Jan 3, 2004

A tempest in a teapot?

eList members surprised by pre-New Year’s Day ‘politicking’

Readers of Willow Glen’s eList were surprised Dec. 30 when Daniel Beasworrick, the candidate running against Ken Yeager for the District 6 City Council seat, sent out a posting inviting people to volunteer for his campaign.

“Hi everybody! My name is Dan Beasworrick and at least some of you know I’m running for City Council in District 6. This thing really needs to take off right after the first of the year if we’re going to defeat Mr. Yeager, so I’m looking for some volunteers. Anything you can do will be a great help.” He then gave directions for people to contact him.

However, many eList readers appeared to be quite unhappy by the politicking. Larry Ames, the eList administrator, cautioned people to re-read the rules about “proper ‘netiquette.’ Acceptable posts are personal email about WGNA and Willow Glen…When it is not obvious [about what is acceptable], the posters are encouraged to contact the list administrator for guidance… Specifically not allowed on the eList are commercial solicitations or political campaigning…”
Once the administrator had spoken, Beasworrick offered an apology. “It WON’T happen again,” he wrote. Still, the comments engendered much written discourse.

Some readers told Beasworrick, “I resent your use of this list to campaign.” Most agreed, but others found it fair, since Councilmember Yeager is allowed to “campaign every time he posts his letters, memos, comments and achievements to the eList.”

This missive was answered by another reader who cited differences between postings of City Council actions and a “pitch for campaign workers. The former,” according to the reader, “is providing legitimate information; the latter is outright campaigning.”

And some readers were so incensed, they called “The Times” to make sure it didn’t happen again.