Community rules and personal information

Community rule 3 states "do not include personal information or ask others for personal information in messages. This can include names, addresses, emails or phone numbers"

I think this needs clarification. Sometimes towns and cities are deleted by the Moderators.

I can understand that giving your actual address down to a locality whereby you could be identified is inadvisable. But sometimes it is necessary to name your county or town to explain things.

For example someone lives in a town and wants to know what services are available. Editing out the town makes a mockery of the request.

Or someone recently who had moved from a named town to a very small village and their post was about the difficulties of one compared to the other. The village might be too specific an address, but naming the town where they used to live????  The text is now punctuated by having every geographical reference edited out - so the posting makes no sense.

If it is really necessary to exclude names of towns, counties etc SAY SO PLEASE in Rule 3, but don't please cite the rules as a reason for exclusions no-one could reasonably anticipate.

Similarly the advice recently meted out to someone about profile names is not clearly stated in the rules.

Parents
  • I was thinking about this too. I can see very good reason not to identify vulnerable people, but I wonder how easy it would be to find someone if they say 'I live in London'.

    If I mention that I've many many times driven through Hereford, how does that tell anyone where I started from, and what would be the danger of telling someone that I come from somewhere with 100,000 inhabitants? If I say that I come from, for instance, Llandrindod Wells, how does that enable anyone to track me down when I left there 47 years ago and live 150 miles away? There's 360 directions to choose from...

    I'd rather see overzealous than under, but this policy saves anyone having to consider whether or not to enact it, and that isn't always appropriate, I think. This highlights the problems that we diagnosed adults have with using a service designed for parents of youngsters. Perhaps a separate website, still under the aegis of NAS but just for authorised adults? I've mentioned this before, but even when examples such as this come up, some people 'don't see the need'. Dur.

Reply
  • I was thinking about this too. I can see very good reason not to identify vulnerable people, but I wonder how easy it would be to find someone if they say 'I live in London'.

    If I mention that I've many many times driven through Hereford, how does that tell anyone where I started from, and what would be the danger of telling someone that I come from somewhere with 100,000 inhabitants? If I say that I come from, for instance, Llandrindod Wells, how does that enable anyone to track me down when I left there 47 years ago and live 150 miles away? There's 360 directions to choose from...

    I'd rather see overzealous than under, but this policy saves anyone having to consider whether or not to enact it, and that isn't always appropriate, I think. This highlights the problems that we diagnosed adults have with using a service designed for parents of youngsters. Perhaps a separate website, still under the aegis of NAS but just for authorised adults? I've mentioned this before, but even when examples such as this come up, some people 'don't see the need'. Dur.

Children
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