Live Blog with Mike Taylor, 7-8 p.m. tonight

I think it's great that y'all are doing this, looking forward to observing although I probably won't participate.

http://www.ctlac.com/

JB,

Add me to the list with Marsha.  Great idea.  Sorry to say I'm going to miss it due to a prior commitment.

RK

Jonathan...what a brilliant idea.  It will give us an opportunity to listen to an individual candidate and allow each the time to hopefully explain their platform.  I do have a question I'd like to ask each of the sheriff's candidates.  "If elected the Sheriff of Clay County, will you continue with the COPS program and how will you expand and enhance it?"  To me the COPS program is the foundation of any sheriff's office and should be a priority.  After all, it's interacting with the citizens and who has more eyes and ears than the citizens. 

Thanks Jonathan for this opportunity and for providing the citizens with such a wondedrful tool (MCS Blogs), in which to keep us abreast of happings in our community.

Stryker

It wasn't quite what I expected but it was a start.

Why were 3 out of the 7 blogger questions allowed asked by someone named Tyler?  Doesn't seem fair.

It seemed to be very screened so I don't really see the impact of it being labeled "Live".  With that much editing and seemingly scripted answers, it might as well have not been live.  I think I expected more questions to have been asked and answered in an hour time span with no other candidate involved.

Marshmallow, just as soft; where was the real questions? It would be very interesting to read the questions that were ask, and not displayed. What about it MCS would you be willing to print those questions? And what is the deal with Tyler getting three of his questions posted?

Jonathan;

I think this was great. For the first try it was pretty interesting. Perhaps you can try to schedule some of these for the November elections also. 

Mike Heemer

Jonathan u da man! I think you guys did a great job and I thought is was interesting as well. Thanks for a forwarding thinking innovating idea from MCS.

Finder I think that's an excellent idea about the November elections too.

Are there any statistics about how many viewers there were?  It kind of lagged for me, I don't know if it was the system or Mike Taylors pondering before he answered a question. 

http://www.ctlac.com/

I agree. Seemed like a lot of downtime. Why so many questions by the same person? I'm sure they had tons of questions by different people that could have been answered. I wonder if he got to pick what questions he answered.

We actually had about 200 people who watched the blog the entire time. Many more jumped in and out during the blog, and we had about 100 comments come through while the blog was live (many of which were questions to Mr. Taylor)

Marsha - what kind of lag time? There was a 3, 4 minute pause between questions and answers, but that's because I was typing as quickly as Mr. Taylor was talking, and I took a few seconds after he finished to copy edit any misspellings or punctuation problems. If that's the lag you mean, I hope that helps explain - it you are talking about another type of lag, please let me know. 

About the same questions by "Tyler". That was unintentional. As our live blog was progressing, questions kept pouring into the system, and after the first half hour, we began sorting through the dozens of comments for relevant questions. This "Tyler" only got a couple questions in because his/her questions represented questions by many, many other people. Mr. Taylor did not get to choose the questions he answered.

Otherwise, thanks for the kind words. We think it went well (for a first attempt) and we appreciate everyone who tuned in. Mike - we definitely want to do more for the general elections.  

904.359.4538 e-mail Jonathan

Now we know what's behind the scenes. Am looking forward to the next one.

I guess I was just expecting a faster pace then what it was.  I was one of those people jumping in and out because I didn't know if something was freezing or what. 

I think it was a great first effort and am grateful that you all are creating yet another forum to benefit information on candidates and issues.

http://www.ctlac.com/

JB, that 200 number that stuck with the entire session rivals and even dwarfs the attendance at many live functions.

And the number is, of course, the bare minimum.  I jumped in and out a few times, multitasking on another website during your lag, or typing, time.  No telling how many others reaped the benefits of MCS' effort too.  Thanks.

My only criticism of the live blog was that Taylor didn't really answer a couple of questions.  That doesn't seperate him from any other politician, though.  Just check the printed MCS edition. 

Candidates had days to think about and prepare answers to those questions and still couldn't do it.  Heck, you guys even asked them what was basically a yes-or-no question and some of 'em tapdanced through their entire allotment of 35 or 40 words without ever once using the words yes or no.

Personally, I'd prefer candidates who stopped trying to figure out what I want to hear and how I want to hear it.  Someone who didn't stop to consider how they should word their answers to offend the fewest number of potential voters.

Somebody who'd just answer the question they're asked.

Before all the future live blogs, type in a message and copy it, ready to whip out whenever a candidate avoids answering the question.  If you can't figure out something better, JB, you're welcome use this:

Wonderful answer, but not to the question you were asked.  Would you like me to repeat the question so you can take another stab at, or would you rather just admit that you can't or won't answer the question?

Michael S. Mann

michaelsmann@comcast.net

OneMann;

Are you trying to destroy the entire fabric of our society?

I think I'm going to take a hard look at your response and see how deeply it applies to me. Have I started to sound like a politician when I answer a question or am I just answering the question?

I loved your 'Wonderful answer, .....'. I guess if I ever got that one thrown at me I'd know for a fact that I had started to sound like a politician.

Mike Heemer