posted 08-20-2003 10:48 PM         

Although I find your service of writing and emailing the Polygraph Chronicles out to us examiners very beneficial, I was rather disappointed to see 'a copy' came into the hands of antipolygraph.org.

George Maschke's post was entitled "Polygrapher teaches How to Rig an Exam." George, et al put'their spin' on some comments purportedly made Nate Gordon at the APA Sparks Seminar.

George Maschke wrote to another poster: "I have e-mailed you the 16 August 2003 issue of The Polygraph Chronicles. As you've noted, The Polygraph Place does not include an on-line archive current or past issues. If anyone else would like to receive a copy, contact me by e-mail or send a private message via this message board, and I'll forward it."

His willingness to forward a 'copy' to anyone else who should ask, causes me some concern:

[1] if the Chronicles is emailed only to members in the Private Forum and someone in the Forum is releasing the information to the'anti-sites', then regretfully I may be concerned with discussing important but'sensitive' information such as detecting countermeasure methodologies or PCSOT testing etc in the Private Forum; and hence distracts from'open' communication between examiners.

[2] if the Chronicles is being distributed to members outside the Private Forum, it suggests that maybe we should be very careful about what Is discussed in the Chronicles, and that the Chronicles is written for 'public' reading to dispell any myths about polygraph and advance "pro-polygraph' public information.

Just thought I would make a comment, and would like to hear the viewpoints of other examiners on the 'Forum.' Any comments you wish to add would be appreciated as well.

By the way Ralph, it was a pleasure meeting you at the APA seminar.

posted 08-21-2003 09:49 AM            

I'll address polyops regarding the email address first, then I'll reply to you Bob.

Polyops, I don't think the newsletter says 'bi-monthly' anymore because I had to be rather flexible with the delivery date. Elmer Criswell was handling the editorship until recently and he was not able to keep current with 'bi-monthly' (twice a month) so it pretty much changed to...'whenever Elmer had time to put it together' which averaged around once a month.

Elmer has school starting now and has even less time so I have taken back over editorship of the Chronicles (just in the sense that I put it together and make it look nice) and there are now 3 co-editors who will feed me all the information. Elmer Criswell, Jack Ogilvie and Nate Gordon. I really like this set up as its not on any one persons shoulder to keep the content fresh and interesting. Since starting this set up three issues ago, I am now back on a bimonthly schedule. Look for issues around the 15th and 30th of every month. Now to your email address.

I always have some email addresses where my newsletter gets 'filtered' by your ISP or government agency. I have checked your ziplip address and it IS in my list. So if you aren't receiving the newsletter, the most likely scenario is that your ISP is falsely filtering it as spam or UCE (unsolicited Commercial Email). What you need to do is ask ziplip to add the email address worlis@wordnet.net to their 'whitelist' of approved emails. Then the newsletter should get through.

-----------------------------------------

Now Bob's comments.

The polygraph chronicles has always been available to anyone who enters their email address on the home page of the polygraphplace. It has been in circulation since 4/99 and has always had a public as well as examiner audience. In other words, maschke has been receiving it for a long time.

The truth is...there has been a shift in the content of the chronicles that is more focused and of interest to examiners rather than your average public joe. Elmer is responsible for this shift and I think that is a good thing. I now look at the Chronicles as about 90% content just for examiners. But it will never be exclusively for examiners...that is what this private forum is for.

As for how Maschke twists things...that is simply going to happen...that is his purpose in life. The statements by Nate are not the first things have been said in the Chronicles that show weak spots. Elmer has been talking for a while now about the need for standards and the weak areas in pre-employment testing.

I am not an examiner. My stance right now is to trust the co-editors and their judgement as to what gets printed. They all know that this newsletter is available to the public. I will grant you that this recent article could have been worded better. We are all aware of that and will be more cautious in the future.

I also really appreciate your concern and don't mind at all your feedback. In fact I covet it.

With all that said, I think it is extremely important that examiners have a safe place to discuss these issues and that is what this private board is for. So please spread the word to trusted examiners to get in here and get active. Of course, I pre-qualify all those who get in to make sure people like maschke don't get in. So when you spread the word, make sure you tell them to pass on to me that they were referred by YOU. That is the best way I can know it is safe to allow them access to the private forums.

Thanks again, let me know if you have any more questions.

posted 08-27-2003 08:34 AM         

Thank you for the clarification. I've been receiving The Polygraph Chronicles for several months now without any problems. When I posted that message in back in March, I was just uncertain on how often to expect it.

I'd like to thank everyone involved in putting together The Polygraph Chronicles. I always look forward to receiving it.

One question though. Sometimes I've seen it mentioned that things were shortened for space considerations, like Don Weinstein's speech at the luncheon. Why are there space considerations in an e-mail newsletter? I certainly wouldn't mind it being longer, even if you chose to divide it up into two e-mails, and I would bet most examiners wouldn't mind it, either. Show of hands?

Bob,

I share your concern about "confidential" material leaking out, but I haven't seen it happen in The Polygraph Chronicles. I think the editors are doing a fine job.

posted 08-27-2003 12:46 PM            

The reason the newsletter is kept to a certain size is not about the length of the writing, but about the physical file size of the email itself.

There are many ISP's who will filter out email if it is over a certain number of KB (kilobytes) We try to keep the newsletter under 50kb to ensure that the most people receive it.

I suppose I could divide it up into two emails, but I'd rather not. I'd rather just send out smaller newsletters...more often. Which we are now doing. It just happened to be that the issue on the apa seminar was so big, I wanted to get as much as possible in the one issue.

------------------
Ralph Hilliard
PolygraphPlace Owner & Operator
http://www.polygraphplace.com