[ANNOUNCEMENT]Online march on the White House

PWA1

Hello all,

I thought you'd like to know that an online march on the White House is being planned, to take place on the 29th August 2004.

People from around the world are registering to take part in this online protest, to tell Bush the world says no to his regimes agenda, so I thought you'd also like to know about it.

To register to take part, please visit http://www.livemarch.com/marchHome.jsp?marchID=19 - just click on the "Join this live march" button, then on "sign up now"

For more information, please see http://geocities.com/tellbushtheworldsaysno

Best wishes

ReefBreak

[cynical]It looks about as useful as an Internet Petition. I'm sure it'll have the White House staff quaking in their boots.[/cynical]

bonkey

I've changed the topic title, because this clearly isn't anything but an announcement.

jc

sceptre

Originally posted by PWA1
Hello all,

And a hearty hello to you.

I'll read your link when you post a second time so I can be sure you didn't just come here to spam about some internet petition crap. Then I'll find out if it's internet petition crap or something worthwhile.

Memnoch

the bush administration didn't care about millions of people marching in the streets to protest his terrorism in iraq, why would they care about an online "march" ?

PWA1

Originally posted by ReefBreak
[cynical]It looks about as useful as an Internet Petition. I'm sure it'll have the White House staff quaking in their boots.[/cynical]

And i'm sure at least those taking part feel that doing at least something is better than doing nothing. Wouldn't you agree?

PWA1

Originally posted by bonkey
I've changed the topic title, because this clearly isn't anything but an announcement.

jc

Thank you, as i'm new to this forum, I wasn't aware that I should place the word announcement before the topic heading. However, I do know now.

PWA1

Originally posted by sceptre
And a hearty hello to you.

I'll read your link when you post a second time so I can be sure you didn't just come here to spam about some internet petition crap. Then I'll find out if it's internet petition crap or something worthwhile.

Hello Sceptre, yes, I am here - a human being. I never post spam, just worthy information that I think others would like to know about.

PWA1

Originally posted by Memnoch
the bush administration didn't care about millions of people marching in the streets to protest his terrorism in iraq, why would they care about an online "march" ?

Memnoch, it isn't a matter of whether the rogue regime care or not, it's a matter of people feeling they are actually doing something rather than nothing.

bonkey

Originally posted by PWA1
Thank you, as i'm new to this forum, I wasn't aware that I should place the word announcement before the topic heading. However, I do know now.

Ummm...

<looks sheepish>

it's not actually in our forum guidelines (which you'll find at the top of the page of threads), although if you haven't looked through them, they're probably worth a read.

Its more a case that we take any form of "advertising" on a case by case basis. I didn't mean to imply in any way that you should have known to do this.

Cheers, and welcome.

jc

sceptre

Originally posted by PWA1
Hello Sceptre, yes, I am here - a human being. I never post spam, just worthy information that I think others would like to know about.

(sorry) - I'm just sick of spammers (which it appears you're not) posting once about some "event" and never coming back:). All take and no give you see.

This effectively sounds like a DOS attack which I'm not so sure about to be honest. Wouldn't it have been simpler to select say, August or a particular day (eg the 29th) rather than all at once?

As you say though, it's not necessarily about whether they listen, it's about facilitating people to make their feelings known should they wish to do so and that's fair enough really. I'm glad it's not a petition. Obviously email addresses can be forged and one person can send from more than one address but those petitiononline things are indicative of precisely nothing. I'm not so sure it's worth an awful lot more than an online petition but it's certainly worth something more. I don't like DOS attacks though.


(heh, there's an online march to bring Diagnosis Murder on DVD, though it's got 1/90th of the support)

PWA1

Originally posted by bonkey
Ummm...

<looks sheepish>

it's not actually in our forum guidelines (which you'll find at the top of the page of threads), although if you haven't looked through them, they're probably worth a read.

Its more a case that we take any form of "advertising" on a case by case basis. I didn't mean to imply in any way that you should have known to do this.

Cheers, and welcome.

jc

Ah, thanks bonkey

PWA1

Originally posted by sceptre
(sorry) - I'm just sick of spammers (which it appears you're not) posting once about some "event" and never coming back:). All take and no give you see.

This effectively sounds like a DOS attack which I'm not so sure about to be honest. Wouldn't it have been simpler to select say, August or a particular day (eg the 29th) rather than all at once?

As you say though, it's not necessarily about whether they listen, it's about facilitating people to make their feelings known should they wish to do so and that's fair enough really. I'm glad it's not a petition. Obviously email addresses can be forged and one person can send from more than one address but those petitiononline things are indicative of precisely nothing. I'm not so sure it's worth an awful lot more than an online petition but it's certainly worth something more. I don't like DOS attacks though.


(heh, there's an online march to bring Diagnosis Murder on DVD, though it's got 1/90th of the support)

Hello Sceptre, yes know what you mean about all take and no give. I run my own group at MSN, as well as being an assistant manager at 3 others, managing a webring, and 4 websites! :eek: So as well as obviously working hard in the "real world", I do try to put a lot of effort into online endeavours as well

When you schedule a Live March you cannot just say a month or a date, so it had to all be sorted out at the same time.

I don't know whether i'd class this as a DOS attack, or a petition, but as something in between those 2. Move on tried something similar last year, our World Our Say also did something like this last year, and another group tried it some time back as well (I can't remember their name now) I think the closest thing I can categorise this as is an online march, although obviously people registering to take part, and those who will be taking part, but haven't registered will have their own ideas as to what they would describe this Live March as.

I'm not too sure of the comparison between the worthiness of an online petition and this online march, but I can certainly say there has been some excellent feedback from organisations and individuals about the protest.

Whoeever started the Live March site certainly has a very good idea, in my opinion. And it will interesting to see whether interest will build in this type of protest as time goes by.

dahamsta

Originally posted by sceptre
This effectively sounds like a DOS attack which I'm not so sure about to be honest.

The electrohippies came up with this idea a few years ago - they even developed little apps to automate the process - and then disbanded in mid-2002. It is a DDoS attack, but I guess in this context it's not much different from a sit-down protest that aims to block an event. To be honest I think they're pretty ineffective, for the simple reason that sit-down protests are visible, and these aren't -- a user that tries to visit the website, or send an email, or phone through will just get a hanging browser, bounce or engaged tone, and 99% of them won't know why. Or care, probably.

The only way to really draw attention is to keep it going for long enough to get the media interested, and at that stage it really is more of a nuisance than anything else. And of course the Bush administration will paint the whole thing as a "danger to national security" or somesuch. Not very well thought through, it has to be said. Pretty ironic that the LiveMarch website can't handle the traffic being directed towards it too.

adam

PWA1

Originally posted by dahamsta
The electrohippies came up with this idea a few years ago - they even developed little apps to automate the process - and then disbanded in mid-2002. It is a DDoS attack, but I guess in this context it's not much different from a sit-down protest that aims to block an event. To be honest I think they're pretty ineffective, for the simple reason that sit-down protests are visible, and these aren't -- a user that tries to visit the website, or send an email, or phone through will just get a hanging browser, bounce or engaged tone, and 99% of them won't know why. Or care, probably.

The only way to really draw attention is to keep it going for long enough to get the media interested, and at that stage it really is more of a nuisance than anything else. And of course the Bush administration will paint the whole thing as a "danger to national security" or somesuch. Not very well thought through, it has to be said. Pretty ironic that the LiveMarch website can't handle the traffic being directed towards it too.

adam

Hello Adam,

thanks for the link to the elctrohippies website - very interesting.
I agree that this is in a way similar to a sit down protest or otherwise some sort of online occupation of the White House.

Why do you think this isn't thought through? And how would you do this differently if you don't mind me asking.

As to the comment about the site not being able to handle the traffic, I certainly haven't had a problem getting to the site to check on this demonstrations progress.

dahamsta

Originally posted by PWA1
Why do you think this isn't thought through?

For the reasons stated in my post.

And how would you do this differently if you don't mind me asking.

I wouldn't. There are very few ways to organise a global protest effectively. If this way was effective, more people would have heard of the electrohippies. Greenpeace and Oxfam and their ilk seem to be quite confident in petitions, although it should be noted that they're far more complex and organised than PetitionOnline. Personally I would go that route, or if I was feeling confident I would attempt to organise meatspace marches on U.S. embassies.

(For the record, I will go the former route in future, if and when I ever get EFI off the ground. I've contemplated electronic sitins, but not for very long.)

As to the comment about the site not being able to handle the traffic

It's better today. It was hanging yesterday when I visited.

adam