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Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

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Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#191

Post by dang »

jcsnv wrote: post #121
temphn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously advocating reporting someone to the police based on a one sentence secondhand account from a single dumb Hacker News front page post? You have zero context for what happened here (could well be user error!) and yet you are encouraging an angry mob to go and SWAT someone. If you want to play that game, I'm sure that filing false police reports -- or encouraging others to do so -- is a flagrant violat…

Why is this getting down voted?

Probably because it escalated by getting personal. Wrong direction to go.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#192

Post by bryanrasmussen »

bostonpete wrote: post #152
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are two different things: 1. Hi, my name is John, I am contacting you on behalf of wojt_eu to confirm that he has been added to the "Cool New Project" as lead DEV. 2. Hi, it's me wojt_eu, I just wanted you to confirm that I've been added to the "Cool New Project" as lead DEV. You can legally authorize someone to act on your behalf, in basically any Western Nation - although rules as to how this work will vary,…

> authorizing someone to impersonate you I don't believe would be made legal anywhere I think you're confused. Celebrities hire third parties to tweet for them all the time. That's essentially impersonation.

well, no, I guess in a non-legal context it might be considered impersonation but if you gave me that example and asked me would you consider that impersonating someone I would say uh, no, not if you were hired by that person.

Then it's more like acting/broadcasting.

If you had an account on twitter and said you were The Real Steve Jobs and everyone believed you were the real steve jobs and not a joke then I would say yes that would be considered impersonation - at which point the context I left out of my answer, considering it a given because I thought it was quite apparent from the top of the thread was that laws against impersonation also have to identify in some way the harm the parties affected by the impersonation suffer.

In the original post a statute was linked to http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&gr... ,this describes a number of ways harm can be incurred in the act of impersonation.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#193

Post by thaumasiotes »

scott_s wrote: post #151
dzohrob wrote: post #140

Hi there, I’m Dave and I work at AngelList on our Talent platform. Please accept our sincere apologies for what happened here. Sending an email without giving you a heads-up or control over its content was wrong. Here’s what we’re doing to fix it: * We’ve made it clearer that tagging a company on a project may notify them by email. * We’ve revised the project tagging email to clarify that it’s automatically generated…

"I'm sorry" is an apology. "Please accept our apologies" is a reference to an apology.

I was slightly miffed once when I said "You're right and I will apologize" and the other person insisted on hearing the words "I'm sorry".

That person, however, was a Chinese high school student, not a native speaker of English. What's your excuse?

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#194

Post by thaumasiotes »

dzohrob wrote: post #140

Hi there, I’m Dave and I work at AngelList on our Talent platform. Please accept our sincere apologies for what happened here. Sending an email without giving you a heads-up or control over its content was wrong. Here’s what we’re doing to fix it: * We’ve made it clearer that tagging a company on a project may notify them by email. * We’ve revised the project tagging email to clarify that it’s automatically generated…

I see the following issues causing grief in the comment thread:

1. (a) AngelList sent out email on [my] (not me) behalf by surprise.

1. (b) AngelList sent out email on [my] behalf as a result of something [I] did on their site.

2. AngelList sent out email that appeared to have been written by [me].

3. AngelList notified [my] employer that [I]'d updated my resume. (The headline complaint, in fact!)

This response addresses (1a) and (2), and it's understandable that you might not want to swear off (1b) entirely (although it does seem to be a source of resentment).

You've completely failed to respond to (3), though, which I find surprising because it was the headline complaint. Adding projects to your resume is sine-qua-non functionality on a job hunting site; pretending that you're not job hunting is more or less required by office decorum. Does AngelList provide a way of listing projects you've done at your current company without notifying your boss that you're looking to leave? It's nice that you don't show candidates on AngelList to employers who are already employing them, but without the ability to update your resume you don't have much.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#195

Post by x0x0 »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #160
scott_s wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm sorry" is an apology. "Please accept our apologies" is a reference to an apology.

Seriously? The whole post is an apology. A guy named Dave is publicly saying he screwed up. He's saying his name, he's wrapping his identity up in this screw up, he's giving reasoning into their decision and what they're doing to fix it, and he's providing ways to give suggestions to fix this. But this isn't good enough to you because literally the words "I'm" and "sorry" weren't next to each other? If he didn't take…

No no --

they're going to put gray text in 4 point font at the bottom of the page saying they're gonna email your ceo. Cool? Cool...

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#196

Post by bryanrasmussen »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #137
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are two different things: 1. Hi, my name is John, I am contacting you on behalf of wojt_eu to confirm that he has been added to the "Cool New Project" as lead DEV. 2. Hi, it's me wojt_eu, I just wanted you to confirm that I've been added to the "Cool New Project" as lead DEV. You can legally authorize someone to act on your behalf, in basically any Western Nation - although rules as to how this work will vary,…

You are not describing the facts on the ground. http://semanticcompositions.typepad.com/index/2004/03/flexib...

no, I was very much describing the facts on the ground, I was not describing highly abstract semantic analysis that doesn't relate to legal usages.

I was also not describing linguistic usage in telephone conversation, I was describing linguistic usage in email correspondence. I don't think a correspondence would exist with a structure similar to the conversation the blog post discusses.

It can certainly be that when a conversation or correspondence moves into the realm of impersonation should be determined by the court. I think in the case under discussion here it would determined to be impersonation, the question then becomes what the harm was.

Looking through the statute referenced http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&gr... I don't think I can see a harm defined that matches what was done very well. I think the most relevant section is 530 and it does seem a stretch.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#197

Post by scott_s »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #193
scott_s wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm sorry" is an apology. "Please accept our apologies" is a reference to an apology.

I was slightly miffed once when I said "You're right and I will apologize" and the other person insisted on hearing the words "I'm sorry". That person, however, was a Chinese high school student, not a native speaker of English. What's your excuse?

"I will apologize" and "please accept our apologies" are ways to distance the speaker from the actual act of apologizing, but are not the act itself. They lessen the pain of actually saying "I'm sorry". I think we only started to accept them as such when the phrasings became so pervasive because of business-speak. It's similar to the difference between "mistakes were made" and "I made a mistake".

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#198

Post by RIMR »

joshfraser wrote: post #6

They do the same impersonation trick to confirm investors and co-founders as well. It gives them cleaner data & is great for growth.

>They do the same impersonation trick to confirm investors and co-founders as well. It gives them cleaner data & is great for growth.

I just started pointing to groups at bars when the bartender asks me if I want to start a tab. It's done wonders for my personal finances! /s

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#199

Post by jorgecurio »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #187
numbsafari wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ummm... This is a forum for people interested in startups, which are defined more as "start fresh, then use it to burn down the old thing." Not exactly the same thing, but offend driven by the same sentiment.

Yes the sentiment is the same, but it takes little historical understanding to see how tearing down is always easier and more exciting than building up. What works at a startup often can't work at a big company. Or a university. Or a government. You have to work with the system you have. For those that leave angellist without a second thought, what are your alternatives? LinkedIn?

was thinking about this just now. how easy it is to influence people over the internet through mediums like reddit, HN, etc. as soon as something gains enough upvotes, it becomes the truth.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#200

Post by exolymph »

jackmaney wrote: post #170
dzohrob wrote: post #140

Hi there, I’m Dave and I work at AngelList on our Talent platform. Please accept our sincere apologies for what happened here. Sending an email without giving you a heads-up or control over its content was wrong. Here’s what we’re doing to fix it: * We’ve made it clearer that tagging a company on a project may notify them by email. * We’ve revised the project tagging email to clarify that it’s automatically generated…

Here's an idea: turn off ALL notifications by default. Make any notifications opt-in only.

praying hands emoji As a side note, I love that Apple enforces this in iOS.
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