I agree with David, but it's also noteworthy how few votes there are in general
at this point. Supposedly the Facebook pro-metric group has nearly 11,000
members (though most are not actively participating). The leading idea on
change.org has fewer than 3000 votes. So that's a reason to keep trying to
recruit our supporters.
Another thing I notice is that there are some strange items near the top
representing very specialized interests (raw milk, hand-made toys). These
people may be at organizations where they can muster a few hundred votes with
an e-mail blast. So the process is probably not a good index of public opinion.
Let's send our own e-mail blasts to people we know, and keep this issue front
and center on the Facebook group.
From: David
Sent: 01/05/2009 8:00 PM
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:42260] change.org doubt
I think change.org is a great idea and I was surprised to see that we
made the second round, mostly because we were in sixth place just a mere day
away from the end of the first round. Once I saw that our votes doubled in one
day I was so surprised and excited that the idea made it.
However, and I hope this doesn't become a trend, but we are very quickly
sinking. Well, not really sinking, but we aren't moving anywhere and other
ideas are going up so much faster. Our place is hovering at 51 now (and staying
in that area) and we need 773 votes to make it into the top 10. Just a few
hours ago that was about half, just a mere 400 votes.
I don't want to make any doomsday prophecies, but right now it isn't
looking so good. But hopefully we'll get surprised again. I think it would be
great if we made it into the top 10. And if not, this isn't the one and only
chance to become metric.
