2 posts tagged “liberal democrats.”

So it seems that a large chunk of people on the newly formed mailing list for lib dem bloggers don't understand such complex things as what a "thread" is, how to filter emails so they don't all just pile up in your inbox, or how to follow simple instructions on how to unsubscribe from a list in under 2 days.

How very 21st century.. not.

With so many technophobes, it's no surprise that our party is so weak on any technical issues, which are regarded by some as no more important than paperclips and pencils.

When will the party realise that IT and Communications matter a lot, to the tune of billions of pounds of whitehall spending, and millions more in local government, the armed and emergancy services, and everywhere else.

For example : Issues like software patents can cripple and already threaten the entire UK software and IT services industry, and Nominet who control the UK TLD has been hijacked by domain spammers, and used by crooks to base .co.uk websites in china because they don't even bother to apply the simple rule that justifies their existence. These are issues that matter, not just some wiring and stationary that isn't important.

Can anybody remember the last time we had a meeting of the ICT working group in the party.. no it's basically a dead parrot nailed to it's perch, pining for the fjords.

[updated]
I'm not having a go at average members here, the problem is that nobody takes IT or IT literacy at all seriously at all in the party - hence Nick Clegg won't ever reply to an email (even when he campaigned for leadership), ministers don't aren't adequately briefed, local councils fail to project manage projects like airports, and mailing list users don't know basic email functionality beyond hitting reply, paste and send.

It's natural for a party, particularly a democratic one like the lib dems to reflect the membership, but it should make an effort to improve it's weaknesses - and it's not just the small budget, it's the almost complete lack of interest in something that is critical to whitehall, parliament and all infrastructure - IT and Comminications Technology is almost as important as our road and rail systems, possibly more so in some cases, yet it has no minister, no working group, no policies, no spokesperson and the general technophobia and sidelining of anything that smells of 'scary technical stuff' is sidelined, ignored and patronised.

And then the likes of Jennie Rigg and Jonathon Calder call me a 'patronising arse' for suggesting somebody google for a tutorial on how to do something simple. right, because Jennie made such an effort to read my last blog post on this subject and wasn't at all condescending and hostile in her response.

p.s. Thanks to Andrew Hickey who charmingly called me functionally illiterate: I've made the penultimate paragraph a bit clearer, but it's not an article for the guardian so I won't be hiring a sub-editor for my facebook updates any day soon.

I just logged into my libdems account to see if there was any useful members information, like who to contact if you have questions about something (nope), or published information for party members (like local or national party budget, spending, accounts, etc - also nope).

It ammounts to the lists server - which very few members know of, and even fewer use, and flocktogether.

How incredibly 21st century, not.

You know what would be quite cool - if libdemsonline was given a trivial budget with which to sort this kind of stuff out, heck I have plenty of expertise in this area and would be more than happy to help, but currently unless you want to deliver leaflets or cold-call innocent bystanders in a by-election the other side of the country, any volunteering or involvement in the party is pay to play.

*sigh*