“I dream of a day where every UU member has an elevator speech at the ready, but rarely gets to use it because their fellow elevator riders already know about UU. Or better yet: because there’s another UU in that elevator!”
Martin Voelker
This blog strives to provide a neutral and civil forum to discuss the positions held by the current candidates for President of the UUA, aiming at two overarching questions: What do we want in a UUA President? and: Which candidate best fits this desire?
To maintain neutrality, posts (as opposed to reader comments) will not take sides but simply consist of verifiable, public material either published previously by the two campaigns themselves (such as platforms, position statements, website material, and transcripts of campaign events), or articles from UU publications, such as UU World. Readers are encouraged to bring suitable documents to our attention.
We believe that the sober juxtaposition of both candidates’ track records, public statements, ideas, and platforms will allow an open minded reader to come to a well founded decision. In an effort to maintain healthy discussion and debate, OFF-TOPIC postings may be removed by the moderators. Postings making non-specific claims about bias on the site will also be considered ‘OFF-TOPIC’ and will be removed by the moderators. Any specific claim of bias will be given serious attention from the moderators.
As a guard against bias – and the perception of bias – the founder of this blog, Martin Voelker, invited a distinguished UU blogger with a long track record of even-handedness to be co-moderator with full editorial privileges, Aaron Sawyer.
In addition, we seek to use a mechanism that is new in the blogosphere: an ombudsperson. If you feel your comment or submission of post-worthy material was unfairly edited or ignored you can complain directly to the ombudsman who will review it and make a final decision. At this point we are still looking to find such a volunteer ombudsperson, and welcome nominations (self-nominations are fine).
The blog’s starting point is the first public candidate debate of June 28, 2008 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL at GA 2008, with more candidate documents to be added as we receive them. Martin Voelker transcribed the debate in order to post it here to invite commentaries and thoughtful discussion. That transcript is being continually updated and may be replaced by an official transcript if one becomes available.
Martin maintains a personal blog with observations of an unbelieving Unitarian Universalist at http://jUUggernaut.wordpress.com
Aaron’s well known blog is here: http://DiscoverUU.com
Last but not least: Please visit both candidate websites. And should you get a chance to ask them questions in person: ask them to post that dialogue on this blog!
July 9, 2008 at 11:00 am
So long as the site’s main contents remain neutral and consist mostly of quotations from the candidates, I think the objective of removing personal bias will be achieved. I have no fear that UU’s will not hesitate to call you on any perceived bias.
Thanks for setting this up
Aaron Sawyer
-DiscoverUU.com
July 25, 2008 at 3:27 pm
[...] For balance, I included Aaron Sawyer of DiscoverUU.com as co-moderator with equal rights, and we’re seeking an outside ombudsman so that readers have assurance that there are real mechanisms for fairness in place. (Details on our About page). [...]