[Lnc-business] MOTION to relax publishing restrictions

Thu Jan 3 12:43:19 EST 2013

Arvin,

	I strongly agree with you and Paulie that our current policies regarding blogging are overly restrictive, and it seems like this problem should be relatively easily addressed. Accordingly, I will make the following motion in line with your call to action. These changes would relax our restrictions of online publication while simultaneously increasing the authority of the Advertising & Publications Review Committee as a safeguard against the publication of inappropriate materials, and by streamlining the language in Section II.6, would actually make the burgeoning Policy Manual slightly shorter despite the expanded role of the committee:

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MOVED that Section II.6 of the LNC Policy Manual be revised to read as follows...

Section II.6 PARTY COMMUNICATIONS

1) Role of elected leaders

The Chair serves as the Party's chief spokesperson and may preempt other LNC members 
when representing the Party to the public, including the business community, media, 
elected officials, and government agencies, or when planning or directing investigations 
or negotiations pertaining to cooperative efforts of the Party with other groups or the 
acquisition or sale of major assets.

LNC members and state affiliate chairs or their designees may publish blog entries 
on LP.org, with approval of the Advertising & Publications Review Committee (APRC) 
being both necessary and sufficient for such publication.

	...and that Section II.2 of the LNC Policy Manual be revised to read as follows:

Section II.2 COMMITTEE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

1) Advertising & Publication Review Committee

The APRC is responsible for reviewing public communications of the Party and
rejecting for publication or distribution any materials it finds to be non-compliant with 
the LP Bylaws or Platform or contrary to the Non-Aggression Principle.

All proposed public communications on behalf of the Party for which written copy, audio,
or video exists shall be submitted to the APRC for review. APRC members shall be given at 
least 24 hours to review submitted materials, unless a communication is extremely time-
sensitive and such advance notification is not possible, in which case it may be submitted 
to the APRC simultaneously with publication or dissemination. However this exception 
shall not apply to LP News, Liberty Pledge News, proposed party literature, or similar 
printed materials of a more enduring nature, which shall always be made available to 
APRC members for review at least 24 hours prior to the final proofs being approved for 
printing and distribution.

APRC members shall review all communications submitted for their approval as quickly as 
possible while exercising due diligence. If a proposed communication is extremely time-sensitive 
and the APRC has not reviewed it within 6 hours of submission (24 hours for less urgent 
matters), it may be published and disseminated prior to APRC review with the approval of 
the Chair or Executive Director. 

Rejection of any proposed communication shall require a majority vote of APRC members,
and communications shall not be rejected for any reasons other than those listed above. 
The APRC shall give immediate notice of any rejected communication to the LNC along 
with the rationale for its decision, citing any relevant Bylaw or Platform planks. Decisions 
of the APRC may be overturned by majority vote of the LNC.

If the APRC rejects a communication after it has been published or disseminated to the public, 
the committee shall prepare a notice of retraction which shall be issued in as timely a manner 
as possible via the same medium in which the original communication was issued, unless there 
is an LNC motion to overrule the LNC, in which case publication of the retraction shall be put 
on hold pending the outcome of that motion. 
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	I invite co-sponsors of this motion, welcome discussion, and resign myself to the inevitable criticisms.  :-)

Love & Liberty,
                                    ((( starchild )))
At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
                                  (415) 625-FREE

On Jan 2, 2013, at 12:08 PM, Arvin Vohra wrote:

> I agree with Paulie on this. 
> 
> BTW, anyone who wants to can already *submit* blog content. The problem is that it has to go through two steps (at least it did last time I checked)
> 
> 1. APRC, to make sure it follows the platform and bylaws, as well as doesn't have any other major problems.
> 
> 2. Staff approval, which is wayyy more restrictive.
> 
> Last I checked, the following were the rules.
> 
> 1. Total word count: 150-600 words. For videos, closer to 150 or even less! Text can be
> longer.
> 
> 2. Breakdown:
> 
> •10-40% - what’s wrong with government / damage it does
> 
> •10-30% - proposal and any explanation of how it works that’s needed
> 
> •5-20% - preempt / rebut anticipated objections
> 
> •30-60% - immediate and direct benefits to voters
> 
> These rules have been put forward by Carla, with Geoff's approval and oversight.
> 
> To me, this is not just overly restrictive, but ineffective in some important situations, as well as totally ludicrous in others. I mean, if you write an article about the difference between Libertarians and Constitutionalists (a popular blog post before these micromanagerial restrictions were added), and pontificated for 60% of the article about the immediate and direct benefit to voters about knowing the difference, you would look insane, and also that would heavily decrease the virality in social media. 
> 
> From the sense I got, even more specific restrictions were put on video production, which is one reason that video production crawled to a halt in the last months.
> 
> Now that the election is over, the LNC and the State Chairs of this party no longer need to be treated like 6th grade remedial writing students. I would say that APRC approval is enough. That's what the committee exists for.
> 
> We have so far erred on the side of caution that we have turned our website into a dud. It's not the colors that really cripple the site. It is the one-note, heavy handed polispeak, rarely updated content.
> 
> This is one of those cases in which I believe description of the benefits is actually in order:
> 
> Imagine if the particular argument that powerfully resonated with a few passersby at a LP booth could be heard by not just 3 or 4 people, but by thousands. Imagine if people would say, "Hey, I really liked the article I read on LP.org. You guys are much more honest and authentic, and I can get behind that. There were a couple articles I didn't identify with, so I just ignored those." Imagine if the LP members could share varied and interesting articles, with their non-Lib friends.
> 
> Imagine if some articles had a soft touch, and used the soft sell approach that Dr. Lark has used so effectively throughout the libertarian movement. Imagine if others had the hard sell approach that Harry Browne used so brilliantly. Imagine if we had some articles that could help shift the views of our statist friends a drop at a time, and others that called to those in Campaign for Liberty, and got them to register Libertarian.
> 
> Imagine if a single article, not despite breaking the above mold, but because it did, went explosively viral OUTSIDE of libertarian circles. Imagine if our persuasion was no so limited to super-inner-circle stuff like beating the difference in a race that normal people actually wanted to read it. Imagine if we could tap into the thousands of professional writers in this party, and turn LP.org into a site that gets not 30,000 hits a week, but 30,000,000,
> 
> No matter how much we prettify the site, restricted content will always be restricted.
> 
> Now for my call to action:
> 
> We call for the immediate opening of the LP.org blog to all LNC members and state chairs, with approval by the APRC being both necessary and sufficient to get a post on the blog. If this experiment doesn't work, we can reverse the rule change immediately. 
> 
> Anyone want to cosponsor a motion?
> 
> -Arvin
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 1:53 PM, <travellingcircus at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can we make LP News available electronically and/or integrate it better with LP blog? 
> 
> A) I would like to share articles on IPR and other places. Other people may want to share them with their friends by email, on facebook, etc. 
> 
> B) Even if the answer to (A) is no I would like to be able to receive LP News while I am on the road, which is most of the time. I just received the new LP News and it is much improved over what I have seen in several years. We should make it easy to share the good news. 
> 
> C) LP blog is not updated much. LP News stories already exist and are already content that we have sent the membership (ie approved), so they should be an obvious source of LP blog posts that should take very little staff time to post (or I would be willing to post them as a volunteer if I can get them emailed to me and a login to do so). 
> 
> D) Can we get a link somewhere that would make it more obvious that people can subscribe to LP News without becoming LP members? If there is already such a link at LP.org I am not noticing it 
> 
> E) Now that the election is over I would like to see if we can restore the ability of LNC members and/or volunteers to submit LP Blog content. It's fine if we have to have it go through APRC before it goes out or whatever means we need to use to ensure that we don't embarrass ourselves. 
> 
> As much of this as can be done without LNC motions would be awesome. 
> 
> If LNC motions are a prerequisite for making any of it happen, I ask that full members please submit motions to make it happen. 
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Paul Frankel 415-690-6352
> LNC Alt Region 7 (AL, MS, OK, LA, TX)
> 
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