ETHICS and naming possibly living people in this public forum

[majm]

I am attaching a pdf that I have, today, made re the Ethics Policy statements for both the Victoria peak body and the NSW peak body for family history groups.    I am also sharing the live link to Graham Jaunay’s article on Privacy.  :  http://www.jaunay.com/article3.html

Also please remember that over and above all those requirements,  we are members of Rootschat and the Terms of Use are clearly available on each webpage that we visit:  https://www.rootschat.com/forum/terms.php   

There’s also the following which explains about refraining from posting information about people who are or maybe still living. https://www.rootschat.com/help/posting_guide.php

And there’s the HOW TO thread stickied at the top of the Australia Board – see particularly reply # 2.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=368728.0   

Simply put, please do not include the names of people in your posts who you do not know are no longer living.    There are Australians living who were born as LONG AGO as before WWI commenced in 1914...   See : https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Australian_supercentenarians   

Rootschat is NOT a private forum.  It is a public forum.  People can readily read these threads without having to log on.    By using my own offline resources to help you and your quests to advance back through your earlier generations, I anticipate that you are researching your deceased ancestors.  I do not understand why anyone would want to publish ONLINE in a PUBLIC forum the identifying names of ANY LIVING PERSON.  It infringes RChat’s Terms of Use,  It infringes Privacy laws, rules, practices in the eight jurisdictions in Australia, and it is simply SLOPPY, UNINFORMED, and POTENTIALLY HURTFUL family history research.   

As a general rule,  if your person of interest is unlikely to be at least 100 years of age, and you don’t know if they are still alive, PLEASE ASSUME THEY ARE.   

Thank You,

JM   

[trystan]

As much as that is all well and good it's worth a reminder that you are not a moderator.

We have put in place a policy of not discussiing living people where at all possible for privacy reasons. In some particular and quite exceptional circumstances the policy has flexibility where the situation warrants it. It is this balance that moderators have to make with a lot of issues.

It is also important to keep RootsChat a welcoming place where people feel comfortable to post without another RootsChatter jumping in being overcritical.

In the same sense as avoiding posting details of living people, it's also best ot avoid posting crticism on a "public forum" (as you refer to it) to a living person in their topic. Most people who post on here are alive when they make their post.

I feel very uncomfortable writing this reply for that very reason, but in this instance as co-founder of RootsChat I feel quite compelled to do so.

Take care, and be kind,
Trystan