it doesn’t seem necessary for Mary to supply a list of everything that may or may not happen to her should she take the job. An employer is unlikely to tell Mary that while the company is financially healthy now, its business might take a nose dive later because, after all, in the early days of the company it was touch and go about whether the company would be able to stay in business.

 

Many things may happen in the future if Mary is offered and accepts the new job. Her old car might break down on her drive to work one day and she could be late and hold up an important meeting. The company might be purchased and layoffs might ensue. We can contemplate all the possible downsides as applicants and employers. But it’s also possible Mary might thrive in the new position and the company will survive and thrive in spite of any obstacles it faces.

 

In interviewing for the job, the right thing is for Mary to be honest about her capabilities to do the job and for her interviewers to be honest about the specifics of the job for which she is interviewing.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2022 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should charities spend so much on unsolicited mailings?

Are the charitable donations you make to various organizations going toward the work that organization sets as its mission or do they go to pay for marketing efforts to elicit more donations? That’s essentially what a reader whom we’re calling Iris wants to know.

Iris is among the millions of Americans who donate to charity every year. She donates small amounts to several different charities whose work she supports. But she’s noticed lately that more and more charities are sending her solicitations that include everything from customized return address labels and notepads to pocket calculators and embossed canvas bags. “These are not thank you items,” wrote Iris. “They’re sending these before I contribute another dime.”

Iris uses some of the stuff sent to her even if she doesn’t contribute. But she’s concerned that the charities to whom she does contribute do similar mailings. “I feel like my dollars are going to mailings rather than good work,” she wrote.

“Is it wrong for charities to spend so much money on mailings to try to raise money?” Iris asked.

There is nothing wrong with charities sending out solicitations for donations. In an effort to find new donors, they employ various techniques. Iris was clear in her email to me that she hates unsolicited phone calls from charitable organizations even more than the mailings she receives. The numerous mailings Iris and others receive may annoy them, but reaching out to prospective donors using various methods is often necessary if a charity wants to stay afloat.

The cost of the marketing efforts and other overhead should not, however, be so much that they outweigh the funds spent directly on whatever work the charity is set up to do. Websites like Charity Navigator (charitynavigator.org) analyze the spending of many charities so donors can get a sense of what percentage of donations gets spent on what.

Nevertheless, Iris raises a good question about whether charities should spend so much soliciting donations from people who don’t want to receive the solicitations partly because they would rather the money go to the work of the charity.

Iris may be receiving many mailings because she donates to several different charities rather than choosing fewer to which she gives larger donations. If Iris wants to make sure that the charities she donates to don’t sell her name to other charities for them to use in soliciting donations from her, she can check to make sure that her chosen charities assure donors that their names will not be shared. (Charity Navigator includes this information in its assessments.)

Iris can also choose to give anonymously or to take advantage of any charities that allow her to check a box indicating she doesn’t want her information shared.

While the Data and Marketing Association (DMA) lets people put their name or email on a no unsolicited mail list (www.dmachoice.org), it’s not a guarantee that every charitable organization will stop sending mailings.

That Iris continues to contribute to causes she deems to be worthy strikes me as a good thing. I’m hopeful she and others will continue to do so. But the right thing for Iris or others in her situation to do is to take as much control of how many unsolicited mailings they receive by letting the charities know that they would simply prefer the charity not to spend the money on solicitation mailings.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2022 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.