Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="LightPhoenix" data-source="post: 5188833" data-attributes="member: 115">Most of your examples I wouldn't consider tattling per se, as much as it would be gossip.  Tattling implies that someone did something ethically, morally, or legally wrong or dubious.  In your list of examples, I don't think any really qualify as tattling.  Most are simply opinions that you've expressed, possibly not in confidence.  That makes them more in the realm of gossip than tattling.There's no best practices, because the situation is always dependent on the context.  In all of the instances I can think of, there's a couple of major points that I would look at.First of all is evidence.  Is there proof that what Person A is saying about Person B is true?  There's a fairly fine line between "tattling" and "defamation".  It's one thing to accuse someone of taking office supplies, and another to have proof of it. Second of all is scope.  Scope is something of a tricky issue, and quite possibly depends on the people involved.  As a baseline, I would say that anything that could result in legal proceedings* rests outside of "tattling" and into "report of a crime".  It's one thing if an employee takes one sheet of paper home from the office, it's another if they are taking reams of paper and the printer.Another major point to look at is intent.  Why is Person A telling someone about Action B?  Tattling, to me, seems to be more rooted in spite than anything else.  There are other reasons to tell on people - moral obligation, ethical objection, illegality, protection, friendship - all of these are very separate from spite.  It's one thing to tell on someone taking office supplies simply because you want their job; it's another to tell on someone because it's illegal, or because you want to protect the company.So, in the rest of the examples you posted:Telling someone about infidelity generally wouldn't be considered tattling.  Ethically speaking, you really shouldn't tell someone about it unless you saw it personally or had concrete proof.  The intent may not always be ethically pure, but in general I think in general a majority of people have a moral objection to infidelity.  There's also an element of protection in it - aside from the obvious (STDs and such), there's also financial stuff to worry about (ie, man using pooled money for cheating).  As for the scope, it's not illegal but again there's usually a strong moral objection to it that most people would find outside the scope of tattling.Future intent is tricky in that you need to gauge if someone is just venting or if they are seriously considering something.  It's also tricky because the scope is a little more difficult to gauge.  For example, if I hear someone talking about keying someone's car, I might not say anything until after it happens.  There's no immediate threat to someone's health and the car will still be functional if it happens.If you think that someone did something bad, the important part is evidence.  This boils down to reasonable cause; is there reason to suspect that something bad did happen?  If it's for nothing more than a gut feeling, then at best it's a lucky guess, and at worst it will be a defamation lawsuit against you.  On the other hand, if you've noticed stuff going missing and you see Person B acting suspiciously, then you may want to bring it to someone's attention.  However, even in that instance, implicating Person B may not be the correct thing to do.  After all, all the proof is coincidental.  There are people who are trained to investigate these things, and it's usually best to report any suspicions to them.</blockquote>

Verification