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Questions for DFA HQ
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Continuing a much needed discussion which started at Blog for America...
And since it seems that Tara is reading the blog, FWIW it would be helpful to have a blog entry with a link to Dean's article of the week. I never remember which week he's published and don't always check.
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| Kimmy Cash December 19, 2004 01:19 PM PST Here's one: Dr. Dean Yes, DOCTOR Dean.. Did you know that you can't type out the word Gynecology on your organizations website (BLOG)? Apparently having a vagina or penis is a no-no as well. Impossible to type out these English words. Let me REFRAME that for HQ. While I would be the first to say that foul mouthed posts like mine of the pasts don't belong on the site, I would also be the first to say that censorship is something we fight AGAINST, not advocate. Furthermore, if HQ is using software vs. a live person to BAN words, then perhaps you should get rid of it, create press regarding it and move on to a moderator. Dr. Dean, you see the irony. You see the stupidity. For the sake of VALUABLE time, please punish and DISMISS the BLOG NANNY. That's just today irritant, have more to say on this issue, see your mail. Kimmy Cash a MEMBER of your community (yes, other life events trump this irritant but if we are creating a community, starting the conversation of America and all, in the words of George Carlin.. 'LET'S GET SERIOUS'!! | ||
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| Corinne August 11, 2004 06:53 AM PDT Now that the penultimate Dean Dozen list has been released, it seems that questions have been raised surrounding John Lynch (NH Gov. race). My DD questions: 1) What is the vetting process for deciding who gets an endorsement? I vaguely recall a blog entry about this but it wasn't helpful. 2) Were any of the state groups consulted/contacted about this? It seems a logical question because of questions/controversies surrounding DD candidates in NH and CT? Did DFA know about these issues before naming people to the DD list? | ||
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| Corinne August 9, 2004 06:17 AM PDT Posted by Stonefeather @ 08/07/2004 08:57 AM PDT ======= Ok, so DFA is a PAC. But what does that *mean* when you're talking about activities that aren't directly tied to fundraising or distributing funds? As for your question about what individual membership in DFA means, it's a good one. I don't think it's really been discussed in Burlington. | ||
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| Corinne August 9, 2004 06:14 AM PDT Posted by RH in SF @ 08/07/2004 11:32 PM PDT ============ I don't think anybody knows what Tom M.'s role is as Director of DFA. Right now, his role is being part of Dean's entourage when he travels. Apparently the question you ask is beyond DFA's capabilities. I have no clue how the office is organized, how people interact with each other there, how they share information, I'm not even sure people understand how their job fits into the overall DFA mission. | ||
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| Corinne August 9, 2004 06:09 AM PDT Posted by nordy @ 08/07/2004 10:16 AM PDT ================= One reason for the lack of openness is that the blog has been seriously hacked several times and people have been harassed off the blog as well. So there tends to be a suspicion when someone new comes on. There are also people who blog for "serious debate" but are really freepers/pests who blog just to pick fights. There was a lot of this after Dean endorsed Kerry with Kerry supporters coming on to push people to get behind Kerry when people needed time to absorb what was going on before they could move on. All blogs I think have an echo chamber quality by their nature because they draw like-minded people. It may seem more prevalent at BFA because Dean does the talk show circuit and often draws heavy fire for what he says. I agree that some people haven't moved on and since Dean wasn't Kerry's VP pick, they're now calling for a cabinet slot or DNC chair for him, neither of which I think is a viable option. It would appear logical that his schedule is set so HQ can publicize Dean's appearances further in advance but there's either a lack of coordination or too much last-minute planning going on. I have no explanation to offer you. | ||
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| Renee in Ohio August 8, 2004 08:55 PM PDT Rich, hopefully my e-mail to you clarified a bit. I am reading the posts, although I am just seeing your most recent one for the first time tonight, and I know I don't have the attention span left at this hour to read it. The purpose of this thread is to collect some Frequently Asked Questions for HQ to nudge them in the direction of creating a FAQ that is posted on the *official* site, so that anyone checking out the blog for the first time can find them. In a quirky way, it has become part of the culture of BFA that we puzzle together to figure these things out *without* help from those in the know--who'd have thought that the words "quack" and "spiking" would be banned. And Alexander, and Yugoslavia... We've had some chuckles together over these things, but it can also be really frustrating when one is trying to communicate and posts keep being rejected with the very unhelpful message "Comment Submission Error Your comment submission failed for the following reasons: Your comment could not be submitted" | ||
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| RH in SF August 7, 2004 11:32 PM PDT Hey Renee -- Are you reading these comments? I am unclear about the objective here. Have you been asking people to come post here so as to compile comments regarding BFA's operation -- so as to bring them to the attention of this new person Tara? Could you please post here to clarify? A lot of what has been said here were all the same issues raised during the campaign itself -- including the issue of the Governor's schedule -- and why can't they maintain and post an advance schedule. I sure hope DFA starts showing signs of overcoming the organization lack of direction that was so prevalent to DFA1. I'm less involved there than I was during the campaign... One thing is for sure: Howard is as tireless an evangelist and change-agent as ever -- and works his butt off criss-crossing the country, keeping the fires stoked -- and lending weight to local candidacies for office. Does anyone here know what the actual role of the Director is? Is he a manager? A strategist? A money oversight person? A business planner? A fundraiser? ========================= Lastly: I found this curious. One of our colleagues at National Grassroots Network just posted two days ago the following message. She had had a conversation with someone from DFA.. And they wanted help compiling this information. ... The reason I find it peculiar is: They have all the links to all the state orgs and yahoo groups on their site. How hard of a task is it to assign someone in the office in Burlington to (a) compile a list of email contacts for every organization listed on their own website, (b) then send emails to all these groups and specifically ask for the very information being asked for below, then (c) throwing that stuff into a database and (d)maintaining that database via monthly email "check-ins" with each Dean support group? Yet this exact problem plagued DFA1: For the first 8 months of the campaign, I had always thought it was the FEC firewall issue which had prevented DFA from helping us contact each other, state to state, by providing us email lists of Meetup hosts in various cities. (The lack of access to this information was the genesis for forming DeanLeaders -- now called NGN -- to essentially try to create a parallel database which we could maintain without having to worry about the FEC firewall.) Imagine my surprise when I found out after the campaign was over that no, that wasn't the case at all. That the reason DFA never shared the email list of Meetup hosts is because they themselves never even had one! It was explained to me that Meetup.com originally had a very prohibitive deal whereby they would not release that info to DFA... That was just stunning to hear. I mention this because I've learned with DFA that sometimes we wonder why something is lost in the shuffle or hard to obtain -- when the answer is "they've not even doing that at all." .... Presumably a lot of this has been worked out from lessons gleened from the problems of DFA1. But to get the email below gives great pause to reflect. Here it is: ======================== From: "cfinnie4185" <cfinnie4185@yahoo.com> Date: Thu Aug 5, 2004 2:35 pm Subject: Information for DFA Talking to DFA yesterday, they asked me some questions I know you all can help me with: 1. Which groups are doing house parties/brunches? How can DFA contact them? 2. Who is doing trips to neighboring swing states? Who should DFA contact and how? 3. Where are there active DFA groups? Which have still-active Yahoo! groups with large memberships DFA can leverage for communications? What are they? 4. Which states have organizations that are coordinating local groups? How can DFA reach them? Which local areas are on their own? Are they coordinating in any way? What's the best way to communicate with them? The fellow I was talking to said he knew there were still a bunch of active groups in California (which is true), but they didn't have a good handle on what was happening in the rest of the country. Of course I recommended he use this group (NGN) to reach out nationally, but also offered to get as many answers to these questions for him as I could. Please send information to me at cfinnie4185@yahoo.com ========================= rh+ | ||
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| nordy August 7, 2004 10:16 AM PDT For a "grassroots" blog, BFA is lacking a certain openness. What we see is a core group of bloggers who have been talking to each other since forever. They often have met each other and sometimes seem to be able to read each other's minds. Maybe all blogs are like that. But I'm getting the feeling that BFA is turning into an echo chamber. Another problem is that the blog still reflects the grief we all felt when Gov. Dean did not win. There's a lot of negative emotion, and sometimes it comes out as anger and as personal attacks. My biggest annoyance is something other posters here have mentioned: lack of a schedule for Gov. Dean. We're always getting these breathless announcements to "tune in -- he's on X medium right now." Surely HQ knows his schedule better than that. | ||
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| Stonefeather August 7, 2004 08:57 AM PDT Posted by Corinne @ 08/05/2004 10:35 AM PDT Is DFA a 527, a PAC, or what? Posted by kate_in_Montclair @ 08/05/2004 11:34 AM PDT Are our state "affiliates" actually arms of DFA, or will we be, and if we hope to be, what organization ought we to undertake so as to be consistent with DFA's legal status? This is all I know about this, through a state conference call Q&A with DFA staff: DFA is a PAC. The original call for state "chapters" back in March (I think it was) was made in error, as far as the terminology goes. State and local groups are actually independent and have no official connection with DFA -- it is an entirely spiritual relationship, as it were. That, of course, leads to another question: what does individual "membership" in DFA mean, other than being on the mailing list? Stonefeather Harrisburg PA | ||
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| RH in SF August 6, 2004 11:15 AM PDT Hello, I would simply like to know: On which BFA thread did this discussion begin? And roughly how many people have commented on the issue? I have always found the Dean blog to be, by its innate structural model, antithetical to the values put forth by Gov Dean: bottom up and 'you have the power'. Blogs are the least egalitarian methods of group communication yet to be invented on the net. They are top-down -- with a few people who can start a topic, and then the peons can try to communicate within the noise of the peanut gallery comments area. The comments capability is a joke, always has been, since most postings have nothing to do with the top-down topic pushed out at you. Converserly, Discussion Board software has always been the MOST egalitarian by its very structure. ANYONE in the community can start a topic and ANYONE in the community can reply to the topic. Discussions remain 'threaded' and make sense, vs non-linear multiple conversations going on in a peanut gallery. Scoop is a hybrid between Blog software (TOP-DOWN) and Discussion software (EGALITARIAN). It's been battle tested, people like it at other venues, and it performs "as advertised". Until DFA ends the TOP-DOWN blog approach, it's true, BFA will remain a vast wasteland of opportunity squandered -- simply due to a severely lacking choice of software. rh+ | ||
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| Corinne August 6, 2004 10:54 AM PDT Add another call to change the blog software posted at BFA: Although it would take a bit of work, I strongly recommend going to a KOS-style blog. Specifically, the nested comments allow for multiple running conversations in the commments without disrupting the flow of the general discussion. I know this has been suggested before, but it's time to look at it again. I don't participate at BFA much anymore because so many of the comment threads are hard to follow. All the best to you all. Posted by Bryan (CO) at August 6, 2004 01:50 PM | ||
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| Corinne August 6, 2004 06:36 AM PDT <i>This thread tells you how the rest of the blogging community feels about the current state of BFA</i> Um, that thread is a month old and is a one-day snapshot of the blog. One day is not representative of the BFA community. It's not all sunshine and love, but it's better than what's represented here. <i>This thread tells you why dKos is getting 200,000 hits a day with the help of Scoop.</i> I have asked HQ many, many times (even on this thread!) why the blog won't go to Scoop and never got a reply. It was clear to me back in MARCH that the blog was hurting the sense of community, that people were feeling disengaged. It's been one of the loudest calls for change and nobody seems to be listening. We can't solve the problem with the same thinking that created the problem. And the blog is a problem. Having said that, I was told back in March by a reliable source that Jerome and Kos didn't think the blog would evolve beyond its current state so it is what it's ever going to be. I visit Kos daily. I like the site and do see a fair number of current and former BFA bloggers there. I'm also hoping that with Tara as the new DFA Technology Diva, she will be more open to change than previous occupants of the position. | ||
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| Former Blogger August 5, 2004 04:01 PM PDT It's really sad to see what has happened to BFA. Since Dean's loss it has been dominated by trolls and ideologues who post in opposition to the core values of Dean and his organization. It reflects poorly on the Governor, and I cringe whenever I hear him tell people to go to his website. I admire those few sensible posters who are still trying to hold down the fort, but I really think it's a lost cause unless you go to Scoop. This thread tells you how the rest of the blogging community feels about the current state of BFA http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/6/20102/31005 This thread tells you why dKos is getting 200,000 hits a day with the help of Scoop. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/5/35451/65527 I guarantee that if you'd only go to Scoop you'd see the return of many former BFA posters. | ||
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| kate_in_Montclair August 5, 2004 11:34 AM PDT Who's the DFA staff responsible for what and how do we reach them? What *are* the forbidden words for the blog? Please, sir, I want some more... more info about the future. Are our state "affiliates" actually arms of DFA, or will we be, and if we hope to be, what organization ought we to undertake so as to be consistent with DFA's legal status? How come we can't have that cool radio we used to have during the campaign? I got to call in, like, six times. What a rush, but better still, what a nice addition to the media mix through which we communicate. Thanks for asking... | ||
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| LA*Mom August 5, 2004 10:53 AM PDT 1] I would like to know what action HQ is taking concerning the attacks on our blogmates. I would like us to come up with ways to defend our friends and ourselves from these attackers. 2] Is there some reason that the posters rarely comment? It seems to me that an occasional, informal, Q&A session with the blogmasters, and our guests, would be very informative. | ||
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| Corinne August 5, 2004 10:35 AM PDT Shoot- I posted a whole bunch of questions and my post was eaten! Bleah. 1) Is DFA a 527, a PAC, or what? And what does that designation mean for DFA's--and Howard's-- activities, with some specific examples? 2) Why can't we move the blog to Scoop so we don't have to rely on HQ for a new thread and make it easier to follow specific conversations? 3) How about a list of DFA staff and their responsibilities? 4) Will DFA be recruiting an advisory board? 5) Can people contribute to support DFA's operating costs? I had others but those are the only ones I can recall :-( | ||
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| Corinne August 5, 2004 09:55 AM PDT Here are questions to put on the table, in no particular order: 1) Why don't we move the blog to Scoop so we don't have to wait for HQ to post a new thread? 2)Is DFA a 527 or a PAC or what? And what does this designation mean for DFA--and Gov. Dean's-- activities? 3) How does DFA choose the candidates it will support? (This may be moot if DFA doesn't publish any more Dean Dozen lists.) 4) I have a great idea to make the site better. Who do I tell? 5) I have a great idea for a main blog entry. How do I get it posted? 6)Who are the DFA staff and what do they do? 7)Can I make a contribution to support DFA's operating costs? 8) Will DFA have an advisory board? I'm sure I'll think of others | ||
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| volneysimmons August 5, 2004 09:20 AM PDT I second the above. Here's another one: if the local DFA non-affiliated affiliates are going to be asked to ID our own candidates to support, does HQ have some guidelines we could use? There seem to be some borderline candidates. Guidelines would help us in these cases. Oh and, yeah, Howard's public calendar really shouldn't be as hard to put on the site as all that, no??? | ||
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