Hello Everyone,

I just have some notes about rules based upon some questions that were asked of me in private. I felt I should share the answers I gave for everyone’s benefit.

I was asked to post a joint statement of the two currently active tickets; the text of the statement was signed by the top of each ticket. I was told the reason I was asked to post this is because both of the authors of the statement did not want it to appear as though it came from any one particular ticket. I have declined to post the statement because I do not think that it is appropriate for the Election Coordinator to post statements written by candidates. However, I did tell the tickets that an appropriate way to do a joint statement would be for them to post the same note on their own Campaign HQs at the same time; in so doing, it would be sufficiently clear that both campaigns actually did intend the message as a joint statement, and thus we wouldn’t need to concern ourselves with the rule that forbids people from making posts on the Election Ship on behalf of someone other than the person posting the message.

Also, I’ve been fielding some questions about the nature of permitted questions. I would suggest people recall the following from LEGOE:

Every person who posts on the Election Area is expected to keep their posts to the point, truthful, and within the bounds of common courtesy. Behavior such as, but not limited to, character attacks, inflammatory finger-pointing, trickery, and deception will not be tolerated and may lead to penalties at the Election Coordinator’s discretion. (Example: “Candidate X is a horrible person…” will not be tolerated. However, “Candidate X has made several mistakes as QDir. They are…” will be tolerated within the bounds of common courtesy).

I think the example is the most important thing to pay attention to; it makes it rather clear that it is valid to be critical of candidates’ track records or ability, provided it might actually be relevant to them being President in some way. Indeed, the entire purpose of this format for elections is to let the membership assess whether or not candidates have the ability to be President. To suggest that people can’t ask questions about that would be akin to suggesting we should have no questions at all. That is a suggestion that I’m not going to tolerate as the Election Coordinator, because it discourages people from participating in the process.

Finally, just a reminder that candidates are not required to answer any questions.

Joe