Straight2Who.com/USA is a forum designed to encourage conversations between American voters and the rest of the world about American politics and the 2008 presidential candidates. This project was inspired by an effort launched by the UK's Guardian newspaper in 2004, encouraging its readers to write letters to American voters in Iowa about the presidential candidates. That project irritated some American voters, who thought that non-Americans should mind their own business when it comes to American politics. At the same time, however, the Guardian's letter writing campaign illustrated an important point: even though Americans are not accustomed to hearing it, the way we vote matters. It affects people across the globe. And the way people across the globe vote affects us.
With this in mind, the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI) worked with Straight2Who.com to create a platform that allows citizens across the globe to ask American voters, elected officials, and political activists questions about the 2008 presidential candidates, their campaigns, and the issues at stake in the election. Americans will answer some of the most popular questions.
IPDI considers Straight2Who.com/USA to be an online community. Like many communities in the offline world, Straight2Who.com/USA has a set of guidelines. We know that political issue can often lead to spirited debate, but we want the portions of that debate that occur on this site to be cerebral, centered in reason, rationality and curiosity as a way to promote a polite and engaging exchange of ideas. All questions – and answers – are valuable to us, as are the unique circumstances, beliefs, and experiences that create them. At the same time, we politely ask our community of users to refrain from a few practices that we feel harm this community-based conversation. Specifically, we ask that our community avoid posting videos or messages that contain profanity, threats or hate speech. We will not post content that contains profanity, threats or hate speech, and we will remove content that contains profanity, threats or hate speech. Finally, we ask the members of our community to help us uphold these standards.
We prefer that our community post questions, instead of submitting statements. It's difficult for us to find people willing to respond to statements. Questions tend to be more engaging. However, that probably will not stop some of our American respondents from posing questions to the community, and it shouldn't stop the community from answering them.