I think your heart is in the right place, Dawger...
The issue isn't necessarily lack of a private forum to communicate orders and intent when assigned to a particular side.
The issue is the lack of response when the orders are issued between squads assigned to work with each other.
Time and time again, as Operations Officer for G3-MF I have reached out every time orders were sent to coordinate a defense or an attack. Sometimes squads communicate great, some wait until the 30 minutes prior to launch to discuss, yet never read the email or looked at the maps I spent hours working on. Some times, you get no response and the squads you are supposed to work with cowboy up and simply do what they want vs. work together. Heck, often times, I'd have my own squad mates logging into FSO only to ask, what are we doing? What base? What plane? Quite frankly, it is enough to burn a guy out. After over 3 years, I burnt out.
What we do at G3-MF is we have our own private forums. We have a voting booth, we have many subjects with sub titles. One is specifically for FSO. When we receive our orders, we draw up our operations orders using OSMEAC and BAMCIS (my veterans will appreciate that). We set up maps, routes, patrol sectors, scouting zones, etc.... Then we reach out to all other squads we are working with announcing our intent and ask for feedback or acknowledgment.
The fact is, you cannot expect that everyone will read and work with the site. Those of us that are really into it will. But many won't. That is simple human nature. One could argue that we set something like a forum up and the leaders that receive orders, etc... could be the ones with access and you communicate there. But the question I ask is if we can't do that already through email, why would we add layers using a forum system that an already simpler system isn't being utilized to the max already?
No offense. My intent is to have us ALL think this through before setting up another layer. Thanks all!
SlipKnoT
