Ideas for an archive?

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1. joanjstrong says:

   October 4, 2012 at 11:59 pm

   Isn’t all correspondence to the White House archived somewhere? Is it made public? I know that is the case with our local elected bodies here in California…

   Reply
2. Jon Awbrey says:

   October 5, 2012 at 12:14 am

   You could use an open wiki site like MyWikiBiz.

   I could help with the initial set-up if you tell me how you want to organize it.

   P.S. I tried posting the link, but had some sort of problem …

   Reply
   • Jon Awbrey says:

     October 5, 2012 at 12:20 am

     Here is their Facebook page:

     http://www.facebook.com/MyWikiBiz/info

     Their main page link is in the contact info.

     Reply
3. Joanne Simons says:

   October 5, 2012 at 12:20 am

   Google Docs or Dropbox might be used

   Reply
4. mahlness says:

   October 5, 2012 at 12:42 am

   Think everybody, there has to be a way to make this really, really big. A few ideas to get the ball rolling – maybe it needs to be a collection of different approaches:

   cc emails to a special gmail account…. send letters as comments to a post on Diane’s blog…. set up a change.org petition/letter… set up a Facebook page for people to post/link to their messages… a twitter hashtag linking to letters people put online… a YouTube multimedia letter (with comments)… a wiki… multiple media releases to spread the word of the event in the first place.

   Throwing out a few thoughts, knowing there are more ways to get the deed done. I will provide grunt work, and I bet many reading here would, too. More thoughts?

   Reply
5. Robert D. Shepherd says:

   October 5, 2012 at 1:37 am

   Yahoo Groups allows people to create a group and to share documents. Meetup also allows for the posting of shared documents, so you could start a meetup group.

   Reply
   • dianerav says:

     October 5, 2012 at 8:22 am

     Thanks. I need someone to do it. I can barely get through reading 500 comments daily.

     Diane

     Reply
6. Robert D. Shepherd says:

   October 5, 2012 at 1:39 am

   Yahoo Groups is free. Meetup has a minimal charge but a MUCH nicer interface. In both cases, there is a shared document repository, and members can post documents.

   Reply
7. Baker says:

   October 5, 2012 at 1:46 am

   A little off topic, but this is a great article. I wasn’t sure how best to share it with you. Have you seen it? I am an exhausted American teacher and I can relate and then some.

   http://theeducatorsroom.com/2012/09/the-exhaustion-of-the-american-teacher/

   Reply
8. Robert D. Shepherd says:

   October 5, 2012 at 1:52 am

   Facebook has a Notes feature that allows texts to be posted, but only by administrators of the Facebook site, typically a single individual. However, you could start a Facebook group and post various people’s letters in the Notes section and direct people to those. Then, when a piece is in an acceptable form, you can use the Causes App for Facebook to put it into the form of a petition to be delivered. See

   http://www.causes.com/

   Reply
9. Stu says:

   October 5, 2012 at 5:39 am

   1. Re: the idea of having a gmail account specifically for receiving those letters. One could write their letter to the White House, and cc: it to the gmail account and it would automatically be archived. It would not be publicly available, however…

   2. Blogger is a google site, so this might be a way to publicly display the letters sent to a gmail account. WordPress and Blogger both have easy interfaces. Someone, however would have to receive all the letters from the email account and post all the letters to the blog.

   3. The yahoo groups idea (google also has free groups) seems good. When a letter is written you email it to the White House with a cc: to the group so it’s automatically stored.

   A difficulty is that everyone writing a letter and wanting it archived would have to join the group…which is confusing for some. I set up two family groups…one on yahoo and one on google. Each time someone had difficulty joining…

   Second, whoever organizes the group must set the defaults so that those in the group do not automatically get all entries, otherwise everyone would receive every letter sent. You could choose to get them all, but everyone would start out not receiving every one.

   An option someone mentioned is to use the documents section of the group (google groups has that, too). This would work as well, though, again, one would have to join the group to upload it there.

   Finally, this would not be publicly available.

   4. I don’t know enough about wikis, but doesn’t everyone who wants to post there have to join as well?

   5. A Facebook group would require everyone to have a Facebook account and then join the group…both of which are not that hard. Then everyone in the group could post their letter as a comment. Instant archives.

   Reply
10. Dienne says:

    October 5, 2012 at 6:58 am

    I’m not terribly tech savvy, but I don’t believe you can “cc” a letter to the White House. Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you have to go through the online contact form? Or is there a direct email address? The form does not allow for cc’s (or even for saving the message in your sent items folder, so I suggest keeping a copy in Word or other format before sending it).

    Reply
    • dianerav says:

      October 5, 2012 at 7:31 am

      There is an online contact form for the White House

      Diane

      Reply
      • Dienne says:

        October 5, 2012 at 8:47 am

        Right – and that form doesn’t allow you to cc anyone else. Unless there’s a direct email address for the White House, we’ll have to send separate emails to other recipients. Which is a problem if you type your letter directly into the online contact form because once you send it, it’s gone – you have no record of it unless you saved it in a different format like Word. I figured that out the hard way the first time I sent an email to the White House.

11. Azmom says:

    October 5, 2012 at 7:52 am

    I think that having the copies publicly accessible is key – so Facebook would be best. Facebook Groups (public) are easy to create. A few people could be designated administrators. We would need an email address that the administrators could access. Copies of letters could be sent to that address and the administrators would post. Who has a lot of time on oct 17 :)? We want others who might not be as engaged in these issues to realize how important they are. Facebook would be a good way to do that. I’d love to help but I know I wouldn’t be able to dedicate enough time to it on october 17.

    Reply
    • dianerav says:

      October 5, 2012 at 8:13 am

      Volunteers to create and administer a Facebook page? Retired?

      Diane

      Reply
12. Kris Alman says:

    October 5, 2012 at 11:04 am

    I am a Facebook-phobe. I hope this effort is not restricted to Facebook users!

    Reply
    • dianerav says:

      October 5, 2012 at 11:40 am

      I don’t do FB either. Will look for something better.

      Reply
      • Azmom says:

        October 5, 2012 at 1:00 pm

        I am a Facebook user, but am a wary Facebook user. If we avoid facebook and use a website or group that no one goes to but us would be a shame. We need to spread the word beyond this community. Facebook does that. I’m sure other things do too, but I hope we keep in mind as a goal that we want this effort to reach beyond us. This has the potential to be a powerful thing.

13. Dov Rosenberg says:

    October 5, 2012 at 1:22 pm

    I would like to volunteer to create and administer this Facebook page! I love Facebook! 🙂

    Reply
14. Tim Furman (@tbfurman) says:

    October 5, 2012 at 1:56 pm

    Ok, there’s plenty of time to figure this one out. If I were deciding this one in a hurry, I’d opt for a second email address, that Diane endorses so people know that they’re not emailing some nut. That account would be easy to set up, and then we’d buy a little more time with how we want to compile the letters.

    The problem of the online contact system at the White House persists; it does indeed not allow for CC’ing, so people would basically have to be a little more involved— sending two separate emails. However, I think there’s a workaround here; let me just have the afternoon to think about that.

    I would advise against requiring people to go to a wiki or a website or a social network; you’ll lose half your people right there.

    Meanwhile, if all of us on Twitter and FB or who have private blogs or who can contact our own organizations to push the Oct 17 email event, that would be the main thing toward getting a huge response.

    Reply
15. Robert Valiant says:

    October 6, 2012 at 4:03 pm

    Diane- My son, R. Gary Valiant, has offerred to set up a guest book archive. We will purchase a domain name and will do all of the work gratis. Let me know if you want us to proceed.

    Bob V.

    Reply
    • Robert Valiant says:

      October 6, 2012 at 4:05 pm

      By the way, this will not be Facebook, Google, Yahoo, but a specific website for this purpose.

      Reply
    • dianerav says:

      October 6, 2012 at 5:19 pm

      Thank you for this offer. I will forward it to Anthony Cody, who is coordinating the effort for me and with me.

      Diane

      Reply
16. Robert Valiant says:

    October 6, 2012 at 4:22 pm

    You can email me at bob.valiant@gmail.com if you would like us to proceed.

    Reply