Time to kick the tires!

[Micah Sifry]

All:
please go to www.demandquestiontime.com now, if you can, and take a
look....sign the petition, and use this thread to share feedback, bug
reports, etc.
I'm planning to add an About page with a few details about this group.
I know this is very rudimentary -- no real design work beyong the
button logo. But I think we have enough to get going tomorrow. If you
disagree (and political web gurus on this list I'm looking at you),
please say so.
I'll be online from home starting around 8pm...we'll make a final
decision on launch then.
Micah

--
http://www.personaldemocracy.com
http://www.techpresident.com
http://micah.sifry.com
http://www.twitter.com/mlsif

[tgitlin]

Micah:   Looks fine but "Columbia Univeristy" should be "University."  (I've set my own Autocorrect to fix this perversity of the QWERTY keyboard.)  

Let 'er rip.

Best, Todd

-----

Todd Gitlin

Professor of Journalism and Sociology

Chair, Ph. D. Program in Communications

Journalism 201F

Columbia University

New York, NY  10027

Phone:  212-854-8124

Fax:  212-854-7837

tgi...@columbia.edu

http://www.toddgitlin.net

[da...@aol.com]

Looks good. Many thanks once again, Micah. One question. Is it possible for a visitor to leave a reply, thinking s/he is actually signing the petition? I know it says "sign the petition" in a couple of spots. But if you scrowl down, you end up at the reply function, and I wonder if some person might think that's the same as signing. I paused over that for a moment.
DC

[Ari Melber]

Is it possible/easy to add a large type pull quote somewhere on the page? Right now, it's asking everyone to go from headline to a lot of text (by web standards), before they have a 1-sentence feel for why this matters.

Also, at least for the first few days, there ought to be a large indication that this is brand new -- using the date "Launched February 3, 2010," or a red "just launched" sign or something. People like new, and want to be certain they're on a new project, not some old thing that never happened.





Ari Melber
917-363-5213

[tgitlin]

Agree with Ari on both scores.

[Michael Moffo]

Agree with Ari's changes also.

You mentioned the button logo, but I don't see it on the page. Are you still working on that?

Also--we discussed changing the wordpress theme earlier. There are a couple simple, elegant themes we had our eye on (including "Vigilance"), but I was wondering if we have someone who could help with a little customization (essentially, just to modify the logo to fit the graphics that are available on a couple themes. Can anyone on the list help with that? Nothing major--due to time constraints obviously.

Thanks,
M.

[Ari Melber]

Yes - bring back the button!

And great work Micah and everyone, really. 



Ari Melber
917-363-5213

[Michael Moffo]

Also---folks, if you do a simple Facebook search for "Demand Question Time" you should be able to take a quick look at the Facebook fan page. Please DO NOT sign up just yet. We'll do that all at once as soon as we "launch."

I just have the one simple post up there, but I think that's appropriate for now. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or ideas about content for the Facebook page as we move forward. It would be great if people on this list could kick off some discussions once we launch.

The Twitter page is @DemandQTime -- I was thinking of just aggregating the #QuestionTime hashtag and automatically Tweet them all via the account. That would be high volume, but would be cool, useful and easy.

M.

[Micah Sifry]

OK folks, thanks for kicking the tires.

I've added an about-us page (find it in the footer). I've taken the liberty of creating a modest "steering committee" of six people--me, David Corn, Mike Moffo, Mindy Finn, Jon Henke and Glenn Reynolds.

This is so the press has some people to ask questions of...and so we have a balanced group tasked with keeping us honest to our declared goals.

(Ari, you're off the hook because you just started a new job and I didn't want to burden you.)

The site is very spare, I know. We did this without any design staff, so blame me for how spartan it is. Since it is built on Wordpress, we can add posts or pages (such as a list of press hits ... or quotes from people supporting the idea) down the line. My first priority, honestly, would be to get our Facebook and Twitter pages linked prominently from the home page, but I got as much work out of my busy younger brother as I could, and for that I am very thankful!

I'm going to send a general email out to all our endorsers, shortly, given everyone the go ahead to start talking about this, starting in the morning.

Micah

[da...@aol.com]

Mike Allen gave the campaign big love in Politico this AM and in his playbook:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32449.html

I did a column laying out the back story and explaining the coalition:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/02/more-question-time-please

Last night, pre-embargo, I hinted at the coalition on MSNBC.

I hope everyone is enjoying the snow (those in the DC area) and tweeting/blogging up a storm.

Micah, safe travels.

For those who don't know, Obama is scheduled to talk to Senate Dems this AM. So the issue of Question Time may be in the news cycle for that reason.

Thanks all.
David

[Todd Gitlin]

Site is down:  

Error establishing a database connection

-------

Todd Gitlin

Professor of Journalism and Sociology

and Chair, Ph. D. Program in Communications

Columbia University

The Journalism School

Room 201F

New York, NY  10027

Phone:  212-854-8124

Fax:  212-854-7837

E-mail:  tgi...@columbia.edu

www.toddgitlin.net

[da...@aol.com]

Seems to be having trouble loading. I've notified Micah and Mike Moffo. Meanwhile, Hardball is doing aspot on our campaign tonite, and C-SPAN wants to do it tomorrow AM>

=

[da...@aol.com]

Seems to be having trouble loading. I've notified Micah and Mike Moffo. Meanwhile, Hardball is doing aspot on our campaign tonite, and C-SPAN wants to do it tomorrow AM>

-----Original Message-----
From: Todd Gitlin <tg2...@columbia.edu>
To: question...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, Feb 3, 2010 6:17 am
Subject: Re: Question Time in Politco and elsewhere

=

[Harold Pollack]

Great job guys.

> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 6:42 PM, Ari Melber <amel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yes - bring back the button!
>
> And great work Micah and everyone, really.  
>
> Ari Melber
> 917-363-5213
>

> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 6:41 PM, Michael Moffo <michael.mo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Agree with Ari's changes also.
>
> You mentioned the button logo, but I don't see it on the page. Are you still working on that?
>
> Also--we discussed changing the wordpress theme earlier. There are a couple simple, elegant themes we had our eye on (including "Vigilance"), but I was wondering if we have someone who could help with a little customization (essentially, just to modify the logo to fit the graphics that are available on a couple themes. Can anyone on the list help with that? Nothing major--due to time constraints obviously.
>
> Thanks,
> M.
>
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 5:58 PM, tgitlin <tg2...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> Agree with Ari on both scores.
>
> On Feb 2, 2010, at 5:56 PM, Ari Melber wrote:
>
> Is it possible/easy to add a large type pull quote somewhere on the page? Right now, it's asking everyone to go from headline to a lot of text (by web standards), before they have a 1-sentence feel for why this matters.
>
> Also, at least for the first few days, there ought to be a large indication that this is brand new -- using the date "Launched February 3, 2010," or a red "just launched" sign or something. People like new, and want to be certain they're on a new project, not some old thing that never happened.
>
> Ari Melber
> 917-363-5213
>
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 5:53 PM,  <da...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>  Looks good. Many thanks once again, Micah. One question. Is it possible for a visitor to leave a reply, thinking s/he is actually signing the petition? I know it says "sign the petition" in a couple of spots. But if you scrowl down, you end up at the reply function, and I wonder if some person might think that's the same as signing. I paused over that for a moment.
>  DC
>
> -----Original Message-----
>  From: Micah Sifry <msi...@gmail.com>
>  To: question...@googlegroups.com
>  Sent: Tue, Feb 2, 2010 5:43 pm
>  Subject: Time to kick the tires!
>
> All:
>

> please go towww.demandquestiontime.comnow, if you can, and take a

>
> look....sign the petition, and use this thread to share feedback, bug
>
> reports, etc.
>
> I'm planning to add an About page with a few details about this group.
>
> I know this is very rudimentary -- no real design work beyong the
>
> button logo. But I think we have enough to get going tomorrow. If you
>
> disagree (and political web gurus on this list I'm looking at you),
>
> please say so.
>
> I'll be online from home starting around 8pm...we'll make a final
>
> decision on launch then.
>
> Micah
>
> --
>
> http://www.personaldemocracy.com
>
> http://www.techpresident.com
>
> http://micah.sifry.com
>
> http://www.twitter.com/mlsif
>
> -----
>
> Todd Gitlin
> Professor of Journalism and Sociology
> Chair, Ph. D. Program in Communications
>
> Journalism 201F
> Columbia University
> New York, NY  10027
>
> Phone:  212-854-8124
> Fax:  212-854-7837
>

> tgit...@columbia.edu

>
> http://www.toddgitlin.net
>
> -------
>
> Todd Gitlin
> Professor of Journalism and Sociology
> and Chair, Ph. D. Program in Communications
> Columbia University
>
> The Journalism School
> Room 201F
> New York, NY  10027
> Phone:  212-854-8124
> Fax:  212-854-7837

> E-mail:  tgit...@columbia.edu
>
> www.toddgitlin.net
>
> =- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Harold Pollack]

Any eta for when the site will be up?

On Feb 3, 8:29 am, da...@aol.com wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 6:42 PM, Ari Melber <amel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yes - bring back the button!
>
> And great work Micah and everyone, really.  
>
> Ari Melber
> 917-363-5213
>

> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 6:41 PM, Michael Moffo <michael.mo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Agree with Ari's changes also.
>
> You mentioned the button logo, but I don't see it on the page. Are you still working on that?
>
> Also--we discussed changing the wordpress theme earlier. There are a couple simple, elegant themes we had our eye on (including "Vigilance"), but I was wondering if we have someone who could help with a little customization (essentially, just to modify the logo to fit the graphics that are available on a couple themes. Can anyone on the list help with that? Nothing major--due to time constraints obviously.
>
> Thanks,
> M.
>
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 5:58 PM, tgitlin <tg2...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> Agree with Ari on both scores.
>
> On Feb 2, 2010, at 5:56 PM, Ari Melber wrote:
>
> Is it possible/easy to add a large type pull quote somewhere on the page? Right now, it's asking everyone to go from headline to a lot of text (by web standards), before they have a 1-sentence feel for why this matters.
>
> Also, at least for the first few days, there ought to be a large indication that this is brand new -- using the date "Launched February 3, 2010," or a red "just launched" sign or something. People like new, and want to be certain they're on a new project, not some old thing that never happened.
>
> Ari Melber
> 917-363-5213
>
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 5:53 PM,  <da...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>  Looks good. Many thanks once again, Micah. One question. Is it possible for a visitor to leave a reply, thinking s/he is actually signing the petition? I know it says "sign the petition" in a couple of spots. But if you scrowl down, you end up at the reply function, and I wonder if some person might think that's the same as signing. I paused over that for a moment.
>  DC
>
> -----Original Message-----
>  From: Micah Sifry <msi...@gmail.com>
>  To: question...@googlegroups.com
>  Sent: Tue, Feb 2, 2010 5:43 pm
>  Subject: Time to kick the tires!
>
> All:
>

> please go towww.demandquestiontime.comnow, if you can, and take a

>
> look....sign the petition, and use this thread to share feedback, bug
>
> reports, etc.
>
> I'm planning to add an About page with a few details about this group.
>
> I know this is very rudimentary -- no real design work beyong the
>
> button logo. But I think we have enough to get going tomorrow. If you
>
> disagree (and political web gurus on this list I'm looking at you),
>
> please say so.
>
> I'll be online from home starting around 8pm...we'll make a final
>
> decision on launch then.
>
> Micah
>
> --
>
> http://www.personaldemocracy.com
>
> http://www.techpresident.com
>
> http://micah.sifry.com
>
> http://www.twitter.com/mlsif
>
> -----
>
> Todd Gitlin
> Professor of Journalism and Sociology
> Chair, Ph. D. Program in Communications
>
> Journalism 201F
> Columbia University
> New York, NY  10027
>
> Phone:  212-854-8124
> Fax:  212-854-7837
>

> tgit...@columbia.edu

>
> http://www.toddgitlin.net
>
> -------
>
> Todd Gitlin
> Professor of Journalism and Sociology
> and Chair, Ph. D. Program in Communications
> Columbia University
>
> The Journalism School
> Room 201F
> New York, NY  10027
> Phone:  212-854-8124
> Fax:  212-854-7837

[Micah Sifry]

We're working on it. Meantime, tout the facebook group.

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 3, 2010, at 10:21 AM, Harold Pollack <harold...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Micah Sifry]

It's working for me now (and I'm at 35,000 feet). I'll share details on what the problem is/was when we know more.

[Micah Sifry]

Sorry, back down again. Nothing like success. We're working on it.

[Harold Pollack]

I put up a short column.
http://www.samefacts.com/2010/02/politics-and-leadership/demand-question-time/

[Glenn Reynolds]

Do you have the Super Cache plugin installed?

[Micah Sifry]

Yes, that was installed this morning.

The problem was that the petition plugin for Wordpress was badly written, and started hammering the underlying CMS database. We've removed it and replaced it with a Google Form that is holding up quite nicely. You should go in and resign the petition (even if you have already). We have 350 tallied at the moment, with about 20 more coming in every minute (up from 8 a minute at 12:30).

We're now working, gingerly, on displaying a realtime total of petition signatures and maybe recent names.

Sorry for the problems.

Micah