I Voted! Did You? IT'S FUN!!!

[ret32]

So here's the background. Most of you have hopefully heard of Obama's Great Outdoors Initiative. You know that you can share ideas, but maybe you can't think of anything good to say, or don't have time to draft anything, or you can't figure out how it works. BUT did you know that you can simply VOTE for or against other people's ideas!!?? That sounds a lot quicker doesn't it? C'mon! It's fun! Everbody's doing it!

Please check out the website at this link and look through the "vote yes" and "vote no" suggestion. Follow the instructions and vote your conscience on these hot topics. While you're on AGO's website, take a few minutes and look through other ideas and vote for them too. Then, get everybody you know to vote. Come back and update your answers in the poll as you progress.

Then, stay tuned for more... (There are a few of us working on making a list of other hot topic items that need your votes as well). Find something else you think we need to vote on? Post up the link.

See also, BRC's latest action alert on this at http://www.sharetrails.org/public_lands/?section=AGOI

 

[anderson750]

Check out this page on America's Great Outdoors IdeaJam:
http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf/0/4EFE26C7EFE9B48E86257799005F8156

 

[ret32]

Really?????? 131 views of this thread (probably representing maybe 50 to 70 users) and only 2 of you have logged in to AGO and voted!?

Come on guys, this is simpler than writing a letter or attending a scoping meeting or calling your Senator or showing up for NPLD. This is the easiest way to date to have a voice in public land use, you get to choose your own level of involvement (vote, comment, or present new ideas). In the amount of time it takes to read this post, you can log in and vote or comment about your favorite public land issue.

Check out this page on America's Great Outdoors IdeaJam:
http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf/0/4EFE26C7EFE9B48E86257799005F8156

Point taken. However, this is a huge government agency, they probably have more employees than the total number of citizens who have so far participated in the process. They have the resources available to fully analyze the data in detail. The best statisticians and poll analysts have the methods available to account for errors based on their assessment of the risks of fraud, "self-selection," and many other factors that can predictably skew the data.

On the lowest level, they can simply identify users with extreme activity (the full-timers) and heavily discount the issues they are involved in. On perhaps the highest level, they could possibly do something like send a "thank you" or a "confirmation of participation" email to all registered users, then remove from the database all users with invalid email addresses. I'm sure they have many other ways of confirming and adjusting the data to correct for problems.

At any rate, whether they do or do not adjust the data for errors, the question that I take from anderson750's link is:

"Should you or should you not participate in the idea/comment/vote forum?"

I say YES. The more motorized users who are involved, the more the administration HAS to acknowledge the fact that we are a significant population of voters that cannot simply be ignored in order to appease a few East Coast and/or California-based special interest groups. It (the administration) probably will (ignore us) anyway, but at the least they need to be aware that they will be heavily opposed by a significant number.

At whatever level people are playing games and manipulating the system, it is certainly happening on all sides. So simply NOT participating because it is a flawed system, only gives the other side a larger voice. Silence IS NOT the best way to make yourself heard.

 

[ttora4runner]

I voted on a few of those over on that site.

 

[Herzog]

I did this earlier but never replied back to this thread.