Shoot! Ready. Aim.

We have been observing some conversations over at Springboards place. Essentially, Springboard has been observing the blog, and our discussion of Adm. James Stavridis comments regarding writing and blogs got him worked up. Our further discussion of Proceedings sent him into a tailspin, but he has done a good job learning the truth for himself.

These topics are notable but are not what caught our interest, we knew all along we were being accurate. Despite Springboard's early attempts to discredit our accuracy, in the end he proved us accurate and the only person learning something new about Proceedings is Springboard.

What caught our attention in these discussions though was how Springboard decided to go after one of our commenter's, CDR Michal Junge, not because of what he said or something he did, but rather because Springboard manufactured a set of facts based on news reporting without any proof whatsoever to support all Springboard's accusations. Compounding his bad judgment on the issue, Springboard then searches out articles by CDR Junge in an attempt to belittle those articles. Essentially, once Springboard realized he was losing his argument via his message, he turned to the time tried tactic of attacking the messenger in an attempt to reinforce his point.

We weren't impressed.

Springboard's style carries with it an edge, and that edgy style carries with it a critical tone that is the way in which he provokes a response. We would not be surprised to learn that Springboard has got several hits on his blog over this incident, because at the end of the day, this edge is intended to attract attention to his blog. We are admittedly being guilty of promoting this stupidity by linking to it, something we will do only this once in an attempt to make our own point.

Accepting that style is intended to market, where Springboard grabs our attention isn't in the purpose of his discussions, a purpose which we will allow readers to decide for themselves regarding the content quality, rather what we observe is the ridiculous premise by which he is basing his conclusions. To highlight our point, we quote Springboard:

I find it somewhat disturbing that a commander of a naval vessel would be linking to his ship's webpage, revealing both his status and rank to "settle scores" in the blogosphere. Assuming the poster is who he said he is, I don't think he's quite following Navy rules on official communications... Just another reason to take a critical look at this CDR...

For better or worse, Junge (or any blogging officer) represents the U.S Navy. Junge's written before, in Proceedings, about the importance of higher officers setting an example for others to follow. I simply followed his example, and I don't think he likes it much.

As a young CO, Junge needs to think long and hard about before he plays in the blogosphere. Do Junge's on-line activities reflect well on the Navy?

We think Sringboard is being more than a little dishonest to call someone defending himself as an attempt to "settle scores" when in fact Springboard is doing exactly that based on a comment left on our blog..., but we will let readers decide. Unlike Springboard, we think it is outstanding that a naval officer would link his ships website, use his real name and rank, leave an email address, confirm his/her identity, take some pride in ones self, our great Navy, and do so on this blog leaving thoughtful commentary to the discussions. We are particularly proud that CDR Junge is a regular reader, and hope we have other COs, XO, and in particular younger officers reading regularly. Our target audience is NOT the leadership in the Navy, our target audience are the current o3-o6, who we strive to think out of the box about the Navy, naval strategy, and events in context.

We will not stand idle while a blogger demonstrating consistent poor judgment criticizes our commenter's (particularly one in our target audience) for... commenting on our blog! We don't know why Springboard sees a problem with sailors engaging the discussion on a blog specific to naval discussions, but to criticize such a thing as bad, right after Admiral Stavridis gave a speech encouraging exactly that... strikes us as ridiculous.

We also outright reject the entire premise of what Springboard is suggesting. His comments, and this one left on his blog, are examples of exactly what we find ridiculous.

A CO who plays in the blogosphere is a CO who runs the risk of making himself, his command and his shipmates look foolish.

This is the dumbest thing I have read in awhile, essentially the same position Springboard has represented for himself on his blog. Let me get this straight, we send our ships to foreign countries to represent our nation, and the CO in such cases represent us in the capacity of ambassador for our nation, but we wouldn't want those same naval officers to engage the blogosphere because they risk looking foolish... to a blogger? Geez, talk about getting it backwards, I'm hoping bloggers (particularly naval bloggers) don't represent our brand badly.

I'll let people make up their own mind, but in my opinion, Springboard is compounding poor judgment and needs to man up an apology. His position simply can't be explained away as anything other than a mistake and poor judgment. There is edge and there is cliff in blogging, we think Springboard stepped on the gas when he should have stepped on the breaks.

We also want to make everyone aware of our posting policy. We encourage naval officers or those in the industry to comment on topics, and if you claim to be part of an organization, prove it by leaving an email address and/or website by which we can confirm identity. The email address will not be distributed, it is simply a way for us to insure officers and industry officials are not misrepresented in comments by a pretender.

Blogging is still a new medium for discussion, and for serious defense discussions blogging has not evolved as much as it has as a medium for political and entertainment discussions. Blogging on naval centric discussions and remaining relevant to the discussion is essentially a learning curve for everyone. While we are still new to blogging, from our point of view we see no problem at all when others are critical of us, but this will probably be the last time we play nice when another blogger trashes one of our commenter's because they were contributing to our blog.