New Ocean Pines Online Forum Concerns Some Board Members

New Ocean Pines Online Forum Concerns Some Board Members
New Ocean Pines Online

BERLIN – The launch of an online forum by the Ocean Pines Association last week was met with criticism from several members of the association’s board of directors.

In a meeting Monday, Ocean Pines Association (OPA) board members Dave Stevens, Cheryl Jacobs and Slobodan Trendic all voiced concerns about the new realopforum.com, which they say they had no knowledge of until it was announced in a press release issued by the OPA Marketing Director Denise Sawyer. Their concerns ranged from the time staff would have to spend monitoring the forum to potential legal ramifications. Stevens argued that while the association might intend to share facts on the forum, it would also be filled with people’s opinions.

“It’s not always easy to tell which is which,” he said.

It was Stevens who brought up the issue at the end of Monday’s board work session. Assurances from Brett Hill, OPA’s acting general manager, that Sawyer and her assistant could monitor the site as they already managed social media platforms, did not ease his concerns.

“It’s interactive,” Stevens said. “Is that a good thing for us? I don’t think so.”

Hill maintained that the forum would save time for employees because it could provide answers to questions frequently asked of staff.

“This should alleviate the repetitive phone calls and emails,” he said. “We are getting phone calls all day long on the same issue.”

He also pointed out that OPA would have control over the forum because individuals had to be approved as members before they could make posts.

“I think it’s a bad idea,” Stevens said. “I think it’s an issue of policy in how we communicate.”

Board member Doug Parks asked why the forum was even being discussed.

“I don’t see the risk,” he said. “It’s another form of communication.”

Tom Herrick, president of the board, agreed and said the forum was just another way to share information.

“To me this is promoting transparency,” he said. “I think it’s only going to benefit the people.”

He referenced the emails board members typically received from residents with questions on various topics. He said a forum would enable them to share an answer rather than respond to individual emails one after another.

“It’s going to help the board tremendously,” Herrick said.

Stevens reiterated his concerns about the array of opinions and responses a forum would include.

“I don’t think you can mix fact and fiction,” he said, adding that it was not a responsible way of getting information out to the public.

Jacobs said she understood the concept behind the forum but would’ve liked to be made aware of it before it was launched.

“I understand the purpose,” she said.
“I think that as a counter to another forum that exists that frequently has incorrect information, from members who are deriving opinions improperly, this is a good counter to that. My only objection is this is once again something that we didn’t know anything about until it was said and done. I just think it would be nice if the board is given a little heads up on this stuff.”

Like Jacobs, Trendic said the board should have been made aware that the OPA forum was being launched, particularly since each person on the board was made a member.

“To commit the board to something we had no knowledge of is inappropriate,” he said.

Trendic also pointed out that people who signed up to be members weren’t asked to agree to any terms and conditions. He said terms and conditions would provide the association with a certain level of protection.

Resident Steve Habeger told the board he was involved in an online forum and cautioned that operating one could be challenging.

“I think you started down a slippery slope with good intentions,” he said.

In creating the forum, Habeger says OPA made a major change. Rather than simply issuing press releases, the association would be participating in a forum with residents.

“You have fundamentally altered a hierarchical structure to a peer relationship,” he said.

Joe Reynolds, creator of the well-known www.oceanpinesforum.com, said he thought the association needed to consider the possibility that users of the “real” forum could slander each other. He said that based on a precedent-setting court case, forum operators were not liable because they were “common carriers,” like telephone companies.

“You can only be a common carrier if you do not modify what people put up,” he said.

Reynolds said that in his experience another issue the association needed to consider was plagiarism, particularly of images.

“People are constantly stealing photographs and putting them on the Internet,” he said.

Reynolds added that the association should have had someone with an understanding of the English language name its forum.

“’Real’ applies to anything that exists,” he said, adding that OPA’s forum should have been called the “official” forum.

Jennifer Cropper-Rines, chair of OPA’s communications advisory committee, told the board her committee had considered a forum in the past but had decided not to pursue it because of liability issues.

“I’d certainly recommend you get some legal advice,” she said.

About The Author: Charlene Sharpe

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Charlene Sharpe has been with The Dispatch since 2014. A graduate of Stephen Decatur High School and the University of Richmond, she spent seven years with the Delmarva Media Group before joining the team at The Dispatch.