What Can You Do When Information Leaks from a Private Forum?
Private forums are meant to be private – the information contained within is supposed to only be for the people who have access to that forum.
But, people don’t always respect this fact and eventually, you may have someone leaking private information to people who shouldn’t have it. The question is: what can you do about it?
The short answer: not very much. It is an incredibly frustrating situation.
Unless you have clear cut evidence on who is leaking the information, the main thing that you need to do is resist the temptation to go crazy and go on a witch hunt. You need to maintain your cool, keep your eyes open and only make decisions based upon good information.
When people leak information in this way, they tend to do it privately, via email or some other means. They don’t usually do it in public, on some website that can be tied back to them.
For this reason, it is often not possible to figure out, with conviction, who is leaking the information. While you may have a hunch about this member or that member, a hunch won’t save you because hunches can be wrong. You can’t take the risk of demoting or banning a member on a hunch, because what if you are wrong?
If you are wrong, you’ll have angered and possibly lost a member. In addition, the people connected with that member will be impacted. You’ll still have the leak and you’ll be worse off for your mistake. This is why you can only act on solid information that you are confident in. Otherwise, your attempt to protect your community might backfire and, instead, inspire anger and paranoia.
If good information presents itself to you, you should act on it. Until then, you should keep calm and manage your community. Do great things and deliver value to your members, far beyond the dissemination of some of the information provided in your private area.
What is worse, however, is when that private area is your staff forum and it is a member of your staff who is doing the leaking. I’ve been in that position before, where a banned member provided me with information related to them that was posted in the saff forums, and it was one of the most challenging situations I’ve dealt with because there is a certain level of helplessness to it.
I had a good hunch, but I didn’t feel comfortable acting on it. If I recall correctly, I asked the person some general questions about the sanctity of the staff forum – nothing too specific or accusatory, just to put it in their mind that I knew, if it was them that did it. I documented the incident for all staff to see and we went back to business as usual. I never found out who did it.
But, long term, we were OK and I didn’t make any hasty decisions. That said, if I had found out who did it, I believe it would have been hard for me to do anything but immediately demote the person from my staff. Once you break that trust once, it is irreparably damaged.
The leaks you find out about are just the tip of the iceberg! It’s a good rule of thumb to be on your best behavior and don’t write anything that you think could be tough to deal with if it were suddenly made public. Yet, the relaxed, friendly environment behind the scenes causes most people to let down their guard.
In my behind the scenes staff communication at vBSEO, I always assumed a very high likelihood that whatever I said may be shared beyond our private forums. After I left, the info that continued to be shared with me, proved that I was right.
On the other hand, I’m glad when bad deeds are exposed. I support whistle blowers. That’s another matter. ;)
Thanks for the comment, Joe.
I agree with you, on a general basis, about not saying things you would be embarrassed by. But, staff members need to be able to candidly discuss members in the community, their actions and what, if anything, needs to be done about them. This is usually not complementary toward the member. If the staff can’t trust the sanctity of the staff forum, they won’t be honest and we’ll be less effective in managing the community. That’s a real concern for me.
I’m not sure that whistle blowers have much or any applicable to general community management. Banning users isn’t nuclear armament. People leaking information from private forums aren’t heroes (virtually all of the time, anyway). I understand what you mean, though.
Thanks,
Patrick
I understand that your article is more focused on the standard day to day happenings of community management. My comments were a bit more loaded by experience with a major issue where leaks from within the private staff forums helped demonstrate the extent of wrong doing. Much, much different than discussing reasons for banning a community member for some violation of basic T&Cs. I’m sure that I’ve even posted many off the cuff remarks inside staff forums before myself… in fact, I know I have. =(
Regarding “whistle blowers”, although I’ll admit the word probably has a closer connection to large scale events like Wikileaks or Fortune 500 corporate insiders, I do think that whistle blowers can be valuable on a smaller scale. A quick example relevant to current news might be Path, where they were storing contact list data from users without disclosure (if I understand correctly).
Had there been some type of staff forum (Yammer, proprietary software, simple email) where the management team was proven to be up to no good, then in that case, if the misdeeds were leaked to the media that would not be such a bad thing, IMO. I should note this is a *fictitious* example. I have no idea what the Path team has in mind. I’ve read no such reports of any behind the scenes bad behavior.
I guess when it comes down to it, it’s really a contrast between team styles. Lawyer/PR no questions asked, or commitment to ethics over internal authority (at any scale). When we’re operating ethically, we should expect the former, without any reason to worry about the latter. =)
Thanks for the comment, Joe. I know what you mean.
I treat the audience here as if they do operate ethically. While it may not be such a bad thing, in the case you discussed, I worry that some people may look to be a whistle blower for the attention or to damage someone.
There are bad things… and then there are bad things, in the eye of the beholder.
All the more reason to do the best you can to vet your staff. But, even if you do so, something may eventually happen.
Patrick