Inputs should not be immediately posted from anonymous internet sources until approved by a physical GA.

I would like to make a submission that submissions to the GA should not come from here, or be controlled very closely. I have been involed with online activism for a number of years now and have seen how things go.

Corporations hire communications "thugs" to obstruct public forums, especially anonymous ones...Their tactics include encouraging dissention, attacking the most powerful messangers personally, creating sock puppets, flooding forums and generally creating havoc...oftentimes by using automated tools.

In addition, the social dynamic of anonymity breaks down normal inhibitions associated with social self respect leading to more extreme statment..even among honest participants - Goodwin's Law..etc.

I just saw this tactic employed recently on the eTruth.com live feed in a debate on the Hospital merger. Pretty much everyone in the public meeting was against the merger, but very considerate and politicsl. Conversely in the online forum just about everyone was against it and nasty about is..in addition the participation in the online forum was way way magnitudes bigger than expected. To make matters worse..then The Truth wrote an article about the online comments..many of which appeared to be "gamed"...amplifying the power of the games comments.

The media and authorities will read these posts and expect them to be representative of the group, but in online anonymous forums, they rarely are unless very tightly moderated.

I would encourage the GA to in person discuss these issues in the meeting and decide what to do. I am involved with the leadership of the South Bend group and they have many good ideas after dealing with the "mosh pit" of an open Facebook group for a number of weeks...It was not condusive to consensus building or progress..so they required submissions be taken to the GA and discussed..and submitted through a moderated process before they were taken up in the GA. This seemed prudent...this way extreme and radical stuff that did not make sense or was against the philosophy of the group was weeded out by the GA before it ever saw the light of day in a public forum...and public bannings could be kept to a minimum and quickly approved by the GA.

Just my 2 cents worth and I hope to make it over there soon!

Best!

Gethsemani Sam

Well, yes, you make some good points. An open, public forum can certainly be trolled and spammed, but posters can always be banned and posts deleted. Many public forums do have that problem, but then I think most people can also see through a lot of that.

But most importantly the reason for trying this approach is to open up to a wider portion of our group than those who can be at GA. Also, OccupyElkhart has not set up any formal process for getting topics on stack before GA. Basically, we don't yet have a stack. So this is a way to allow some members to contribute with discussions or suggestions.

I do understand that the GA stack process and stacking order can be controversial at times, but it is essentially a consensus building tool. It's possible that this can be a consensus tool also, but clearly only if it is well moderated.

So, thank you for the advice. I'm certainly not dismissing it out of hand, but we ARE looking for tools that will help with our particular set of challenges. In the end, we may have to pull the GA discussion down, especially if we get only trolls and spammers. But I think it's too early to dismiss the test. And I do believe forums can be used to help build community and consensus, even if they prove not to be good for generating ideas for stack.

Finally, of course, we'd love to have you come over from South Bend. And thank you for the input.

Yeah I need to get out to Elkhart. I actually brought this up at GA in SB...How we should join you there...soon. There was a great guy from Elkart helping us mix concrete and making huge contributions tonight to the group...we need to get back there...It is important to Elkhart and my house is still officially there.