[Lnc-business] Memo to LP State Chairs: Send us your Affiliate News

[Alicia Mattson]

All that affiliates have to do right now to get something on the calendar
is to drop an email to Eric with the info.  That's a pretty low hurdle, yet
our affiliates aren't interested enough in the idea to even do that.

I doubt that we would suddenly get more material if we made it harder to
get things posted by requiring that they get a username/password and
navigate the software to post it themselves.  We currently volunteer our
staff's time to do it for them if only they will drop us an email, but they
don't.

I don't see how increasing the difficulty of putting something on the
calendar will result in more material being posted there.

I would not support the idea of allowing people we barely know to be able
to post material on our website, people who don't answer even indirectly to
the LNC thus don't feel a need to abide by LNC policies.  That is a very
large can of worms that will result in our spending a lot of time debating
policies to try to manage it.  If we are to have an event calendar on the
site, I'd rather just have staff as the gatekeeper with the simple process
we have now of just emailing the info to Eric.  If there's not enough
material, and staff wants to take it down, our ED can handle that question

-Alicia



On Fri, Sep 12, 2014 at 12:36 PM, Scott L. <scott73 at earthlink.net> wrote:

>  I apologize for not replying to this e-mail sooner.  I was out of town
> last weekend, so today is “e-mail catch-up day.”
>
>
>
>
>  ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Starchild [mailto:sfdreamer at earthlink.net]
> *Sent:* Monday, September 08, 2014 7:41 PM
>
>
>
> “While I agree with Brett and Scott that the calendar (
> http://www.lp.org/event) is embarrassing as it is due to the paucity of
> content, there's a better solution than deleting it or limiting what's
> listed there to LNC meetings and conventions. It would be more embarrassing
> not to have a calendar on-site at all, or to have one that's even more
> limited.
>
>
>
> Activists won't only be interested in stuff happening in their own states.
> People have friends, family, relatives, colleagues living in other places.
> People travel -- I've attended Libertarian happenings in other places while
> traveling, and we've had out of town people show up at our local events. We
> meet people at outreach events who live elsewhere. Of course we could
> simply refer these people to their state party's website or something, but
> if you want to maximize the likelihood of someone getting involved, it's
> better to make it easy for them. That way you can say, "I see here that the
> LP in your town meets on (day/time/place)," or "Hey, did you know the
> Libertarian Party in your state will be having a _____________ happening at
> (day/time/place)?
>
>
>
>    starchild"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> starchild – to “make it easy for them” in terms of having all events on
> the National Party’s web site in addition to the relevant state LP web
> site, there is a cost in terms of staff time, but more importantly, the
> calendar would quickly become too busy to be useful.
>
>
>
> That is why it is better to refer prospective attendees to continuously
> updated event calendars that are kept on each state party’s web site.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> “The problem with just saying "Let the affiliates keep their own
> calendars" is that calendars on state party websites tend to suffer from
> the same problem -- too few people have access to post events, and
> consequently little gets posted, because it's just too much trouble in most
> cases to contact the state party with an event, get the info to the right
> person who can post it to the website, then wait for them to get the
> listing up and hope they get it right. Activists **might** be willing to
> deal with this red tape to send in their own events, if they know who to
> contact and can rely on the info getting posted promptly, but if they have
> to go through this process every time they want to see a libertarian event
> they come across that's of interest to LP members posted, they're just not
> going to be as likely to do it as if they know they can quickly go and post
> it themselves and see it listed right away.
>
>
>
>    Starchild”
>
>
>
>
>
> Here, starchild has identified something that I agree is a problem.
> Having only ONE person who can add events to a web-based calendar assumes
> that that person is always available, and never gets sick.
>
>
>
> When the National LP comes up with a signed contract that all affiliates
> must sign, I am loathe to try to use that contract to  micromanage our
> affiliates.
>
>
> But - it would be very tempting to include a clause that there must be at
> least 3 people that have total access to the affiliate’s web site, and that
> all 3 of them have the ability to add or edit content.  That doesn’t mean
> they have to be web designers, it just means they should be able to do
> simple edits like adding events to calendars or updating the officer list
> after each convention.
>
>
>
>    Scott Lieberman
>
>
>
>
>
> PS – in the past, starchild has given me blanket permission to forward any
> of his personal e-mails sent to me to anybody, without having to ask his
> permission.  So – since his e-mail was sent to all LNC members, I assume
> that he is implicitly giving me permission to forward his e-mail to the
> official LNC-Business e-mail list.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
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