General Protocol Advice for Facilitators

In the protocol described for the October 20 General Assembly in Ithaca, the only protocol concerns were that results should be accurately and promptly reported and methodology should be explained in full. In particular, no question should be unreported due to concerns about the results' value to the facilitator or to a movement. That is what partisan polling firms do.

In more complex speech protocols, reporting may be limited due to privacy concerns. I have considered having a methodology with individual questionnaires, and in that case I recommend that reporting be limited to the aggregate number of responses for questions, and the aggregate numbers for pairs of responses. For instance, facilitators may report how many people voted in 2010 in a subsample of questionnaires such as speakers with reported ages between 25 and 44. However, posting complete results of all of the individual questionnaires should only be done with individual consent.