Before You Troll Again...

Just think.

These days, you never know who might be making appointments with Congressional representatives.

Who knows what certain people of a liberal disposition might be chatting about? The LCS? The DDG-1000? Boosting the shipbuilding budget? Delivering a robust, pro-Navy, pro-Marine message?

It would be an awfully rare thing for a Democratic Congress to hear staunch pro-Navy stuff from liberal constituents, eh? Might be a valuable thing to have in the coming months and years, no?

But...with all these trolls running about, vexed liberal people might also just be forced to unburden their concerns about naval professionalism and discuss with Senate aides the failure of the Navy to instill within the ranks an appropriate appreciation for maintaining the highest levels of professional conduct when interacting with the taxpaying public and the blogosphere.

Lord knows the public now has plenty of very interesting...and rather pungent examples.

Welcome to the blogosphere. It's a whole new world, and a lot of comfy old rules no longer apply. Navy officialdom, as it engages the blogosphere, had better look beyond the simple PR "New Blogger Outreach" model and do some deeper thinking on the way the rest of their people approach the Internet. PR outreach is good, but it is not enough.

There are some big, systemic problems looming in the way some in the Navy have decided to interact with the internet. The precedent being set is, in certain semi-official quarters, ugly, undiplomatic and decidedly-un Navylike.

The change is fundamental. Either keep the comfy, majestic-looking old-school sailing ships or suck it up and go with the new--albeit gritty and dirty--steam powered ironclad.

The internet is here. Sailing down the Potomac. What will the Navy do? Troll?

Or change?