As a reminder, and to avoid receiving unwanted emails and telephone calls, this forum does not permit email address, telephone numbers and other contact details to be listed. Club has no control over who sends emails to you and who calls you on the telephone.
For Event Organisers EOs and Event Coordinators ECs, please continue to use this forum to register members who are interested in your activity.
The online fleamart is the only category that allows you to publish your email address.
Should you receive an unwanted email or an unwanted telephone call, please inform the person, or you can leave the complaint here, for others to know.
Terence Seah
Some members do mention that they are not able to log on to the Club”s forum and thus cannot register for events. If this is the case, please write to Admin.
Please do inform Admin asap, or you may be logged out as a member totally during your next attempt to register for events. Thank you.
Terence Seah
Hi…Terence. I am quite puzzled by the phrase “does not permit” in your header post. Sorry if I always harbour a contradicting opinion – or opposition view, if you like.
I think at 45 or more, members should be old enough to decide whether they want their contact info – email, telephone, twitter etc – to be displayed.
Indeed this is the quickest way for a new member to make friends with all other members – email and phone for the start. Of course there will be spams. But one man’s spam may be another’s spaghetti. A user can always block or delete a email if he does not know / like the sender, or rejects a voice call if he sees a strange number. The right to choose ought to be respected in this age of high-tech communications.
Having said that, I am not suggesting that anyone could happily display the personal particulars of another member. Definitely NOT. Only the individual concerned can choose to “broadcast” himself if he so wishes. Ultimately, each and every adult should be allowed to advertise his own particulars, AFTER receiving (repeated) advice from the Admin.
“Does not permit” is very much different from “advise not to show”.
The former sounds like a draconian boss while the latter resembles a doting father, or uncle.
Hi Daniel, just to share my views with you …
I understand what Terrance is trying to tell those who may have intention to use his “paid” web site for a free way to “advertise” their goods or services. You need not go far, just notice all the non-sex/religion/politics/MLM comments that Terence has blocked or not allow to post or thrown into the “pending” bin and deleted subsequently in his web site and you will get the answer for your puzzlement.
Daniel, you are also right in a different context or consideration.
Any person who register his or her web site is responsible and accountable for what is said in the web site, be it a comment or a post that is allowed to be published in that web site domain. It is like you starting a business and register your company with a registered company name. So Internet domain owners are also governed by the relevant Local and International rules and laws.
To sum up, the domain owners decide how his web site is to be used and what can or cannot be published based on his final decision, since he is the sole owner of the web site.
Hewlee
Thank you for your view point Hew Lee. When you said you understood what Terence was trying to tell, I hope you are right. Lets hear from Terence.
I fully support the move that whatever needs to be done (or not to be done) must be firstly for the image and survival of the Club. I only wish this is more explicitly.stated.
Phrasing it in a manner as if solely to protect the members makes readers feel that we are a bunch of unthinking old folks who needs somebody to tell (instruct) us what we should or should not say about ourselves.
Quote : “Should you receive an unwanted email or an unwanted telephone call, please inform the person, or you can leave the complaint here, for others to know”.
The first part of this sentence is common sense and anybody who needs to be told how to react should not be reading this post. The second part is unnecessary. Many of us receive loads of junk emails every day and each may have his fair share of unsolicited calls. Why should we tell anybody on this forum? Is the Club obliged to coddle members to such an extent? Any adult who can read and write should know how to manage his own affairs.
I trust that all our members are intelligent people who know the rules governed by our legal, moral and social framework. Also I trust that members know what is good for themselves, as well as for the good image of the Club. To believe otherwise will be an insult to my friends whom we chat together so often.
Hi Hew Lee, I have just read your comments fully. It looks like you have taken a leaf out of the MDA (Media Development Authority) books. Thank you for the reminder. However that does not answer my question,
Lets go back to the crux of this issue. Scroll up to the title of this post and read, “Please do not leave your email address and telephone numbers on this forum” —- my question is “Why not?”
Hi DanielC,
I have always encourage feedback from and among members. Members do not have to agree with me on every issue in the Club. We have chosen 45 as the line for reason for wisdom and experience of the general age group. I do not claim to know what is best for members. There is a wide range of views from members, and it is difficult to say what is right or wrong. I wish someone can help to sieve through all the emails, comments, complaints included>
The Club started with some broad degree of planning. Other than the taboos of no politics, sex, race, religion, race, direct selling and MLM, the Club decided that it would not permit contact information to be published in its forum. This includes address, email and tel numbers. Sometimes, when the administrator is lazy or too sleepy, this email addresses skip his eyes. Yes, some members live with spam, while some asks for investigations as to how their email addresses were collected. Right or wrong, it is the person’s responsibility to manage his/her email address and emailbox.
I worked in the media world for years. Most publications everywhere do not allow articles or forum posts to contain contact information. That’s how the Club decide on this approach.
I would be pleased to hear what other members have to say.
Terence Seah
Hi Daniel,
Just to expand the discussion a bit, I would like to provide an explanation to your question “Why not?” through my usual “conveyor belt concept”, if I am the administrator of a web site.
In the Internet global community, like in any country, society, club, etc. there always will have the good, the bad and the ugly. Any administrator of a country, society, club, or even a Web Site, etc. will have rules and regulations to prevent (or stop) the bad and the ugly to disturb the well behave good ones in the community. This is what life is … like travelling on a conveyor belt, (think of it in the context of a production line), sometimes we go through fire, then follow by through water or get hammered to shape (to conform) or all sorts of quality conformance. If not, we may land up as a reject and be discarded.
Enjoy your weekend when we still can.
hewlee
Hi Terence, Daniel & Hew Lee
With the Personal Data Protection Act taking effect early next year, perhaps it is advisable for the Club to take a cautious approach moving forward.
My 2 cents worth and I am no lawyer.
Have a good weekend.
Jac
Hi..I have been away for several days. The discussion on this has been deviated. Going back to my first comment on this post, I am questioning the words, “does not permit” and “advise not to show”.
If a person puts down his email address despite being told not too, this person shall bear all consequences that may happen to him. How will this affect the Club’s reputation? We are not talking about what is being posted here or “community behaviour”. An email exchange between 2 members has nothing to do with rules and regulations on running the Club. Lets confine the discussion to whether a member is allowed to put his email address if he so wishes.
There may be people who are too busy or too discerning to consider “craps” delivered via email. The same people are likely to complain each time they see an advertisement-leaflet in their letter box or car windscreen. However, they will not mind if a copy of the TODAY tabloid is dropped on his doorstep every day. It certainly makes sense to read only the “right things”.
I would like to thank all the people who have been sending emails to me. YES, all kinds of emails – from facts to fiasco, from beautiful to bizarre and from politics to “prohibited” stuff. I trust my filtering system and I have learnt a lot about the good, the bad and the ugly in our society – things you won’t learn in school or read in the mainstream papers. And I share them with similarly inquisitive (and enlightened) people.
Nevertheless, we are different and we should respect every person’s concern and reservation on how he uses his email. (I can never understand why people cannot have an email account that is separate from their corporate/office account? It does not cost anything to register a personal email account)
My bewilderment is when a third party needs to intervene to stop one person sending mail to another. In this case we have the Club trying to comment on matters that are essentially between 2 private individuals. And the occasional call to members to stop displaying email addresses is mocking at our independence (and intelligence, if any).
The question remains, “Why does a member not permitted to leave his email address here ?” Of course, if at the end of the day the answer is, “Because the boss says so” then this case is closed.
Thank you, Terence. Your explanation does make sense in our context of discussion. I can understand you are primarily concerned with the privacy of our members, especially those who are (at least apparently) gullible and vulnerable. But we can do it without being over-protective.
Allow me to stage a drama followed by multiple choice questions,
Mr A and Ms B are members of a Club. The Club Manager is Mr C. One day, Ms B complained to Mr C,
“ Mr A keeps sending emails to me. Can you tell him to stop it?”
What should Mr.C do to solve the problem?
1 ) Call up Mr A directly to stop “harassing” Ms B
2 ) Write a generic message to everybody, “Do not send out unsolicited emails”
3 ) Tell Ms B to ignore/delete/block all emails from Mr. A
4 ) Tell Ms B to get help from her father/husband/brother/son/grandson instead. Or call the police.
Hi…I am back. Very glad to be back safely. Visibility was near ZERO when my plane landed at midnight.
While away, I had received via EMAIL some questions, among them,
“Why you so ‘Gan Zheong’?” and “People can cheat you via emaill”.
Sorry about my writing style. Would like to share more from a (telecoms) lecturer point of view.
Without doubt, the Internet can be a potentially dangerous platform for some. But it is an immensely powerful source for all. How do people know of a website? Often though friends via EMAIL.
Yes there are email senders who may be scheming on something sinister. For every opportunist out there doing “address-farming” for a selfish reason, there are dozens who simply want to share interesting, inspiring and informative sites. In this age of connectivity, nobody should deprive himself of the abundance of information because of perceived threats.
Legally or morally, no blog operator should be held responsible if something untoward were to happen to a blog user, particularly an adult who can read and write. However, as a caring blog operator and/or IT lover, we should educate members on how to derive the maximum out of the net while circumventing the “minefields” therein. Disallowing members from showing their email address does not make members any wiser. At most, they will get cheated somewhere else. (Incidentally, Straits Times reporters proudly display their EMAIL addresses).
In the final analysis, while oft-repeated rhetoric serves as a useful reminder, over-emphasis on the “dark side” of cyberspace negates the real purpose of the wonderful world-wide-web. We should exhort our senior friends to embrace technology, explore the INTERNET and experience things outside the norm. Indeed, enjoy life while we still can.
We encourage all communication in the Club to be made on this forum. We also discourage the collection of email addresses from this forum. We also encourage members to meet one another at events, organised by fellow members.
Please be reminded that email addresses and tel numbers are not allowed on this forum. With the except of the online fleamart, email address may be inserted into any fleamart notice.
Terence Seah