FAQ

General Info

How does this work?

Why do this?

What if my question is one of the top three?

Aren’t other groups doing this same thing?

The Top Questions

What questions will be sent?

Why is there a limit to length of questions?

Who are “the people” that decide?

Will any of the candidates respond?

Why must I register to join?

Can I host the same session on my site. How do I do that?

Why not let people submit questions via video?

Summits and More information

Who is behind this?

Can I hold my own “Summit” like this?

What if I have ideas or suggestions for askthenextpresident?

How Does this Work?

Each month, we have a session or “Summit” to find the top questions people would like to ask the candidates. At the end of the month, the top three will be sent to each candidate. The candidates will be invited to respond to them and to pick one other question to answer that he or she feels is interesting but did not make the top three.

Why do this?

Since we live in a Democracy, we thought there should be a Democratic way of interviewing the candidates. No one else was doing it, so we decided to give it a try. This of course is by no means perfect system, but we think it is a step in the right direction. Also, we do not support any one candidate, but we do believe that all of them should answer the questions most on people's minds.

What if my question is in the top three?

We will contact you and give you the opportunity to send us a short bio that we can send along with the question, if you so desire.

Aren’t other groups doing this same thing?

We do not know of any. Some groups let people suggest questions, then a staff or editor chooses from the list of user-submitted questions (like Youtube/CNN did). We thought it would be interesting to try a completely bottom-up, people-directed way to determine the questions candidates answer. Nothing against the other ways of doing it. There is certainly a place for expert-directed interviews and those like Youtube/CNN did. However, there are also seems to be a place for completely user-directed interviews where the questions asked are not chosen by the staff of large multi-national corporations like Fox, CNN, or Google. We hope this site helps to fill that role. With this, the people choose the questions and the candidates can respond, if they so desire, at their leisure either via text or video and we will post it in the Answer tab. We really have no idea how this unfold, but believe it will be an interesting and exciting experiment.

What questions will be sent?

Whatever “the people” choose. Each month, the top three will be sent unless we find that a person or group is trying to game the system. If so, we will need to correct the totals accordingly. Our intention is to completely let the group decide, but for this to happen people must abide by the user agreement. If not, we may have to intervene if, for example, someone is setting up multiple accounts. Also, we will delete spam and what we feel are mean or inappropriate posts.

Why is there a limit to length of questions?

We decided that to make the rating system work better, questions need to have a limit, since it is not likely that people will read questions that are 1,000 words long. With a limit, users can more easily scan through the list and boost what they like. We may find a way later to let people's whose questions have been chosen expand on them before they are sent. For now, though, everyone must limit questions to 255 characters.

Who are “the people” that decide?

Whoever shows up and joins. We are going to limit the number the first few months as we test the technology and understand our server needs, but anyone is welcome as long as they follow the user agreement.

Will any of the candidates respond?

We do not know, but we hope so. It is partly up to you. If alot of people are interested and participate, the chances of the candidates answering will certainly increase. So feel free to tell your friends and spread the word.

Why must I register to join?

This confirms that you have a working email address in case we need to reach you. It also helps you follow your activity and that of others. Also, please not per the user agreement that each person is only allowed one account.

Can I host the same session on my site. How do I do that?

Email us and we can give you the code to embed on your site. Initially, we are only allowing a handful of embedded sessions as work out glitches, but we will open it more soon. Email us at info@askthenextpresident.com.

Why not let people submit questions via video?

We may offer this option in the future. We shall see. However, it makes the rating process very difficult since who is going to visit 50 web pages to watch 50 different questions and decide what they like. With text, you can view and rate content much more easily.

Who is behind this?

We are a small team out of a little town (population 1,500) in Northern New Mexico. We also created Zooleo, the group that made “Summits” which are used to run the Question tool. There are three of us: Destin Moulton did all the back-end and created the widget; his brother Max Moulton did the cool design; Soren Gordhamer came up with the idea for Zooleo and Askthenextpresident.com, and basically gets in the way, causes problems, and has endless ideas and suggestions most of which are not very helpful.

Can I hold my own “Summit” like this?

Zooleo, the company that created the Summit widget used on this site, is gradually adding Beta Users. You can use Summits to uplift a variety of content, including Answers, Ideas, Concerns, or Questions. Visit Zooleo to learn more and to sign up to be a Beta user..

What if I have ideas or suggestions for ask the next president?

We love to get feedback and ideas. Email us at info@askthenextpresident.com