So, who is actually reading these emails?
Sent to both Dino Rossi’s email form and that of the governor. See what happens now.
UPDATE: Rossi’s thanks me for sending my emails as says he looks forward to reading them. Lame.
Category: Cluetrain (Page 7 of 10)
I mean, an email form isn’t all that revolutionary. From Dino’s speech yesterday:
Starting today, if you and your neighbors see things that need to change… “tellDino.com”
And I plan to keep this website in place when I’m governor.
If you’re frustrated by poor customer service in state government – tellDino.com
Imagine how much better you would be treated by state agencies when everyone knows that you will have a direct line to the governor… and also share your ideas on how to make things better.
And you won’t have to register your e-mail address with me. So if state workers want to share their ideas, it can be anonymous.
Today, I know many hard-working state workers feel like they can’t be candid and open with their thoughts.
Now you can… tellDino.com
Imagine what a change just that little reform will bring.
The actual governor already has an email form that anyone can fill out.
Email forms for politicians or other powerful people types aren’t exactly new, and Dino’s framing of his as something special is troubling. He seems to want to have us think that he really is listening to us, but he isn’t doing anything new to actually do that.
Rich Roesler over at Eye on Olympia notices the same weird language over at Tell Your Uncle Dino. From what he’s saying on his new campaign website, it really does seem like Dino Rossi is thinking that the state government would come after any state employee that was associated (even in a small way) with his campaign.
Here’s more information on the actual Whistleblower Program, which is run by the State Auditor’s Office:
The law requires that whistleblower identities be kept confidential. It makes retaliation unlawful and provides remedies for retaliation. Reports of asserted retaliation are filed with the Washington State Human Rights Commission. The Commission will investigate the claim and take appropriate action. Civil penalties for retaliation may include a fine of up to $3,000 and suspension for 30 days without pay. At a minimum, a letter of reprimand is placed in the retaliator’s personnel file.
Does Dino think the auditor is doing a bad job?
For me, the most interesting part of Rossi’s one hour old campaign is his try at transferring the fun loving nature of his Idea Bank to his new campaign.
Guess what everyone, you can email Dino Rossi. About anything! Anything that’s on your mind, even if you’re a state employee, just type in your concern, hit submit and Dino might even read what you wrote.
Before I get on to the technical fun of this post, I have to point out that the Rossi campaign is implying that by asking Dino something in public, a state employee can face retribution. Are they serious?
I know there are many state employees and others out there who prefer this approach – and I respect their feelings.
This attempt at passing off an email form as some direct connection to the candidate is already lame, but it also looks like the form itself isn’t working. I’ve posted the entire code I pulled at 11:05 this morning below, but this is the interesting part:
<form id="form1" name="form1" method="post" action="">
From what I know about html code, if the “action” part is blank, the form doesn’t do anything. You’re literally sending your concerns to Dino into thin air. But, I could be wrong, so check out the code below and tell me if I’m wrong.
UPDATE: I hate probably not being right. My buddy with all the smarts just said the form “probably” works, as the form will just submit to itself (the homepage technically is telldino.com/index.asp).
Anyone else want to chime in on this one?
I’m always impressed by elected officials who not only participate in comment threads, but stick with it, approach it maturely and get something good out of it.
The entire thread is worth reading (start at the bottom), but here are some highlights.
Here is her eventual response to a line of questioning:
Yes, I have answers for Scott.
“Does this mean you are one of the ones who support the 50-100% tax increases on homes?”
No.
“Does this mean that you support keeping people from dividing their land as they see fit?”
Yes. I support community planning. Cities like Olympia don’t just happen. They are built by people who put a lot of effort into deciding what sort of development belongs where. The alternative to planning is not just the sort of sprawl you see in LA–which many people here cite as their nightmare planning scenario–the alternative is chaos that endangers not just our quality of life but our health and safety.
“Does this mean that you support halting most construction on private lands if there is a stream nearby that theoretically could contain a salmon?”
No.
And, what her questioner had to say:
Rhenda
Thank you.
scott
Rhenda took advantage of the comment thread not to engage in a pointless back and forth, but to answer the questions that were posed to her quickly and clearly. Its a good thing to participate in comment threads, its a bad thing to get wrapped around the axle. By jumping in she was able to knock down an untruth (that she’s a member of Futurewise) and get another commenter to thank her (bonus points)..
I set up Rhenda’s website for her, and she’s been writing on her blog semi-regularly since then. No one has come by to comment (as far as I know). This gives me hope that after she’s elected, Rhenda might use her blog as a platform for conversation with Olympia citizens.
Here’s an important note from WINtegrated Solutions’s blog (hat tip to Fuse):
- The PDC wants to “not interfere with the free flow of political information via the internet, particularly when the information is provided at no or little cost.”
- The PDC recognizes the “internet is unique and evolving and warrants a restrained regulatory approach at this time.”
- Where possible, “state regulation of Internet activity will follow the Federal Election Commission approach” (which does not regulate or require disclosure for uncompensated bloggers, and only requires disclosure on expenditures by people buying ads or paying consultants).
Read the entire post, its a good read.
A lot of the conversation the PDC had earlier this fall about internet regulation seemed to fall around work already done by the Federal Election Commission (movie here).
NOPE, this doesn’t work anymore. Don’t try it.
Earlier today I noticed that TVW is now posting their content in flash, a format that allows folks to embed and share that content. Think Youtube.
Anyway, later today I figured out how to actually embed it. Seems to me that TVW didn’t want to make it very easy, but I’m going to show you how.
1. Find the content you’re interested in. When you’re at the content page, right click (this is for Firefox 2.0.07) and click “View Page Source.” Somewhere in there should be a file ending with .flv.
2. Use this code in your blog post. Replace Flash_URL with the complete url of the flash file you found in the above step.
3. If these instructions don’t work, use the very helpful instructions here.
Here is a recent Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting, embedded in my blog. Oh, happy day. Instructions here.
UPDATE: The above embed uses a freely available flash player, but I just now figured out how to use TVW’s own flash play which is much nicer. Email me if you’d like instructions, or just check out the code for the movie below. You should be able to figure it out.
Or just click on the <> image on the player, it will copy the embed code to your computer.
Kyle Taylor Lucas, who ran against Sen. Tim Sheldon last year, is blogging now.
Nothing local, but she only has four posts up since August on Yahoo 360 account.
I’m going to say that referring to Hugo Chavez as her hero might point to her not running again.
It looks like TVW is putting its new media online with a nice flash player. But, for now at least, it looks like you can’t embed. Crap.
Emmett O'Connell
@emmettoconnell@olympiatime.com
1,758 posts
20 followers