Governance/Board Decision Making

Punished by CAST?

10 Comments

The pro-referendum group Communities and School Together (CAST) deleted my membership in its list serve, and changed the membership process to require membership approval by a moderator.
I guess that some members of the community are welcome and others aren’t. We’ll see whether CAST lets me rejoin. Probably not.
Should CAST members be banned from schoolinfosystem.org?

10 thoughts on “Punished by CAST?”

  1. You ask whether CAST members should be banned from SIS: Of course not.
    As for CAST’s shunning you, Ed, well, just remember the old Woody Allen line (paraphrasing): I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.

  2. Ed…
    The CAST listserv exists for the following purpose, which is articulated on the CAST Yahoo Group site:
    “This group is designed to facilitate communication between those working to advocate for the passage of a school financing referendum in November 2006 to benefit the Madison Wisconsin community.”
    Clearly, you indicated that you were voting no for the referendum on a previous post. If you are not going to advocate for the passage of this referendum, why would you want to receive information that is targeted to the success of the referendum?

  3. Just a thought, Barbara–“to benefit the Madison Wisconsin community” is a qualifier to your listserve notice. If someone could offer data that the referendum would NOT benefit the Madison Wisconsin community, would your group not want to at least hear what that person has to say?
    Or, what if someone could be persuaded of your position, i.e, could they possibly change their minds after reading what your posters offer?
    What is it you fear from having anyone who doesn’t agree with your position read your posters’ arguments?

  4. Barb,
    The group has discussed ways to influence state school funding, and I’d be happy to use my 30 years of legislative expertise to help, if you’d like my help.

  5. Joan and interested others…
    The CAST listserv is just to communicate about logistics and planning information to those that are working on the referendum campaign. The listserv is not a blog. Simple as that.
    All of CAST’s positions are posted on it’s website. If interested, readers can visit: http://www.madisoncast.org
    If folks want to enter into dialogue about the merits of the referendum, there are many venues in which they can do so.

  6. Barb,
    Will CAST create a blog, as some suggested on the list serve? If it’s created, will it be open to anyone or just referendum supporters?

  7. For what it’s worth, Barb and others, the Madison United for Academic Excellence list serve is completely open — despite the presence of unfriendly lurkers (whom we’ve known about from the very beginning).

  8. I’m curious, Barb, how does CAST decide whether someone is worthy of making the list? Do you check for previous letters to the editor, for instance, or ask their neighbors? I am serious. How exactly do you test to see if someone is on-board with your views?

  9. Private listserves have, traditionally, been just that, private. As the CAST listserve is apparently an organizational tool, I respect their privacy. I’m not even sure why anyone is concerned about this. If I camped out on, say, the REO Speedwagon listserve, and my only purpose was to rag on fans of REO, I’d expect the boot pretty fast…apparently Ed camped out on their listserve, wasn’t interested in helping them with their message and, in fact, used information he gleaned there to portray them in a negative light. I’d infer that he knew he’d get the boot as soon as he posted said negativity here on SIS, and, therefore, he relished the chance to “out” them…so they “out-ed” him…big freaking deal, he got his 700 pixels of attention. There are so many more important things in the world than the CAST listserve!

  10. Hi Ed,
    The Madison Cast announce listserve is set up. Please sign up at http://www.madisoncast.org.
    There might have been a misunderstanding with the previous request you had. The yahoo group is for people working on the campaign. The public listserve is open to the public to register to recieve annoucement/updates for the campaign.
    Cheers,
    Yogesh Chawla
    CAST Webmaster

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