10 Rules and Ethics To Observe In WhatsApp Group Page – Part 1

WhatsApp is one of the best applications that easily facilitate communication among friends, loved ones, business partners and many other people. The introduction of this app came as a blessing to mankind. Throughout the whole world, you can easily send messages in any format to people across the globe. One of the features of WhatsApp is the Group Page but without observing some levels of ethics, group pages will be a nuisance to its members. In this article, I will discuss the 10 rules and ethics to observe in WhatsApp group. However, i will start with why people leave WhatsApp group pages. Kindly tell us your experiences about some rules and ethics to observe when you are done reading.

10 reasons People Leave WhatsApp Group Pages 

1. No prior knowledge: Adding poeple to WhatsApp groups or pages without first informing them about it could be annoying. Learn to respect the privacy of people. Do not be in a hurry to create the group and have people join. Take time to speak to some important people. Having them on board is a big plus to the page. Do the first things first and discuss it with them. If you add them and they leave, it may be difficult winning them back to join the page.
2. Purpose accomplished: When the purpose of a group is achieved, notify the members. Appreciate their efforts and various contributions. Let them know the group will be either deleted or kept dormant for latter events. If this is not done, some people will leave once purpose is achieved.
3. Deceptions: When people get to know the main purpose of the group, they will leave if not what it stands for. Do not deceive anyone to join your WhatsApp group page. It has damaging consequences on you and the group. Future relationship may be severed.
4. Groups that looses focus: The moment any WhatsApp Group seems to be losing focus and deviating, some people may find the exit. Stay focus and concentrate on the main agenda. Brief members of any possible diversion before you do so to keep them updated and know the new direction. Don’t overlook certain things. It will protect the interest of members and enhance their loyalty.
5. Activities of hackers in a group: One of the obvious things some people is to leave the group when hacked. It is important to ensure that your 2 step verification is always completed and turned on.
6. When WhatsApp groups become photo dumpsite. It is annoying to see one taking lots of photos and dump there in a WhatsApp group. This may even make your gallery full of your memory is small.
7. Offenses and abuse: Offenses, if not handled carefully can destroy everything you have worked for in life.
8. Personal reasons: Personal reasons are personal reasons. Do not begrudge people based on their personal decisions. Concentrate on those who have stayed and not those who leave.
9. Annoying people: Annoying people are everywhere in this world. You are always likely to meet some everywhere you go in this world. While it’s okay to live and manage some, others too cannot be managed at all.
10. Spamming messages: Can you imagine turning on your data to see almost 1000 messages within only one group? Can you have the time to read all that? That becomes another part time job. Not every enjoys spending more time on social media just reading. Things like this should be discouraged.

It is important to note that as admins, you have to follow up on those who leave the group. Do not watch in silence! Do the needful and when the reason is given, it can help you to moderate the group well.

10 Rules and Ethics to Observe in WhatsApp Group Page

1. Don’t Initiate a Discussion and leave silently without moderating it.

One of the annoying things people do on WhatsApp pages is to initiate a discussion or a debate on an interesting topic only for the person to silently go offline without moderating the discussion or the debate. Do not initiate any discussion if you know you won’t be available to moderate, comment and control the flow of discussion. It is very annoying and kills group interest and participation. On the other hand, one of the things you can do is to ask a question and request answering you privately instead of leaving the question on the group page and refusing to attend to the comments and discussions.

Sometimes, emergency situations do happen. Alert the group that you will be back soon if you are moderating a discussion. Another person could also be appointed to act on your behalf while away. Everything should could be done like an official meeting if well planned and moderated very well. For new members on the platform, do well to always keep the rule in mind. Always check whether you are eligible for doing something? Don’t initiate a discussion when you don’t have to! Be law abiding! And be a good group member.

Don’t Miss This One:10 Disadvantages of WhatsApp Chat Group

2. Post Only Appropriate Contents

• Be mindful of the interest of the particular group you have joined before posting articles. It will be inappropriate to post articles which may offend other group members causing them to leave the page.

• Thoroughly read the contents of any article or post received before sharing on group pages because you are responsible for anything you post.

• Avoid the posting and sharing of misleading information without any basis.

• Desist from posting too long posts or articles. If possible and if you are the writer for such posts, then learn to break them into parts and volumes. Note that averagely, people are only interested in spending 1-3 minutes to read materials on social media.

• Avoid jokes that may degrade and insult a particular individual, groups of people, tribe, religion and others. This may kill group interest.
• Over the few years, WhatsApp has gone through many updates creating more useful features to the users. Formerly, there is no way you can delete a wrong post but thanks to the developers, all those features have been added now to assist users who wrongly post private or personal stuffs on wrong platforms and to other contacts. The only beef with this new feature is that, the wrong post can be deleted even after the person has read it but this is not in the case of videos and pictures downloaded onto the personal devices of users.

3. Observe the Constitution of the Group

Some WhatsApp users have taken WhatsApp pages to another level to ensure sanity in the group by developing constitutions to streamline its activities. When creating WhatsApp group pages, think of the rules or policies that will govern it as well. Do not leave things to chance. Sometimes, it is appropriate to have introduction for new members.

• Make sure you abide by the generally accepted terms by all members.
• Be mindful of who has the right to change the display photo (dp) of the group. Stay away from this if the constitution gives the sole right to the group admins.
• Again, do not be tempted to change the group name for any special event (birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, etc.) when generally, that responsibility has been conferred on the group admins.

4. Avoid Verbal Abuse, Bullying and Attacks.

One of the essential things you need to remember is that, WhatsApp Page Group Members are people from different cultures, religion and perhaps, different educational levels altogether.

Desist from abusing group members who may not agree or condemn your points. Group pages are platforms to exchange ideas and socialize but not a social battle ground to attack people.

These days, WhatsApp has even introduced the Report Spam feature to help control sending spams and unnecessary messages to people. You can click on report spam from unknown contacts that try to bully you and attack you through WhatsApp. Remember that you will not allow your freedom of expression on social media to ruin the minds of people.

5. Be courteous enough and not rude

The introduction of social media platforms has indirectly led to the breeding of some rude people. This is because of the face-to-face human interactions aspect that is absent. In reality, many people cannot look at you in the face and insult you but easier on social media. Discipline is need most when interacting with people. Your comments can open doors for you or shut them. Opinions can never be the same. And your experiences and educational backgrounds can never be the same. Most importantly, your virtues and religious beliefs shape your thinking pattern so opinions will be different. Regardless of the case, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinions. You are not on that page to judge people! You are not on that page to analyze and correct some people’s grammar. You are there for mutual benefits.

Learn to apologize when you realize that you have posted the wrong content in the wrong group. Be courteous enough to say sorry to anyone who takes offence because of your comments or post. You may be the next person to be offended tomorrow and your big ego may not serve you right when you are now offended and the person refuses to acknowledge the offence and apologize. It is not enough to delete wrong posts on group platforms. Be courteous enough to apologize for the wrong post before deleting it. Do not take the delight in just deleting posts that people have already read without giving the reason for doing so. Do yourself a favour! Be courteous and others too will be kind to you.

Click here to continue reading: 10 Rules and Ethics to observe in WhatsApp Chat Group – Part 2