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On asking questions & hostile dog-pile replies.

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Vimy_gunner said:
Just for the record.  I never started this thread, but glad to post a quick response.

I had written out a long post, but decided that it was pointless to post it as everything I had to say about making the forum better, was in the original post.  The original thread starter, who has named me the successor asked for the advice of posters.  I gave my advice on how to improve an already awesome forum filled with helpful people.

Did you read any of the responses given or just see that you were "attacked"? Much of your advice HAS been given, HAS been considered, and HAS been dismissed as unneeded. Go read Mike's post again, hmmkay?

I've received an immense amount of information from being on the forum and never once have I personally attacked anyone, despite receiving them myself in this thread and others.  I won't respond to that as I feel there is a level of class to adhere to.  If I'm asked to openly give my opinion, it should be taken into consideration, but it seems that is not the case.

Read my last. Read my other post. Provide links to everything you claim or STFU. I can't be bothered trying to chase it down and I do not take you at your word, no one does. Link it or let it go.

The forum doesn't decide for me whether I want to join or not.  I'm already in the process and I'm looking forward to it.  In my life experience, I've learned there are good and bad apples in every corner and I expect nothing less from the Army.  I suspect there are many who agreed with my comments, but kept their mouths shut, because they knew how it would be taken, given the way I was personally attacked.

And I suspect many more disagreed with your comments or found them to be a complete waste of time. Glad you still can't see wat we have said to you in reponse that is based on experience here.

 
Just to dog-pile on a thread about dog-piling....... :-[

Lad, I haven't even heard your name until I read your post here which in turn made me curious so I read this post.

Vimy_gunner said:
I played professional soccer for many years along with College soccer and what we did would make BMQ seem a cakewalk at times.

..and if I had to make a judgment call I would say you are posting like a complete tool. In over 7 years and 10,000 posts not once have I, or would I, compare my job/hobby/etc. to something I haven't even done, or been to, yet.
It is just unbelievable that you would state that kind of kife and then rant on about being called on it. Good luck in your career, and I hope that your real life persona is far more mature than your internet one.
Bruce

 
Well hell, guess I'm going against the grain here, but in ways I agree with the original poster.

I've been here since 2004 if I recall correctly, and in that time I've seen plenty of people ask simple questions and get the ubiquitous 'rainbow reply' and be told to use the search, for simple questions that probably most people here could answer or point them in the right direction on in far less time than it would take said individual to search and to actually understand what he's looking at. I've seen the 'dog pile' plenty of times. Usually someone comes in, asks a question, gets told to search by two or three people, comes back and says something along the lines of 'well, it's just a simple question', or 'I tried searching and couldn't find it', gets dogpiled, earns a verbal, thread gets locked, and we never see him again. Or some variation thereof. Sometimes said new guy acts like a dickhead and earns the reproof. Most of the time he just retreats with his tail between his legs.

One of the frequent comments in these threads, after the admonition to search, is "Read the site guidelines". That's all well and good- but if you simply point your browser to http://www.army.ca, neither the guidelines, nor any reference or link to them appear anywhere on the front page. Nor does reference ot the guidelines appear in the registration agreement when setting up an account. There is simply no obvious indication to a new member, unfamiliar with the site, that there is a set of site guidelines they should be perusing. Now, a couple of individual forums do have links to the guidelines stickied at the top, and I make allowance for that, but in general a person using a website is going to take the 'path of least resistance'. Probably one quick search, and if they can't find what they're looking for or interpret the search results (more on that later), then they'll probably just register and ask the question. It would be understandable for a new member to assume he has no business poking around in 'milnet.ca admin'.

A few points;

First, whoever posted the suggestion about googling within this site: brilliant. Frankly, the search function built into this forum software is crap. It seems to literally just look for occurrences of words without taking relevance into account. yes, you can go into advance search and put specific phrases within quotations; you can search for specific date ranges, but this is of limited help.

Second, telling the person to search is predicated on them knowing enough about the subject to know what they're searching for. We assume a familiarity with terminology or jargon, but hell, for someone who doesn't know anything about the military most of what's talked about here is baffling.

Third, and I quote,
Scott said:
You DO realize that this is a private site, not affiliated with DND, riiiight? If we have become a 'tool' for recruiting then I welcome that but it is not at the behest of the taxpayer and therefore we can have whatever disposition we like, one that has been discussed to death here, you're just putting new spin on it.

Yup, granted. We are not an official site. And yet here we are, right out of the guidelines:
Guidelines said:
First and foremost, we're all representatives of the CF. We may not want to be, but ultimately, we don't have the luxury of choice. The truth is when you post a message even on an unofficial site like this, your comments reflect upon the CF. That's not to say we can't bemoan the current state of affairs - it's a soldier's age old right to complain. But let's keep it clean and dignified.

If someone I'm talking to in the course of daily life asks me something about the military, do I tell them to go take a hike down to Slater street and check out the CFRC? Or, if I have the minute of my life to spare, do I answer their question as best I can based on the knowledge I have at hand? Sure, I could tell the guy to go home and google it, but I primarily see my role in such cases as fostering interest in, and disseminating accurate information about the CF to someone who's curious. I take the same approach on this site.

I'm not defending this individual member specifically. I haven't reviewed his posting history, I don't know whether he has a valid grievance personally. But he correctly identifies a trend, one that's also been discussed in 2006 and 2008. Mike made another thread about exactly this subject in 2007.

I don't expect to sway any opinions with this, but at the same time I won't have this kid thinking that no one here agrees with him in any way, or has anything to offer him except 'If you need a hug, STFU and consider another job'. I refer people to this site pretty frequently, and always with the caveat that as a new member they can NOT expect to be well received if they simply show up and ask a question. I refer them to search and to the site guidelines. It pains me that I feel it necessary to warn people about this site even as I direct them to it.

Don't get me wrong, I love army.ca- but I do because I've been here long enough to have made and learned from the mistakes and to understand how the place works. If the mission and commander's intent of army.ca is to inform and to discuss, is it not at least possible that there's some amount of tail wagging the dog when dogpiling and new members remain enough of an issue to have generated so many discussions? The way I see it, everyone who loads up this site and asks a question has at least shown enough of an interest to be looking into the military. Why shouldn't we humour them?
 
Why shouldn't we humour them?

You were offered an opportunity to "humour them". Did you take it?

It's amazing how many members, new and experienced, don't think an action is egregious enough to utilize the "Report To Moderator" function or a PM to Mike, but are happy to pile on (ironically) to threads about Moderator heavy-handedness months or weeks after the fact.

I am not one of the more active Moderators on Army.ca but I sure do get tired of having my volunteer performance here scrutinized and criticized on such a regular basis. I can't imagine how it must feel to spend as much time as some of the others do trying to help. We're humans not robots. We have families, problems, bad days like everyone else.

You don't like how something was handled? Report to Moderator or PM Mike. If you're not willing to do that, it couldn't have been much of a big deal after all.
 
muskrat89 said:
You were offered an opportunity to "humour them". Did you take it?

It's amazing how many members, new and experienced, don't think an action is egregious enough to utilize the "Report To Moderator" function or a PM to Mike, but are happy to pile on (ironically) to threads about Moderator heavy-handedness months or weeks after the fact.

I am not one of the more active Moderators on Army.ca but I sure do get tired of having my volunteer performance here scrutinized and criticized on such a regular basis. I can't imagine how it must feel to spend as much time as some of the others do trying to help. We're humans not robots. We have families, problems, bad days like everyone else.

You don't like how something was handled? Report to Moderator or PM Mike. If you're not willing to do that, it couldn't have been much of a big deal after all.

Thanks, I hadn't seen that thread. I will be looking into that. Though I'll point out that I 'humor' new members whenever I see a question that's within my knowledge and I answer it. I wasn't, until now, aware that we have a mentorship program for new members.

It also doesn't have to be any formalized process, or group membership. I'm talking about day to day interaction of members. The way we talk to or redirect new guys who come in with the wrong approach. Biting one's tongue before going off on a guy for asking a question or daring to raise an objection publicly.

None of this is a huge deal or crisis or anything, and I don't think anyone is trying to suggest it is. That said, it's a continuous, ongoing process to improve the services this site offers, and the behaviour, tone, and decorum of posts and replies. I certainly don't exclude myself in this.

You guys do a great job, and you don't get enough kudos for that, so I'll take the opportunity now to thank you. None of what I've said has been out of anything but an honest interest to help make this place a bit more accessible to new members- it sure as hell is not intended as a stab against any of you.
 
Brihard said:
I've been here since 2004 if I recall correctly, and in that time I've seen plenty of people ask simple questions and get the ubiquitous 'rainbow reply' and be told to use the search, for simple questions that probably most people here could answer or point them in the right direction on in far less time than it would take said individual to search and to actually understand what he's looking at. I've seen the 'dog pile' plenty of times. Usually someone comes in, asks a question, gets told to search by two or three people, comes back and says something along the lines of 'well, it's just a simple question', or 'I tried searching and couldn't find it', gets dogpiled, earns a verbal, thread gets locked, and we never see him again. Or some variation thereof. Sometimes said new guy acts like a fool and earns the reproof. Most of the time he just retreats with his tail between his legs.

And how many times since 2004 have we, the staff, tried to encourage members to step up and give responses and links and simple advise to simple questions, instead of sitting back to "let the staff take care of it"?

I'll link this thread again as an example:

We Are Family

 
Michael O'Leary said:
And how many times since 2004 have we, the staff, tried to encourage members to step up and give responses and links and simple advise to simple questions, instead of sitting back to "let the staff take care of it"?

I'll link this thread again as an example:

We Are Family

Absolutely right. And again, my critique is not levelled at staff in particular, but at membership in general.
 
People coming onto this site gotta realize to whom they are posing the question's. You are receiving answers from people who may not even be in the Canadian Forces. Or people who still comment on their previous job (10 years ago) which has changed so much they wouldn't recognize it.

The information you get here may be helpful but it is not official.

The information here is provided by a very small sliver of the CF. There are some excellent folk on these boards. There are also soldiers you would never want to associate yourself with. Can you tell the difference? Sometimes these people spouting erroneous information get corrected. However sometimes due to OPSEC or regular ol' stuff you don't post on a public forum, they do not. Keep that in mind also while reading for answers.

If you want fast information, your looking into the wrong line of work  :nod:.

Ask the recruiting center! These people are PAID to answer your repetitive questions.They are also real tangible people,with ranks, with a responsibility to get you CORRECT answers.

And don't worry about this being like the "family". The only people you will find in the real military whom snip's and roll's eyes at a question is people who have been promoted past their level of competence. People who use aggression as a cover for their lack of knowledge (I.e incompetence)on what your asking.

And if this is being used as a recruitment cache, then the CF need's to really sit down and talk about why people are going to Army.ca to find answers.

I know the world is changing with more online media playing a role in recruitment and everyday military life. However the CF has to acknowledge this. There should be no reason they don't bring back their official forum and advertise it. as just that. The official one, not to be confused with this one.

Folk's this is nothing more than a collection of army(military) guys (females) (some fake some real) with ZERO responsibility to YOU.

I prefer to look at this site as a news agency with a military twist. Come on see whats happening around the world and see some members idea's and comments. Nothing more.

Want real answers go to the CFRC or email/chat to a recruiter.



 
X-mo-1979 said:
Folk's this is nothing more than a collection of army(military) guys (females) (some fake some real) with ZERO responsibility to YOU.

Pffft. You've forgotten, there's no women on the internet. It's science.  :P
 
For me...I know I help provide a voluntary and sometimes thanklessservice and for the most part I believe I as well as the other DS do a great job here. The only person I need to justify anything I do is to Mr Bobbitt.
 
So let's get right down to brass tacks here.

Dogpiles are bad.

In fact, they are the biggest problem we have today. And as Brihard's references indicate, it's not a new problem for us which means that despite our considerable efforts, we still have some ground to cover.

I've talked about the sense of entitlement that new members have when they show up here, expecting that others do their legwork for them. I do recognize that they sometimes don't have the knowledge, experience or means to do that legwork themselves. In that case, direction from a senior member, a Mentor or the Staff is meant to guide them on track, but not necessarily spoon feed them an answer. (In part, because when they inevitably have a follow-on question, we will have set the expectation that someone will be along shortly to answer it - that may not be realistic.)

However there is another sense of entitlement that exists here and is no less harmful. Having shaken down the new users for failing to search or follow the Guidelines, it's only fair to point out that this problem has another side, which lives here daily.

The other piece to the 'dogpile puzzle' is the senior members who feel they are entitled to pounce on new users for their mistakes.

We know by their very nature that new members here will make mistakes - they're learning the ropes or in many cases haven't taken the time to learn the ropes.

Our response to that can at times be aggressive. Donning my kindergarten psychologist hat, I'd suggest that this is because the senior members get very, very tired of seeing the same old blunders over and over again.

But that still doesn't mean bashing is the order of the day. I've always held that if you have nothing positive to add, just move along. If the question languishes unanswered so be it, but that's still better than starting a dogpile, even if it's under the guise of providing helpful direction.

Yes, this may be the hundredth time you've seen this same, inane question asked. But for the poster, it's the first time they've asked it and they can't comprehend the animosity that comes with the response. Imagine if you phoned 411 and the operator berated you for not knowing the middle name of the person you're looking up. Would you think it professional of them? Would you lash out at the operator? Would you phone back?

I realize that it's a poor example for a variety of reasons, but I think it's still roughly accurate.

Now I'm not trying to paint everyone with the same brush here. The majority of users are helpful the majority of the time. However sometimes frustration gets the best of us and instead of simply walking away, we jump in with steel-toed boots. I know this is done as an effort to protect the community we've built here, knowing that a forum full of repeat questions quickly becomes useless.

Unfortunately, taking an aggressive tone with new members does more damage than good.

I can hear the grumbles now... Mike's gone soft they're saying. ;) The reality is that we can - and should - continue to shut down repeat and misguided "first posts" and snuff out trolls as we've always done. The important part is in how we do it. There's no need to take a parting shot, call someone down, suggest they'll make a poor addition to the CF, etc.

I'm not suggesting this is a problem of epidemic proportions. There are plenty of examples of us 'doing it right' out there, but of course these don't get dredged up as examples, so things always seem skewed to the negative side of the argument. But this is good news... It means that we have a manageable in front of us.

If you've read this far through my wandering ramble, odds are you're not part of the problem. The difficulty will always be reaching those who don't invest the time in their community to learn more. In fact nothing I've typed so far is new, nor do I expect any of it to materially change how things operate here. However there are a couple of things we can do.

The first is obvious and should be easy for us all: Lead by example.

When replying to an ongoing discussion if you see someone who's trolling, hit the report to moderator button, or ignore it. Anything else will simply add to the derailment. It is possible to reply to a thread without addressing that one post which tried to pull it off track. :) By giving the troll air time in the form of a reply, we invite them to participate further and keep pulling that thread away from the original topic. We've all seen this many, many times and I'm sure we can agree that having a Staff member drop that one 'trolling' post would be much more effective than breathing life into it through a string of replies.

If you have advice for the original poster, great... fire away. But if you're just looking to start or jump in on an existing dogpile, know that you're as much of the problem as the original poster.

In fact by their very nature, the new user is new, and as we already know probably hasn't taken the time to understand the nuances of our community. On the other hand, our senior membership understands it well and as such we have higher expectations of our them. If we want our new members to follow the Guidelines, we need to set that example right from the moment we reply to their first post. Coming out with guns blazing simply sets the tone and they reply in kind.

It's far better to show new users the ropes than showing them the door, but if you can't do one without the other, show some restraint and leave it for someone else.

Brihard, you also mentioned that you never agreed to the Conduct Guidelines on joining the site, and that they're challenging to find on your own. When registering, you are required to accept (and implicitly read) the registration agreement. This is typically just a duplication of the Guidelines, though from time to time an upgrade will overwrite them with a generic version and I'll forget to update them.

The Guidelines are also at the bottom of every page, linked under the "Unofficial site, not associated with DND." text, and appear randomly as a "news" item in the upper right.

Additionally, each new member needs to agree to the Legal Terms though these are not about conduct as much as being a simple CYA.

Having said all that I agree with you that the Guidelines are probably not as easy to find as they should be, especially for a document that is so core to our community.

With that in mind, I'll put out a call for suggestions. How can we make the Guidelines more visible without overpowering the membership? How can we tune the language of the Guidelines, or update them to accurately represent our direction? Are there other things we can do?

Rather than preaching to the choir yet again, let's see if we can make some changes that will reach those who need to understand our community better in order to participate effectively in it.
 
Is there an existing process for dealing with senior members who participate in excessive dogpiling?

(other than locking subject threads that is...)
 
Greymatters said:
Is there an existing process for dealing with senior members who participate in excessive dogpiling?

(other than locking subject threads that is...)

Anyone who contravenes the guidelines is subject to the same consequenses as everyone else.
 
I think the warning/PM system is adequate.....

The senior members are very aware of whether they are crossing the line or not, even if they are caught up in the heat of the argument.

As for a suggestion on the guidelines....highlight them in lime or aqua so they stand out against the background.....right now they blend in so well, you hardly notice them.....
 
As a new member of this forum, and soon new member of the CF (waiting for swearing in ceremony) I can say that this forum has been an invaluable tool for ASSISTING me with some of my career decisions. Yes sometimes not all the answers are easy to find, and sometimes there are no answers, but such is life.
I've come to realize that this site can provide an insight into what one can expect during life as; or life leading up to a career in the Canadian Forces. Could I have done it without this site? I sure the hell hope so or I do believe I am screwed this summer! Did it make my life easier knowing what to expect? Absolutely!
I will be the first to admit that I don't want to ask a "stupid question", or bother someone with a question that has been answered fifty times or so. That being said there are a million and one questions circling around my head that for the most part I keep to my self, confident I will find out in do time, but it is hard not to want to know about the unknown! I do love the site ( that's why I  subscribed) and I thank all the serving, and ex CF Members who have directly or indirectly helped me out....... just my two cents for anyone that cares!
 
Mike Bobbitt said:
With that in mind, I'll put out a call for suggestions. How can we make the Guidelines more visible without overpowering the membership? How can we tune the language of the Guidelines, or update them to accurately represent our direction? Are there other things we can do?

Can always have a new member forum of sorts, or use one of the existing ones as such, or an introduction forum. Then have all new members post at least once there before they are allowed to post anywhere else on the forum. Can set to be done automatically (at least in vbulletin anyway).

In this forum, can have the guidelines, summary of recommended good new member behaviours, FYI on asking questions, quick FAQ slash road sign thread to other forums on milnet, etc.
 
mellian said:
Can always have a new member forum of sorts, or use one of the existing ones as such, or an introduction forum.

This is a good one:
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/23216.0
 
mellian said:
Can always have a new member forum of sorts, or use one of the existing ones as such, or an introduction forum. Then have all new members post at least once there before they are allowed to post anywhere else on the forum. Can set to be done automatically (at least in vbulletin anyway). 

I think Ive seen this one on some other forums but cant recall where - activities for new members were restricted to general discussion rooms or something like that...

 
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