Limiting Forum Visibility (Split from: Bedford man faces espionage charges)

[Spooks]

On a slightly different angle to what Grim's talking about:

How would you even 'register'? Say I am Jimmy No-clue, and I register saying I am a Secret Squirrel JTF Sniper Ghost. How will registering prevent that? Take another twist on it and I am Timmy Taliban or Karl KGB registering as a lowly corporal reservist from Toronto. What prevents that?

So say you register stating that you must register with a DWAN account. Cool. Now you eliminate all non-CF members and force a sort of elitism upon the forums. So you open it up to all emails and [email protected] registers. There ends up being a sort of cyclical pattern to this. How does one enable security while keeping a casual and open forum for aspiring CF members to participate on? The answer is simple:

WATCH WHAT YOU SAY

Every member and aspiring member of the CF should know that in or out of the uniform, you are always 100% responsible for what you say and thussly 100% accountable. If I am in my shorts at the beach on leave smack-talking the PM and someone figures out I am a military member, then that will adversely affect their opinion of all CF members. That person could be a reporter, a spy, or be a friend/spouse to one of those and share your rant over dinner ("Oh, you know dear, there was this army guy at the beach bragging about how his unit bought gold-plated kickplates for the doors. Isn't the military trying to save money?").

There are my two rubles. You can make all this technical work or registration, safeguarding, etc or you can simply be mindful of your commentary.

 

[a_majoor]

As a "free speecher", I would say that limiting forum visibility would end up being counter productive in the long run.

The people who we hope will see and be influenced by Army.ca will become a very limited audience, while the mass of misinformation will not be changed outside of these walls. If we hope that the public, potential members,  journalists and editors will become educated on military matters and how service members think, then we must let them in to view the site (and remember to behave accordingly).

Like I said before, ultimately the journalist and the editors determine what will go on the air/print regardless of what we do, we can only influence the debate is the journalist and editors can also choose to see and report on us directly, otherwise, they will ONLY repeat what is available through their small pool of media "experts" (many of whom are neither experts nor unbiased), without even the theoretical ability to provide a counterpoint. If they choose to ignore the SME's, then so be it. There is that old saying about leading horses to water....

As for providing fodder for "Journolists" who are promoting their own agenda, they will also publish what they will regardless of our efforts, and once again, the best defence against bad speech is better speech; make your own posts thoughtful, accurate and informative.

 

[Jarnhamar]

As a "free speecher", I would say that limiting forum visibility would end up being counter productive in the long run.

I didn't mean that we would exclude anyone from army.ca, only that to see the actual content one would have to take 2 minutes and sign up first. After that it's the same as always.
I figured putting a clause in the user-agreement stating members could not take quotes from this site and use it elsewhere (ie media) may serve as a deterrent.

Like Recceguy said Mike doesn't have the financial means to take on some big company, though he does appear to have a few thousand loyal followers who all conveniently have balaclava's  ;D

 

[a_majoor]

Perhaps I am not being clear (a comon fault)

Grim, the people we want to influence are the ones who won't take the two minutes to sign onto a site or read the agreement. I would rather have journalist Blogins have the opportunity to skim the thread on "event of the moment" and see what SME's have to say, rather than simply get Steven Staples take on "event of the day" because Steve is always open for business and quick off the mark with a quote.

No offense to Steven, or any of the other media talking heads who make their living doing that, but there are other points of view, and if the media or public are locked out, they won't take the time or effort to see it.

Unless someone on the thread has a sensational way with words, I suspect any media types wil only paraphrase what they see (and probably without attribution; i.e. the mood of CF members seems to be.....) rather than quote mine Army.ca.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Grim, the people we want to influence are the ones who won't take the two minutes to sign onto a site

Gotchya. See I have absolutely no time for those people but I understand different people have different views on what army.ca is about.

With regards to the types you mentioned it makes sense if one wants to have their 2 minute visits to be productive then not to make them bother with a registration.

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Good discussion, as always. I'll jump in late to the game with some additional thoughts.

I think primarily Edward's "Think before you post" message is the key. As long as we are conducting ourselves reasonably, we shouldn't have too much to fear.

Closing off the forums would have the detrimental effect of shutting out all those folks who find us exactly because the information they're looking for is open and public. To put some numbers behind that, in January we had 126,585 visitors as a result of search engine hits (26,399 keywords and 61,110 phrases were used to find us). Furthermore, 1,302,643 hits came to us via external links from other sites - typically cross discussions linking relevant topics here. Going private would shut these folks out. While the overwhelming majority probably come here, harvest their info and quietly leave again, I would propose that a small percentage register, stay and contribute.

I also fear that closing our doors would give people the false impression they can post without consequence. We have enough trouble policing things now without fighting the "but nobody else can see it" argument.

And lastly, for those who are compelled to have 'internal only' discussions, we do have the Subscriber's area which is private and closed.


Cheers
Mike

 

[Spooks]

Just to play Devil's advocate, Mike, does your last post mean that if I am a subscriber, I can post what I want and not worry since "nobody else can see it"?

IMHO, as a uniformed person, it is your obligation to watch what you say anywhere you go IRT OpSec/PersSec/EtcSec. Just because your aunt/uncle/nephew/inlaw aren't evil jihadist communists of the Third Reich, doesn't mean that they still won't take what you say as the 'doctrine and creed' of the CF to further go on and tell others. Then those others tell others and the game of telephone ensues. When you originally said 'I had a child die in my arms after a TIC' may soon come back as 'The CF kill children'.

Just as an example of the media mining for information I'll share a story. When I was overseas (Archer Roto0) I kept a blog online. My last overseas entry was about a weird (mefloquine) dream I had of the world ending. The next day I was involved in an SVBIED and the media went to town. Soon they were reporting that I had a premonition of my accident (brilliant jounalistic deduction there). When they wanted more information, they contacted EVERYONE I knew be it my old boss, my pastor back home and every relative I knew. If I told something innocent (but sensitive/politically-incorrect) to them, they wouldn't have a clue not to share that with the reporter.

You and the directing staff of army.ca can only influence what happens here and the policies herein, but the members of the CF here have to be mindful of their actions too and not just on the forums.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Thanks GofJ for the anecdote/reminder re:  how some will hunt for information.

Another cynical way of putting it might also be:  Since we (the users/members/contributors) have no control what outsiders of any kind will see/read/remember/share from here, then the only thing we CAN control is what we put here.

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Good point, and that was not my intended message. To be clear, the rules are applied consistently even in the closed Subscriber area. A more realistic response might be that if someone wants to share something (that doesn't breach the rules) with a small audience of registered users vs. the larger public, this might be a good approach.


Cheers
Mike

 

[Spooks]

...Another cynical way of putting it might also be:  Since we (the users/members/contributors) have no control what outsiders of any kind will see/read/remember/share from here, then the only thing we CAN control is what we put here.

MilNews +1