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If someone posted a political opinion that was clearly in opposition to your own, would you do business with them?
Would you recommend them to your business partners or others?
Are there any negative results from such posts?
I suppose there could be some positive business contacts made because of political or other non-business type comments that reveal a bias on some issue or another, but is it worth it?
When members post comments that reveal their political or other leanings does it hurt or help them from a business position?
It depends on the objectivity of the person making the business decision on the other side. In my opinion, it's generally a good idea to refrain from politicized posts on an open forum.
If someone posted a political opinion that was clearly in opposition to your own, would you do business with them?
Yes, unless the nature of the topic was such that I could forsee their advocacy specifically impacting my business. Let's say I'm a banker: In a business setting I could care less on your views on healthcare, for example, but your views on finance would be of great interest to me.
Would you recommend them to your business partners or others?
Yes, subject to the caveat above.
Are there any negative results from such posts?
Yes, for those who are unable to consider that there are two sides to every issue, you might lose their business.
I suppose there could be some positive business contacts made because of political or other non-business type comments that reveal a bias on some issue or another, but is it worth it?
In general, I don't think so. Politics, like religion, so easily divide.
If someone posted a political opinion that was clearly in opposition to your own, would you do business with them?
Would you recommend them to your business partners or others?
Are there any negative results from such posts?
but is it worth it?
I say NO.
IMO this is an extension of separating business from personal issues. If you are representing a company in any communication - email, message board, whatever - when you voice a personal opinion, you are voicing that opinion in the name of the company.
would you do business with them?
I would - but many in the world are not so forgiving. I'll give one example. I had a client for like . . . 10 years. No problems, he was happy, checks were always good, we went from printing to the web together. One without warning day he called me and said, outright, "sorry but we just can't do business any more." When I asked why, he wouldn't explain himself, just reiterated that's the way it is.
I didn't harass him, but this stuck in my craw . . . never had a problem with this guy, seemed like he didn't either, just out of the blue, poof.
On further investigation and discussions with other people, the only thing I could come up with is that he had discovered I was NOT a [Religious denomination.] It made perfect sense, and also made sense as to why he wouldn't give me a reason.
The world is filled with these people, and is not always religion. Make a single comment about abortion, politics, child rearing, treatment of animals, even vegetarianism in the name of your company and you will probably not ever know why you lost a client.
There is one message board I attend with a "rant and rave" area. Developers and service providers just let it fly, and all I can say is . . . wow . . . career suicide.
So absolutely not, when you speak in the name of your company, you keep your personal issues out of it or pay the consequences.
We like to think that bias is gone, racism is dead, that people make decisions based in fact and merit people on their actions and not their color or belief . . . . but sadly, none of these have gone away. They've just gone underground.
The CEO wrote an OpEd piece that took a clear stance against a public health care option. While not a political stance, this is a really heated topic at the moment and his opinion goes against that of many of his customers. There have been calls for boycotts and stock sell-offs.
I can imagine that the board of directors is less than happy about his voicing of opinions for all to read. Of course, he has a history of missteps. Fake blog posts anyone?
Notice that we're not really fans of polling type threads. I am cutting you some slack on this one. :)
As for the rest of your questions my response is "green" as in money, not the political climate warming. :)
It doesn't take much to provide negative looks at any forum post... as this very innocuous example provides.
Are these "political" posts on a forum which allows same?
So many places, so many rules, who can remember them all? :)
I'm more interested in if letting it all hang out hurts business or not for the posters who do. It's the kind of thing I'll ponder for years on end without knowing why. :)
Seems like the answer may be, "yes", "no" "maybe", "sometimes", "who knows", "how do we measure that?". :)
Thanks folks.
Politics
Creationism
Evolution
Americian Civil War
HOWEVER, I do offer, on all of those forums, a free-for-all say whatever you like (and still modghod those as regards potential libel, but with a light hand). YMMV, and your list of verbotten might differ. You pick and chose your battles... and battle only those you can win. And BAN all the rest. That's why you are modghod!
If the "letting it all hang out" occurs on YOUR BUSINESS forums which might hurt business then I'd suggest a proactive stance... after all IF you are the host of that forum any bad actors playing in your sandbox will only blacken YOUR eye. Again, pick and chose, go from there.
But if it impacts the DOLLAR bottom-line... well, make your choice and then be on it like white on rice... you can't let one-or-some get away with it and slam others who respond in kind. Very much like the current example of Webmasterworld. Not 100% perfect, but pretty darn good!
When members post comments that reveal their political or other leanings does it hurt or help them from a business position?
It depends on the forum. I would not think it would make much difference in here because I don't think that there are many of us who do business with each other. I am in a couple of general business forums here in the UK and one of them is completely political because the sole moderator is very anti government. He freely allows anti government threads and rants contrary to the rules of the forum but since he is GOD in there he gets away with it.
If someone posted a political opinion that was clearly in opposition to your own, would you do business with them?
What some of the posts in this other forum did for me was to prove that I would not do business with some of the people in there whose views were in the opposite extreme to mine politically. I have managed to develop a real dislike to several people there because of their views and there is no way that I would or could do business with them. In my business I generally have to develop some sort of a relationship with my clients and I would have no desire to do so with some of these poeple.
Personally I think it seldom does much good to reveal your political or religious leanings in a business context. I am happy to let people know that I am a humanist but I don't plaster it all over my website since I know it could harm my prospects with some people. Similarly, when I see businesses what are run by "bible thumpers" this tends to put me off a bit. I believe that business and politics/religion/sexual orientation should be kept apart where possible.
In another forum just last week someone asked people to review his company's website. I had a look at it and on the homepage there was a reference to the fact that they were a gay company. I have no problem with this but I suggested to him that mentioning this was irrelevant and that it had the potential to alienate many people. Wisely, he agreed and removed the reference.
If someone posted a political opinion that was clearly in opposition to your own, would you do business with them?
No, unless it was obnoxious (e.g. racist)
Would you recommend them to your business partners or others?
Yes, except as above.
Are there any negative results from such posts?
I would be less likely to read a blog or forum what contained irrelevant (to me) material). I do read blogs I disagree with, if they have something interesting to say, but just because someone is interesting on one topic does not mean I want to read them on others.
That is why I have three blogs (work, opinion and personal).
Censoring forums is tricky. I was put off Mepis Linux by the deletion of forum posts criticising a promotion they were running as potentially alienating people who disagreed with them politically. I would have been quite happy for them to say "we disagree and think we did the right thing", but to censor comments (which were quite true - whether their decision was right or not, a lot of people would have disliked it).
