Frequently Asked Questions
Rules of the Road or "Put your cynicism down."
- We want people to use Myissue.DevalPatrick.com for the betterment of their community and to encourage participation (as well as have some fun!). We hope you use it for its intended purposes.
- No deliberate inflammatory or obscene issues. We will delete, at our discretion and without notice, any posts, issues, or coalitions that we deem inflammatory or obscene.
- We know some issues are controversial, but we ask that everyone post their issue in a positive light instead of in a negative light. That is, if you disagree with an issue someone has posted, don't just write a post on their issue that states "I am against this and here is why." Instead, create an issue that states: "This is what I am for and here is why" and build support around it.
- There is no anonymous posting. We believe that if you want the Governor to read your post, or have others support, you should be willing to put your name on it.
- No imposters or impersonating. There really is no point to try and hide behind someone else's name. If you believe in what you wrote, then use your own name. If you don't use your own name others won't take what you wrote seriously and remember: NO ONE IS TRULY ANONYMOUS ONLINE. Besides, what if the Governor wants to call you -- you want him to call you and not some person you are impersonating.
Issue fields you can edit
- Name
- What you are calling your issue
- Coordinators
- Add or remove coordinators for your issue. Coordinators can edit your issue in the same way you can.
- Description
- The information you want people to know about your issue. Be persuasive.
- Message from the coordinator
- This is a place where the coordinator can timely messages and calls to action. The message will appear in a box on the issue page, and changing it does not make votes go stale.
- Image
- Upload an image you want people to see with your issue.
- Tags
- Tags are keywords associated with your issue. This helps people find your issue and coordinate. Example, "Health Care, Environment, Crime" Be sure to choose tags relevant to your issue.
- Category
- You can choose a primary category for your issue. This will enable it to be ranked with others in its category on the scoreboard page.
- Coalition
- Use this to build a coalition with another group.
- Named Link
- Use this to create an easy to remember link to send people (optional)
Stale votes
Votes are marked stale if the name or title of the issue has been changed since the person voted. They can click on VOTE again to reconfirm their vote and remove the stale indication.Formatting issue descriptions and vote comments
- Blank lines separate paragraphs.
- You can include links by just typing the URL (http://example.com/...) This is an excellent thing to do if you have a conversation going about this issue on a blog somehere.
- Note that these forms do not have a way to save partially completed drafts, so you should normally compose your text in a file on your system, then paste the result here when you are finished.
-
The size limit is about 5000 bytes (around 5 paragraphs). The exact
limit depends on your browser, and sometimes browsers crash when they
try to submit large amounts of text. If you need a lot of space, the
best way is post your essay on an external web site, then post a brief
description and a link from here. Two of the easiest ways to do this
are:
- Post your eassy to a blog, and then paste the resulting permalink into your comment here.
- Post your eassy as a free web page service like http://pages.google.com and use that link in your comment.
Coalitions
When the people coordinating two or more issues realize that they share enough common goals that they would like to pool their votes for the scoreboard, they can form a coalition. The issues themselves remain separate, and each group can continue to collect votes. The vote count for the coalitions is the total of all of the votes for each component issue (after eliminating duplicates).
Anyone can create a coalition, and then invite issue coordinators to join. The way the invitation works is that the coalition coordinator chooses a password and communicates it to the desired issue coordinators by email, telephone, or whatever. The issue coordinator then uses the password to join. Thus, the system makes sure that both the coalition coordinator and the issue coordinator agree about joining. The either the coalition coordinator or the issue coordinator can remove an issue from a coalition. It is ok if the coalition coordinator is also the coordinator of one or more issues.
How to create a coalition
- Start at http://myissue.devalpatrick.com and click the Create a new coalition button at the top of the right hand column
- Fill in the blanks with a title and description of your coalition and click Create. You will be taken to the main screen for the coalition.
- Click the red button to go to the coalition administration screen.
- Click the Edit button on the Coalition invitation password row, then enter a password of your choice.
- Send the name of the coalition and the password to each issue coordinators that you want to have join the coalition. One way to do this is to use the Send email to the coordinator button that appears on on each issue page.
How to join a coalition
The coalition coordinator will follow the steps, above, and will send the issue coordinators the name of the coalition and a password. The issue coordinator then preforms these steps:
- Go to your issue page, then click the red button to go to the issue administration page
- Click the Edit button on the Coalition row
- Enter the coalition name in the search box, then select the desired entry from the list.
- Enter the invitation password into the box, and you are done.