The Australian Church Record, number 1908, December 2012, has been released.
From 9.45 am on Friday 7th December, the ACR invited Synod Reps to participate in a survey on the Preferred Age and Length of Service of an Archbishop, in order to elicit information for the common good. At 6.20 pm, our analyst reported that bogus data was being entered. Very shortly after, ACR was notified that the survey was under attack in the private realms of Facebook (FB) – an attack, which on Saturday afternoon also moved to the deliberately public Twitter.
Although intended for, and only sent to, members of Sydney Synod, apparently shortly before the bogus data was noticed, a link to our survey had been posted, detached from its intended audience and covering letter. The link was subsequently also publicly tweeted, similarly ‘disembodied’ from its synodical context and intention.
As reported to ACR, some Facebook participants then boasted of having entered bogus data, and there was little evidence of anybody suggesting that this was inappropriate. Of course, the attempt was ill-conceived from the beginning. Bogus information is easily spotted and extracted. Like our previous survey (see ACR May, 2011), this one has yielded some good information, which will serve us all as we move more actively into the election processes in the new year.