[Lnc-business] Post LNC meeting discussion website issues

[Caryn Ann Harlos]

Committee members, I am back talking about the website and some decisions
that were made this weekend.  Some of those decisions were good, some were
at best very incomplete (and at worst misguided).  I believe Motion(s) to
amend will be the result of these discussions I hope to get going-perhaps
even a sub-committee to work with the IT Committee (one that might be in
the realm of the proposed historical/archival committee).  In our very
time-limited discussions, complicated decisions and discussions cannot be
adequately done.  I will attempt to organize this email into digestable
issues.



*BASIC ISSUES WITH CURRENT WEBSITE*



This would include bad colour scheme of grey on grey, difficult navigation,
slow load times, odd information screens that are not customizable etc.  We
gave Wes the authority to work with Zocolo on that which seems to be the
right move to get these issues resolved.  I trust Wes will give us regular
reports.  We also gave Wes the authority and discretion to restore the old
masthead which stated “Party of Principle” (as that was a separate issue as
to whether that would be a policy manual official logo – it is in fact a
trademark – no matter how I feel about trademarks – of the Libertarian
Party).  I highly encourage Wes to make that happen and the LNC can later
vote to change if they wish.



*THE PROPOSED NEW SEPARATE LP ARCHIVE SITE*



I do not believe this was the right decision or a well-thought-out decision
with all due respect to my fellow committee members.  It is in fact an
inadvertent betrayal of the earlier promise to membership that no
ideological content would be lost.  This solution does not make good on
that promise.  Words are made in a context, and the context of the
assurances to members was that content would not be lost *from the LP.org
website* AND IT IS– shunting it off into another website which may not even
be cross-searchable (that decision was not made) is in fact losing the
content, and this should be unacceptable.  I think part of the problem in
the discussions was a fundamental mis-casting of how websites actually work.



*Objection:  “We don’t want to clutter the new website”*



First I will add, clutter or not, this was an assurance made to members and
we can either keep that assurance or not. I was given that assurance as a
member, and I expect the LNC to keep it. But this is a non-concern that
seems to be operating under some kind of physical assumption along the
lines of some analogous idea that the website weighs two pounds now and
would then weigh twenty pounds or that we would be adding 100 more library
stacks.  That is not how websites work.  And I think we can get into this
more in the sub-divisions of my email of the types of content on the two
older sites which I will call the 2016 site and the 2006 site for clarity.
But in general, this would be invisible to the user until they needed the
data.  The issue of “clutter” is a red herring.  At most there might be a
new submenu called “archives” which is hardly some monumental clutter.
Users could go there or not.  The ones that go there *want* this
information.  The rest of the information clearly falls under current
headings, is relevant, and as presently organized is not cluttered.  It is
arguably way too compressed.



*Issue: What would this new Archive site look like?*



This was not even discussed.  It seemed to me like the LNC thought we could
just stick it at a new address, flip a switch, and be done.  But that isn’t
an archive, it is a time machine that would freeze a site as it looked on
the day it was taken down.  For instance on the 2016 site, this LNC would
remain enshrined forever on a page.  That is not useful.   Ditto to the
2006 site.  This brings us to the actual issue: the content that needs to
be preserved – and that can be broken down into some broad categories (with
some overlap but not much): ideological content, news content,
parliamentary institutional content (some of it bylaws-required), and
historical institutional content.   Each of these categories need to be
handled deliberately and separately, and it is frankly impossible (I was
going to say insane) to think a simple solution like flipping a switch to
an archive site can responsibility do this.  And this also exposes another
huge flaw:  Will there be TWO archive sites?  A 2016 and 2006 archive site?
How does this LNC possibly think those two can be merged?  Do you seem how
quickly unworkable this becomes?  What we passed is simply not do-able and
if we continue down that path, it will become obvious and the temptation
will be to throw up our hands and say “oh well we tried” and just let the
content go away.  I will not go down that path because it isn’t inevitable.



So now on to discuss the types of content…



*THE CONTENT*



*Ideological Content*



This would include staff blog articles, press releases, newsletters, and
the like.  These items are part of what makes up our current positions –
there is an unbroken line – and these should be searchable and part of our
current site.  How that would be done has many open paths, including simply
putting them where they belong in chronological order.  This can be done by
trained volunteers. I believe Chuck Moulton volunteered to do some.  This
would be fulfilling the promise to our members.  As an example (and this
touches on my earlier archive emails), ALL of the old issues of LP News
should be on the website.  This does not “clutter” any more than having
older minutes does, particularly the way we do with “see more” pull downs
that only list the title year.



*News Content*



This is part of our political history and again, these items should just be
put into the blog section where they originally appeared and can be done by
trained volunteers.



*Parliamentary Institutional Content*



This would include LNC minutes, EC minutes, Convention Minutes, old and
current Bylaws, and Policy Manual etc.  These need to go where they exist
presently on the site.  Most of this is required by our Bylaws and is
already being planned on by staff, but when I say minutes, I mean *ALL
minutes*, including those from the 2006 site and those that I am gathering
from members.  We can either put a disclaimer that they are not certified
or come up with a certification method.  They were historically verified.



*Historical Institutional Content*



This would include lists of past staff, past candidates, and past
committees.  This is perfect for LPedia – but of course that requires us
getting on the ball with LPedia.  Some other content above arguably would
be better for LPedia.  I would like the IT Committee Chair to give us some
thoughts here on LPedia.


*Conclusory Comment*



I think this analysis has shown that this idea of an archive site is
unworkable, not keeping our assurances to our members, and unnecessary – a
combination of our current site and LPedia is the answer.



*MY PROPOSED SOLUTIONS*



This ties right in to the Historical/Archive Committee I have been hinting
out.  I believe these decisions and plans can be done by such a committee
working with staff and the IT Committee and that the Chair of the IT
Committee would automatically be on this almost proposed new Committee
which would give a recommendation on how to better handle this issue rather
than the clumsy way done at the LNC meeting.   And then there would be a
plan going forward for digitizing the rich content found at HQ and in our
storage unit. And yes, such a committee should have full transparency.
Nothing here is secret and is the collective heritage of members.



I solicit thoughts.  I believe we made a rushed grave mistake, and we can
fix it in an orderly manner that would not take more LNC time but the time
and loving care of LNC members and voluntary Party members who truly care
about this issue.  We can't all be passionate about all things.  Let's let
those who are plan it.
-- 
*In Liberty,*
*Caryn Ann Harlos*
Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org>
Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20161214/9b0b3cb8/attachment-0001.html>