Recent Changes to Message Board

[admin]

Thank you all for your feedback after the recent changes on the Message Board.

The software running the Message Board was no longer providing security updates and we deemed it necessary to upgrade and get on the newest release. Along with the benefits we get from being on supported and secure software came some Social Media and other options (that were not as well-received). In the coming day or two, we will work to get the Message Board functioning more similar to the previous version. We appreciate your patience.

[Scarecrow]

Please disable the Facebook and Tweet sharing feature. It could be an ethics violation for our customers to see questions and answers concerning their tax issues posted to social media.

[TAXNJ]

Please disable the Facebook and Tweet sharing feature. It could be an ethics violation for our customers to see questions and answers concerning their tax issues posted to social media.

Think in "today's" environment, a new generation of Tax Professionals will be using Facebook and Twitter as a communication vehicle for tax research and some may not. Today, even the IRS utilize these vehicles. Therefore, if that is the future focus and business model that TheTaxbook is considering to reach additional customers then it is their decision.

Regarding a client seeing questions and answers concerning their tax issues posted to social media, hopefully a poster does not disclose a client's name and their tax issues on this public forum (do not need a "password") to only "view" posts on this site. Anyone may view the posts on this public forum.

Think the posts on the site are "generic" tax questions and a reply poster gives a "generic" reply. If it were not a "generic" post, think the reply poster should be careful so as to not become a "party" to a poster's post that may involve the poster's specific client and their client's tax issues which then maybe considered unethical.

[ATSMAN]

Please disable the Facebook and Tweet sharing feature. It could be an ethics violation for our customers to see questions and answers concerning their tax issues posted to social media.

I hope none of us are disclosing any names and locations of our clients. You can always post a tax question on this board without revealing any private client information. Precisely for this reason I refuse to give any tax advice on Linked In, even to my clients. I have no idea who they are sharing those information with on social media. I see other professionals openly discuss stuff that in my opinion should be private.

[Rapid Robert]

I don't believe the (now gone) social media links would have automatically posted anything -- you still would have had to log in to that account before posting. There really isn't anything today stopping anyone from copying material from this forum into their own social media account, so as mentioned, as long as nothing here is personally identifiable, it's not a problem. Plus most contributors here use aliases, further masking any confidential info. What I do like is no longer having the "threaded/hybrid" mode for viewing threads. Also, I'm very glad the feature to "vote for" or rank posts/contributors was not enabled. (It does look like we can "like" posts). We are already screened as members to be customers of TheTaxBook and presumably a professional of some kind, so we can evaluate the posts we see ourselves, without relying on bogus "votes" from anonymous readers.

[New York Enrolled Agent]

I would suggest you try to change the order of the posts. Currently, it appears the original post is on the top and then the replies have the last post on top. This runs different than other boards and I think it's easier for your forum users to read the posts (starting with the original) in order from first to last.

[Rapid Robert]

I would suggest you try to change the order of the posts. Currently, it appears the original post is on the top and then the replies have the last post on top. This runs different than other boards and I think it's easier for your forum users to read the posts (starting with the original) in order from first to last.

There are two views you can choose, from the tabs at the top of the message thread. It's not obvious they are tabs until you put the mouse cursor over them. One says "Posts" and one says "Latest Activity". They also seem to be known as stream view and thread view. One of the views is as you describe; the other view is the one you are asking for.

[New York Enrolled Agent]

RR - thanks - change made