Hello everyone!
Have you ever seen a post, comment or request for information from a fellow member and wondered, who is this person?
Chances are, it's a member of element14 Community staff! But on some occasions, it may be someone that wants your personal information.
To help you to identify anyone that's a member of the element14 Community staff team, be sure to look out for the following:
Look at their User Profile
If you hover your mouse cursor over their username, you should be able to see a list of their badges/achievements. One of these should be the 'Staff' or 'element14 Community Staff' badges
You should also be able to click through to the user profile, and on their 'achievements' tab you should see the following achievements/badges:
In the case of my account, these are under the "cstanton's Achievements" section. Badges/achievements under the "Available achievements" are not granted to the user.
Staff should also have an avatar set (though in some cases they may have the default).
Look at what they're Posting
element14 Community staff will:
- Never publicly ask you to post personally identifiable information (name, age, location, IP address, e-mail address, place of work, place of education/study).
- Not post a 'google form' for you to fill in, any forms asking you for information should look like they are part of the element14 Community website.
- Use polls embedded in the website, the 'on24' webinar service, or links to the online stores (newark.com, farnell.com, cpc or element14.com)
- Recommend that you post to Feedback and Support when you have problems with the website
How element14 Community Staff Contact You
element14 Community staff will:
- If required, reach out to you directly via e-mail, this should come from a company domain (element14.com, premierfarnell.com, farnell.com, newark.com, avnet.com)
- Send you a direct message on the element14 Community if they need information from you, and should ask you to update your user profile with it rather than ask for it directly. Staff members should not require you to 'connect' as friends first, unlike standard members.
Stay Safe on the Community
If you see a post and you're unsure whether or not it has been posted by a genuine member of staff, use the 'Report as Abusive/Spam' option. You can do this on the post (sometimes hidden under the 'More' option) or on their user profile.
You will not be penalised for using this functionality, behind the scenes I will get to see the report and act on it if necessary, or ignore it.