What's a "Verified Representative?"

starbelgrade

Spear

starbelgrade wrote: »

Someone who's confirmed they are who they claim to be and represent who they claim to.

starbelgrade

Spear wrote: »

Someone who's confirmed they are who they claim to be and represent who they claim to.

Like a student with a Garda ID card?

Insect Overlord

starbelgrade wrote: »

Like a student with a Garda ID card?

Like someone who works for a company/organisation and answers queries on their behalf, as opposed to imposters showing up and posting lies under false pretences.

Spear

starbelgrade wrote: »

Like a student with a Garda ID card?

More like corporate rep and and ID by Darragh.

starbelgrade

I see. I just saw a username in red in AH earlier & thought it was odd - you don't see that too often.

If it's a corporate thing then, do they pay to get red names?

Steve

starbelgrade wrote: »

I see. I just saw a username in red in AH earlier & thought it was odd - you don't see that too often.

If it's a corporate thing then, do they pay to get red names?

Link to the post?

Reps are not really supposed to post unless it's in relation to their business.

themadchef

starbelgrade wrote: »

I see. I just saw a username in red in AH earlier & thought it was odd - you don't see that too often.

Ive spotted an odd red name or two browsing AH (user list at bottom of page) but never an actual post.

starbelgrade

Steve wrote: »

Link to the post?

Reps are not really supposed to post unless it's in relation to their business.

themadchef wrote: »

Ive spotted an odd red name or two browsing AH (user list at bottom of page) but never an actual post.

I spotted a name at the bottom of AH earlier, like Chef, but never seen an actual post.

If I did, I doubt I'd report it.

That'd be a bit like "Teacher, teacher". Not really my style.

AckwelFoley

if a rep wanted to post in AH, the quality of their content reflects on their status not on boards.ie

If i was a rep for footlocker making an arse out of myself it doesnt do their image any good.

They should be allowed duplicate accounts -not to act the arse, but to keep private and corperate opinion separate

My name is URL

I've seen the odd post in AH from company reps. Unless they're acting the maggot or purposefully trying to increase traffic on their company forum then I don't think it's a big deal.

pickarooney

It may not be a big deal to boards...

Pacing Mule

At times it can be a case of the rep in question has forgotten to switch accounts to a personal one. Hence you sometimes see red names browsing a forum.

pablomakaveli

I think there was a rep that got in trouble for posting in PI before.

Mark A

snyper wrote: »

They should be allowed duplicate accounts -not to act the arse, but to keep private and corperate opinion separate

Isn't anyone allowed duplicate accounts?

Circumventing bans, or otherwise using duplicate accounts dishonestly is a different story..

AckwelFoley

Mark A wrote: »

Isn't anyone allowed duplicate accounts?

Circumventing bans, or otherwise using duplicate accounts dishonestly is a different story..

While I'm unsure if they are banned, duplicate accounts are certainly frowned upon albeit for exceptional circumstances.

Ive had one, on 2 particular occasions, both occasions i asked permission from an Admin or cmod first.

Tallon

starbelgrade wrote: »

I see. I just saw a username in red in AH earlier & thought it was odd - you don't see that too often.

If it's a corporate thing then, do they pay to get red names?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2056259275

In feedback no less :eek:

starbelgrade

snyper wrote: »

While I'm unsure if they are banned, duplicate accounts are certainly frowned upon

I'd hate to be frowned upon. It sounds awful.

Tallon

starbelgrade wrote: »

I'd hate to be frowned upon. It sounds awful.

:(:(:(:(:(

El Weirdo

Tallon wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2056259275

In feedback no less :eek:

I saw that and wondered why Komplett would have an issue with a mod's username.

Gary ITR

El Weirdo wrote: »

I saw that and wondered why Komplett would have an issue with a mod's username.

Maybe Randy should call Komplett and ask why they have a problem with his username

Darragh

Onkle wrote: »

Maybe Randy should call Komplett and ask why they have a problem with his username

See, that's just it. It's not "Komplett" - it's Ryan from Komplett who thanked that post. Some guy that works there. That's why I think it's important to have people's names in there. They take the responsibility for their own posts.

Should this be seen as an official statement on behalf of the company? Verified Reps are only users - same as everyone else - whose identity has been authenticated in the office. Sure, I could set up rules and regulations about all that, but really, when it comes down to it, does it actually matter? Is there a genuine problem that Ryan might feel it's okay to agree with someone's opinion on the site? Isn't opinion what Boards.ie is actually all about? Why get bothered about something like this? Someone who works for a company agrees with someone else on the site. So what?

We tie ourselves up in worrying about things like this too much, when focussing on usability, stability, making the site better, educating members and helping the site become more useful should be what it's about.

Let's focus on finding solutions to actual problems rather than creating more.

(Yes I realise much of the last few posts are tongue-in-cheek but I think there's far more important things we could be concerning ourselves with.)

Tallon

I disagree, he's representing komplette hence the 'verified representative'

He should use a personal account for anything not related to komplette

Mr. Loverman

You know your life is pretty good when you have to go looking for problems, e.g. someone with a red username thanked a post !!!

Tallon

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

You know your life is pretty good when you have to go looking for problems, e.g. someone with a red username thanked a post !!!

The colour is not the problem, it's the company they are representing!

Imagine Darragh, as Communications Manager, was to thank the post linked above!

Is he agreeing that the users name is not appropriate, and thus, saying it's boards.ire policy/same agreement?

Mr. Loverman

Tallon wrote: »

The colour is not the problem, it's the company they are representing!

Imagine Darragh, as Communications Manager, was to thank the post linked above!

Is he agreeing that the users name is not appropriate, and thus, saying it's boards.ire policy/same agreement?

Well my point was it really doesn't matter, and Boards.ie have said they don't care, so it is much ado about nothing.

Pacing Mule

Tallon wrote: »

The colour is not the problem, it's the company they are representing!

Imagine Darragh, as Communications Manager, was to thank the post linked above!

Is he agreeing that the users name is not appropriate, and thus, saying it's boards.ire policy/same agreement?

I think there is a distinction there.

For me the verified rep tag allows that user to post on behalf of the company involved in threads / forums related to that company. It's fairly clear where a thread does not involve that company that any rep posting there is commenting in a personal capacity.

If Darragh as communication manager comments on or thanks a feedback thread then he is commenting on something related to boards.ie and this is clearly a different scenario. If Darragh were to post in the soccer forum that he supports Man Utd would you then deem that to be a delcaration that boards.ie supports Man Utd ?

All that said I believe most of the reps have personal accounts too to try and keep it as clear as possible - and as I said earlier chances are Ryan forgot to log out of his company account. In this case though it has nothing to do with Komplett so it really wasn't neccessary.

Tallon

Just had a PM from someone linking me to this thread

It looks like in this particular case, his personal account is sitebanned... so why is he allowed circumnavigate that ban by using his business account?

DeVore wrote: »

Oh sitebanned?? hmm trickier again. I think we would have to restrict the company rep account to just their talk-to forum. The equivalent of being forum-banned from every forum so to speak. Again, kicking this to the network-brane for checking.

DeV.

Why is he not restricted to just the Talk to forum?

Pacing Mule

EDIT I read it properly again. My mistake !

If a personal account is site banned then the use of the commercial account is wrong. No questions about it. But that's a different situation to a general post made with the commercial account instead of a regular not banned personal account.

GAAman

The way i would look at it is the same way as i look at mods, if they are in their own forum thats when they are mods, outside of that forum they are normal users this should be no different.

If they have a second account and that gets banned then use of the rep account by boards own rules is not allowed even in their own forum in reply to a query.

In short there shouldnt be a restriction, if they are acting like a dick outside of their own forum then thats another thing.

Maybe have signature information along the lines of "xxx's comments outside of xxx forum are theirs and theirs alone" etc?

Blowfish

Tallon wrote: »

Why is he not restricted to just the Talk to forum?

I imagine that he's been asked to post in only the talk to forum when using the account, but not actually banned from all of the other forums.

Thanking something without actually posting is obviously a grey area.