<\/p>\n
gCaptain is not the single news webpage, it\u2019s a network of information that includes several social media accounts, a video studio<\/a>, a job board<\/a>, incoming email accounts<\/a>, outgoing email newsletters<\/a>, information\u00a0for advertisers<\/a>, a store<\/a>, corporate and sponsored news<\/a>, ways to submit news links<\/a>, and several other mechanisms to receive, process, and disseminate information.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is also a forum<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The majority of feedback for yesterday\u2019s article came via social media and email. Those readers younger than myself (43) overwhelmingly contact me via social email, those older prefer email. Neither is a good way to contact us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Out of all the ways to interact with gCaptain the most time consuming, aggravating, and costly for us to maintain is our forum. It\u2019s also the place we receive the most criticism because it contains heated debate that does not fit neatly into a modern world that strives to be \u201cnice\u201d and certainly not into a social media world that promotes civility by separating opposing voices into clusters of people who echo each other\u2019s opinions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While our forum<\/a> does have a stellar staff of volunteer moderators and\u00a0strong rules<\/a> against personal attacks and bad behavior\u2026 it still manages to be a source of hurt feelings. I can not tell you how many people over the years have written to tell me they are quitting the forum because they are tired of being \u201cattacked\u201d by opposing views or tired of reading numerous posts from certain individuals who hold particularly passionate views about certain topics.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even more troubling is the fact that non-Americans seem especially put off by the loud, overbearing, and too often dismissive American voices that tend to dominate the threads. This is troubling because the value of the forum increases in correlation with the diversity of it\u2019s members.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s true. Our forum is a major pain in the ass. And that pain is especially acute for me as CEO of gCaptain. It\u2019s also expensive to maintain and participation numbers continue to decline as readers flock to our social media channels.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But I keep paying our forum server and maintenance bills anyway. I do so because it\u2019s powerful.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the last decade, no less than 5 major books have been written by journalists who were inspired by our forum. Countless academic papers, working groups, and even Congress continue to cite it<\/a>. Major expose articles from media powerhouses like the New York Times have been written about it<\/a> and this year THE Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists<\/a> started their pieces on our forum.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThanks, man!\u201d said 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist T. Christian Miller<\/a>\u00a0in a recent text to me \u201cWe could not have done without your help.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Overwhelmingly our older readers prefer to provide information for investigative articles and feedback via email and a smaller percentage send me private messages (PMs) via LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This information is critical to our ability to get the information we need to investigate important new stories but it requires a lot of work on our part. Everything submitted to gCaptain via email and private messages require us to assign journalists and fact-checkers to investigate further. Conversely, when it\u2019s posted to the forum our readers have the opportunity to do the initial groundwork for us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n An even bigger problem with email is the fact we get lots of great stories and information we don\u2019t have the resources to follow-up on. If someone sends me an email or PM and, because of the constraints of time, I can\u2019t respond or followup then that information is lost forever. However, if that same information had been posted to our forum then it would be part of the public record and available to researchers forever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite well-documented problems<\/a> (which come with significant consequences<\/a>) social media is better than email. Anyone can share our articles and tag me with comments. It\u2019s super-efficient and easy. And unlike private emails, social media algorithms make sure that larger groups of people who are interested in your information see it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Social media is especially great for organizing grassroots efforts<\/a> and to corral groups of like-minded people to support a certain problem.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n