Voting question ………

[ecorangers]

😈 During the dead of winter…newbies are probably gun shy about getting out in the cold and snow to hunt caches. Even veteran cachers like RPaske don’t get out much during the winter. (Randy, it was great to see your name on a recent post). Tami

[AuntieNae]

Newbies shy about going out in the cold?

Check out this priceless log on one of my caches by a newbie:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=3835adba-ca30-4826-91c8-ad8abb021ac3

I bet they were crying, it is a cold windy walk across that field!
AuntieNae

[Jeremy]

@bnb wrote:

From just a quick count – so this could be wrong – there are only 192 active members that have visted the website since 1/1/2007. That 131+ statistic doesn’t look as bad when you consider that.

[Lawyer hat on.] This statistic is not 100% accurate. It is possible to vote without recording a “visit” (update the “last visited” time on the website) if you simply log in, vote, and log out. About 30 of the BOD votes have been cast in this way.

However, it does mean that about 100 votes have been cast by the less than 200 members who have actively participated (viewed the forums, posted, voted for COTM/COTY, etc.) on the website since Jan. 1. So as best we can tell, participation by recently active members is >50%.

@rogheff wrote:

I’m curious if it’s possible for the BOD to send those 933 WGA members an email telling them about the election and that it was time to vote. I don’t recall ever getting an email from the WGA other than private messages.

Good suggestion. It is technically possible, but we’ve resisted sending out all kinds of email announcements because we didn’t want to be seen as spammers and contribute to the junk email problem. We also have no way for people to “opt out” of these broadcast emails at the moment.

So far, the only mass email that we did was for the 2005 Wisconsin geocoin. But the BOD elections are definitely important so maybe the Board should consider an email announcement for next year’s election…

@Cathunter wrote:

I wonder how many people signed up after seeing one of Vince’s Fox 6 stories- it is likely that a lot of people might join out of curiosity and then not visit the site much after the fact.

Very true. Of the 933 active member accounts, 480 were created and never used again after the date on which they were created. To get a more accurate count of active members, we could have some sort of “probationary period” where a new account had to be used within one month of being created or it would be removed from the active members list.

[rogheff]

@rogheff wrote:

“Jeremy

Good suggestion. It is technically possible, but we’ve resisted sending out all kinds of email announcements because we didn’t want to be seen as spammers and contribute to the junk email problem. We also have no way for people to “opt out” of these broadcast emails at the moment.

I wouldn’t think it would be spam in this one instance. Write in the terms of registration that they’re gonna get a reminder come election time (lawyer hat) then they can’t complain – it’s part of the process.

They freely joined this organization, I don’t think it’s out of line to remind them one time to vote for it’s leadership. Maybe a friendly reminder would spur them to check on the WGA again.

[Ray]

Hmmm, thinking hat on here! We might take votes by response to such a message rather than open voting on the WGA page. If you don’t get the email, you don’t get to vote [you didn’t give us a valid email address]. A notice might be posted in the forums that the email had been sent and if it has not been received, the member would need to update their membership data.

[GeoPink]

I personally check close to a dozen email addresses every week.

Would I then get a dozen ballots if I created a dozen accounts.

12emails x 6votes = a bigger mess than COTY!

Better yet I could just spoof ballots from members emails that I know and then we could sort out two or three ballots cast by the same email address!

Oui!

I like the idea of a reminder email, but still think we will have better luck keeping control of the election process if it remains entirely internal.

[GeoPink]

Just an observation and not a suggestion really, but the MnGCA uses paper ballots sent out by the Board and sent back in by the voters in their annual elections.

[Author]

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