Posted on Feb 13, 2023
4
4
0
I like the idea of having an influence score so that you can more easily discern who is making the most in terms of useful contributions to this site, whose intention from its inception was to be a place where people on AD could solicit advice, or gain perspective on a wide range of topics of interest, whether it be regarding promotions, duty station assignments, leadership questions, MOS/NEC related talk, or just fun sea stories about one's experiences while serving.
I got on Rallypoint in its infancy and remember those who were on it day and night chasing their influence score and after awhile they got replaced by others who figured out how to game the influence score and artificially inflate their score. I think the highest I ever got was #25 for those not on active duty. But I wasn't willing to sacrifice my life sitting at the keyboard waiting for someone to post so I could be the first to jump on and say, "Hey thanks for posting this." < which is really meaningful and contributes a lot to the discussion -- especially when you haven't even read the link that was shared. Some post music videos, which seem to be a popular one for people seeking to inflate their scores. But who are they kidding? Your influence on Rallypoint isn't going to go on your resume. It may very well indicate that you have no life -- especially if you've a gazillion Trailblazer awards. Music videos are okay if music is your thing. I like music and play bass guitar in a band, but I don't really see much relevance to how posting tons of music videos should somehow indicate relevance to how your opinions on military matters should be judged.
So, being a dutiful Marine, I don't just want to complain, I'm offering a solution that MIGHT if implemented improve the usefulness of Rallypoint for its original intended purpose, which it seems to have strayed from, and instead of being like Facebook (where people spew at each other and engage in personal attacks and frivolous debate), it could be more like a Linked-In in terms of professional discourse. So here is my solution. I don't care one way or other and won't be offended if people hate it... so here goes:
1. No points awarded for topics not directly related to military. You can still make contributions of political opinions, religious messages, music videos, or any topic that is not directly military-related (as in warfighting) but you just won't see it reflected in influence.
2. You can still have the Trailblazer Award, but take away influence score points or just reduce it to one point if you're trying to generate discussion on topics. Then lets see how many people jump on to say things like, "Great post." just so they can be the first to respond.
3. If an Admin deletes a post, a placeholder should be left showing that the post was deleted and reason why (briefly).
I got on Rallypoint in its infancy and remember those who were on it day and night chasing their influence score and after awhile they got replaced by others who figured out how to game the influence score and artificially inflate their score. I think the highest I ever got was #25 for those not on active duty. But I wasn't willing to sacrifice my life sitting at the keyboard waiting for someone to post so I could be the first to jump on and say, "Hey thanks for posting this." < which is really meaningful and contributes a lot to the discussion -- especially when you haven't even read the link that was shared. Some post music videos, which seem to be a popular one for people seeking to inflate their scores. But who are they kidding? Your influence on Rallypoint isn't going to go on your resume. It may very well indicate that you have no life -- especially if you've a gazillion Trailblazer awards. Music videos are okay if music is your thing. I like music and play bass guitar in a band, but I don't really see much relevance to how posting tons of music videos should somehow indicate relevance to how your opinions on military matters should be judged.
So, being a dutiful Marine, I don't just want to complain, I'm offering a solution that MIGHT if implemented improve the usefulness of Rallypoint for its original intended purpose, which it seems to have strayed from, and instead of being like Facebook (where people spew at each other and engage in personal attacks and frivolous debate), it could be more like a Linked-In in terms of professional discourse. So here is my solution. I don't care one way or other and won't be offended if people hate it... so here goes:
1. No points awarded for topics not directly related to military. You can still make contributions of political opinions, religious messages, music videos, or any topic that is not directly military-related (as in warfighting) but you just won't see it reflected in influence.
2. You can still have the Trailblazer Award, but take away influence score points or just reduce it to one point if you're trying to generate discussion on topics. Then lets see how many people jump on to say things like, "Great post." just so they can be the first to respond.
3. If an Admin deletes a post, a placeholder should be left showing that the post was deleted and reason why (briefly).
Social Media
Influence Points
Internet
Politics
Edited 2 y ago
Posted 2 y ago
Responses: 2
Suspended Profile
Get rid of points altogether. Military people reflexively turn everything into a d*ck measuring contest anyway. Points exist to stroke egos and give a dopamine hit. Get rid of them and see who really cares about engagement
Capt Jeff S.
That's an even better suggestion. And yes, exactly!
(1)
(0)
0
0
0
Capt Jeff S. You have good thoughts there, Captain. The problems is, if they did away with influence points for non-military threads Rally Point would most likely lose a lot of members. I believe you are correct in that many Veterans are using the tactics you indicated to increase their points. The amount the site can charge for advertising is directly proportional to the number of members. It's a double edge sword. Will what they charge be enough to keep the site going? Maybe, maybe not.
I like your #3. I have no idea of how many posts are deleted but that too would add extra work on the administrators that I'm pretty sure they don't want or need!
I like your #3. I have no idea of how many posts are deleted but that too would add extra work on the administrators that I'm pretty sure they don't want or need!
(0)
(0)
Capt Jeff S.
The placeholder would be no extra effort to the Admins, that could be generated automatically when they delete the post. You could make it optional to include an explanation, but a dutiful Admin should take the time to include a few words if merited explanation.
I had several posts deleted and I suspect it had something to do with my Conservative opinions. For a spell, there seemed to be an overt Progressive bias and I was banned after being reported by the LGBT crowd for violating their rules of political correctness. Several of them banded together to report me so apparently, the volume of their complaints necessitated some kind of response to make it look like RP was being sensitive to their needs and doing its job of Administrating.
The side that tries to cancel the other is the side that isn't confident in the message they're sending and they don't want to hear anything critical of their opinions. Political Correctness was weaponized to attack Conservatives on Social Media and RP seemed to be affected as well. I called the staff out on it, which of course they denied...
There was a time when they were making anyone an Admin and I was called unprofessional and admonished by a Navy midshipmen Administrator for questioning Obama's eligibility. They let others flame me but deleted my posts defending my opinion that Obama was not eligible. If I'm going to spend my time writing and contributing so THEY can make money off it, the least they could do is explain why my time just got wasted.
The 1st Amendment guarantees EVERYONE the right to free speech; it does not guarantee you will like what others have to say simply because you disagree with it. That's what makes Democracy good. We can have differences and agree to disagree but if everyone is thinking the same way, then there's no point for discussion.
I had several posts deleted and I suspect it had something to do with my Conservative opinions. For a spell, there seemed to be an overt Progressive bias and I was banned after being reported by the LGBT crowd for violating their rules of political correctness. Several of them banded together to report me so apparently, the volume of their complaints necessitated some kind of response to make it look like RP was being sensitive to their needs and doing its job of Administrating.
The side that tries to cancel the other is the side that isn't confident in the message they're sending and they don't want to hear anything critical of their opinions. Political Correctness was weaponized to attack Conservatives on Social Media and RP seemed to be affected as well. I called the staff out on it, which of course they denied...
There was a time when they were making anyone an Admin and I was called unprofessional and admonished by a Navy midshipmen Administrator for questioning Obama's eligibility. They let others flame me but deleted my posts defending my opinion that Obama was not eligible. If I'm going to spend my time writing and contributing so THEY can make money off it, the least they could do is explain why my time just got wasted.
The 1st Amendment guarantees EVERYONE the right to free speech; it does not guarantee you will like what others have to say simply because you disagree with it. That's what makes Democracy good. We can have differences and agree to disagree but if everyone is thinking the same way, then there's no point for discussion.
(0)
(0)
Capt Jeff S.
We now have a current President that should not have been allowed to run for Office because he should have been answering charges of illegal spying on the Trump campaign, and he should have been investigated for his influence peddling to countries hostile to our interests and national security as well as his money laundering in Ukraine. Officers take a different Oath of Office than enlisted and we do not swear to obey the orders of the President of the United States. It's our duty to put the Constitution first and we should not blindly follow orders that put this country in peril.
I was disappointed with the military's lack of response to the events surrounding the 2020 election. There was so much evidence of election fraud and so much covering up by the FBI, media as well as interference by Big Tech and Social Media (Facebook, Twitter) that you'd have to be brain-dead to believe that a two-time loser running for President whose VP nominee had to drop out of her run for President got 81 million votes (the most votes in U.S. history) -- especially considering that Biden is in obvious mental decline and spent most of his campaign following the science and hiding from the press... while Trump was busy filling stadiums and outdoor venues to capacity and got 10 million more votes than when he ran against Hillary and won. The Supreme Court was not interested in hearing evidence of fraud and punted to Congress and Congress could have done something about it, but they went ahead and confirmed the EC vote WITHOUT hearing evidence of election fraud because of the scripted events that went down surrounding Jan 6.
If the Supreme Court isn't going to honor their oath to protect and defend our Constitution by hearing evidence of election fraud, and if Congress can't honor their oaths of office to protect and defend our Constitution, then who? Who else takes an oath? The military. Must we look to Egypt to figure out what to do when the government you elected goes rogue and stops representing the interests of the people that elected it and begins pursuing its own agenda? When the people of Egypt demonstrated against the Morsi regime, it wasn't 500,000 in one place. They demonstrated all over the country in cities and the military did not get involved. They stayed out of the way and ensured the orderly transfer of power back to the people. Morsi died in prison. I can think of a few of our leaders that should be locked up...
I expected more from our military leaders, but when the Democrats control appointments, they appoint yes-men who suck up to get promoted and who don't have the backbone to challenge the wisdom of those giving them questionable orders. General Milley is not what I think of when I think of a leader. I would have found a way to get that hardware out and would have told Congress that their timeline was too ambitious. The debacle in Afghanistan has Obama's fingerprints all over it. Biden's just a puppet and Obama pulls his strings from his DC mansion, which had a SCIF put in at our expense so Obama can secretly communicate with Democratic leaders.
The whole time Trump was President the Democrats sought to undermine him and set him up for failure, but Trump was smarter than they were and he began feeding information to people and when it leaked he identified the moles and fired them. He had every right to fire Comey, and the FBI now has a credibility crisis with the public because of their involvement in the 2020 election.
I was in DC on Jan 6th but I did NOT engage in violence nor did I think Trump was telling his supporters to invade the Capitol. Our media did a terrible job reporting on Jan 6. It was a plea to be heard. Those who went to the Trump rally were there to let Congress know that they wanted evidence of election fraud heard before Congress confirmed an Electoral College vote tainted with manipulated vote counts and election fraud. There might have been half a million people there. The mood was upbeat. But being a Marine I notice things like Security and things didn't look right. The National Guard was left in the parking lots. Police were milling about as if waiting to be told what to do. They weren't deployed at the entrances of the Capitol and no fence was put up around the Capitol as per SOP for demonstrations. We knew that the FBI briefed that there would be violence at the Capitol. But the FBI did nothing to interdict it. It smelled like a trap. Trump spoke to supporters at the Ellipse 1.8 miles away from the Capitol. He started an hour late and went long in his speech. While he was speaking we began hearing reports of violence at the Capitol. People were looking confused and began yelling, "That's not us!" "We're peaceful!" "It's a false flag!" Most of us knew better than to take the bait and get involved but a few simple-minded folks did get involved and gave the Democrats everything they needed and they used it to impeach Trump a second time. It's not like the impeachment is even real because he was never accused of any impeachable criminal offense let alone convicted. But the impeachment is all that mattered to Pelosi. It wasn't enough to steal the election; they wanted to humiliate Trump and end his political career.
They raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago home and removed what they called classified documents but Trump as Commander in Chief has the power to declassify documents. What they wanted to know was what he knew about them. The court of public opinion is on Trump's side and especially in light of recent revelations about Biden's ACTUAL criminal activities, the Democrats' only hope is to split the GOP vote and try to primary Trump out of the General Election. They can't run on Biden's record. And if they try again to steal the election they're going to have a difficult time explaining away all the anomalies. When lightning keeps striking in the same place and people keep accusing you of engaging in fraud, there's a reason. We The People have lost control of our elections and rigging elections has become SOP for the Democratic Party.
I also was very disappointed that the military left a bunch of hardware in Afghanistan. Again, ii seems that the political appointees at the top are just yes men that do whatever they're told without regard to how it detriments our national security and the safety of our citizens.
We had a strong, capable leader in Trump, albeit like Patton, his mouth would get him in trouble. Trump did right by our troops but made enemies with some of the Generals because they were not on board with his desire to bring our troops home. They felt that withdrawing troops would set a bad precedent and send the wrong message to our allies. He butted heads with Gen "Mad Dog" Mattis and Mattis eventually quit. Trump should have kept his mouth shut but he didn't and said Mattis was overrated. History shows Trump was right about withdrawing troops. It didn't do irreparable harm to our relationship with our allies because it was apparent those we were subsidizing weren't interested in winning. Why should we be over there shedding our blood and participating in their battles? Our troops SHOULD be home! I think sometimes we get stuck in a rut in terms of finding solutions... "That's how we've always done it." Sometimes you need someone to shake things up and Trump was that guy.
I was disappointed with the military's lack of response to the events surrounding the 2020 election. There was so much evidence of election fraud and so much covering up by the FBI, media as well as interference by Big Tech and Social Media (Facebook, Twitter) that you'd have to be brain-dead to believe that a two-time loser running for President whose VP nominee had to drop out of her run for President got 81 million votes (the most votes in U.S. history) -- especially considering that Biden is in obvious mental decline and spent most of his campaign following the science and hiding from the press... while Trump was busy filling stadiums and outdoor venues to capacity and got 10 million more votes than when he ran against Hillary and won. The Supreme Court was not interested in hearing evidence of fraud and punted to Congress and Congress could have done something about it, but they went ahead and confirmed the EC vote WITHOUT hearing evidence of election fraud because of the scripted events that went down surrounding Jan 6.
If the Supreme Court isn't going to honor their oath to protect and defend our Constitution by hearing evidence of election fraud, and if Congress can't honor their oaths of office to protect and defend our Constitution, then who? Who else takes an oath? The military. Must we look to Egypt to figure out what to do when the government you elected goes rogue and stops representing the interests of the people that elected it and begins pursuing its own agenda? When the people of Egypt demonstrated against the Morsi regime, it wasn't 500,000 in one place. They demonstrated all over the country in cities and the military did not get involved. They stayed out of the way and ensured the orderly transfer of power back to the people. Morsi died in prison. I can think of a few of our leaders that should be locked up...
I expected more from our military leaders, but when the Democrats control appointments, they appoint yes-men who suck up to get promoted and who don't have the backbone to challenge the wisdom of those giving them questionable orders. General Milley is not what I think of when I think of a leader. I would have found a way to get that hardware out and would have told Congress that their timeline was too ambitious. The debacle in Afghanistan has Obama's fingerprints all over it. Biden's just a puppet and Obama pulls his strings from his DC mansion, which had a SCIF put in at our expense so Obama can secretly communicate with Democratic leaders.
The whole time Trump was President the Democrats sought to undermine him and set him up for failure, but Trump was smarter than they were and he began feeding information to people and when it leaked he identified the moles and fired them. He had every right to fire Comey, and the FBI now has a credibility crisis with the public because of their involvement in the 2020 election.
I was in DC on Jan 6th but I did NOT engage in violence nor did I think Trump was telling his supporters to invade the Capitol. Our media did a terrible job reporting on Jan 6. It was a plea to be heard. Those who went to the Trump rally were there to let Congress know that they wanted evidence of election fraud heard before Congress confirmed an Electoral College vote tainted with manipulated vote counts and election fraud. There might have been half a million people there. The mood was upbeat. But being a Marine I notice things like Security and things didn't look right. The National Guard was left in the parking lots. Police were milling about as if waiting to be told what to do. They weren't deployed at the entrances of the Capitol and no fence was put up around the Capitol as per SOP for demonstrations. We knew that the FBI briefed that there would be violence at the Capitol. But the FBI did nothing to interdict it. It smelled like a trap. Trump spoke to supporters at the Ellipse 1.8 miles away from the Capitol. He started an hour late and went long in his speech. While he was speaking we began hearing reports of violence at the Capitol. People were looking confused and began yelling, "That's not us!" "We're peaceful!" "It's a false flag!" Most of us knew better than to take the bait and get involved but a few simple-minded folks did get involved and gave the Democrats everything they needed and they used it to impeach Trump a second time. It's not like the impeachment is even real because he was never accused of any impeachable criminal offense let alone convicted. But the impeachment is all that mattered to Pelosi. It wasn't enough to steal the election; they wanted to humiliate Trump and end his political career.
They raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago home and removed what they called classified documents but Trump as Commander in Chief has the power to declassify documents. What they wanted to know was what he knew about them. The court of public opinion is on Trump's side and especially in light of recent revelations about Biden's ACTUAL criminal activities, the Democrats' only hope is to split the GOP vote and try to primary Trump out of the General Election. They can't run on Biden's record. And if they try again to steal the election they're going to have a difficult time explaining away all the anomalies. When lightning keeps striking in the same place and people keep accusing you of engaging in fraud, there's a reason. We The People have lost control of our elections and rigging elections has become SOP for the Democratic Party.
I also was very disappointed that the military left a bunch of hardware in Afghanistan. Again, ii seems that the political appointees at the top are just yes men that do whatever they're told without regard to how it detriments our national security and the safety of our citizens.
We had a strong, capable leader in Trump, albeit like Patton, his mouth would get him in trouble. Trump did right by our troops but made enemies with some of the Generals because they were not on board with his desire to bring our troops home. They felt that withdrawing troops would set a bad precedent and send the wrong message to our allies. He butted heads with Gen "Mad Dog" Mattis and Mattis eventually quit. Trump should have kept his mouth shut but he didn't and said Mattis was overrated. History shows Trump was right about withdrawing troops. It didn't do irreparable harm to our relationship with our allies because it was apparent those we were subsidizing weren't interested in winning. Why should we be over there shedding our blood and participating in their battles? Our troops SHOULD be home! I think sometimes we get stuck in a rut in terms of finding solutions... "That's how we've always done it." Sometimes you need someone to shake things up and Trump was that guy.
(0)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google