The Davis Square Community

I think that there may be large enough strategic voting blocs of subcommunities that the "IRV" will work, but yeah, it's a terrible tease to have something being presented as IRV but to still not be sure if it's OK to vote for your first choice in first place. I've switched my first and second choices back & forth several times now, and I'm not 100% sure I won't again as it gets closer to midnight, which if a lot of folks think like me could be a really fun mess.

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cos

If the IRV "works" it'll only be because enough people got the message that it *doesn't* work and have switched their first choice vote to someone they think has a chance of winning. But even with that, I think it won't.

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Ugh. If you wanna delve into any specifics, I posted about the elections in my journal today with the understanding blocs might work, so I'd appreciate your comments with relation to the candidates I was discussing but don't want to mention any names at all here. Don't want to lead my friends to think it can work if there's really no chance.

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VERY SERIOUSLY, if this post turns into any kind of debate over the candidates I will delete it. Your message is good. I think everyone needs to leave it that.

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Who are the candidates and what is this vote all about. I would appreciate some more information on that, honestly.

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The original poster linked to other communities. Go there. Do not bring it here.

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I understand that there seems to be some pressure involved which I will not digress on. However an honest statement would be appreciated.

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There are a zillion communities where that information is given, and where the candidates' personal statements are reproduced.

Why do you feel the need to have this topic discussed in this community, especially when a moderator has said that that wouldn't be appropriate?

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Because it was brought up in this community. I did not post it in the first place and frankly I do not read these communities where it maybe was brought up.

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Why should there be a discussion of this in this community? And

lj_election_en is the official voting community; you can find the various links to the candidates' statements there.

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surrealestate.livejournal.com

Anything that is posted here can be discussed -- that's why we have a rule against screening or disabling comments. I don't think this post belongs here in the first place, but I would prefer if the OP chose to remove it hirself.

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Well, I think that a reminder of the election is vaguely on-topic, but electioneering for any given candidates seems to me spectacularly off-topic.

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Why should there be a discussion of this in this community?

Because it was posted to this community. I am not appreciative of clicking this link and will not. So can you repost what is stated in there or is this an issue?

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What on Earth do you mean "I am not appreciative of clicking this link"? IT'S THE LINK TO THE OFFICIAL ELECTION COMMUNITY, not goatse! You won't be able to vote unless you click the link!

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I do not want to vote unless I get the information what I vote for. Who do I elect? For what reason? Can you be more explicit, that would be highly appreciated.

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cos

I don't understand. If you are interested in finding out, those communities have the information you want. Repeatedly asking for information from people who don't want to advocate here isn't going to get you the answers you want. Either look there, where you know that information is, or don't.

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I don't understand either. When someone is so adamant about this I am very cautious. You are talking to IT professionals here...

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The fact that this is an active topic on LJ at large is true, and the relevancy is that the directions taken by the owners of LJ may affect this community in future. Vote, or don't vote. But the topic has been discussed ad nauseum in lots of places by lots of people outside this community. It would be like looking at this comm only for direction on the national Presidential elections. The information you're looking for is elsewhere. The discussion itself tends to turn into a rather nasty debate, which is why I am not eager to host it in davis_square at all.

And sorry, the entirity of the comm is not IT professionals. You may be one, as am I, but that's not everyone.

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You know your Latin then ;o).

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You should read the candidates' statements and vote for the candidate whose positions you find most aligned with your own interests and concerns.

Both the candidates' statements and the poll (which is where you vote) are to be found at

lj_election_en.

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Yeah I vote for Hillary, really...

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Good god. Are we so uptight that a simple explanation can't be posted? We don't need to make it a debate - hell, delete EVERY post that tries to debate or elaborate on said explanation - but seriously: this needs context.

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As an addendum, it also sounds like this post has no place in davis_square, which isn't something I would usually say. Either this is relevant and deserves to be posted in a manner that makes it sensible within the boundaries of the community (i.e., with context), or it's irrelevant and should be deleted outright. Half of the information is just frustrating.

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It's not a question of "uptight"--it's a question of what's on-topic for the community.

There is an election of a "user representative" to the LJ Advisory Board (actually, there are two; one for Russian-language users, and one for English-language users).

The information about the candidates is available at the election community,

lj_election_en.

Discussion, endorsement, campaigning, etc., for specific candidates is completely off-topic for this community.

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Either it's relevant and we should discuss it here, or it's irrelevant and we should not.

It isn't reasonable to tell the users of this community that they may say -certain- things about some topic, but not others. I truly appreciate the effort the mods put in to keep the community relevant, but please make it black or white. I don't like the idea of being able to say, "X is happening, but we're not allowed to say anything about X."

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Well, then you and I disagree, I guess.

I think an announcement that the election is happening is somewhere at the very limits of on-topic for the community; a discussion of the merits and demerits of the candidates is spectacularly off-topic for the community, in my opinion.

Not a mod, just a community member.

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Fair enough. :)

It's not a giant issue, but if there is a trend of this kind of post it's probably worth reaching some consensus on.

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There are links to each candidate's journal and platform on the election page, which is linked in the post, but is also for your convenience here: http://community.livejournal.com/lj_election_en/25463.html

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See my above comment.

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If you want to know more about my personal thoughts, feel free to check today's post in my journal. I really really don't want to get into anything more than an announcement of the logistics of the election here, since it's really not the place. In my post linked to a post trying to aggregate all the discussion around the controversies, which you can check. I don't want to even bring that link here since the only reason for posting here is that, like it or not, we run this very important-to-Somerville and important-to-Davis community on a commercial site that's had a lot of serious issues, and we're being offered, however much or little they intend to listen to it, a chance to take a collective stand on what's important to us.

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Apologies, but if you post any sensible information unshielded you are supposedly in big trouble. I would not even post sensible information in my own journal.

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Thank you, it's much appreciated and I agree with your willingness to delete if needed. I am myself skeptical of how much LJ/SUP plan to take any of this seriously - it wouldn't even surprise me if a week from now we hear the winner is disqualified and the whole process will be scrapped or redone. I'd expect almost anything from them now. But IMHO if we're to keep relying on LJ as a service for important Somerville community discussions, we owe it to ourselves to do our part and express our opinions when LJ actually bothers to ask for them :).

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surrealestate.livejournal.com

If this isn't a place for discussion of this topic (which it isn't), then this isn't a place for this announcement, either.

Just because many people read this comm doesn't mean that everything that we think many people should know about ought to go here.

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Starting to agree with you. See meta post.

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tober.livejournal.com

I feel compelled to lay down some smack here:
1. This is thoroughly, completely, and utterly off-topic and ought not appear in this community.
2. There is no evidence to suggest that, in a situation where it actually matters, SUP/SixApart will give any credence or deference to the opinion of the advisory committee. If you think otherwise then, in my estimation, you're deluded.

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I actually think that the links in the original post should be pruned to include only the

lj_election_en community; some (at least) of the other communities are electionEERING communities, not election information communities.

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inkscarred.livejournal.com

Anyone from Davis running?

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I had considered running, but decided not to. People also tried to convince Ron to run, I believe, but he didn't either. If I haven't left LJ in disgust at SUP by the next election, maybe there will be a Davis contender then.

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Okay, on second thought, I think this is out of hand. I'd request that a mod delete this whole hoo-ha and perhaps make an "announcement" post, with frozen comments, with a link to the official election community.

It seems like people are now trying to draw

elements into an endorsement of a candidate or candidates, even though that was clearly not the point of the original post.

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cos

I think the announcement is kind of useful, though I wish the threads asking for endorsements and suchlike would go away. While this community is about Davis Square, this community is on LJ. Knowing about a big all-LJ issue that affects the site's governance (and hence the continued existence of the community, and how it might or might not be changed) is relevant.

Since there are plenty of places to discuss the candidates and issues in greater detail, I understand why people are reluctant to bring those issues here. But the announcement itself should not be deleted IMO.

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Well, my other problem with the original post is that it includes links to electioneering communities as though they were the same as the official election community.

But I do think that reminding people that the election is happening, and nearing its end, is potentially useful.

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I deleted those links. Sorry, I honestly hadn't even gone to those communities, just had them linked to me as places to discuss the election, so I hadn't realized they'd become uncivilized.

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I don't think those particular communities are "uncivilized", it's just that they advocate for certain candidates. (And clearly you weren't trying to stack the deck there, because you included comms that advocated for different candidates.)

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