Amazing idea - one minor problem

[Libertas]

Hi everyone,

I've got this amazing idea to shift grassroots effort to the extranet. I think, if it caught on, could be huge in generating name recognition and... well... everything.

Only one problem - I'm not American (sorry, I'm Canadian but I'm a huge fan of RPs - and have been following Austrian Economics for a small while). I don't really care about American politics - I just hope that the message of liberty will spread to Canada (and no income/inflation tax here ;) ).

How would people react if such an effort came from across the border? Maybe I should hand off this idea to an American (requires some web development and some hosting).

Your thoughts?

PS. This idea is very relevant to what quickmike has been pushing... maybe I should just post the idea here and get someone else to pick it up.

[BLS]

Hi everyone,

I've got this amazing idea to shift grassroots effort to the extranet. I think, if it caught on, could be huge in generating name recognition and... well... everything.

Only one problem - I'm not American (sorry, I'm Canadian but I'm a huge fan of RPs - and have been following Austrian Economics for a small while). I don't really care about American politics - I just hope that the message of liberty will spread to Canada (and no income/inflation tax here ;) ).

How would people react if such an effort came from across the border? Maybe I should hand off this idea to an American (requires some web development and some hosting).

Your thoughts?

PS. This idea is very relevant to what quickmike has been pushing... maybe I should just post the idea here and get someone else to pick it up.


Let's hear it...I can do web development

[nunaem]

Well I'd have to hear what this effort is before making an opinion.
But don't worry, Americans still think of the Canadians as our cousins, even the french speaking ones.

[Libertas]

Well, thanks very much for your positive encouragement - I certainly do not want to impose though. Apologies for the long post, but it is worth a read. Here it goes:

Background: Grass routes efforts on the Internet are only going to reach so many people, Ron Paul only registers 3% or less in polls, Name Recognition is key to gaining momentum and support. In fact, a simple formula could summarize how to win an election.

Powerful message + Name Recognition = Win

Ron Paul, in my humble opinion, has a powerful message (or I wouldn't be here ;) ), however, he sorely lacks in Name Recognition. Polls are significant despite what some in this forum might think because they do represent name recognition. Fortunately, there is something that can be done about this and it is being done already - Grass routes efforts "on the streets."

Proposal: Create a new site - call it something like RonPauljungle.com (the grass routes thickening) or RonPaulchallenge.com (or something like that). The goal of the site is for people to see how many "Liberty Points" or "Ron Paul Points" they can collect. These would be listed, trended, compared right on the front of the site. The motivation for collecting points would be to see how much you are pushing the campaign - think of it as a different take on meetup (sort of like contributeup).

People would collect points for the following (the points system is, of course, open to tweaks):

- Handing out flyers - 1 point for each flyer handed out
- Posting a poster in a public place - (size: 2 small, 3 medium, 8 large, 20 huge) x 2 if in a medium eyeball environment, x 4 in a big eyeball environment. (These points would be "per day")
- Make a blog entry - 2 points
- Donate money - 1 point per dollar
- Join a meetup group - 5 points
- Every attendance to a meetup group - 10 points
- Donate money to a meetup group - 1.5 points per dollar
- Convince a voter to become a new Ron Paul supporter - 5 points (purposely low, name recognition is more important)
- Learn more about Ron Paul - at your own discretion upto 30 points
- Wear a Ron Paul shirt to generate conversation - 10 points per day

...and the list would go on.

People would indicate how many points they got using the honour system.

Further motivation: The "winners" per week (or whatever) would get free t-shirts or other items (paid for by ad money to the site - this would be a non-profit site). The friendly competition would encourage people to get off their computer chairs and "get points" - then they could brag about how many "points" they have.

Some php, sql work (logins) involved as well as hosting. I can program and would be willing to help - but I think this project would be best spearheaded by an American.

What do you think?

Thanks all for your feedback.

[DeadheadForPaul]

That's not a bad idea actually

This made me think of something...i've see some websites where there is a map and you can select where you have traveled to. What if we had an interactive map where you could mark where you are from (county by county or city by city). Then we would see where new Meetup groups need to be started, etc

[FreedomLover]

I've never heard the real world called the extranet before.

Thats a really cool idea by the way. In fact, its very original and could catch on quick if implemented correctly. ( still not sure how the honor system will work)

[foofighter20x]

All well and good... But... How do you verify anything supporters say they did? How do you keep people from just putting things into the system to get the free stuff?

I'm not saying we are a bunch of dirty rascals, but a system of that sort needs verification or a proof of somekind.

[RonPaulCult]

Well I had an idea for a website myself. Maybe my idea could be combined with your idea a bit?

I wanted to start a site where all you do is get all the hardcore Ron Paul supporters (or even the not so hard core but ones that want to help) to sign up and give their e-mail address and some other info like town.

Then every time there is something little they can do to help the cause we would shoot you an e-mail.

moveon.org does a lot of this stuff. They send you e-mails that say "congress is doing this - click here to write your congressman" and they get tens of thousands of people to do something within a day with little effort needed on the part of the people on the list.

I'd love to see something like that for Ron Paul. Imagine if the site had thousands of supporters signed up and today we sent out an e-mail that says "click here to send a letter asking for Ron Paul to appear on meet the press"

Just like on moveon.org and other political website it would take you to a page where a letter is written for you and even puts your name and city at the end of it. It also gives you the option of adding custom remarks or scrapping the whole thing and writing you letter.

I never thought of adding in a point system to it but given the idea our Canadian friend just gave I think it could be a good idea.

Anybody into this/up for helping?

[RonPaulCult]

One more thing - it wouldn't just be for sending e-mails to people in the media. It could be for lots of things.

We could send out an e-mail when there's an important online poll.

We could see which people live in a town Ron Paul is visiting and send an e-mail just to people in that town requesting they show up and show support/pass out things.etc.

There's really no limit to what we could do with this.

I just know I have some friends on my myspace that send out bulletins for little things I can do to help Ron Paul all the time. I'd love to see a centralized site that sends these things to all of the Ron Paul masses.

[Libertas]

Well - I think the honour system would work - perhaps no prizes though - just pats on the back so to speak. Plus, people wouldn't necessarily be competing with each other (although that would happen), the site would encourage people to compete with themselves (get more points than last week sort of thing).

It's not confined to people either - we could compare meetup groups and get all the meetup groups to compete against each other (which I think would be really effective).

PM me if you want to make this happen - I can dedicate time to planning, some money etc.

[rockfree33]

Right now all the Ron Paul Meetup groups have close to 20,000 members. If we make each member have their own ID and compete with other members for how many they recruit it would create astonishing results.

[wbbgjr]

I like the idea.

[wbbgjr]

I think I can get addicted. I think the honor system would be fine, but it would be interesting to see everyone's accomplishment quantified. People would feel a lot less alone out there on the campaign.