The "Community"

[rslade]

I was relating the latest on the ISC2 "community" to Gloria, and she noted that it has been created in the image of "social media."  Social media is, of course not designed to foster communication, but to create the illusion of social interaction, even when none is taking place.

(She was kind enough to refer to a piece I wrote 33 years ago, after I had been on the net for a few years, noting that certain design factors in messaging systems did actively foster misunderstandings.)

There have always been social aspects and interactions in all communications systems.  Email emables lots of interactions between friends, quite aside from all the business deals being arranged.  Usenet was very social.  (Possibly still is, for the 17 people who still use it.)

But the hard core social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, are specifically built to make it look like you're communicating, even when you're not.

For example, there is the ease of making a post.  About anything.  Show people a picture of your breakfast.  And, the thing is, that "show people" may not be true.  Just because you've posted, doesn't mean anybody has read.  Even if you've got "friends" or "followers," are they reading what you post?  Ease of posting does not translate into ease of saying something worthwhile: it usually just makes it easier to post any random thought.  Thus making it more likely that what is posted is not worth reading.

That is true even if they "like" (or "favorite," or "kudo") your posts.  We were recently required to join Instagram in order to "follow" the kids and grandkids.  And we were instructed that Instagram etiquette requires that we "like" every post and picture.  So we do.

(Actually, "we" is misleading as well.  The account is in my name, since Gloria doesn't want to join any social media systems.  But Gloria is the one who actually checks it, "likes" everything [in my name, remember] and alerts me to any pictures that aren't just a bunch of friends sitting about a table at some generic bar.)

This etiquette about "likes" is undoubtedly by design.  You will note that there is no "dislike."  (Yes, I am well aware that a dislike button would be abused.  In a sense, that's part of my point.)  People on social media want to "like" everything so that others will "like" everything, including posts the poster has made (but that possibly nobody has even read).  "Kudos" are, therefore, pretty close to being meaningless.

[Steve-Wilme]

It sometimes called the conduit metaphor in linguistics.  Language is not necessarily a conduit of meaning between one mind and another.  Think Shannon and Weaver, Bob and Alice, we can technical fix the noise, but the meaning is created in the receivers head.  If we have different frames of reference, different life experiences, have misread, inferred intent, there are typos etc there's a huge scope of misunderstanding.  

Leave the parent-child ego driven rants off the forum please and let us have an adult i.e. professional conversation, like the internet was conceived to be.

[Baechle]

Dain,

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@Dain wrote:

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1 more time, I never said close this community, I'm just irritated that this is what ISC created instead of finding some way (numerous have been posted over the years) or even making an effort from what I've seen to make the original more promoted, more relevant, etc.  

I'll probably stick around, but it certainly won't be taking the place of the original forum in my eyes.

1) make the UI more user friendly (quotes end up like the worst of MS Word)

2) make some effort to promote, update, manage the original forum like we've been asking for

3) Make it easier to browse threads

4) do we really require kudos and badges and other transparent marketing ploys to be involved?

5) dedicate a section to "studying", or infosec 101, etc. (maybe it exists, browsing is 200x more difficult than scolling thru the forum posts in my gmail acct)

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I feel like we're having several conversations at once.  😉

Ok.  What I understood from your statements was that the fact that (a) this community feels like some other social media platform to you and (b) is open to posting by any registrant and readable through external indexers; together make this forum not usable by CISSPs for professional discourse.

That was specifically in response to this statement:

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@Dain wrote: 

 It's fairly obviously built to be very much like Facebook and linkedin and I have to say if this is what you consider to be catering to professuonals particularly Infosec professionals, we may have different views in what that term means. (I should get a kudo for not going with the princess bride quote).

I didn't realize this platform was so much more open than the cissp forum in terms of restrictions. The nice thing about the other forums is we can usually be assured of at least a basic level of competence (not that I have any issue mentoring/teaching etc, and no knock on those learning, it's simply nice to know I can poke a bunch of peers about an issue)

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What I was asking of you, and those of you that share your viewpoint was to both substantiate and articulate the reasons you arrived at these conclusions, and then discuss reasonable suggestions and alternatives to submit to the Customer Support forum.  I also gather from what is apparently a long buildup of frustration over indifference by (ISC)^2 to the old CISSP Forums, that you're skeptical about submitting change requests for this (ISC)^2 Community.  

As @rslade pointed out in his audit of the site, there are sections of the site that are present, but restricted.  So, having a closed CISSP-only, or HCISPP-only, etc. area that is not visible to others seems very doable.  I am encouraging (the royal) you to develop a reasonable and rational supporting basis for a request to make that happen; and develop alternatives that may be reasonably as good and then we can submit them to Customer Service as a change request.  However, if you want to make it that way because of "Whaa" (mimick baby crying), then that is not a good enough reason I would say for any organization to take your request seriously.

As for this...

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@Dain wrote:

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I do, and I'm fairly certain that pointing out how a comment that strongly suggests a lack of understanding of a fairly basic concept like the impact of confidentiality on open discussion does a pretty good job of making Rob's point about competency, and as such is not really an Ad Hominem argument. 

Obnoxious? yeah probably, but taken at face value, that argument is legit.

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Your comment defends only a lack of agreement by poisoning the well against your opponent.  It does nothing to explain what makes your opponent less qualified or competent than you other than the supposition that disagreeing with you makes your opponent less competent.  I disagree that your comment forms a legitimate argument - unless you disagreeing with me automatically makes you less competent (then that's legit!  😉 )

Sincerely,

Eric B.

[Dain]

History has suggested that rational, reasonable, substantiated requests for changes that are not inline with what ISC2 has in store are unlikely to be addressed.  (See Robs post about ISC2 apparently trying to let the original forum die without apparently even bothering to see if anyone there would like to take ownership, or transfer the subscribers to another platform) . Additionally, as this was put forth as the new direction for the old forum it would be nice if the powers that be actually maintained the some of the specifics of the old forum. 

I'll admit, I think that the benefits of a closed group are self explanatory, but to enumerate:

1) a closed group provides a reasonable assurance of participating individuals having agreed to the ISC2 cannon, suggesting a certain level of individual confidentiality to discussions, and at least a vague alignment of looking out for the same things

2) restricting access to a specific group suggests a certain level of competence in participants. that does not mean I disdain newbies, or those working towards cert, not their potential input, nor does it mean I would not participate in a mixed forum as well. However it does mean I can reasonably expect more nuanced discussions with experienced individuals

3) a non public group also lends itself to the ability of individuals to post things that they may not be interested in posting.  Anonymous posts are probably not all that anonymous to anyone with the time and interest to build a baseline of writing styles (hell I could probably identify 20 ppl from the old list off the top of my head, given a google search and a little octave playtime I could probably get something cobbled together to start parsing thru the public data and use it to identify "anonymous" posters, assuming sufficient raw data existed)

with the US (and plenty of other places around the world) utilizing all sorts of social media (which this is) to harass individuals I think the idea of some level of privacy would might help those with lets say incongruous-to-various-regimes views feel more at ease discussing world events or touchy topics  as it relates to infosec.

[rslade]

Don't want to take my word for it?  How about this article from Time:

"This business model has driven an explosion of interest in what’s known as persuasive technology, a relatively new field of research that studies how computers can be used to control human thoughts and actions. The field, which draws on advances in neuroscience and behavioral psychology, has fueled the creation of thousands of apps, interfaces and devices that deliberately encourage certain human behaviors (keep scrolling) while discouraging others (convey thoughtful, nuanced ideas)."

[Dain]

There was some interesting discussion from iirc a guy previoisly from google regarding the attention economy

Everything that's been done along those lines was an inadvertantly creating a digital dopamine fix. The little bump your brain gets Everytime you get a like or a kudo keeps you coming back for more in hopes of another (and the more time you spend the more advertising revenue can be had)

Professional indeed

[denbesten]

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@rslade wrote: 

(Also, how on earth do you get the quote function to work properly?)

Start by typing a few words of your reply.  Then put your cursor back at the beginning and press the "Quote" button.

I really don't think the Lithium developers spend much time with observational user experience research.  Lots of things are more difficult than I have seen on other forums... although I must admit that I really like being able to switch between rich text, html and preview.  Perhaps that says more about the geeky side of me.

[Baechle]

William,

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@denbesten wrote:

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I really don't think the Lithium developers spend much time with observational user experience research.  

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I think you have a point.  I think a lot of folks forget that these things are frameworks, as opposed to finished user experiences out of the box.  I've seen that a lot with prior products like Microsoft SharePoint, where the product was purchased but there was no allocation for someone to actually build and maintain the site (layout, features, etc.) underneath it.  So, it becomes a collateral duty for someone rather than getting the attention it needs.

[SamanthaO_isc2]

Hello @denbesten & @Baechle, 

I encourage you to reach out to me, either through  Private Message here on the Community or by emailing community@isc2.org with any feedback that you have about the user experience on the Community. If you have examples of features from other  Communities that you would like, feel free to send those along. I'd be happy to look into them to see if it is feasible in this Community and if we would be able to implement it. 

*This offer is open to all members of the Community, too.

Thanks, 

[rslade]

On Twitter:

"in conclusion, we need a social media platform that lets you sit next to someone on a bench in the park & feed some goddamn birds"

[rslade]