Advertising and ML presence act

[Beathan]

Resolved --

To survive and prosper, the CDS must publicize itself and increase its visibility in the SL community at large. These tasks are not tasks that have been adequately performed through volunteer efforts. Therefore, they must be budgeted tasks.

Therefore, all future budgets should include an amount not less than 5% of the entire budget and not more than 15% of the entire budget for the purposes of advertising the CDS and increasing and improving the mainland presence of the CDS. These funds shall be administered by the Chancellor, who shall appoint a Publicity Officer to run the program. The funds shall be used for the following tasks: 1. to improve and better utilize the Anzere information hub (with the assistance and approval of the individual citizens who have ownership interests in the hub); 2. to develop and implement an advertising plan to publicize the CDS on the mainland; and 3. to buy land on the mainland in high traffic areas to construct "consulates" or "information centers" to increase the visibility of the CDS in the SL community at large.

Beathan

[Salzie Sachertorte]

I am opposed to your proposal - spending any money on advertising our sims and expanding them - until we get our political house in order. I believe the recent debacle in the RA proves my point. I would hope that all factions and RL members feel shamed enough by their childish behavior to take a deep look at themselve s and their conduct - the way it advertises the CDS to the whole of SL - to re-examine why we band together as the CDS.

I oppose and condemn any RA member or faction which takes advantage of the current politcal sitatuion to ride pet hobby-horses through the RA, as currently consistituted.

[Beathan]

Salzie --

The RA will not shut down just because the CSDF chose to take its marbles and go home. We have our own marbles. There is important business to be done -- and we will do it.

Also, our house is not really in disorder. Democracy is messy. Further, I think that the best solution to our problems is to expand and bring in an ever growing pool of citizens and talent we can lean on. We should accelerate our growth, not stop it.

Beathan

[Salzie Sachertorte]

Its all factions I condemn - rather the behavior of those within the RA. Democrac is messy - but not shameful.

[Jon Seattle]

This is a personal response and should not be held to represent the CSDF in any way (and in fact for the most part all of my posts should be considered as such.)

Heard at a recent RA meeting (after adjournment) all directed to Pat: “arse”, “poo poo head” (several times), “if you worked for me I would fire you” (that last is a masterwork of alpha-male one-upmanship.) Also attempts to force items to the agenda on the spot, members throwing a tantrum when Pat had to leave after two hours of meeting, very late in his area of the real world. A RA that remained in session and continued to pass one and debate other proposals without Pat or Leon present. A proposed constitutional amendment (later amended) that in its first draft was aimed at forcibly removing the LRA.

I agree, and I am pretty sure that Pat also agrees, that he does not always respond well to that kind of attack. I know that I don’t. But it was clear to me that any attempt from CSDF to stay in the RA would just be met with more of the same. CSDF stepping out, I think, has the consequence of giving us a breather from the fighting and a time to reflect on where we are going as a community. In the end, stopping the fighting seemed more important to me than any good we could done on legislation.

What I have heard from CSDF’s opposition on numerous occasions is that all that CSDF is interested in is power. That is ridiculous since we had majority never, and a plurality just once in the RA. All the CSDF members I know are much more interested in ideas and positive change, in building and creative work, and most importantly returning the CDS to a reasonably stable, responsible, state of governance.

It was not my nor other CSDF member’s intention to stop the RA from continuing to do its work. To the contrary. Once the SC rules (and if I understand the constitution, a special election is held to replace the two members that resigned) it is certainly free to do as it pleases.

And for those who want to continue the fighting, there is no practical purpose you can serve by continuing to attack the CSDF. With CSDF out of the RA we will have no say over bills at all. If you are interested in legislation, you might as well direct that attention to the people who will have a say.

[Beathan]

Jon --

I don't recall any of these personal attacks you reference. You said that they were made after adjournment -- do you know if I was still there? The name-calling you describe is as juvenile as it is counterproductive, and I condemn it, but it certainly does not seem representative of RA meetings, even of the rancorous RA meetings we have had this term.

Also, I need to note that I do not accuse the CSDF of trying to stop the RA from doing its work. The CSDF is free to participate in the RA or to refrain from doing so. In either case, the RA has work to do -- and we should continue. A large part of that work is to keep faith with our voters -- who favored the CSDF agenda. So the CSDF agenda should move forward, even if the CSDF is not around to move it forward.

Even though we lacked a quorum at the last meeting, I think that we had a very productive and civil meeting. Thus, if the CSDF stepped aside to allow for a needed "breather" which would reduce the tension on, and elevate the conversation of, the RA -- I think that the CSDF initiative has been a success. Of course, NuCARE was not in attendance at the RA meeting either. What we know, at least, is that the SP/DPU reps can work together without sniping and disorder.

Beathan

[Sonja Strom]

Salzie, I strongly object to your characterization of everyone in the Representative Assembly as having acted shamefully! Firstly, I do not think this is true. I can not think of one thing I have done in the RA for which I should feel shame. Can you? Secondly, if you want to see things be different in the RA, I highly suggest that you run for office yourself. It seems to me that the reason for anyone to participate in the government is to try to make it more the way they would like it to be.

Jon, I also do not remember the personal attacks directed toward Pat to which you refer. I do remember the term "poo poo head" being used one time toward Patroklus after an RA meeting, when ThePrincess was frustrated by his lack of a response to something, and said something like "Pat, why are you being such a poo poo head about this?" That is certainly not a term I would use, and I don't know if her feeling of frustration was even truly justified, but I believe you are citing her words completely out of context. Your saying it was said "(several times)" is nothing I ever witnessed.

Whether or not we should advertise the CDS seems to me to have little to do with conversations between individuals anyway, even if these individuals are members of the RA. Actually I agree with Beathan's view about this, and would like to put two of the points he made above into my own words:
1) Democracy always includes different points of view and goals, which inherently results in some conflict.
No Contest = No Democracy.
2) The more people who get involved, the better the CDS can become - so long as we have institutions in place that can accommodate growth and wider participation. My perspective is that the conversations the RA is having about the best way to do this are the most important it is having at the moment.

Edited one time to correct strange characters introduced by a Forum update, none of the text was altered.

[Beathan]

Sonja --

Exactly -- and thank you for bringing this thread back to task.

I think that, all other things aside, the one thing that the CDS most lacks and most suffers from the lack of is -- SL ML exposure. Pat decries the failure of our project to generate excitement in SL. It is hard for people to get excited about us when they don't even know that we exist here in our little isolated island corner of SL. A little exposure on the mainland would go a long, long way.

Beathan

[Jon Seattle]

Jon, I also do not remember the personal attacks directed toward Pat to which you refer. I do remember the term “poo poo head” being used one time toward Patroklus after an RA meeting, when ThePrincess was frustrated by his lack of a response to something, and said something like “Pat, why are you being such a poo poo head about this?” That is certainly not a term I would use, and I don’t know if her feeling of frustration was even truly justified, but I believe you are citing her words completely out of context. Your saying it was said “(several times)” is nothing I ever witnessed.

Sonja, I stand corrected. I checked and it was not two times, it was four:

1. The first time was as you reported it except that person never did say "about this". Just "why are you being so much a poo poo head" period.
2. stop beeing a po poo head
3. no i am not a poo poo head you are
4. poo poo head

And I would like to see the entire transcript published. The context is even more damming. It was three people surrounding Pat and hurling insults, escalating all the while.

You should understand, I grew up as a quiet intellectual kid from an interracial family in a rough neighborhood in New York City. I know all too well from personal experience what can happen when a crowd of people surrounds someone and start hurling insults.

Democracy always includes different points of view and goals, which inherently results in some conflict.

True, but I really do feel we are heading towards a future where harassment becomes an accepted political tool. The idea that you can gain by getting other people to give up and leave is now very much part of our political culture. It should not be.

[Salzie Sachertorte]

Salzie, I strongly object to your characterization of everyone in the Representative Assembly as having acted shamefully! Firstly, I do not think this is true. I can not think of one thing I have done in the RA for which I should feel shame. Can you? Secondly, if you want to see things be different in the RA, I highly suggest that you run for office yourself. It seems to me that the reason for anyone to participate in the government is to try to make it more the way they would like it to be. .

Rereading the transcripts, I stand by my statement. I call them as I see them. A bunch of children bickering, and no one attempting to stop the it - shameful behavior in my book. And the easy response is to say run yourself if you think you can do better. I wish I could, but I know my limitiations - I need to devote my time and energies to real life.

I agree with your other statements. Democracy does need debate and questioning to keep it relevant; however, a line was crossed into what I believe was shameful behavior on the part of our elected leaders.

[Beathan]

::sigh::

I think this is why we need clear procedures -- to keep well meaning people from getting so frustrated they resort to childish name calling. However, I have reread the transcripts for this term -- and I find nothing I did that appears in the transcript of which I am ashamed. The closest thing to the edge of decency I found about myself was my snide comment about LRA dictat -- which was edgy but descriptive and, I think, fair.

The only problem I find is that Pat and ThePrincess frequently had spirited, even rancorous, debates. The representatives of different parties should have such debates. The problem we had, however, is that we lack a coherent procedure for accommodating the debate while productively advancing the agenda. That is, I don't think our problem is personal -- I think it is procedural.

But, I really don't remember the "Poopoo head" event. I must not have been paying attention. Which session was it, I will review the transcript again.

Beathan

[cleopatraxigalia]

Beathan
i am not opposed to your act .. but indeed agree we need to publicize ourselves.

Unfortunately this is one place where "throwing money at it" may not be the best thing. In SL there are many ways.. and I believe they are the most effective.. to advertise with little or NO money.

It is a matter of using those tools and coupling them with methods to reach out to the people who come to us via them.

Just some of the free or almost free things we DONT do.

1. Events listed in SL search are free.
That could be used easily for all of our events, metanomics, meetings, etc. the what i hope to be weekly social, sales of the merchants, etc. on and on ..........we can have an advertisment about who we are and what ever else we want to tell people about CDS.

2. SL search is free and not utilized in any effective way by CDS. The free ads are the most effective in my opinion and not used by us.

3. SLEX has free ads for land for sale we dont use that.

There are more free ways to advertise in SL and honestly as a marketer myself i have found no paid ads that are as effective as the free ones. As far as Anzere......................................woooaah..........lets support that. What an opportunity for us that is not used to its potential, actually i would support all that budget going to anzere.

Lets get anohter sim so we have something to advertise though!!!!

[Beathan]

ThePrincess --

I wholeheartedly agree that we should use free advertising. However, I don't think that we should limit ourselves to it. Also, I think an owned ML presence -- actually having CDS spaces on the mainland to act as embassies -- would be very useful. (Indeed, having embassies on the major islands would be useful as well.)

Thus, I think we should formalize the approach by charging the Chancellor (and any necessary deputies) with the task of increasing CDS exposure -- and I think that we should give the Chancellor a full set of tools with which to work. To me, this process must be a funded mandate -- setting it up as an unfunded mandate is asking the Chancellor to do the job one-handed.

Beathan

[cleopatraxigalia]

great beathan.. i would like to see a comprehensive marketing plan.............at the moment we have nothing to market...........all our land is sold...........no way to become a citizen! i sure hate to market a product that doesnt exist........its always detrimental...........shall please get soemthing to sell first?

like maybe find the head of the SC for starters.. why are you stalling on this?

[Beathan]

TP --

You are right. With no land available, we should not advertise land. However, I still think that we can advertise our project a bit -- get some interest, but without selling land. Further, we can prepare for when land is available -- as we move forward with and increase the speed of expansion.

Are you saying that I am stalling with regard to the SC? I don't understand. Please clarify.

Beathan