[Lnc-business] Calendar - Expanded Posting Priviledges

Sat Sep 13 10:29:11 EDT 2014

Well, if everyone's going to weigh in, you know how hard I find it to keep
silent (even if I do have the right to do so...)

I think an unused and, frankly, embarrassing section of the website should
be taken down, if not forever, until it has been retooled to no longer be
embarrassing and unused.  I think staff ought to be able to do so, perhaps
with regular (monthly?) reports to the IT committee.  I think more such
matters should be handled by empowered (and transparent) committees, rather
than everything invoking board discussions.  We tend to defer to staff, but
we seem to do so only after requiring that every question first boil up to
the highest level.  I think this is backwards, and wasteful - and in this
case, leads to embarrassing things remaining long after they have been
identified as embarrassing while we go back and forth in a bureaucratic
circle and make sure everyone has their say.  (In this regard, Starchild's
suggestion for a "red paper cutting ceremony" for the new "building" may be
premature if we ourselves enjoy running around in such circles.)  The
answer - a better guide to what areas staff has discretion in, how
oversight is exercised, more empowerment of committees and, dare I say it,
an email list that more resembles the asynchronous meeting it has been
turned into - i.e. use of efficient procedures for reaching decisions
without endless debate.  Presently, there is a lot of not-quite-debate with
no motion before us.  This is how organizations that do not effectively use
rules of order run their meetings.  We shouldn't imitate it if we expect to
use email to make decisions, given that we as an organization are very good
at making effective use of rules of order and are blessed with many PRPs,
RPs, and others who are knowledgeable about effective organization
structure, plus others who have an interest in becoming knowledgeable.  A
motion was made on this some years ago, and while I cannot renew it, I'd be
happy to work on details with anyone who has the power to do so.  Regarding
clearer staff delegation, again, I can't make a motion, but I'll gladly
work with anyone who can on reworking this policy.

I think there are some technological work-arounds that can be used for the
calendar.  One was posted to the state chairs list.  I'm not a tech guy (I
have enough trouble using my phone, which seemingly does everything except
make phone calls) but the idea seemed to be that states that so chose could
simply have their events automatically synch to the national site.  I think
this is reasonable.  For reasons to be explained below, I agree about not
letting people we don't know post willy-nilly to our calendar, but state
chairs, and those given the ability to do so by state chairs, don't seem to
fall into this category, and it just makes sense if we want affiliate
events (IF we do - I'd suggest that these aren't actually NLP events, but
it seems many do want them there) to offer the easiest way to do it, which
is not requesting a log-in and password, nor is it emailing Eric (which
also uses Eric's time), but rather clicking a button once and then
continuing forevermore to do what you're already doing.  (Full disclosure -
in CT we maintain two event lists, one for our events and one for
'activist' events.  States that do so should be able to synch their actual
events, not their 'activist' events - which for us are events held by
groups allied on one or more issue, or things like state fairs where we
need activists to sign up to promote us.)  States not so choosing can, at
our discretion, be allowed to continue to email Eric, or can simply be
excluded unless they agree to synch.

I do think our website needs more area for genuine open posting, as I've
said before.  I think we should have a section of the blog where anyone can
comment, and where it is easy to have credentials to post.  When I said
this before, I was asked about the waste of staff time policing this - so
I'll quickly state my reply here, which is "we don't need no stinking
badges," or, to be more clear, we shouldn't police it - it should be
libertarian.  However, I do not think our calendar should be such an area,
which is why I didn't list above the option of "let anyone post without
getting a log-in and password."  The calendar is not only a communication
tool, but also a branding tool.  I can very quickly list events that would
appear that should not - Ron Paul events, Rand Paul events, the Justin
Amash fundraising dinner, the NRA banquet, the CCDL rally packed with
Republican speakers (3 candidates for my Congressional district from the
GOP since it was pre-primary, and my candidate was turned down - although
they did just agree to endorse my candidate running head to head against a
gun-grabbing Democrat with no Republican in sight,) campaign
events/fundraisers for those seeking but not having LP endorsements (which
I'd guess, in addition to being unfair, might also pose some state and
federal campaign law problems,) campaign events/fundraisers for those
running for the LNC...I can go on.  Before synching, affiliates should
agree that, if they post such events on their calendars, they will
segregate them so that the only events appearing on ours are actual state
LP events.

In addition to any such synching, the calendar would also need a filter -
again, this is rather easy.  In fact, I think it costs about $2/month to
buy this tool from Google apps - the school I used to work for used it,
although they got it for free as a non-political nonprofit.  This enables
people to limit events by state, type, etc.  If you don't want to see the
state committee meeting from Kentucky, you won't; those who do want to see
it will.

Or we can take it down and leave it down, and just point to each
affiliate's events page, while posting updates for our own events.

I repeat that none of this, to me, really requires a board discussion.

Regarding the comments of the alternate from California - I am curious how
such a requirement will work.  Would we simply repeal the section of our
bylaws protecting the autonomy of the affiliates (doubtful, since it
wouldn't pass and besides, the good doctor mentioned how loathe he is in
general to infringe on that autonomy - and I fully agree,) would we add a
section to the bylaws requiring that at least 3 people have access to the
website (not a particularly reasonable topic for bylaws to cover, and just
think of all the trouble thereby caused,) or would we decide that a signed
affiliate agreement is not subject to that bylaw?  Do we really want such a
specific dictate to affiliates?  Do we want to disaffiliate for cause any
affiliate that only has 2 members with the tech background to feel
comfortable working on their website?  Considering our demographics and a
few additional assumptions (not accurate in all cases, of course) a better
question is if we want to disaffiliate 5-10 states for cause?  Or, we could
allow states to disregard such a requirement without disaffiliating,
producing a wonderful precedent that will make other things so much
easier...

Joshua Katz

Joshua A. Katz

Region 8 (Region of Badassdom) Alternate
Libertarian National Committee

Chair, Libertarian Party of Connecticut

On Sat, Sep 13, 2014 at 12:34 AM, Guy McLendon <guy at mclendon.net> wrote:

> Starchild makes a noteworthy suggestion below.  Perhaps a good alternate to
> taking down the calendar is to open posting privileges to more people.
>
> Perhaps LSLA may perform some of this work?  State Chairs could perhaps ask
> the LSLA Secretary to post events on their behalf?
>
> Guy McLendon
> LNC At Large Member
> Chair Affiliate Support Committee
> Libertarian Party National Committee
> www.lp.org
> Cell 832-372-8131
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Starchild [mailto:sfdreamer at earthlink.net]
> Sent: Friday, September 12, 2014 12:07 AM
> To: Guy McLendon
> Cc: Starchild
> Subject: Re: [Lnc-votes] [Lnc-business] Memo to LP State Chairs: Send us
> your Affiliate News
>
> Hi Guy,
>
> >       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)?"
> >
> >       As with a number of other things the LNC does (raising money, blog
> > posts on LP.org, press releases, social media posts, etc.), rather
> > than expecting a small number of staffers or committee members with
> > access to do everything, we can get much more bang for the buck with
> > *crowdsourcing*.20
> >
> >       In the case of the calendar, list a few basic guidelines for
> posting
>
> > and give anyone access to post events, and staff won't need to post
> > any more than they do now, maybe less. All that would really be needed
> > is an authorized person or persons to glance at it from time to time
> > and delete any spam or inappropriate listings.
> >
> >       Giving more people access to post gives more people reason to visit
> > LP.org more frequently. That means more website hits, more online
> > donations, more people reading our other content, etc. Same goes for
> > adding other features to the site that give people reason to visit. We
> > *want* lots of "stuff" on the site! If the calendar is really busy,
> > that's a *good* thing. An active calendar with lots of listings will
> > give site visitors the message that the Libertarian community is a
> > vibrant one with lots of stuff happening.
> >
> >       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.20
> >
> >       One conversation that comes up repeatedly on the LNC is what can be
> > done to help affiliates. This is something that can be done easily.
> > Having a comprehensive calendar on the national website where
> > state-level activists can post stuff without having to jump through
> > hoops to obtain access first will be providing an affiliate service.
> >
> > Love & Liberty,
> >                                 ((( starchild )))
> >
> >
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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/20140913/a1433627/attachment-0002.html>