[Lnc-business] new LP.org website update

Tue Nov 15 17:46:54 EST 2016

Wes, the problems that we are having are exactly what a lot of members,
lncluding Chuck Moulton and myself, warned about, but okay.

Yes, the old site was ugly.

Yes, I like the look of the new site.

And I understand that the blogs etc are not a priority, but let me be
blunt.  It feels to me like it is being set up (not saying purposefully) so
that enough time will pass so that everyone just says screw it.  I will
not.  And it really troubles me that the camel's nose has already come
under the tent with the question "who can decide what content can be not
transferred over."  Members were promised that would not happen.... and it
seems the groundwork is being laid for that to happen.

The fact that there is some lack of clarity on who decides what is a huge
red flag to me.  It seems to me that a very purposeful messaging rebranding
was done, without explicit LNC direction, and whether that was an
abdication by the old LNC or an over-reach by the committee, or whatever,
it is an issue, and needs to be dealt with- and yes I am primarily speaking
of the masthead re-do and decision that some content was not a priority
before we went live, including Bylaws required content.  That (masthead
redo) is "deletion of content" - and it isn't because it wasn't transferred
over.  It was purposeful.

Yes, I expect this will be a big item of discussion at the next LNC
meeting.  And I already know, in my mind, where fingers need to be pointed
if they need to be pointed at all - I don't find that particularly helpful
however - but here we go.   It was a terrible decision to refer this all
out this way under the control of one person primarily, terrible idea to
not have more LNC oversight, and IMHO purposeful agenda to at least
partially  re-brand with ideological implications by the committee.  I said
all this as a member, and my view is not changed now that I am an LNC
member.

But I do think the site in general is lovely.  But it is not ready for
"live" and should not have not flipped on.  I think that is clear to
everyone, not matter what justifications we can make.

-- 
*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/>

On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 3:14 PM, Wes Benedict <wes.benedict at lp.org> wrote:

> Dear LNC:
>
> The new website has some problems and we are working to resolve them.
>
> We are making progress, but there are several significant problems and
> probably several dozen minor ones. This is not a big surprise to me. Major
> I.T. projects often have problems.
>
> Based on some of the emails I've seen, I think people are looking to point
> fingers.  I think if we went ahead and did some finger-pointing, it might
> be good to get that out of our systems. And then get back to working on
> fixing the problems as well as considering various paths forward.
>
> A little background:
>
> At the February 20-21, 2016 LNC meeting in Phoenix, the LNC passed the
> following motion by a vote of 13-1:
>
> "Mr. Goldstein moved to appoint Kevin Ludlow to chair a Website
> Redevelopment Committee with two other Party members of his choosing from
> this body. The committee is appointed with power to execute contracts on
> behalf of the Libertarian Party for redesigning the LP.org website for an
> amount up to $10,000 plus any additional funds raised for this specific
> purpose."
>
> You can find the vote on the minutes posted at the (complex) link below:
>
> https://d1pxvgfbl3s7lq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/
> 2016/07/20160220_LNC.pdf
>
> As directed by the LNC, Kevin signed a contract and hired a firm to design
> the new website. I think Kevin Ludlow underestimated how difficult the new
> website rollout would be. It's not uncommon for I.T. projects to take
> longer than expected.  Kevin has volunteered a lot of his time to help
> deploy the new website. That deployment turned out to be more cumbersome
> than expected and still has some major issues that keep showing up that we
> need to resolve. Also, I think staff underestimated how long it would take
> to have the APRC review each individual page of content for compliance,
> make edits, review again, etc.
> Mostly for technical reasons, and because of so many projects on our
> plates, we haven't prioritized putting up lots of old content. We need to
> make sure the site is set up well and running smoothly before investing
> lots of time adding lots of content and we need to make sure we find
> efficient ways to do it and don't create too many new problems as we tweak
> it and use it.
>
> Just to make that point clear, I do not think it would be wise to
> prioritize putting up old press releases, blog entries, and some other old
> documents right now. It's not because I deliberately want to hide them.
> It's because I don't want to waste a lot of time loading stuff
> inefficiently or that is full of bugs (like bad links and images that
> aren't going to look right). The intent isn't to hide old meeting minutes
> or other things. The website design firm is not loading the content. Staff
> is tasked with loading all the content (all the LNC photos, blog entries,
> press releases, etc.). I believe the original discussions implied that the
> design firm would be loading all the old content, but that's not how things
> have gone.
>
> The basic donation function works. We are getting new members and new
> donations at the website. That's a top priority, as well as having the home
> page look at least decent.
>
> I realize rolling out a new website approximately two weeks before
> election day was risky. I probably would have waited until after the
> election for this entire project. But I want to temper that risk by
> pointing out that donations at LP.org followed a curve this year that I
> think was similar to previous years as well. Revenue started going up a lot
> in March, peaked in July and August, and then started going down quite
> rapidly. When we switched to the new website in October, the rate of
> donations online was already much lower at the old website, so at least on
> that point, the risk was lower than if we had switched and had major issues
> during peak revenue season.
>
> Additionally, there has been a whole lot of commentary for the past couple
> of years about how ugly and out of date the old LP.org website was. The new
> LP.org website is in fact "new" and some would say "nice looking," but
> opinions on the look of a website vary as much as opinions on a logo. The
> point being a new imperfect website is in some ways better than an old
> imperfect website, even if the problems are different.
>
> So, if you want to point fingers, you can point them at the former LNC for
> their motion. Then you can point at Kevin Ludlow and the design firm he
> hired. Then you can point them at me and the rest of staff.
>
> Going forward, we have a combination of the LNC, the Chair, a newly
> forming I.T. Committee, the Executive Director plus other staff, the design
> firm as well as perhaps outside experts that may be involved in what steps
> are taken next with the website. I've been having conversations with the
> Chair to establish who has what authority to make what decisions going
> forward so I at least know what decisions I'm empowered to make. I believe
> we should discuss that particular issue (who decides what) in depth at the
> upcoming LNC meeting. If you put staff in charge of website decisions going
> forward, then you will definitely know who to point the finger at when
> problems arise.
>
> In the mean time, I'll keep working with all to move the LP.org project
> forward where we can.
>
> And just one more reminder about how bad so many of you and others,
> including me and staff, said the old website was. At least that clunker's
> gone.
>
> --
> Wes Benedict, Executive Director
> Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
> 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict at lp.orgfacebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
> Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership
>
>
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>
>

-- 
*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>
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