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This is a planning page for the 2014 Mayoral Candidate Forum. (Get background info about the 2014 Mayoral Election here!) Join the planning team here!

There will be a live debate, Thursday, August 21st at City Hall at 7pm. This will be broadcast on KTOP and streamed online!

The official page with up to date schedule of twitter chats and links to the Facebook Event Page and how to submit questions can be found here -> #Oakmtg 2014 Mayoral Candidate Forum

The idea:

Inspired by @TDLove5: Wouldn’t it be interesting if #oakmtg had enough power or “clout” to put together our own #Oakland#Mayor2014 debate?

How to get involved:

  • We held a meeting on on Saturday 11/23/13 at 6 pm at Telegraph (in Uptown).
  • We will be holding monthly planning chats online at 6pm the first Wednesday of the month on twitter, hashtag #oakmtg. Read more here.
  • Second in person planning meeting: Friday 2/28/14 at 6 pm. Sudoroom. 2141 Broadway. Oakland.

Put your ideas here!

  • format:

     

    • TDL’s vision (also an explanation of some of the tweets below): I think #oakmtg should host two debates. 1. A live debate done the same way as the Democratic Debates in 2012. Candidates would take questions submitted via social media. Questions that would be suggested and voted on previously via social media. Candidates would answer the questions and we would have #oakmtg Live-tweeters tweet the answers so folks can follow along online. The candidates would also have the option to have their own tweeters respond via social media or take questions. We could also start a #Oakmtg Facebook page for those who aren’t on twitter. 2. The second debate would be an hashtag discussion. We would invite the candidates to tweet on the hashtag during a certain hour. A moderator would ask them pre-determined questions and each of them would have a chance to tweet their answers. As deruiller suggested, each candidate can respond to each other’s questions via twitter. We could also capture the debate on storify and publish on the wiki. Further details to be decided at the 1st planning meeting above.

       

      •  

        Sponsorship by partner organizations would be great, to cover incidental costs of technology or for finding a place for the live event. Also it would be great to have established orgs to add ‘legitimacy’ but the goal is to have this be an #Oakmtg Debate..not So and So debate, because we want to show how important #Oakland Social Media can be in increasing civic engagement via technology. @tdlove5

        •  

          two thoughts on sponsorship: one, maybe to get funding so “name at the bottom of the program” kind of thing; two: maybe just good places to advertise?

    • how bout if people tweet if answer is responsive, and if not, candidate has to answer again?
    • still honing in on how this will be different from other debates that had tweeters in audience? Questions from Twitter-good; handlers tweeting I suppose is a necessary evil; but can we capture direct interaction between candidates on Twitter?

       

      • still unclear as to whether this will be in-person combo virtual or just virtual? - mk30tt
    • Initial Twitter Discussion:

       

      • Maybe a second totally online version where the candidates answer questions within the #oakmtg hashtag posed by the moderator.
      • We’d have #oakmtg tweeters tweet the answers, & their handlers can tweet responses. (so candidates aren’t distracted)
      • is there a way to involve the candidates in what other candidates are tweeting at #oakmtg? To me, that’s the interesting part?
      • Ground rules being only the moderator can ask questions, but questions decided by #oakmtg via online votes
      • Maybe allow each candidate to ask a ? of another candidate in response to something said by that other candidate on the #oakmtg feed?
  • For a live tweetup we would have our best #oakmtg tweeters to tweet their answers.

     

  • potential sponsors..

     

  • what’s cool about it:
    • part of what makes @tdlove5 ‘s idea so awesome is that ppl at home can follow. another part is that it’s so… modern! #oakmtg. also, people can participate without being present.
  • topics:
    • use survey results? (survey results are here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1cGV6N9pmpmJmHiKS8VmQAGlwJQ4mioShXyyxmrD-Kas/viewanalytics)
      • i wonder if making another push on the mayoral election survey might help us get a better sense for key issues and help us determine whether the debate should be general or focused. also, if we do get buy-in from candidates to participate, then we can even possibly have a series of debates on different topics. - mk30
    • Not that education shouldn’t be an important question but I think debate shld be general thought?
    • I like debates that are focused on specific issues: public safety; schools; jobs; transportation
  • groups to include? market to? may also be doing stuff?
    • ​make oakland better now (active w/city council)
    • hub oakland (getting active in this stuff)
    • youth radio (active on twitter)
    • league of women voters (experienced w debates)
    • save oakland sports (interested in city council)
    • Oakland Public Library (i bet they would love this!)
    • Sudo Room (yes)
  • Participants so far- add yourself!
  • Technical tools to help facilitate the debate:
    • backchan.nl - open source tool that allows people to submit q’s and upvote them in realtime.
    • 2013-11-11: I’m asking amongst the hackers for suggestions on other tools that might be useful (it seems like we’re still not sure whether this will be in-person or virtual, so we’ll see what’s out there for both possibilities). - mk30
    • at the live event we could use a Twitterfall to project the tweets for the crowd. We’ve done that at events. - suggested by GOPublicSchools
    • This site looks like it has a live-updating embedded stream of twitter posts for its chat run by scribblelive: http://dailyfreeman.blogspot.com/2013/12/dfm-chat-on-2013-journalism.html. Here’s more on scribblelive.
  • Examples of virtual-only or combination irl/virtual civic debates?

     

    • If you know of any debates like this that have been held in the past, please add them here. Will help us get ideas and also potentially offer lessons learned.

       

      • the a’s do tweetups. they’re in person- you can ask questions ahead of time using the hashtag. the moderator asks the questions, the participants talk, someone is the “official” tweeter but others are also livetweeting, there are also participants at home who can ask q’s. so it’s a combo. clearly not a civic debate :) -gk
    • Upcoming Reddit online Q&A: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/ask-washington-anything/281348/

Updates

  • 2014-02-06: We are having an in-person planning meeting Feb 28, 2014 at Sudoroom. 6 pm. 2141 Broadway. Please come and help us plan our next steps!
  • 2014-01-29: Tonya and Lauren met with KTOP. We reserved chambers at City Hall for August 21, 2014 from 6-10pm for a total cost of $150 (Lauren has secured a donation to cover this cost). This covers chamber usage, security and custodial costs since staff is already there on Thursday nights. If we decide to provide closed captioning, there will be an additional charge of $166 for two hours. We may need a nonpartisan sponsor group to cover KTOP’s requirements to broadcast/record/stream/show later. They are checking into this. We are going to try to meet with Whitney of the Public Ethics Commission who previously hosted a multimedia event in chambers. Per KTOP, all of the equipment and technology was donated and hooked in- there was an external link that stuff was being streamed on (in addition to KTOP) and maybe other screens in chambers (I forget!).
  • 2013-12-04: Tonya reached out to all of the candidates to gauge interest in participating in a twitter/social media debate. So far 3 of the candidates have expressed an interest: Bryan Parker, Joe Tuman and Libby Schaaf. Jean Quan friend Pamela Drake said she would pass the information on. Marina found out who we should talk to at the city of Oakland’s office about reserving space at City Hall. Tonya contacted the communications director and she said she will see if we an reserve the space and if it is appropriate for KTOP to film it.
  • 2013-11-27: Buzz about the debate is slowly underway. Oakland North Published an article discussing how a #oakmtg social media debate can change the election turnout!http://oaklandnorth.net/2013/11/27/mayoral-twitter-debate-could-influence-upcoming-campaigns/

See Also

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