Proposal for a direct action plan

They are doing a little more than that I think. Did you see how you sign in and it updates you like facebook and google+ about meetings and groups and forums? You can also just post updates to your "page" like facebook.

It seems to be a bit more than just a skin, I mean.

I think we're gonna start out with Drupal for the content platform. Did you see this post in the Teams forum Zach?

I think this will allow us a lot of flexibility.

Sorry, I am more of a backseat tech guy. Your idea sounds massive and awesome! I think I'm having a hard time picturing how it will work together, but it sounds freaking amazing in concept.

Would the site you are proposing be our home base for the local movement? Would it be like Jacksonville.us one stop shop for all contact with the group, etc...?

That's the goal

The NYCGA website is trying to be a gathering point for other GA's. I found the following comment on their website:
The Working Group on the 99% Declaration would like to invite a representative from each of the General Assemblies in the USA to attend our conference call on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 7pm.

Nice find Brit. Do you have a URL to go with that info?

We need to figure out who our representative for Jacksonville will be.

I'm sorry! I have already contacted them! Can I share what I'd said so far and let the group take over? I wasn't thinking and I'm sorry! I've just been playing all over their site all day.

ps. Perhaps even change my user info on their site into something that represents Jacksonville Florida's Occupy? Like a Florida avatar, etc...

Or... scratch that. Maybe a representative or two for every group would be better? Preferably we would work our way up to have a much larger body (like in the hundreds) be able to represent our city in different groups but we have to start somewhere.

Thanks to Zach also. He has a bunch of great comments out there.
The link is Invitation for National Conference Call

Oh wow, they are going to do a live video feed? I think my nerves automatically make me so I'm out of the running for that job.

ZachAddair wrote:I think I'm having a hard time picturing how it will work together, but it sounds freaking amazing in concept.

I said that exact thing to him earlier today. Be Prepared, Tomorrow!!!

Dinahmoe wrote:

ZachAddair wrote:I think I'm having a hard time picturing how it will work together, but it sounds freaking amazing in concept.

I said that exact thing to him earlier today. Be Prepared, Tomorrow!!!

I'm trying brother, I'm trying. We've got a lot of catching up to do.

Ok, here is the draft version of the questionnaire we could distribute on Saturday.
It's been a real long day, so please let me know if you catch any typos or spelling mistakes... Also, if you want to block or add any questions, let me know.
Otherwise I will print out about 100 copies tomorrow... Will need help distributing, so volunteers are much appreciated.

(Part 2 is in a form of a table, gets messed up when I paste it here, but I think you can get a sense of it anyway)
CCL


1. Gender:
1. Male 2. Female 3.Other _________

2. Year you were born: ______________

3. Highest education acquired:
1. Dropped out of HS 4. A.A. degree
2. HS 5. B.A. or B.S.
3. Some College 6. Graduate or professional degree

4. Occupation: ___________________________

5. Employed:
1. Yes 2. No

6. What is your annual income? ________________

7. Marital Status:
1. Single 4. Domestic Partnership
2. Married 5. Widowed
3. Divorced 6. Other _____________

8.How would you describe your attitude towards religion:
1. Religious ______________ 4. Atheist
2. Spiritual 5. Other: _______________
3. Agnostic

9. How would you describe your political preferences:
1. Republican 3. Independent
2. Democrat 4. Other: _______________

10. Are you a registered voter?
1. Yes 2. No

11. Did you vote in the last presidential election?
1. Yes 2. No

12. Do you intend to vote in the next one?
1. Yes 2. No

13. Are you a union member?
1. Yes 2. No

14. Do you currently, or have you ever received unemployment benefits?
1. Yes, currently.
2. Yes, in the past
3. No, never.

15. Do you currently, or have you ever received Food Stamps?
1. Yes, currently.
2. Yes, in the past
3. No, never.

16. Do you / have you support(ed) the Tea Party?
1. Yes, currently.
2. Yes, in the past
3. No, never.


Part 2

Please indicate your level of agreement or disagreement with each of the following statements:

Strongly disagree Disagree Undecided Agree Strongly agree
17. The wealthiest 1% of the Americans should be taxed at a higher rate. 1 2 3 4 5
18. Big banks have too much power. 1 2 3 4 5
19. There should be a criminal investigation of the Wall Street collapse. 1 2 3 4 5
20. Corporations should have same rights as citizens. 1 2 3 4 5
21. I support the implementation of a student loan debt relief forgiveness program. 1 2 3 4 5
22. There should be an immediate one year freeze on all foreclosures. 1 2 3 4 5
23. All troops should be immediately withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan. 1 2 3 4 5
24. Everyone should pay equal taxes. 1 2 3 4 5
25. If you cannot make it, it's your own fault. 1 2 3 4 5
26. I trust President of the US. 1 2 3 4 5
27. I support passage of a comprehensive job and job-training act like the American Jobs Act 1 2 3 4 5
28. All private contributions (money &gifts) to politicians, from individuals, corporations, PACs, unions, lobbyist etc., should be banned 1 2 3 4 5
29. I trust the Congress. 1 2 3 4 5
30. I trust Governor Rick Scott 1 2 3 4 5

What is the purpose of this questionnaire? I see no reason we need this type of information at this time. If anything, we need a questionnaire on the policies of the NYCGA.

That's actually being handled by a vote I believe.

This is for polling ourselves as a group to figure the make up of participants who are attending. I think its important to have that data. We want all of the 99% opinions in this affair, so it's good to know who we're missing. If we can sit down and have civil conversations with the unrepresentated demographics, I think it'll help.

Cat,
Grammar:
26. Should be "I trust the President..." rather than "I trust President..."
28. Should be "I support banning all private contributions of money and gifts, to politicians, from individuals, corporations, PACs, unions and lobbyists." rather than current wording.

Additions:
Does it makes sense to add?
##. I trust the Supreme Court. 1 2 3 4 5

Did you read my earlier suggestion? If not, that's fine. It's back on Page 2 right after your comment. I normally focus on causes more than effects and my suggestion was aimed at identifying the cause pushing a person to participate in Occupy Jax. I'm not sure if the current questions will identify that cause. For example, if someone participated because they lost their house, how does the questionnaire identify such. Perhaps your intent was to identify causes via interview.

And feel free to disagree with me because my words are merely observations.

Other than that, the questionnaire looks great to me and will answer many questions we all have.

Thanks Brit 030, I really appreciate your comments... English is not my native language, so grammar corrections are always welcome.

I think that a question about SC is perfectly legitimate and will include it in.

I am also adding few more attitudes questions, based on the list of questions forwarded to me.

I read your earlier comments, and was thinking about that. However, I believe this is much better answered via in-depth interviews, in which we get into more details about biography, or meanings people attach to Occupy Movements... I am kind of planning to do those additionally, but I thought we could start with getting at least some basic info during our next rally/GA/teach in...

If you can figure out the way to phrase your question in a more survey-friendly way, please let me know...

Zach,
C'mon, don't get your liver in a quiver over the survey thing.
You and I and others can handle NYCGA so Cat can focus on the Occupy Jax survey.

Let me tell you a true story about surveys in a way you can understand. I designed a survey to analyze why products manufactured in Mexico did not work. The goal of survey was to use results of survey to identify the cause behind why the products did not work and design a solution for this cause. Industry-wide, the average defect rate was 5%. My normal production run was 10,000 products. That mean't 500 non-working products were shipped back to me for repair. Well, I had only 1 part-time college intern to repair these products. So, at an hour a repair, it would take him 25 days to repair. And I wanted the intern doing design not repair, so this defect rate was unacceptable to me. Well, all those folks in industry were saying we don't need a survey because we know what the problems are and 5% is the best we can do. I didn't agree with what industry said and used a survey to prove it.

So, I started with a smaller run of 100 products. 11 defective products of the run were sent to me for repair. I gave my intern a simple questionairre to fill out for each repair. I took the answers and fed them into a spreadsheet that categorized and calculated percentages for what was wrong with products. It turned out 9 of the 11 products had a short between the metal case of a crystal and the solder pads under the crystal. I called the Mexican facility and manager said he had a tool that would put a crimp in the leads of crystal so it would stand 1/4 inch higher.

Anyway, to make a long story short. Using the survey resulted in my defect rate being 0.1%. My intern now had 10 products to repair for every 10,000 product run and that took him 2.5 days to do. And he could spend rest of month learning engineering.

You may say those are electronic products and not people. Well, it doesn't matter. What matters is knowing how to apply scientific theory. The theory has to do with quantitative analysis versus qualitative analysis. Qualitative uses educated guessing while quantitative uses measurement.

Cat,
It sounds fine to use in-depth interviews to find out what is motivating people to participate in Occupy Jax. Also, the feedback will make it easier to formulate questions for a future questionnaire. It's not too important right now but we may want to think about what metric should trigger need for the next survey. Should it be a doubling in number of members or certain goals are achieved.

Cat,
Are you familiar with works of Dr. David Sloan Wilson? He's pushing to expand the use of evolutionary theory in the social sciences as it has been used in biology. And he seems to be getting quite a bit of research funding for doing this. I'll be posting a thesis written by one of his students in the Background Info section.

Brit,

I am familiar with him... one of my colleagues is quite fond of Sociobiology so he we talk about this.

Your questions are quite legit... I am hoping to get 100 people to respond, or more if we get enough people to help with distribution. We could repeat the same thing (or with redesigned instrument) next time... At this point I mostly want to explore socio-demographics, whereas attitudes portion can always be tweaked.

Let's talk on Saturday, ok?

Do we have a plan for what will become of this forum and the occupyjacksonville.us site once this new site is up? Are these forums going to be migrated to the new site somehow? How can we eliminate confusion about where on the web people can go to find info about Occupy Jax?

Cat,
Yes, I'll be there Saturday wearing a black hat. Be forewarned, I am very much an autodidact.

This forum can be easily ported over to the new site, although I don't think that is wise as this one is a total circlejerk. The only downside is losing all the user accounts to starting fresh with a more streamlined forum system. This one can be cleaned up, it would take a hell of a lot of work, but it can be done.

This one could stay up but there is no point when we have our own, under our own control, just sitting there ready to use.

Dina,
Is the new site up?
The current site should stay up temporarily so folks can move their posts to new home. Disabling ability to add posts would be fine. I'm fine with whatever is done since I'm pliable, errr, I mean flexible...