What is Change.gov actually for?

[mjr]

Now, I don't have accounts on certain Social Media sites, so I don't comment when this comes up.

But what is Change.gov actually for? My initial impression is that it's for governmental suggestions or changes. I've got some ideas, but I'm just paranoid enough that I don't want to use my real name on a petition.

It's not "someone pissed me off or did something I don't like so I'm going to start a petition to get them fired/removed/whatever".

It's like a derivation of that line from that movie "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it does."

People put up ludicrous petitions, too.

So I think what it's actually for isn't what it's actually being used for.

[BlaqueKatt]

People put up ludicrous petitions, too.

So I think what it's actually for isn't what it's actually being used for.

The "ludicrous" petitions* for the white house one actually caused it to be much more difficult for legitimate issues to be addressed, which is very sad.


*they upped the amount of signatures required to prompt an actual response because of the stupid "build a death star" hyuk-hyuk. there was a petition shortly after the threshold was raised addressing the very real, and well studied/documented health and safety risks of DST(daylight saving), in an attempt to finally end it. It met the previous threshold before the "death star joke" but couldn't meet the new one, which is almost unobtainable. That 5 minute joke and minor chuckle was suuuure worth it..

[mjr]

The "ludicrous" petitions* for the white house one actually caused it to be much more difficult for legitimate issues to be addressed, which is very sad.


*they upped the amount of signatures required to prompt an actual response because of the stupid "build a death star" hyuk-hyuk. there was a petition shortly after the threshold was raised addressing the very real, and well studied/documented health and safety risks of DST(daylight saving), in an attempt to finally end it. It met the previous threshold before the "death star joke" but couldn't meet the new one, which is almost unobtainable. That 5 minute joke and minor chuckle was suuuure worth it..

I've read some under sports articles where people use that site to try to get sports teams to either sign a player or kick a player off a team. Seriously.

[Gravekeeper]

I think you might be confusing Change.org with the White House's petition system ( Petitions.whitehouse.gov )? The Whitehouse's system is for such suggestions and is curated to filter out non-sense. It also has a minimum threshold ( 150 signatures ) before the petition is visible to the public. So joke petitions don't clutter up more serious issues.

Change.org on the other hand you can throw up pretty much anything but it has nothing to do with the Whitehouse.

It met the previous threshold before the "death star joke" but couldn't meet the new one, which is almost unobtainable. That 5 minute joke and minor chuckle was suuuure worth it..

It wasn't raised because of a Death Star joke. It was raised after the website's usage surged and every petition was crossing the original threshold in a week. Its membership doubled and its activity tripled in a 2 month period.

The DST petition was put up 3 months after the threshold change. Not quite "shortly after". DST observance is also a bit trickier as individual States decide whether or not to observe it ( thus 2 don't and no US territory does as I recall ). Considering that Indiana actually opted *in* to DST as recently as 2006 it would be a murky issue for the Federal government to try and abolish the practice.

The best it could do would be to drop the Federal guidelines. But that doesn't mean the States have to follow.

[mjr]

I think you might be confusing Change.org with the White House's petition system ( Petitions.whitehouse.gov )? The Whitehouse's system is for such suggestions and is curated to filter out non-sense. It also has a minimum threshold ( 150 signatures ) before the petition is visible to the public. So joke petitions don't clutter up more serious issues.

Change.org on the other hand you can throw up pretty much anything but it has nothing to do with the Whitehouse.

I believe you're right. I don't actually think the petitions on Change.org are really binding or actionable, are they?

But here's an example of what I'm talking about from the petitions.whitehouse.gov website:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pet...tigers-out-sec

I know it only has 174 signatures, but the fact is, this petition shouldn't even be on here. It's not up to the President (or Congress) to kick Missouri out of the Southeast Conference.

[BlaqueKatt]

reading failure on my part

[Gravekeeper]

I know it only has 174 signatures, but the fact is, this petition shouldn't even be on here. It's not up to the President (or Congress) to kick Missouri out of the Southeast Conference.

No, it shouldn't, and its actually violating the site's ToS. Hence I imagine it'll be nixed in the near future now that its over the public threshold. It operates like any other web forum. Reactive rather than proactive. It actually does a pretty damn good job if you look at the site statistics.

Almost 20 million users but only 65 active public petitions? Imagine the sheer amount of shit they must be filtering out.

[mjr]

Almost 20 million users but only 65 active public petitions? Imagine the sheer amount of shit they must be filtering out.

Hmmm...good points, Gravekeeper.

That does make me wonder, though, if they're "filtering out" legitimate petitions, just because they may not like them.

[Gravekeeper]

That does make me wonder, though, if they're "filtering out" legitimate petitions, just because they may not like them.

That would be silly, and rather pointless. A successful petition doesn't mean the government has to do what the petition says. Only that it responds. Plus, it would be really evident if they were as the system is reactive moderation. The petitions would still initially appear and people would notice if valid ones mysteriously vanished.

If there was even the slightest whiff of such a thing Fox News would be reminding us of it twice a week and the GOP would be on its 17th investigative committee.

[mjr]

That would be silly, and rather pointless. A successful petition doesn't mean the government has to do what the petition says. Only that it responds.

I actually do have some ideas for some petitions, but there's a part of me that's a little apprehensive to put my name to anything like that -- regardless of who's in charge.