discussion: candidates and their platforms

[seperis]

This is a cut and paste of all the candidates platforms linked from here.

If any candidates wish to have the text of their platforms removed from this entry, please email seperis at livejournal and I'll remove the text and keep the link only.

Discussion Rules1.) Comments must be balanced; when making a post with negative comments on one candidate

Comments

[sutlers]

I'd like to raise some concerns about vichan's candidacy, re: the discussion I had with her in this thread on this post where she revealed that she participated in the spamming of the news posts during Boldthrough. As I stated on my journal, I don't necessarily trust her to maintain her professionalism in regards to fandom, especially since in those comments she has said she "doesn't regret" what I consider extremely juvenile behavior.

I do support rm and legomymalfoy, though I wish both of them would participate in the discussion more, to address the concerns that the people above me have raised. rm especially seems to have an fandom-friendly and free-speech friendly stance, and I like that she is a member of the OTW. legomymalfoy's extensive experience with both fandom and LJ also speak in her favor. I am not as pleased with the emphasis on basic accounts and the search engine in her platform; to me, it smacks of treating the symptoms and not the disease (which would be fandom's concerns with censorship and clarity in communication). Plus, I don't really want

[vichan]

Coming to my own defense here. I hope that's all right.

Opinion is appreciated. I knew that spamming would come back to bite me. :)

During Boldthrough, I had voiced my concerns legitimately and professionally, and I felt that my voice had been lost and ignored, as several others did.

It was only after voicing my concerns that I took the low road. I was starting to see the LJ staff as something of a joke because of their complete lack of response, and I was very much beginning to see my presence on LJ as a joke because it felt like the staff simply did not care whether or not I was here. In a way, I saw my little LJ world crashing down around me. Several people on my friends' list had deleted their journals, and some of those friends had been there for years. To this day, I still don't know where some of those friends went. I miss them, and I blame LJ for their absence

[icarusancalion]

Coming to my own defense here. I hope that's all right.

Of course it's all right, and thank you.

[sutlers]

Thank you for coming to your own defense! It's always better to hear the defense from the candidate themselves, rather than take the word of people who are speaking for the candidate. It's why I am holding off making my final decision re: legomymalfoy and rm. I think candidates should absolutely be involved in this discussion.

It was only after voicing my concerns that I took the low road. I still think that this is a completely inappropriate course of action. What it looks like to me is "They're not listening, so I am going to throw all of my professionalism out the window and throw a tantrum." What's to say it won't happen again? All the spamming did was contribute to LJ's already less-than-stellar perception of fandom as a whole, and I think that you should have been able to see that

[rydra_wong]

Whichever way votes here go, I do hope that people will consider casting at least their second-choice vote (if not their first) for whichever fannish candidate is in the lead in the actual poll at the time -- it's the best chance of ensuring that we get someone fannish.

[kenboy]

I don't necessarily believe someone fannish is the best bet for fandom, especially if their primary focus doesn't seem to be on our free speech rights.

[rydra_wong]

I don't necessarily believe someone fannish is the best bet for fandom

Who are you arguing in favour of, then?

[kenboy]

I honestly don't know anymore.

If rm is viable, I think probably her. If a completely non-fandom candidate who is viable comes out as strongly and clearly against censorship as well, then possibly that person. I want the most viable person who I think will stand up for our ability to post what we want.

[qfemale]

I'm here, feel free to ask me questions :-)

[furiosity]

I don't think we need an Advisory Board member to tell LJ admin how much we deplore censorship in fandom. I think that message has already been sent. If LJ admin did not get in May 2007 and August 2007, an Advisory Board representative is not going to get it through their heads, either. I think we need someone to represent fandom to whom LJ admin actually has a chance in hell of listening

[kenboy]

I personally haven't made that argument, and wouldn't.

I do make the argument that someone who deleted innocent accounts during strikethrough has no place being our representative to the company that she deleted the accounts for, period. It's too cozy and it's not appropriate.

I further think that LJ already has enough representatives on the board, and giving them back the slot they gave us for a user representative, to fill it with another company representative, is a dumb move on our part.

I'm done with jameth, who was given ample opportunity to tell us something we wanted to hear and who finally got around to reinforcing that we apparently want shiny new features; I'd really hoped his history of tangling with Abuse and posting thing that piss off management would have made him the voice we needed; it isn't.

Clearly, it needs to be rm. I don't buy that already knowing how things work in the (clearly broken) LJ administration is a bonus right now, and I question how well anyone could know how things work, since we're on our third

[furiosity]

If one were to assume that legomymalfoy was running to push LJ's agenda or to represent LJ, I'd completely agree with your comment. As she is not, I don't agree. I know she can be trusted to look after fandom interests (if nothing else, she's got porn here, too; quite a bit of it involving under-18 Harry and Draco -- locked, mind, but locked status doesn't actually stop LJ Abuse from deleting "offending" accounts at this time.

At any rate, support/abuse volunteers are not company representatives. They don't work for SUP; they don't have an interest in the business, so I find it just a little bit disingenuous to claim that someone who volunteers is a "company representative". That's like saying a donator is a company representative. I volunteer with PFLAG and I donate to the SPCA, but never in a million years would I believe I or any other volunteers/donators actually represent either organisation

[kenboy]

You know, who knows? The magical NDA is a very convenient way to keep anyone from Abuse to ever have to explain anything to anyone. It apparently covers everything and lasts eternally.

I've heard that before, that she does < 18 H/D, and that's great. If Warriors for Innocence had named her account on their list, what would have happened? Would she have been able to save it? Was it all just done on a code level, bypassing Abuse entirely? Who knows? We have no idea what the procedures were or are, because there's no transparency whatsoever, and we're all apparently content to keep it that way

[fille_de_glace]

Do you think someone could give the recent poll stats? Thanks.

[rydra_wong]

In the actual election poll? You can check them here.

[fille_de_glace]

Oh, Thank you!!! I didn't know you could do that...

[rydra_wong]

Yeah, it's useful if you're thinking about strategic voting, which I suspect is going to be crucial.