My “Tri for Les” triathlon training has taken over most of my free time these days and unfortunately my blogging time has been pushed aside for early morning bike rides, evening swim and run practices, and late-night fundraising brainstorming sessions. Excuses, I know, but it’s all for a good cause, in honor of a great woman (my Aunt Leslie) and I don’t feel too bad for prioritizing.
I’ve also been getting a creative fix from a side project, called Letters to Letters. It’s a fun commitment and good for keeping the creative juices flowing.
That being said, I am still working in social media full-time during business hours and wanted to share a bit about a recent experience I had with the term “WTF.”
Lots of people tend to feel comfortable using relaxed, colorful and often NSFW language in social media conversations these days. It’s the nature of the channels. Tweets and status updates often don’t feel like they should carry much weight or have the same repercussions as other traditional channels might. I think they should.
Part of my job is to monitor these conversations on social media. And sometimes, I come across situations where I need to judge whether or not a comment should be categorized as inappropriate (and thus removed) or considered in-line with commenting guidelines (and thus allowed to remain public).
Well, one day I came across a comment that was in a grey area. It used the abbreviation WTF. This term is thrown around a lot these days, sometimes even in professional circles, and I debated with myself as to whether the comment should be removed from my company’s Facebook page. Even though the term does represent a vulgar phrase, it’s often used to emphasize a “What’s going on” sentiment. That was the case in this situation and part of me felt like it wasn’t a big deal and the person was obviously not intending any disrespect.
But another side of me felt like it needed to be removed. I wouldn’t use WTF in a work email or professional setting and if I were to let the comment stay, since it technically wasn’t swearing, it would still feel inappropriate: like it was sullying all of the great commentary that we do receive on our sites. I also thought it may open the door and set a bad precedent.
So, I removed the comment. And it ended up being the right move. The person who posted the original comment came back later and posted another similar comment, expressing the same sentiment, only this time without using, “WTF”. This comment was appropriate, remained visible and received a helpful response.
I thought this was a good example of how important it is to trust your gut and to establish and stick to a set of commenting guidelines if you’re managing a Facebook page or other social forum.
What do you think? Do you consider “WTF” inappropriate or offensive?
Disclaimer: These views are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.