"Political Influence of Adult Sites" and "Free Speech Coalition" pressure.

Tom Hymes · 2006-02-03, 01:17 PM

* RawAlex is probably right about there being more adult webmaster members of FSC than any other group. That sounds like an opportunity to me.

* RawAlex is wrong, imho, that Tim Valenti of NakedSword.com, the one person appointed to the FSC Board, is a "video guy." I certainly don't think Tim would characterize himself that way, but whatever. I did not have anything to do with that, the Board made the decision. If one of you had run and gathered even a little bit of support, you would have been on the Board. Tim was appointed because not enough people ran!

* RawAlex is invited to run for the Board next time. He would be a great asset. If he's interested, he should contact me soon. (That's not meant to exclude others. See below.)

* The fact is, we are actively working on developing policies that speak to the most difficult issues we face, which of course are Internet issues. Wanna help?

* I am putting together an outline for a specific proposal regarding metatags right now. When it is done, I will be soliciting feedback from people who know far more about coding than I, and will certainly ask people on this board for help. I should have the outline finished in a week or so. I am on board for developing a tag that is "short, simple and clean"

* Anyone who is interested in having a voice in the policies developed by the Free Speech Coalition is encouraged to contact me. We are actively soliciting people to run for the Board next year. My contact info is below.

* Our federal lobbyists are working overtime in DC. They are fucking connected. You have no idea the feedback we are getting. They say there are open minds on the Hill. What you see on TV is mostly agitprop theater. The real work happens behind the scenes. We are there. Help us develop the right positions and policies so that when our lobbyists go into a Senator's office, your ideas come out through their mouths.

* Email or call me. If you are interested in helping us, I will ask you for a phone number. If you don't give it to me, if I can't contact you other than through email, if you remain an anonymous person, your ideas will get through, but obviously we will have hit a brick wall as far as more hands on participation.

Thanks!

Tom
tom@freespeechcoalition.com
818.304.1712 cell

Bill · 2006-02-03, 03:02 PM

Ha ha ha Tom! Extra points to you for the excellent use of bullet points! ;-}

And I also think Alex would make a good board member - we're going to have to twist his arm on this when the next round of elections come along. He's our 'professional skeptic', but his research tends to be very strong.

I'm going to quickly close with two points:

1. The issue with the FSC website is very important to us. Please discuss it with board members, your technical staff and webmaster, your information officer, or whomever else is appropriate. Find out what you need at your end to give the website the ability to take credit cards and to add some kind of interactivity like a blog or message board.

2. Think about what _you_ and the FSC need from your membership, and let us know. This might make an excellent page or pages to add to the website - a "What can you do to help?" page. (You have a 'volunteer' link on the website, for example, but it just leads to a blank email.) What can webmasters, from the mom-and-pops to the big traffic whales, do to help?

Bill · 2006-02-03, 03:39 PM

I'm trying to come up with a list of the suggestions made so far, I'm just going to try to number them in order received:

1. To start, I want to make one suggestion to you that I think everyone here would agree with. We'd like to see improvements to the website, to have the website modernized a bit. An online system for accepting memberships and contributions would probably be the most important thing, and something that allows quicker two way communications, like a blog.

2. We know FSC will bitch about the cost of revamping their website. So we have a fund&skills drive here at GG&J, pull together the few thou and the workers it will take to give them a CC processor and a blog. In exchange the FSC puts a banner to GG&J on their website, making GG&J the "official" cool webmaster board.

3. Set up a one-hour live chat session with the FSC where any webmaster can participate without hopping on a plane.

4. When you finally get your online payment system happening, would you consider offering an “associate membership” for non US citizens? Or perhaps accept one-off donations?

5. Fund a general advertising campaign telling parents how to use filtering software - and make sure they knew it was the adult industry behind the ads. And on top of that, you'd probably need to launch a big PR campaign making sure the media know about the advertising and report on it. It's hard to put an anti-porn spin on the idea of "Adult Industry promotes web filtering", although I'm sure they'll give it a red hot go.

6. lobby Visa to drop their "high risk" $750 extortion fee.

7. (paraphraseing what I think Alex is really saying) Make the FSC more transparent by discussing membership numbers, budget, and expenses.

And I'll add #8:

8. Hire an "online information officer" whose job would be to use boardtracker to patrol the boards (and maybe blogs), answer questions about the FSC and make reports about FSC activities, make daily or weekly entries in the newly created FSC blog, and in other ways act as a liason between the onliners and the FSC board.

So, that's 8 suggestions to start out with - we need about a dozen more to make this an official brainstorm.

Do me a favor please, and if you make a suggestion, bullet point it or otherwise emphasize it so it's easy to find and copy.

And don't stop making suggestions - we need a dozen more! What do you want the FSC to do for us, if we could get them to spend up to $50K on your project?

DJilla · 2006-02-03, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Hymes

*
* The fact is, we are actively working on developing policies that speak to the most difficult issues we face, which of course are Internet issues. Wanna help?

* I am putting together an outline for a specific proposal regarding metatags right now. When it is done, I will be soliciting feedback from people who know far more about coding than I, and will certainly ask people on this board for help. I should have the outline finished in a week or so. I am on board for developing a tag that is "short, simple and clean"

Simple metags that filters can/will recognize and SE's can/will index only with a self reporting regulation system modeled on how we handle spam now. This is the ways to go folks! Also, a great opportunity for the more technical of you to become a footnote in history by getting involved and making it happen. There is a lot of politicking and email work to be done trying to make a standard happen.

I'd like to suggest that "its a two way street" and to have the most influence upon FSC, we also should show them respect and demonstrate that we can offer a solid base of support. How to do this?

We're all link whores anyway, at minimum a text link to their website on an index page would be nice

I'm pretty sure you should be a member to use their banner but a text link is cool. Send traffic to the site we want them to improve and show how many more surfers may be interested.

Second: FSC does run on money/donations so participants in the discussion should be encouraged to at least become members. Many "ma and pa" lists couldn't afford the $300 per website hit for FSC membership. But how about signing up for a personal membership (like $50?)?

Remember FSC also runs successful legal referal services for local cases too:

2006-02-03, 01:17 PM	#1
Tom Hymes Internet! Is that thing still around? Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 3	* RawAlex is probably right about there being more adult webmaster members of FSC than any other group. That sounds like an opportunity to me. * RawAlex is wrong, imho, that Tim Valenti of NakedSword.com, the one person appointed to the FSC Board, is a "video guy." I certainly don't think Tim would characterize himself that way, but whatever. I did not have anything to do with that, the Board made the decision. If one of you had run and gathered even a little bit of support, you would have been on the Board. Tim was appointed because not enough people ran! * RawAlex is invited to run for the Board next time. He would be a great asset. If he's interested, he should contact me soon. (That's not meant to exclude others. See below.) * The fact is, we are actively working on developing policies that speak to the most difficult issues we face, which of course are Internet issues. Wanna help? * I am putting together an outline for a specific proposal regarding metatags right now. When it is done, I will be soliciting feedback from people who know far more about coding than I, and will certainly ask people on this board for help. I should have the outline finished in a week or so. I am on board for developing a tag that is "short, simple and clean" * Anyone who is interested in having a voice in the policies developed by the Free Speech Coalition is encouraged to contact me. We are actively soliciting people to run for the Board next year. My contact info is below. * Our federal lobbyists are working overtime in DC. They are fucking connected. You have no idea the feedback we are getting. They say there are open minds on the Hill. What you see on TV is mostly agitprop theater. The real work happens behind the scenes. We are there. Help us develop the right positions and policies so that when our lobbyists go into a Senator's office, your ideas come out through their mouths. * Email or call me. If you are interested in helping us, I will ask you for a phone number. If you don't give it to me, if I can't contact you other than through email, if you remain an anonymous person, your ideas will get through, but obviously we will have hit a brick wall as far as more hands on participation. Thanks! Tom tom@freespeechcoalition.com 818.304.1712 cell

2006-02-03, 03:02 PM	#2
Bill Selling porn allows me to stay in a constant state of Bliss - ain't that a trip! Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 3,914	Ha ha ha Tom! Extra points to you for the excellent use of bullet points! ;-} And I also think Alex would make a good board member - we're going to have to twist his arm on this when the next round of elections come along. He's our 'professional skeptic', but his research tends to be very strong. I'm going to quickly close with two points: 1. The issue with the FSC website is very important to us. Please discuss it with board members, your technical staff and webmaster, your information officer, or whomever else is appropriate. Find out what you need at your end to give the website the ability to take credit cards and to add some kind of interactivity like a blog or message board. 2. Think about what _you_ and the FSC need from your membership, and let us know. This might make an excellent page or pages to add to the website - a "What can you do to help?" page. (You have a 'volunteer' link on the website, for example, but it just leads to a blank email.) What can webmasters, from the mom-and-pops to the big traffic whales, do to help?

2006-02-03, 03:39 PM	#3
Bill Selling porn allows me to stay in a constant state of Bliss - ain't that a trip! Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 3,914	I'm trying to come up with a list of the suggestions made so far, I'm just going to try to number them in order received: 1. To start, I want to make one suggestion to you that I think everyone here would agree with. We'd like to see improvements to the website, to have the website modernized a bit. An online system for accepting memberships and contributions would probably be the most important thing, and something that allows quicker two way communications, like a blog. 2. We know FSC will bitch about the cost of revamping their website. So we have a fund&skills drive here at GG&J, pull together the few thou and the workers it will take to give them a CC processor and a blog. In exchange the FSC puts a banner to GG&J on their website, making GG&J the "official" cool webmaster board. 3. Set up a one-hour live chat session with the FSC where any webmaster can participate without hopping on a plane. 4. When you finally get your online payment system happening, would you consider offering an “associate membership” for non US citizens? Or perhaps accept one-off donations? 5. Fund a general advertising campaign telling parents how to use filtering software - and make sure they knew it was the adult industry behind the ads. And on top of that, you'd probably need to launch a big PR campaign making sure the media know about the advertising and report on it. It's hard to put an anti-porn spin on the idea of "Adult Industry promotes web filtering", although I'm sure they'll give it a red hot go. 6. lobby Visa to drop their "high risk" $750 extortion fee. 7. (paraphraseing what I think Alex is really saying) Make the FSC more transparent by discussing membership numbers, budget, and expenses. And I'll add #8: 8. Hire an "online information officer" whose job would be to use boardtracker to patrol the boards (and maybe blogs), answer questions about the FSC and make reports about FSC activities, make daily or weekly entries in the newly created FSC blog, and in other ways act as a liason between the onliners and the FSC board. So, that's 8 suggestions to start out with - we need about a dozen more to make this an official brainstorm. Do me a favor please, and if you make a suggestion, bullet point it or otherwise emphasize it so it's easy to find and copy. And don't stop making suggestions - we need a dozen more! What do you want the FSC to do for us, if we could get them to spend up to $50K on your project?