[Lnc-business] LNC Member Blogging

Wed Jul 30 15:29:54 EDT 2014

Very true.
On Jul 30, 2014 2:27 PM, "Daniel Hayes" <danielehayes at icloud.com> wrote:

> Isn’t this now publicly available and reposted discussion enough of a blog
> now as it is?
>
> Daniel Hayes
> On Jul 30, 2014, at 2:23 PM, Daniel Wiener <wiener at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> The main argument that I can see in favor of opening up the LP Blog to LNC
> members and alternates is to provide additional content, thereby increasing
> interest and driving traffic to the LP web site.  However, staff already
> provides quite a few blog posts and press releases; I doubt that a few
> extra posts will significantly impact traffic.  Besides, the real action
> these days is in social media, especially Facebook.  What Arvin has
> accomplished there is several orders of magnitude greater and more
> effective than anything we could do with our web page and blog.
>
> The downside, as Alicia has noted, is that a number of issues arise by
> opening up the LP Blog.  Due to the APRC's confidentiality requirements,
> these problems were a lot more visible to the APRC than to the rest of the
> LNC when we last had this situation, and they eventually led to the
> termination of the experiment.  If LNC members want to exercise their
> writing skills to promote the LP, I'd much rather have them write letters
> or opinion columns for local newspapers which can reach the general public.
>
> Dan Wiener
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 1:48 AM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Let me point out a couple of things that may not occur to you when you
>> first hear this idea:
>>
>> 1.  This could change the focus of the LNC and distract us from important
>> work we need to get done.  It risks LNC members spending their time
>> perfecting whatever self-indulgent blog post we want to make next week
>> rather that doing our other jobs.
>>
>> To keep the LNC more focused on party management issues like affiliate
>> and candidate support, fundraising, etc. rather than just issuing public
>> policy statements all day long, the delegates have given us a bylaw that
>> makes it hard for the LNC to adopt public policy resolutions.  Article 8.11
>> says it takes a 3/4 vote with previous notice or unanimous consent without
>> previous notice.
>>
>> By allowing LNC members to post blog entries whenever they please, we are
>> essentially opening the door for a single LNC member to make public policy
>> statements without any input at all from the rest of the LNC.
>>
>> Public policy statements should be left to staff, to be done in line with
>> the party platform, etc.  We have different types of work to do.
>>
>>
>> 2.  One of the reasons this has been a problem in the past is that there
>> are some propriety issues that are difficult to navigate.
>>
>> We have LNC policies that require we not use our positions to give
>> ourselves advantages for election at convention.
>>
>> See Policy Manual Sections 2.08.2 (Limitations on Party Support for
>> Public Office) and 2.09.5 (Limitations on Party Support for Party Office).
>>
>> When it gets closer to convention time, if any of us is running for
>> re-election, then we have the question of whether 2.09.5 requires that blog
>> posting privileges also be extended to any other candidate for that
>> office.  And there will be disputes about when someone becomes a
>> candidate.  Is it when others suspect they will run, or when they
>> officially state they are running?  Non-LNC members who declare intentions
>> to run will do so early just to demand the same posting privileges enjoyed
>> by LNC members.  But an LNC member could merely not declare their
>> intentions so as to say they're not yet a candidate for party office, thus
>> the policy doesn't apply to anyone running for their current position.
>>
>> These are real disputes that came up in the past, and they were solved by
>> shutting down blog posting by LNC members.
>>
>> Then there were disputes about subtle (and not-so-subtle) content that
>> could be viewed as an LNC member campaigning for either themselves or their
>> favorite candidate.  I can recall one instance of an announcement of a
>> "service" being offered by a particular campaign, and having to debate
>> whether it was party news to let people know of the beneficial service or
>> whether is was just plugging the campaign to give the candidate increased
>> exposure before the convention.
>>
>> Because some people took advantage of the policy more than others did,
>> there were complaints about that sort of imbalance as being more beneficial
>> to someone they didn't personally like.
>>
>> That is how a seemingly simple idea can get very messy and contentious.
>>
>> -Alicia
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 7:44 PM, Nicholas Sarwark <chair at lp.org> wrote:
>>
>>> All,
>>> Is there interest from LNC members in publishing articles on the
>>> official Libertarian Party blog?
>>>
>>> My understanding is that LNC members had done so in the past, but the
>>> policy had been changed for a number of reasons and that was stopped.
>>>
>>> If there is interest, I would be inclined to open it up to LNC members
>>> to post, within certain guidelines, e.g. directly applicable to the
>>> Libertarian Party, and in line with our overall messaging, positive,
>>> etc.  Posts would be subject to APRC review as well.
>>>
>>> -Nick
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lnc-business mailing list
>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> *"In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we
> guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we
> compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if
> this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare
> the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or
> experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works. If it
> disagrees with experiment, it’s WRONG. In that simple statement is the key
> to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it
> doesn’t matter how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is.
> If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”*
> -- Richard Feynman
>  _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20140730/45592aaa/attachment-0002.html>