The BBC have a serious online presence which probably costs them a fortune to maintain every year.
None of the Irish political parties have an online presence that comes anywhere near it (and you wouldn’t really expect them to either… )
But when an Irish political party blatantly rips off the BBC’s design and thinks they can get away with it, what kind of message does that send?
They then try to cover their tracks, but obviously don’t do a particularly convincing job of it.
Now the thing that leaves me practically speechless is the attitude of the politicos that emanates from their comments on both of Steph’s posts:
Get over it Steph. The site is brilliant. Its really is superb. Its online, it works, and its not going anywhere.
As a matter of fact, the site online now, was ready to go last week, the .org site up yesterday was a bit of a teaser based on some very early work.
I think its great. Don’t think anybody else other than yourself and Dave Cochrane of p.ie are even the slightest bit bothered. My two cents, appreciate a brilliant website when you see it!
So the message is what exactly?
(Irish) Political parties don’t have to abide by copyright rules?
As I already learnt, they seem to think that they can abuse email without any censure, so why would design or any other intellectual property matter?
Of course the funny thing is that they don’t do a particulary good job of protecting their own IP.
Both finegael.tel and fiannafail.tel are registered to the same person.. I somehow doubt if that person has any links to either party and most certainly not both …
And to top off the stupidity, finegael.ie simply serves a frame that embeds the finegael.org site. Goodbye bookmarkability. How 1998.
Come on an Irish Political party being original, that will be the day.
And to top that off again, my friend just realised they have Coldfusion on finegael.ie for a single iframe site
The frame is laughable – don’t they know how to configure a web server? DNS?
Michele, that comments from one individual would be presented by you as representative of an entire party is quite wrong. I’ve commented on the matter too as have others with FG connections and we’ve taken a very different tack to Stephen. But those comments are ignored in your post.
If you read my comments on iamsteph or followed the conversation on p.ie you might have seen that not everyone involved in politics or political parties automatically resorts to cheerleading for the party right or wrong. Some of us even like see all the facts before passing judgement. Would that those with no involvement could do the same.
What evidence I’ve seen to date would definitely seem to support what iamsteph has said, but I personally would wait a few days more (especially given that it’s a weekend) until I hear something from FG HQ before being in anyway conclusive about what has take place. Or should HQ end up failing to say anything at all to refute what steph has presented than the weight of evidence would obviously rest on her side and I would agree there is a case to answer.
I’m sure the usual suspects will be posting before long that somehow this is all Enda Kenny’s fault and his personal inability to code html from scratch marks him as not being Taoiseach material while Brian Cowen’s mastery of the telephone (with all those complicated numbers) marks him as the man to steer us through these challenging economy times.
Also, I know you’ve got a financial stake in people registering domains but you hardly think everyone and every organisation should register every variation of their name in every possible domain. What next will you be wondering why the ICA haven’t ica.tel?
Dan
The comment I referenced was made by someone who linked to a Fine Gael website in his comments.
If his comment is not a direct reflection of the party’s official line and was merely his personal opinion, then maybe FG need to address how its members interact online, as it would appear to a casual observer that what he said was a party line of sorts.
As for the domain thing .. the launch of .tel was well publicised.
Any business or large organisation should have made reasonable efforts to make sure that its name was reserved in the namespace prior to launch. Obviously Labour and the Greens would have had competition from other parties, but that wouldn’t have been the case for Fianna Fail or Fine Gael.
I didn’t mention anything about registering variations – you did.
Thanks for your comments
Michele
Behan’s comments absolutely beggar belief – the fact the site slipped managed to get by (I assume) several layers of bureaucracy without blatant plagiarism becoming a show stopper is shame enough, but to then come out and make it like it’s no big thing…amazing.
I’ve seen this kind of thing plenty of times from tinpot little “web designers” trying to justify their rip offs, but from a major political party…the mind boggles.
“Both finegael.tel and fiannafail.tel are registered to the same person.. I somehow doubt if that person has any links to either party and most certainly not both …”
You did mention registering domains just there, by variation I meant variations from their core addresses and audienaces which would be served by .ie or .com. I personally don’t see a compelling reason for Fianna Fail, Fine Gael or frankly anyone to run out every time a new domain is created to register themselves. You perhaps do but you are in the business.
I will address the rest of the points raised in the morning but I will say this simply because someone links to a site doesn’t make them the official spokesperson for anything. I could link to the Engineer’s Ireland site in a post and I’m an engineer but that don’t make what I say the official line for EI, former the IEI. Or I could link to An Taisce if I choose but that doesn’t make me an An Taisce spokesperson despite being a member. In case there is any potential confusion I’m not speaking on behalf of FG here, I’m simply giving my opinion as an FG member.
There are potentially real issues to be discussed here but the the idea that the comments of someone who includes a link to yfg in a post us somehow speaking on behalf of a political party is not one of them. As for the idea that FG or anyone with a site would be issuing official edicts that no one can link to them in blog posts is just complete overkill.
@Dan, I think your argument is basically flawed on 3 points here.
First of all Stephen who made the comments is not some random party member he is the VP of YFG and despite not really having to link to any website he chose to link to an official party website.
If a VP of a division of Microsoft were to comment on a matter relating directly to microsofts behaviour online and link his name directly to an official microsoft website would it be reasonable to think he represents microsoft? I think it would.
Also I don’t think an organisation having a policy regarding linking your name (we aren’t talking about linking in general but your name in a comments section) to official party sites when offering personal opinions NOT representative of the party is unreasonable at all and is in place at MANY private organisations.
Last of all this is the internet and the party has been accused of doing something illegal and infringing on someone elses copyright. No private organisation would knowingly allow a negative story to grow without response for 3 days even over a weekend. Do the rules change for political parties? If they were serious about managing their reputation online then a much faster response is required.
Is it that Party communications officers or PR firm don’t do weekends or we have to wait til monday because the party leaders/spokespeople are taking a break???
This reflects one of 2 things either a) the party simply doesn’t feel this is serious at all or b) they have no response and are hoping this will just go away by itself.
If they are innocent speak up quick if they are not admit it, fix it and say sorry.
I’m not a designer and have no political affiliations, if anything I’m slightly anti-IP in general. Stephens comments though are unintelligent at best and outrageous at worst and your response to Stephens comments as a defence of FG simply don’t add up.
I wasn’t interested in this up to now but I’ll be waiting to see the “official” party line. I think FG and all the political parties need to very careful about how they treat voters opinions (yes they vote too they’re not virtual people) and deal with their own reputation management online.
dan it was clear as sooo as somebody found the freelancer request from your commms guy that they went out to do a bad copy of the bbc site.
– damn right there are! – the new website is a blatant rip-off of the BBC’s website. The screen shots over at p.ie shows that the sites looked identical two days ago. Even after a few pathetic changes (the top banner colour and font face)it is still clear that the site is a copy. Box and margin widths are exactly the same, the overall colours – the same.
Just at a time when we need our opposition parties to be impressive and trust-worthy, this is what happens. Shame on you Fine Gael.
Anton, you’re seriously suggesting some real practical equivalence between comments of a vice-president of yfg and a VP of a division of Microsoft? You do get it that one is a youth organisation and the other is…well where do i start. I think lots of people in yfg and other youth political parties could use with engaging some basic cop on filter before opening their mouths but I’ve also enough cop on myself to know precisely how much credence to give their comments. And even if he’s speaking on behalf of anyone it’s yfg not FG.
As for your last comment I’m also waiting to hear what the response will be, though at the time of the original posting the story had only been running from Thursday afternoon evening. Maybe there has been a response somewhere and I’ve not seen it, I don’t think that they’re going to be contacting me directly or even responding to each and every blog post about it. I would expect in due course, i.e. sometime tomorrow a proper response to iamsteph’s posts and if that isn’t forthcoming that I think we can all draw conclusions from that. So what if I choose to give them slack over the weekend before making my judgement that’s my prerogative. Maybe they don’t do weekends or maybe they’re trying to make contact with people who were involved in this who don’t do weekends or maybe they’re bone lazy and can’t be arsed. I don’t know. In part, I’m waiting for the weekend to pass before making a judgement myself because I’ve other stuff to do and this isn’t a priority for me at the moment. I think iamsteph has raised legitimate questions and I’m interested in hearing the response but I’m not counting down the hours or worrying myself to sleep over it.
If you had read my comments as I referred to elsewhere then you would have seen I’ve not been defending cheerleading comments from party supporters nor mindlessly defending the party. Instead you’re the one seeking to paint my response as being in some way similar to Stephen’s when it obviously isn’t or that it is somehow meant to be a defence of his comments when it isn’t.
Michele’s main differentiating point in his post, as opposed the posts of iamsteph or Suzy, is “the attitude of the politicos” and I’m merely saying that to characterise the response of one person as representative of the response of everyone with a political bent is wrong. By all means characterise the response of Stephen as “unintelligent at best and outrageous at worst” but don’t be seeking to say that is or has been the response of everyone.
so dan your admitting that the fg comms guy discussion with DC wasn’t a proper response at all, even as unfoocial response. fg stephen’s repsonse echoed that disucssion, that they really didn’t seem to care.
What discussion are you referring to? I’m not aware of any discussion, I’m aware of an email on last Thursday that was sent and if that email proves to be the sum total of the response from FG then I think the balance of the evidence is on iamsteph side of the argument. I’ve already said this on p.ie, but I’m not going to rehash all of that here.
Also, I know most will found this overly nuanced but yfg isn’t fg in the same way that Camogie isn’t part of the GAA.
Dan. First of all and to be 100% clear I didn’t say your comments were like Stephens or a defense of his comments. What I said specifically was
I think that makes it abundantly clear that I feel your response was a defense of FG and that I don’t think your arguments in their defense hold water. The entire comment was an illustration of why I think that.
Second, Yes I am saying that it’s comparable because it IS a division of Fine Gael it is described on it’s website as the “the youth wing of the Fine Gael Party”. If this isn’t accurate then FG ought to make that clear to them and stop them from using their name. And I do believe that it is reasonable for FG to have policies regarding linking when offering non-official personal opinions and that it is reasonable that they would advise YFG to observe them.
I’m a little concerned over your argument that members of the youth wing of political parties have no cop on and should be ignored?
Painting Stephen and YFG as a bunch of young Yahoos who can’t be expected to engage their brain before speaking is slightly disingenuous. Stephen is not an 18 year old leaving cert student he is, I think, at least 23-24 (if not older) with a degree in English/history and economics from UCC and is now doing a Hdip to become a teacher. http://www.yfg.ie/behan.php . We have had TDs at a younger age and his rise to VP in YFG would indicate that he may have ambitions in that direction himself.
Stephen may have made a mistake in this case but to paint him as someone with no cop-on as a defence of FG is insulting both to him and the entire YFG branch of the party, and frankly that argument could be made about any politician, it’s still not a defense.
There is no question that he represented himself as responding in his capacity as VP of YFG and he will have to accept the consequences of that (if any). He has had ample opportunity to say it was his personal opinion not that of YFG but he (as far as I know) hasn’t.
Therefore in answer to the question “is he a Politico?” I would say that yes he is very much so. As for Michele’s assessment of Politicos response well no other FG politicos have responded (have they?) until they do that this is the sum of information at hand.
If Stephens response is NOT that of the general party then it is not incumbent on Michele to seek out there opinions or wait for there response, it is there responsibility to make their voice heard. It is no different than if the discussion were on the radio except that were it on the radio then IMHO we would have had a response by now.
Had the response been immediate then this headline may have been “YFG exec slapped down over response to IP infringment”. They haven’t so until they do they will have to suffer the damage of these types of headlines in the same way Microsoft would have to over a VP stepping out of line. You don’t get to have different rules because the person is young or because you’re a political party.
The message is clear, educate your executives and manage your online reputation properly or suffer the consequences, no point in complaining.
That’s all I can contribute to this debate most likely as I’ll be travelling over the next few days. Be interesting to see how it all turns out.
@Dan Don’t mean to be tortuous man and frankly I don’t really care that much how this turns out. It’s the lack of online rep management that interests me not scoring political pointds of FG. As I said I don’t support any political party as they invariably all have some policies I find distasteful.
We’ll put the world to rights over a pint some night though. 🙂