NJCubScouter

JoeBob, just tell the ASM, look, you are going to be getting some copies of emails that don't apply to you. Don't worry about it. It's necessary to comply with a warped interpretation of youth protection by some guy at National. Or words to that effect. I am going to do something similar.

Okay, I am locking this thread to prevent further confusion. There is another thread for discussion of issues with the new version of the forum.

I think there need to be Eagle-required MB's. I do not think there need to be 13 of them. I think National needs to learn to make tough decisions and cut the list down to 10 or 11. Instead, National is afflicted with what I call Good Idea Syndrome. They implement every Good Idea that comes along. Having Cooking be required is a Good Idea. Same for Family Life, each of the three Citizenships, Communications, and all the rest. All Good Ideas, but add them all together and you have an imbalance between required and elective MBs. Same with the National this award and the National that award. All Good Ideas, but all together it's all too much.

Um, maybe. Who's asking?

When I was SPL I didn't have to call the SM, I could just wait until he got home from work and talk to him during dinner. More to the point, Scouts from our troop and other troops would come to the house and my father, as an MB counselor, would take them into the downstairs room, alone, and work with them on their MB's. And I would call an MB counselor, alone, and when our appointment came around I would walk to his house, alone (assuming he lived in the same town), and then I would meet with him in his house, alone. And everybody was following the rules as they existed at the time. (I was a Boy Scout from the late 60s to mid 70s.) To my knowledge, nothing untoward ever occurred in my troop or with any of the people involved in it. Unfortunately, as we all know, bad things did happen in other places, which is why we are where we are today. In my opinion, it is not so much the concern of parents that has put us where we are, but the desire of National to try to prevent as many bad acts as possible by placing as many obstacles in the path of a would-be wrongdoer as possible. It is not possible to prevent every incident, but I believe the YP Guidelines do prevent incidents from happening. I believe in the YP Guidelines, and I have been a facilitator for the YP training, back before almost everybody took it online. My problem with this blog post that Sentinel linked to is that if there is a no-texting or no-1-on-1-emailing rule (or a no 1-on-1-telephone rule), it should be clearly spelled out in the guidelines like all the other rules. And although I said before that I didn't have a problem with the creation of such rules, I then read some of the comments under the blog and found some good points were being made. One person mentioned the common method of avoiding one-on-one contact during a SM Conference while maintaining the confidentiality of what is said, namely by having the conference in full view of others, but far enough away so that nobody else can hear. That has been discussed a number of times in this forum, and I believe it is mentioned in the Guide to Advancement, though I am not certain. But the BSA blog-poster says that one-on-one electronic communications are banned because "grooming" could occur, and nobody else would be "there" to read or hear it. Well, that about does it for the SM conference within view of all, but out of earshot, doesn't it? We don't know what that SM is saying to that Scout. It could be "grooming", right? So, is that the next thing to go? Will we no longer be able to say ANYTHING to a Scout, either in person or electronically, unless someone else is "close enough" to simultaneously hear or read what is said? My new conclusion is that the BSA has not really thought this through well enough.

Sigh. I can assure you all that, other than the tools necessary to perform the functions of a moderator, the moderators never asked for, and up to now did not know we had, access to any features that other members did not. I do not regard the ability to specify gender in a profile - or even to have a profile at all - to be particularly important in being a member of this forum, or in being a moderator. I have somehow managed to get along for 13 years in this forum, including 2 as a moderator, without it. I would gladly give it up if it meant I didn't have to read some of the snarkiness I have been reading over the past couple of days. I will also say, now that Packsaddle has referred to it, and there has also been some evidence of it in the forum, that it appears that this new software does have a feature that will automatically ban a second account that uses the same IP address as a previous account. Otherwise I would create a non-moderator account to test what non-moderators can and can't do. But I hope you'll all forgive me for waiting for the powers that be to figure out a way for me to do that without violating the very rules I am supposed to be enforcing! Thanks. I appreciate it.

If I am not mixing up people and stories, I think that particular superintendent had been a SM or ASM for his sons' troop, so he probably had a better understanding of what could happen. But a student should not have to depend on that in order to get a fair shake when he makes an innocent mistake.

Maybe you have to record the call, and tell the Scout you are recording the call. Hey, there's a real good way to foster open communications. I am not even sure if my phone can record a call. It probably can. But I never even thought of trying to find out, until now.

Stosh, 50 years ago - or in my case, 40-45 years ago - a lot of things happened that are totally out of the question today. And 99.9 percent of the time they were perfectly innocent, just as 99.9 percent of interactions today are perfectly innocent. (My percentage may not be exactly correct, but you know what I mean.) But I don't see anywhere in that article that says you can't call a Scout on the telephone or accept a call from a Scout. Maybe that really is the rule, because someone at National thinks it is. But if it is, the policy should say so, not just some blog post that most Scouters don't even know exists.

We had a situation very close to that in my school district. Actually (depending on who you talk to) the knife may have actually made it into the high school building in the Scout's backpack, which he had taken on a camping trip the previous weekend. My understanding is that the school administration checked out the student's explanation and ended up accepting it with no disciplinary action other than a warning. But that's just a matter of luck. The principal or superintendent, whoever made the decision, was actually violating the rules by not imposing a suspension or worse. The next Scout who makes that mistake might not be so lucky.

I have no problem if that's going to be the policy. I do have a problem with the implication that that already IS the policy. If that is the case maybe I should just report myself to the SE for violations of the YP policy, because I know I have replied to Scouts' emails when I did not have a parent's email address. From now on I guess I will cc the CC (sorry, I couldn't resist) and she can figure out why she is getting a copy of a response to something she never saw before. And then the Scout can figure out why someone else is being copied. And I also have a problem with the implication that it is logically a part of the no one-on-one policy. It is a separate policy on a different subject and should be announced as such.

Please post all messages regarding issues in the forum in the Forum Support area. This thread is kind of a leftover from the changeover two years ago. Thanks.

Going back to the original post... it is unfortunate that some trainers sometimes feel a need to make things up. Or maybe the other ASM misunderstood what was said by the trainer or by a participant. As has been quoted from the Guide to Advancement, it is up to the unit leader (in this case the Scoutmaster) who signs off on rank advancements. In our troop First Class Scouts and above can sign off for T-2-1 requirements except for Scout Spirit and 1 or 2 others that require an adult's signature. (LIke the First Class requirement that says talk to a teacher, attorney etc. about your rights and responsibilities as a citizen, that one is signed off by the person the Scout has the discussion with.) Star, Life and Eagle requirements are generally signed off by adults.

I'm about 15 minutes ahead of you. There is an issue with that suggestion under this new software, and I am working on getting around it.

I would like to suggest two things for the benefit of the bug-tracking process, and particularly to assist the individuals (who appear to be two in number) who will be the ones to directly address any issues. (The Moderators can address the issues in the sense of talking about them and commiserating about the problems, but we can't actually do anything about them in a technical sense.) First: When giving a "bug report" including "I don't see (whatever)" I think it would be helpful to say what kind of device you are using and the name of the browser and, if possible, the version. As we have seen already from Stosh's posts, it apparently does make a difference what browser you are using, and hopefully the Administrators will be able to use this information to "standardize" what people see across different devices and browsers - although I suspect it probably will not be possible to help everybody with every issue. At least they will hopefully be able to explain what is happening. When editing my profile, I can see the "Gender" drop-down box (three choices: Not Telling, Male and Female) on both the devices I use to access this forum: A standard-issue laptop with Windows XP and the current version of Chrome, and a first-generation iPad with Safari, not sure what version but almost certainly not the current one. Second: I know this sort of goes against something I said yesterday, but in this folder and any others discussing technical issues having to do with the forum, I strongly suggest that we all remain strictly on-topic. That way the Administrators will not have to wade through all kinds of irrelevant commentary to get to the technical issues.

Probably. Maybe it throws you a tiny little virtual birthday party as well.

Click on your user name at the top of the screen, then My Profile, then Edit my profile, its all there.

Perhaps. I am fairly certain that the language about must/shall/should etc. still does appear at the beginning of the Guide to Advancement, but not the Guide to Safe Scouting. You'd figure if it applies to one, it would apply to the other. (Years ago, a member of this forum (long since departed) made the argument that since different BSA publications come out of different departments, it isn't reasonable to expect that they be consistent. My response was, sure it is.)

And if you want to talk about vague statements in the Guide to Safe Scouting, I see this gem is still there. In my opinion it is probably the worst of all: First of all, what's with the "should"s instead of "must"s? And the first sentence should just say "The use of tobacco products at any BSA activity involving youth participants is prohibited."

The fact that National may make exceptions to its own rules, or sometimes not even follow its own rules, does not mean the rules don't exist. See above. And if I had been there, someone might have said a word.

I think they address it like this, from Page 53 of the Guide to Safe Scouting: I would say that means that even if you have a legal right to carry a weapon, you cannot bring it to a Scouting activity unless it falls within one of the exceptions in that sentence.

Stosh, when is the last time you saw a moderator in this forum take any action (as opposed to maybe making a stray comment once in a while) because a thread has gone off topic?

I agree (and have said in this forum) that the BSA does not always communicate with "the field" in the best or most effective manner. Nevertheless, we have to work with what we have. In this case we have a book that says you "must" or "must not" (or "shall" or "shall not") do certain things, and then on the other hand it says that you "should" or "should not" do certain things. That is what I would focus on, not the semantics of whether the title of the book is "Guide" or "Policies" or "Rules." Some of the sections contain the word "Policy" in the heading. I regard those as "policies", regardless of the title of the book.

Stosh, I had a similar problem with the old (2013-2015) forum software, I think I had to switch browsers twice. Of course, there it was the difference between not being able to use the forum at all and using a poorly-functioning system. Here the difference is between a forum that works and one that works a little more conveniently.

Stosh, maybe there is some setting in your browser that needs to be changed?