Joy and I spent some time talking about the web system today and agreed that we'd like to know:

1. if you could provide WRITTEN answers to many, if not all, of the questions that Amy sent to you?

2. if you could please put "organization affiliation" in !!!!???? This really needs to happen! Sub domains won't work!

3. how we can check globally to make sure that the 5551 MAP members who have supposedly matched up have truly matched at BOTH the federal and state level? They could have matched up with their US senator and house member, but not their state senator and house member. Also, how can we check to make sure they have acceptable email addresses (without mistakes like a comma instead of an @ sign)?

4. How do we spam the 29 members who have failed to match up at all? We need to send a message asking them to update their HOME addresses so we CAN match them up.

5. how we update the fax number list? ... MANY of the fax numbers are wrong! We need to update these before sending out an alert. I'm working on getting the correct list to you ASAP.

6. what to do about passwords for all these folks who are already in the system?

-- Anonymous, April 07, 1999

Answers

1) I will respond to Amy's questions little by little both through the bulleting Board (Lisa pleased use it)

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic=MAN%2dEDF

password talk4edfman

A lot of these questions are also answered during the training session, sign up for one. I have been on the phone with Amy for almost three hours today, I think we have gone through most of these.

2) I dont understand what you are saying. This is your signup page. It has the info that I think is necessary, that is the only info I can change:

http://actionnetwork.org/add.tcl?domain=MI_Action_Project

If you want something changed there, I can do so in the Text of the page, I cannot rename fields.

3) There is a built in tool that allows you to explore district matching. It allows you to pull out the members that have not been matched. At this point we do not offer a way of communicating with these people, you can only communicate with all the list.

Each email is validated at time of signing. It checks for an @ symbol a user name and a domain name.

4) WE cannot spam them as a group, it would have to be on a one by one basis. I know it sucks.

5) You cannot, if you don't want to use the data the system has -I don't at the local level- then you have to create your own targets by hand- these targets cannot be associated via CD info though... If you want to compare the list we have with yours go to:

http://www.actionnetwork.org/ldsbrowse

and compare.

-- Anonymous, April 07, 1999

Some mailing addresses won't be match-able to the LDS list of Congressional and legislative districts no matter what we do (ask Heidi for why, it has to do with changing Zip+4 entries and so on). Likewise, since some Zip+4 areas are split between districts, in about 0.5% of the cases (1 in 200) someone may be listed in the wrong district (i.e., they live on the half of the block that is in the next district to the one they are listed for). The only way around this is to pull the data directly out of the voter file (or else ask them, and how many people do you know who remember who their reps are?!). On the other hand the problem is not so great since legislators respond to their constituents and someone who is three houses outside their district looks just as valid unless they check. And they don't check.

The question of "well-formed" email addresses is on Amy's list (I know, I helped formulate that one :) The EDF system did some checking for that, I'm not sure if the Ars Digita one does. I'm sure Azur will let us know.

The password issue is tricky because of the security and confusion factors. After talking with Amy yesterday, when we tentatively concluded maybe the best thing is to have the state coordinators enter all list changes for the time being, it different approach occurred to me. If someone needed to change their entry, then and only then they could get a password from the state coordinator. This would actually decrease the workload on the coordinators (Amy, Kristen, and whoever else). I am really opposed to mass-mailing passwords to thousands of people at this point. That is a guarantee for confusion, complaints and lots of cleanups. *plus* people will lose and forget them later on.

phred

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999