Validity of Web-Forms-Based Advocacy Questioned

RobotRunAmok writes "We've all heard that, to better gain a legislator's attention, one should write a letter or send a fax, rather than click off an e-mail. Made sense, no? Well, PC World is reporting that the US Forestry Service is considering taking that truism to it's logical, or perhaps extreme, extension. The Tree People seek a regulation that would allow them to "ignore any public comments on the rule-making process sent to it through Web-based forms." The knickers of the EFF are in the predictable twist. The Issue: Sure, we all know Web-based petitions and advocacy campaigns are bogus, but they made us feel good, almost like we were participating in The Process, so is it really polite to rub our noses in our own ineffectuality this way?"

Comments

Easy to Understand Reasoning But Bad Result

[Babbster]

I can understand the desire to simply ignore thousands of comments from one source (i.e. a single public-action website). After all, such a mass could easily be flooding by one group. Considering the number of automated spam messages I can get from one source in one day (and of course ignore), I understand it that much more.

However, the fact is that these people shouldn't be entrusted with the power to simply block opinions that they've heard before. The most relevant passage to me was the following:

"A bunch of e-mails that say the same thing with no specific comments don't tell us anything," Walsh says. "We'll take e-mails by the millions" if the correspondence becomes more specific, he adds.

"If you're going to take the time to respond and you care, then put some effort into it," Walsh advises correspondents.

Why should an individual have to formulate their own personal argument when their position is clearly stated in a form letter? Are we all supposed to quit our jobs and become full-time environmental researchers and activists? It seems to me that this would lock out petitions as well - after all, the petition is going to have one statement but will be signed as being the position of many people. Should each of those people have ignored the petition and instead written an individual letter?

The best course, in my opinion, is for the USDA to require a verified (automatically verified via a "go to this page" e-mail as message boards do) e-mail address on each web-based form letter they receive. This would allow them to weed out e-mail flooding by groups that are pretending to have thousands of people involved where it might in fact be just their staff filling in forms.

Alternatively, they could provide polls on their own website (provided to environmental action groups for linking) asking for opinions on each policy decision requiring public comments. Again, they could have an e-mail verification sent out that would have to be received and read (with a click verification) in an attempt to ensure that each vote is from a specific person.

Even simpler would be a "you've already given your vote/opinion" cookie, though this would be even easier to get around than a click-verify e-mail.

All of these would take a bit more work and there are still possibilities for abuse, but the solution they're proposing seems to be the most lazy and intellectually dishonest way possible - something too many bureaucrats love.

Foolishness

[Tropaios]

It seems really foolish to me they would discount electronic communication as a legitimate conduit for the voice of the people.

There are many advanages as well as a couple of disadvantages I can see.

Pluses:
1. The ease of use for most people is considerable. Just type and click. Many people, myself included, are too lazy or busy to sit down and write a letter, put it in an envelope with a stamp, then put it in the mail.

2. It's easily manageable. They can filter it electronically. They can make back-ups. They can measure percentages. They can quickly re-distribute messages. They can make the information readily available for the masses.

3. It's immediate. Feedback can be received on issues immediately, as they occur.

Minuses:
1. It could be flooded with astroturf, spam, junk, or just someone down the street with an agenda could write 30 messages a day skewing the data.

2. It's impersonal. If you REALLY cared you'd take the time to write or call your legislator personally.

Overall though I think the communication is what is important. I cannot see how the method of transmission can enhance or diminish the value of the thoughts or feelings contained therein.

It would be a bad policy, and a poor precedent to set, to blanketly ignore the voices of people who for whatever reason use a particular technology to speak their mind.

Taking a Karma Hit For The Team

[Babbster]

I'm willing to take a drubbing to say something I consider important.

It's sad that at the time I'm writing this, there are a total of 21 comments about a REAL issue that could significantly impact the political influence of every Internet user on important governmental issues, while there are 702 comments split between two topics concerned about a convicted felon's ability to get a job (Kevin Mitnick and other data criminals). I consider it to be indicative of a sad state of affairs in the world o'the Slashdot.

I'm by no means an environmental extremist and could not even be called an environmentalist. I just think it's a damn shame that people here can't seem to tell the difference between something that could be important to anyone who cares about the way our government works and something that's at best important only to people convicted of crimes.

This soapbox isn't going to hold up under my weight any longer, so I'll step down.

Damn liberals

[bill_mcgonigle]

What's the issue here?

• "Email makes it too easy to share opinions with our agency"

  let's give them some credit and assume they're not trying to silence the citizens who wish to share their opinions.

  
  
• "We can't hand the amount of e-mail."

  Sophistry, they could get a contractor for a few bucks to write an e-mail pattern matching system to automatically detect, record, and count form-letter messages.

  
  
• "We prefer communication channels which contribute to forestry activites"

  OK, they're not as relevant if paper is devalued but this is a bit too simplistic.

  
  
• "The people who have access to Internet mail and tend to organize online are overwhelmingly tree-hugging hippies who are opposed to many of our policies. Internet sites make it easier for our constituancy to share opinions with us, so if people on our side of major issues tend to use paper-based communication and those opposed to our policies are well-organized electronically, we would be forced to show that the public, as represented by received communications, is usually in overwhelming opposition to our policies."

  Now we're getting somewhere.