IMPORTANT: Revised Community Guidelines and Policies!

[Navy for Moms Admin]

Updated 10 July 2009
Message from Rear Admiral Robin Braun


N4M Members,

As I mentioned in my previous message, we have been conducting a very thorough review of the Community Guidelines to ensure we continue to provide our members the most rewarding experience possible while respecting the freedoms our Sailors serve to protect.

As you know, the purpose of NAVYForMoms.com is to bring together Navy parents and the parents of recruiting-age young men and women to discuss the multitude of leadership, training, and career opportunities our Navy offers and the great pride Navy parents have in their children. NAVYForMoms.com exists to allow families an open forum to discuss what life in the Navy is really like.

Today, I am pleased to announce the completion of this review and the adoption of new Community Guidelines for the NAVYForMoms.com website.

The goal of the new Guidelines is to facilitate open discussion without compromising the purpose of the website, namely the exchange of information relating to service in the Navy. As I noted in my previous message, your personal freedoms are extremely important to the Navy and my hope is that these updated Guidelines provide the best possible balance between the defense of those liberties and the integrity of the website.

I encourage everyone to review the revised Community Guidelines and to become familiar with acceptable use on the NAVYForMoms.com website. The new Community Guidelines may be reviewed here.

I would like to draw your attention to the discussion of off-topic posts and the need to keep discourse civil. These rules are intended to ensure that members get the quick and useful answers to their Navy-related questions in the friendly and collegial atmosphere that has come to define NAVYForMoms.com.

Please know that NAVYForMoms members’ suggestions played a critical part in the revision of the Guidelines, and we will continue to rely on your honest feedback as we strive to provide the best possible user experience.

As always, I would like to thank you for your continued support of the Navy family and our men and women who serve our great nation.

Rear Admiral Robin Braun, USN
Commander
Navy Recruiting Command

[Kaye S.]

Good heavens! I'm laughing right now because THIS discussion is turning ugly, too!

Some of us have this site confused with a newspaper or a television station. This site is essentially a "social networking" site; we gather together as parents of Navy personnel, to befriend each other. This site has no obligation to provide us with a platform for expressing ideas and opinions.

We have no "RIGHT" to this site. If the Navy felt all this was too much trouble, they could pull the plug on the whole thing. Would you sue then? On what basis? That they had denied you access to a public forum?

The INTERNET is the public forum. Anyone who creates a website is free to create the rules by which they'll run their site... if you can't live by their rules, then go create YOUR OWN website and run it by whatever rules please you. I'm the member of a site that discusses Jane Austen novels. The moderators are notorious for deleting posts about the Keira Knightly film version of "Pride and Prejudice." Should I sue them because they are censoring differing opinions?! Ha, ha, ha!

Hoorah for Navy4Moms Admin and the Recruit Command for allowing us to put all that "passion" to purposes which serve our Sailors more usefully.

[diane {Shawns mom}]

Ingrid, the Good Witch, you made me SMILE ♥

[Anti M]

I believe Elle is doing the best she can. I think a group of volunteer moderators without administrative powers would make for an easier flow with the new members. 18,000 posters makes for a ton of reading. Other viewpoints also can help diffuse potentially contentious situations. Sometimes a moderator just needs additional eyes and minds working alongside.

I thought Scuttlebutt was a good idea... just stay the heck out of it if you don't want to talk politics. And let the posters sort things out among themselves there, as long as it never carries over anywhere else on the site. Adults should be able to moderate themselves. I'm less peeved about the constitutional right to free speech on a government site than being treated as a mindless moron who cannot decide what is appropriate to post or not.

[TexasDocMom]

Helen, I find it somewhat, I don't know...unfair? that the Catholic Moms group was allowed to just change their name, but all the political groups were deleted by the Admin. Not a level playing field, wouldn't you say?

so, Kathleen, I guess the answer to your question: Who gets to decide who can have a voice and who cannot? is now known. It's up to the opinion of the one Admin...and evidently the voice of political views, the lively and intellectual debate on which our country was founded and with which it flourishes is now not on a military site funded by our tax dollars, but obviously there is a preference for some religions. Did the Lutheran group get deleted or allowed to "change" their name? or the Baptist group? what about the Buddhist group? curious...

[TexasDocMom]

Ah, Helen...we're just meeting elsewhere...I have a very strong feeling this is far from over.

Have a great day!

[Debby]

I have deleted my original comment because I did not know this site was sponsored/paid for by the gov’t. What a educational debate this has become…

I agree with Melissa and David... (David I will email you my recipe for bunt cake). I have the revolving door syndrome at my house.. I have 2 sons serving in Iraq and in the last 5 years I have only had both of them in the US at the same time for about 6 months.. My sailor returned from Iraq 3 weeks ago.. my soldier left for Iraq 4 days ago.. They joined the military because they believe in their country and the founding principles it was built on!! How proud of this change at N4M’s they will be….

While some say they are offended by the discussions that are now being “censored” those folks are not exercising their basic right to not read the debate! Another mentioned endangering her son’s life with posts.. I don’t think that’s the issue and I certainly hope discussing politics and religion wouldn’t be endangering anyone’s life, which is irony at its best since we are now at war due to politics and religion.. Maybe we need to ban the forum for Families of those serving in Iraqi and Afghanistan?? That forum will certainly have some political debate!!!! I have even read someone mentioning they will pray for my son *GASP*!!!

And to respond to another comment… if people from other countries are reading N4M’s for “intel” the only intelligence they’d be seeing lately is the lack of intelligence and probably laughing at us American’s who claim we are fighting for our way of life only to have one little web community on the internet that is gov’t paid for destroy the essence of it…

My husband is a 25 year Airforce vet.. I told him about this new policy.. and about the comments.. I even read some to him.. his comment to me “Then why did I spend 25 years in the military”? How very sad this is to me…

[TexasDocMom]

Actually, I'm just following along with some other Navy moms...from both sides of the aisle in Washington. I guess, like our children who choose to serve so others can enjoy the freedoms of our great country, even if others cannot or choose not to assume any responsiblities to help those freedoms continue, many of us choose to make sure that our voices are heard, that loud and determined debate continues, that the founding fathers are not being forgotton...and that our rights are upheld.

It's the principle of the matter. That's all. That's what made our forefathers fight and serve for our liberties.

[TexasDocMom]

I really don't know that discussing our constitutional rights as American citizens is "political"...to me, our Constitution is a fact of life, our lives...life, liberty and pursuit of happiness kind of thing.

Now, if we were to discuss the Patriot Act and how it also removes the rights of Americans in America, that would probably move it more to the political front.

[Melissa (Tucson)]

Kathleen, don't our tax dollars pay for those ships our Sailors are on? How come I can't get on a ship? And don't our tax dollars pay for all military bases??? How come I can't got on one of those? Am I allowed under the Constitution to knock on the front door of the White House and tell the President just what I think of him? Is this the same freedom of speech you keep referring to?

[TexasDocMom]

With all due respect, Vernita, I am the daughter of a career Navy man, the sister of a US Marine, and the mother of Navy corpsman. I grew up in a military town, I never saw a civilian doctor until I was 23 years old. So, when you make your comments in that tone, please realize that there are thousands of people on this site that will read it. Many of the women who have posted here are Navy wives and daughters as well as Navy moms, many have more than one child in more than one branch of the US military. Many are ex-military themselves, war vets...so I think possibly watching one's tone here would be appropriate.

We are however civilians now...and we pay our tax dollars like everyone else. This site is paid for by those tax dollars. If it had been set up from the get go with those rules in place, little would have been said...but it was not. We had a Scuttlebutt, developed especially to discuss politics and the election. Church groups didn't have to set up cutesy names to be allowed to stay in place. (Altho, the fact that have been allowed to stay in place when the new rule included both in the banning says alot about the people running this site...definite not a level playing field, in my view). The ad agency running this board probably just doesn't want to put any more moderators on it, profit is the name of the game...making money off the Navy. It's what ad agency's do.

It's not like those people care about any of us on a bet. You ladies need to understand that. It's the $$$$$$$$.

and "graduations"...plural. My son asked me just the other day after cruising this site..."mom, do those women think it's high school and college? graduation is just a word...after PIR, they need to stay the hell out of the way...we have to get going...you have to tell them, we don't have time to be doing family stuff except on leave. We're in the Navy." so, son, I did.