New LP national website coming? / Shane Cory's response

What Shane says below about monthly data dumps, and state affiliates being able to get info from the national database as it comes in for over a year now, is news to me. I guess it's news to their national development guy too, as he didn't mention it to me when I brought up the problem. I wonder whether anyone in the Libertarian Party of California is on top of this. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but San Francisco has not been getting any monthly membership/inquiry updates from the LPC, have we?

Yours in liberty,
        <<< starchild >>>

No one else in California is getting them either. Shane is correct when
he says that this is a problem at the state level, not the national
level. Kevin Takenaga demonstrated the new database at the LPC Exec Com
meeting three weeks ago, and while it is reasonably functional for staff
at the state office to use, it really isn't ready to be opened up for
counties to access it yet. Aaron Starr was disapointed that it
couldn't yet generate the kind of reports he wants see in order to
analyze membership activity and donation status for fundraising
purposes.

Kevin did show that he could generate a county's membership list and
export it to an Excel file for distribution to the county chair, so I
can see no good reason why this hasn't been done, except that no one has
yet been assigned this task. Since apparently, we only have 15
remaining "active" counties recognized by the LPC, I don't know why this
can't be done by an intern in half an hour or an hour at most. It only
took Kevin a couple of minutes to query the database for one county's
file.

The main action item approved at the meeting was to generate and
disburse the final UMP dues payments to the counties, which we in the
East Bay finally received earlier this week. Since we don't really
expect much out of the LPC anymore, we are simply maintaining our own
local database--which not surprisingly, shows quite a few more members
in good standing than the state recognizes for our counties. We advise
our members to send their renewals to us instead of to the state and
while I do report these renewals and send 40% of the money collected to
the LPC, I have no idea whether these ever get added to the "official"
database in Panorama City.

Terry Floyd, Treasurer
Libertarian Party of Alameda County
Libertarian Party of Contra Costa County

[mailto:GrassrootsLibertarians@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Starchild

No data dumps in a long long time. I've just recently gotten a couple
of inquiries forwarded manually in email from someone at the LPC, but
that's it.

Up until now I've been swamped with work myself, but I have some more
time now and getting our own database into good shape -- by any means
necessary -- is one of my top priorities.

Cheers,
Justin

Starchild,

It was a fact, in late 2004, that while there was "instant
functionality" (reading some sort of meaning into this buzz phrase)
providing access to the National LP database, the content was
thoroughly screwed up. I know, because I'd volunteered to pass on to
pertinent counties new names given under UMP to State by National
each month, and the content and format then were constantly changing.

One of the chores that fell to Kevin Takenaga when he got on the EC
in 2005 was to update (and attempt to make accurate) the CA LP
member database. I believe he accomplished that toward the end of
January this year, though I have no personal experience with it (I
left the LP Santa Clara EC and Party involvement in February.). It
is supposed to be possible for County officers, certainly the County
Chair, to request a list of members by going to an online URL and
giving a password and secret handshake. I am curious to know if it
actually works.

Regards,
Allen
PS Just kidding about the handshake.
A.

--- In lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com, Starchild <s

  What Shane says below about monthly data dumps, and state

affiliates

being able to get info from the national database as it comes in

for

over a year now, is news to me. I guess it's news to their

national

development guy too, as he didn't mention it to me when I brought

up

the problem. I wonder whether anyone in the Libertarian Party of
California is on top of this. Someone please correct me if I'm

wrong,

but San Francisco has not been getting any monthly

membership/inquiry

updates from the LPC, have we?

Yours in liberty,
        <<< starchild >>>

> From: shane.cory@...
> Date: Sun May 21, 2006 6:32:52 AM US/Pacific
> To: "Starchild" <sfdreamer@...>
> Subject: Re: [lpsf-discuss] New LP national website coming?
>
> Starchild,
>
> I just quickly read your message and don't have too much time

this

> morning
> to go over everything, however I did want to point this out.

You

> stated:
>
> "especially when we apparently still don't have a
> functioning national database system that gets inquiries and

membership

> updates sent regularly to the appropriate state and local

parties. No

> one in our group has gotten any data of this sort from national
> recently, have they?"
>
> That's a problem on your end not ours. Over a year ago, instant
> functionality was added into the site for state affiliates to get
> inquiries, new members and volunteer requests as they came in.

This

> is in
> addition to monthly data dumps containing the keyed data. This

is not

> an
> issue for my staff as we've already resolved it.
>
> If you're not getting the data from your state then you need to

work

> with
> them to resolve the issue. While we would love to work directly

with

> all
> affiliates, time and cost dictate otherwise. We have to work

through

> our
> state affiliates who, in turn, should work with local parties.
>
> From time to time there is a complaint about the data dumps, and

if

> it's a
> real complaint, Robert works to resolve it. However, much of

the time

> it's a single individual who has some type of issue with either

us or a

> piece of software.
>
> If you would like to discuss this more in depth, give me a call

at your

> convenience.
>
> Best,
>
> Shane
>
>
>> Ron,
>>
>> You make some good points. Not only is the video of

relatively poor

>> quality for something displayed at that level, but as you

suggest,

>> it's
>> in rather questionable taste as well. If something's going to

be in

>> poor taste, can't it at least be funnier, like South Park? It

also

>> seems to suggest that the main problem is politicians goofing

off and

>> not working hard enough, which is hardly the point. And hiding

the

>> Statue of Liberty's face seems like an unintentionally ironic
>> reflection of the desire by some in the party to hide our

libertarian

>> ideology. The white "days until general election" rectangle is

a sore

>> thumb, and the overall new color scheme won't win any prizes

either...

>> I wish I could find something else good to say about it. OK, the
>> American flag's gone, I guess that's good as far as making the

party

>> seem less conservative.
>>
>> Except for the surface look though, the contents of the site

don't

>> appear terribly different. At least one link, the daily poll

(which is

>> on making English the national language, in case anyone wants

to

>> vote),
>> still brings up a page with the old banner. It's pretty hard to

see

>> what the point of this redesign was, and I can only hope that

not much

>> effort went into it -- especially when we apparently still

don't have

>> a
>> functioning national database system that gets inquiries and
>> membership
>> updates sent regularly to the appropriate state and local

parties. No

>> one in our group has gotten any data of this sort from national
>> recently, have they?
>>
>> Seems to me that ought to be one of the most important, if

not *the*

>> most important day-to-day function of the national office. I

mentioned

>> this to their development guy (Marc Scribner? not sure of his

name,

>> since the staff list on the new site does not seem to include

it) a

>> week ago or so, and he agreed it was a very high priority. He

really

>> seemed to be listening to the criticisms I expressed as

reflected in

>> the Grassroots Libertarians Caucus values, too. It would be

nice to

>> see
>> evidence that someone up there is giving the Grassroots

perspective

>> some serious thought.
>>
>> Love & liberty,
>> <<< starchild >>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Dear Everyone;
>>>
>>> Can't say a whole lot either for the face in the shadows

Statue of

>>> Liberty Libertarian Party logo. Why the no face

disguise? What's

>>> wrong
>>> with an an open discernible face on Lady Liberty?
>>>
>>> The flash video remove politicians service will give JibJab no
>>> contest
>>> that's for sure.
>>>
>>> Flash video politician removal service has got to go including

the

>>> cattle prod. Don't those people know anything about

the tortures at

>>> Gitmo and other CIA rendition centers? Or Abu Ghraib? Or worse

the

>>> cattle prods used on Black protestors during the 60's by state

storm

>>> troopers?
>>>
>>> Someone needs to tell them to wake up and pay attention to

what's

>>> going on out there in the world.
>>>
>>> Ron Getty
>>> SF Libertarian
>>>
>>> Starchild <sfdreamer@...> wrote:
>>>
>>> Ugh. It's supposed to be our national chair, Mike Dixon. I

know, he

>>> looks like one of the politicians he's supposed to be helping

get rid

>>> of. I can't say I'm terribly impressed with the redesign.

Although it

>>> looks like they did at least make the platform a bit more

prominently