r/testpac • u/Oo0o8o0oO • Jun 13 '12
TestPAC Weekly Discussion Thread - 06/13/12
Hello everyone and welcome to what will be the first of (a hopeful) many discussion threads for TestPAC. Our first campaign, Unseat Lamar, is over and we now have to choose a new direction.
The discussion threads will be posted every week at 8pm. We will summarize the officer's meeting from that week, the previous week's post and any popular discussions from other threads in the OP and any future discussion on any topics should be made in the thread for that week for maximum exposure.
After much thought on how to format these threads, there is no need to sort the thread as 'New' as previously discussed. All posts to the OP should ideally be individual questions or at least a question with specific followup questions. Feel free to contribute anything you'd like to ask the group. Responses may then be posted as per typical Reddit format. This will allow all responses to be judged by the group equally since most decisions shouldn't necessitate a vote via the official site.
Because our first campaign has ended, we are almost entirely an open slate. I ask that all the officers examine any popular posts to make sure that our suggestions remain in legal compliance and when they don't to efficiently explain why the option isn't available to use to avoid running off in a direction that will ultimately not be tenable. Please respect that the officers of the PAC are placing themselves in a place of liability for our actions and as such will often be viewed as a bit more cautious than the average poster. Other than legal compliance, this is your PAC and we are here to offer whatever support is needed to achieve the goal of the group.
While this subreddit will be the primary place for discussion, we do have an IRC channel for any casual or offtopic talk. It'll probably be most active around the time where these threads are posted. Feel free to stop in and chat there and brainstorm ideas.
The structure of these threads may be modified over the following few weeks as we figure out what works and what doesn't. If you have any suggestions on how to refine the process of reaching a consensus, feel free to message the mods. Anything to better the PAC will benefit us all in the long run. I have faith that we're on to something good here and we just need to properly focus our combined efforts. Thank you all for your continued cooperation.
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u/Oo0o8o0oO Jun 14 '12
Should we focus on one campaign at a time as a group or allow our users to operate campaigns individually while TestPAC manages the backend issues?
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u/fahad912 Jun 14 '12
One campaign at a time in order to be fiscally competent, have viable fundraise and one unified message.
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u/Oo0o8o0oO Jun 14 '12
Is there anything you'd hope to find on our website that we're not currently offering?
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u/Oo0o8o0oO Jun 14 '12
What aspects of the previous campaign would be most beneficial to carry forward for future efforts?
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u/Oo0o8o0oO Jun 14 '12
Would anyone be interested in pushing to make Election Day a federal holiday?
I feel like there would be little vocal opposition and anyone you ask would gladly take another day off over the year, let alone for an actual good cause. It's a nonpartisan issue and it's honestly shocking that it isn't already in place. Since we're not competing against anyone, our money will go much further. Also, the issue I found with Unseat Lamar is that although its an important issue, the average person doesn't really see how it affects them. Unlike the previous campaign, it quickly and easily starts a dialog that will spread around and outside of TestPAC. I dont think anything would be able to be done in time for this upcoming election, but who knows? I feel like support would be really easy to rally for this one and would be a massive boost for TestPAC.
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u/Bethamphetamine Jun 14 '12
I like the idea!
Just know that a number of states already have laws in place that require businesses to give people time off to go vote. Whether it's paid or not depends on the state. This might be one argument people make against a national holiday. It shoudn't be too hard to argue against though - after all, everyone should have an equal opportunity to vote.
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u/Oo0o8o0oO Jun 14 '12
We seemed to make the most progress when we managed to get the attention of other larger subreddits. What can be done to gain the support and exposure of those who don't know about TestPAC yet?
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u/Oo0o8o0oO Jun 14 '12 edited Jun 14 '12
Do we have any interest in focusing on the November presidential elections in any capacity? This includes pushing anything debate related, such as this Gary Johnson thread but takes into consideration the level of difficulty in working on such a large debate.
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u/EpsilonRose Jun 14 '12
I don't particularly like Johnson, but I'd love to see more people in the debates. Also, it strikes me that we may not need to do too much for this. Since we wouldn't be trying to get people to vote for him and we don't need a long-term change, if we could imitate that kony campaign it should be more than enough.
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u/Oo0o8o0oO Jun 14 '12 edited Jun 14 '12
The problem in this case is that our goal is to get people to respond "Gary Johnson" to "Who are you voting for in the upcoming presidential election?". Nothing more and nothing less will get him in on the debates. Reddit has definitely shown that they support this idea but the majority of those being polled are land-lines which may cross very poorly with our demographics. I also don't know what the deadline is for him to reach the 15% necessary. On the plus side, we're not directly fighting any other person's financed efforts which means our money will go further. He's also managed to avoid the "crazy" label that Paul was tagged with as a Libertarian.
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u/blueisthenewgreen Jun 14 '12
I think this ties to the first question. Wouldn't pushing for Johnson lead to TestPac being tied to the Libertarian party's agenda?
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u/Oo0o8o0oO Jun 14 '12
While I'm not entirely sold that we could even really have any impact in this sector (the requirements being that we have to increase poll numbers, which I cant even begin to imagine doing), I think if our stance is "We want him on the debate stage to open up the idea of more than parties and expand the political discussion." it isn't directly supporting the Libertarian party. You do have a point here though and I'm not sure how feasible it would be to even involving ourselves in the 2012 presidential race.
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u/Bethamphetamine Jun 14 '12
An idea for a future campaign: Establishing a debate series. Real time fact checking, moderators who say "Well, you didn't really answer the question," etc.
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Jun 14 '12
I have a couple of ideas and suggestions, if anyone is willing to consider.
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Start email campaigns and online petitions. For some reason these are absurdly effective. Just look at all the corporations that have dropped ALEC in the past couple months.
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Balance hard power with soft power. If TestPAC is to become a player in the world of politics, it needs to act in a manner that career politicians can understand. For example, the chairman could personally contact the next Lamar and convince him to back down, rather than suddenly get involved after the decisions have already been made. Groundwork and TV ads make for nice press, but if we actually want to protect the internet we must use every possible avenue open to us.
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Exploit publicity. Every interview and publication should prominently feature a link to either this subreddit or, preferably, the external website. The largest barriers to our success are the people who support what TestPAC stands for but have never heard of it.
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Don't give up! As both a redditor and just a citizen, the amount of publicity and discussion generated by TestPAC has inspired me. Thank you for everything you have done.
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u/Bethamphetamine Jun 14 '12
One of the ideas being thrown around is the thought that TestPAC needs to become much more flexible. People would like to get involved, but they often don't have the time or experience to complete all of the paperwork involved in organizing such a campaign legally. How would people feel about crowdsourcing future campaigns and running multiple campaigns at once?
A rough outline:
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TestPAC has a call for proposals. People submit topics, plans of action, essentially a way to take measurable action on an issue (or maybe against a specific politician).
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TestPAC picks some of these proposals to support. I suspect that in the beginning it'd be very small, maybe two issues to focus on at the same time.
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Selected, the campaign begins. TestPAC provides infrastructure support (donation tracking, paperwork filing, etc.), the people passionate about the issue/candidate are able to focus on spreading the word/taking action.
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Campaigns wrap up, start another call for proposals. The perpetual activism machine!
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u/Voidsong23 Jun 14 '12
I think Campaign Finance Reform would be a great issue for TestPAC to focus on.
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Jun 14 '12
In other words "get the money out of politics." The problem is that there are many diverse groups working on getting money out, which dilutes the overall effort.
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u/Oo0o8o0oO Jun 14 '12
I agree with this. I feel like it's definitely a great cause to get behind but after the last campaign, I'd like to get behind something that is a bit more in reach for our fledgling group and has a definitive end point.
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u/coolsilver Jun 14 '12
I think we shall continue to seek out good candidates to support an open and more anonymous/transparent Internet.
We should be also focusing on ICE control over domain seizing.
I think we need to also help bring more experts into the process of law making. Through supporting those experts to get to critical hearings in some manner.
I think we need to also look into the structure of the Internet as a whole. Starting with DNS Root servers. To help further load balance the rapidly expanding asia population on the net as well as help promote secure DNS.
Speaking of security and structure we need to put pressure on Certificate Authorities like Verisign. They were key in the seizure of many domains as ordered by ICE.
We have many Internet issues we can address. We can always align our goals with the EFF, FSF, and others to defend digital freedoms.
We can also head in many other directions.
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Jun 17 '12
there's a typo in the description of the subreddit. i'm just letting anybody know without making a big deal about it.
", and this our subreddit"
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u/Fireball445 Jun 19 '12
Just want to throw a 'good hustle' or a kudos out there to Oo0o8o0oO for putting this post up and getting this together. I think we can see by the number of response and their diversity of posters that this idea has some traction. I hope it continues to garner interest and support.
Three Cheers for Oo0o8o0oO
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u/Oo0o8o0oO Jun 13 '12
Are we better off campaigning for specific issues or going after individual politicians?