So Much For "We the People"

[Jennifer_P]

So, "we" have decided to accept the Document that specifies the Guild of Writer's leadership structure. Who is this "we"?
Every member of this forum?
Every member of the Guild of Writers?
Every "active" member of the Guild of Writers?
Everyone who posted in the Administration thread "Guild of Writers Leadership"?
Or the tiny, well-intentioned minority who proposed the Document in the first place?

As far as I can tell, it is the last group. This tiny minority has taken on the right to accept the Document for the Guild as a whole--and their decision is based only on the opinions of those who posted in the "Guild of Writers Leadership" thread. This minority was never given power by anyone to enact the Document--they've chosen to do so strictly on their own authority, and while I believe their intentions are good, nevertheless they are wrong to presume to represent the Guild in accepting their own Document. To use a metaphor, they ordered this meal, they prepared it for us, and now they are serving it to us without our consent.
Is it consent enough, I ask, to see that the general opinion in the "Guild of Writers Leadership" thread is mostly inclined towards accepting the Document? No, not whatsoever!
Fact: only 23 people posted in that thread. Most of them (but not all) were affiliated with the Guild of Writers, and not all of them expressed an opinion, let alone a clear opinion, on the Document.
Fact: there are 208 members of this forum.
What of the lurkers, what of the people who already have their own opinion and don't feel the need to discuss it, what of the people new to the Guild who don't even know what's going on yet? Are the opinions of these people unimportant? If not, why are they being completely ignored and left out of the decision process by this minority, which claims that it represents the whole Guild's opinion on the Document?

Why, O People, was this the first paragraph of the Constitution of the United States?

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This is the first paragraph of the Constitution because without the consent of the People, the Constitution would be nothing!

We the People of the Guild of Writers are not being allowed to ordain and establish this Document for the Guild of Writers. We have not been given any opportunity to vote for it. A group of people proposed it, and have accepted it for us.

This situation must be corrected or an injustice will be done to those who have not been represented in the supposed "ratification" of the Document. Therefore I move that the following proposals be considered by all interested parties:

1. A vote to be taken on the Document, consisting of a poll in this manner:
"Do you consider yourself a member of the Guild of Writers, and if so, do you accept the Document described at viewtopic.php?f=47&t=838 as specifying the structure of representation for the Guild of Writers?"
A. Yes
B. No
C. Abstain
I propose that the poll should continue for 10 days and that the decision of the majority be adopted.

2. Secondly, I propose that a global sticky be attached at the top of all subfora, clearly announcing that a vote on the acceptance of the Document is taking place, so that the entire Guild population may be informed of this important event.

3. Thirdly, I propose that the election of representatives be suspended until such time as the Document which calls for them is ratified, should it be ratified at all.

If you support or oppose any or all of these resolutions, please indicate your vote at the top of your post.

I support 1, 2, and 3.
I also support the Document, but I will withold voting for any representatives until I have been given a chance to clearly voice my opinion--by means of a vote--on whether or not I accept the Document and the representative structure specified therein. I consider it unacceptable that my opinion has been fuzzily reckoned by a minority instead of being unambiguously expressed in a vote. I cannot and will not accept the Document or any representatives specified by it until my own voice and the voice of the entire Guild has been unmistakably heard and the votes tell me that the Document has been adopted--or not--by the Guild itself.

[Whilyam]

I do believe that Constitution was ALSO made by a well-intentioned minority and was provided as the way those United States were headed and it was up to those citizens to decide whether they were those people the Constitution referred to.

[andylegate]

The Constitution of the United States is a good analogy Jennifer.............if you are indicating that you desire structure.

That is exactly what the Constitution was and is for. To provide structure and guidance to our goverment.
A goverment that was NOT voted into place at the time.

A minority of people with like thoughts and a need to "form a more perfect union."

If you take a look at this post here you'll see that a poll was held back on Nov. 7th. You can see that only 29 voted. Majority was 19 votes to having a small council. The poll's last comment was posted only 2 days later. The poll is still open. Nobody else bothered to vote.

Another poll was opened up on Nov. 8th, asking when elections should be held for a small council. You can see it here. Only 24 voted. And again, the poll is still open.
Majority was no rush- when we need a council we will know, with 13 votes (11 saying to do it right away).

Another post was started on Nov. 10th. You can find it here again talking about leadership, structure, etc.

On Dec. 2nd, Trylon, with others help, made the post about the structure. This was after the all guilds meeting. Re-read the post to see what he was talking about.

There may be 208 registered users on this forum, but that does not make 208 Guild Members. It simply means that 208 people registered to this forum so that they could make posts.

So far, based upon polls that I've seen and searched, you have less than 30 people on here that care enough to even bother commenting or voting.

It would seem that most people are as Chacal first said in his post upon this subject: Believe making Ages is more important.

While that might be true for some, it is not true for everyone. There are many people here that want to see this guild organized in such a way that it can actually communicate better with the other guilds. This in no way limits people in their Age building. None.

You can build all the Ages you want. You can download the tools to do so all you want.

Now here we go. This "minority" of people as you called them are trying to push this forward. You object to that. Yet at the same time you are using the VERY STRUCTURE THEY SET UP for your proposal!

This is good. I hope your proposal is taken up and applied. I think you'll be surprised at the resulting poll.

[Pryftan]

There are, as of now, a small group of people who want to move forward and a hundred people who just want to see what other people do and yell at it. We're trying to make some progress; the guild voted on a Council, and whether or not it was a large turnout, decisions are made by those who show up, and we used that decision to move forward. We nominated a Council but we didn't put it in place permenently before asking, in a poll for each member, whether or not our decision is acceptable.

If you actually have a problem with our ideas, rather than our methods, talk about those. But our methods are in response to the fact that nobody seems to want to help constructively. They just want to tear down what others have wrought.

[Aloys]

I see your point Jennifer, and I agree with it for the most part. You are voicing your disagreement, fighting for the fundamental democracy principle, and that's something I will certainly never argue with.
That said, in this specific context I think you are essentially taking all this a little too much at heart. As you mention this document is simply a basis to make things go forward. In the future if it doesn't prove to be perfect, or useable, we may (and will) amend it. And while I agree the way it was proposed and then accept might have been handled better I think it's just no big deal.
Also during this whole leadership election process we must keep in mind at all times two things:
1) We are all here out of our own will. And if things go wrong with the council or any authorities (beside Cyan that is) then the supposed 'authorities' won't have much power..
2) In the end we essentially do all this for the love of the game, and for the fun of creating content for it. "For fun". Anything that takes us away from that should be closely studied and then thrown away.

While this whole election thing might be an interesting social and political experiment (much like the DRC liaisons elections) there is no need to dig too deep into it, and waste too much emotional energy...

[BAD]

I do believe that Constitution was ALSO made by a well-intentioned minority and was provided as the way those United States were headed and it was up to those citizens to decide whether they were those people the Constitution referred to.

Well it wasn't that simple.... Read please.

It was penned by a minority, and only ratified after 9 states agreed to it. All 13 states did eventually agree to it.

This took fierce fighting, political deft, and two years. The Government did not take office till March 4, 1789. Back to the original subject.

Yes, we did pen this proposal, and we are going to follow through with it. We need to start somewhere. If you don't like this system we set up, than create one of your own and replace the council with it. It only requires a proposal and a vote. We just want to get the ball rolling. Anything that happens after this is up to the members of the forum. We are not giving you leaders. We are giving you servants. People to use to meet the guilds ends. If you want something different than what we have set up, then use the people we are putting here to change things. That is perfectly fine with us also.


We are not going to stop this just because a few people do not want to have a council. This isn't a country, you have no rights here as well as no restrictions. We do not have to do what you want, and we won't.

We will have a council here. If there is a movement to remove the council completely and it is successful, then we will be right back where we started.

You write a long post to chastise our methods, yet you fail to supply your own proposal and wait until the eve of the councils election to begin finding faults. Where was this fervor when we needed help forming some structure?

[Jennifer_P]

About the previous polls Andy mentioned--I have some issues with using polls of the past to decide Guild opinion now for the issue of ratifying the Document. First, those polls were fairly unofficial, more like a telephone opinion survey than the big, official, final decision that comes later. Fewer people will be interested in unofficial polls than in the definitive decision. Second, the polls were as not well publicized as was possible. People who otherwise might ignore the leadership threads as unofficial and unimportant may decide to vote when they learn that this is the real thing. Thirdly, the polls did not deal with the same issues as those which are involved in ratifying the Document. The questions posed were general and did not deal with a multipage document containing detailed descriptions of functions and procedures.

Now here we go. This "minority" of people as you called them are trying to push this forward. You object to that. Yet at the same time you are using the VERY STRUCTURE THEY SET UP for your proposal!

I appreciate the fact that they're pushing this forward, but I do not appreciate the fact that they are doing so with the clear consent of the public. Once they have that, they'll have my blessing. But I wasn't aware that the Document had the monopoly on using a system of proposals? Call it convergent evolution. As to the eventual results of the poll, I expect that we'll end up with much the same results as the older polls have had--which is fine, since I mostly approve of the content of the Document and the decisions made in the past polls. The point is that we get a chance to vote at all in the official decision.

If you actually have a problem with our ideas, rather than our methods, talk about those. But our methods are in response to the fact that nobody seems to want to help constructively. They just want to tear down what others have wrought.

Well, I don't have a problem with your ideas, just your methods. As soon as the Guild as a whole has had a chance to accept the Document, I will welcome the representatives you've chosen. But as long as the Document which proposes representatives has not been clearly approved by vote, having representatives at all has not been approved of.

Aloys--yeah, you're probably right. It hit my "no taxation without representation" nerve apparently. I just thought we would have a chance to vote on the Document, instead of being given no choice but to accept it. I'd rather be working on my Age than writing this post, that's for sure.

Yes, we did pen this proposal, and we are going to follow through with it. We need to start somewhere.

True, true--but why follow through with it without making sure you have the consent of the whole Guild? How could taking 10 days to ratify the Document prevent it from coming into being, especially with such determined advocates on its side?

We are not going to stop this just because a few people do not want to have a council. This isn't a country, you have no rights here as well as no restrictions. We do not have to do what you want, and we won't.

A few people who don't want a council wouldn't be able to stop its formation in a Guild-wide vote, because the majority would just overrule them. And of course, you definitely don't have to do what I say--but if enough people agree to my proposals, then surely you wouldn't just ignore them... Just like I'm sure you wouldn't ignore the wishes of the Guild if they voted not to accept the Document. Whatever the majority says is what should be accepted; it's the fair thing to do. And of course, if you don't like my proposals, you're welcome to vote "Opposed" and I will not object if my suggestions are voted out.

You write a long post to chastise our methods, yet you fail to supply your own proposal and wait until the eve of the councils election to begin finding faults. Where was this fervor when we needed help forming some structure?

I didn't supply my own proposal because I support yours. As to waiting for the council election to find fault, I didn't say anything until now because I expected what I have just asked for (a vote ratifying the Document to make it official) to be undertaken before the specifications of the Document were carried out. If I had known the election was coming (did I miss an announcement somewhere?) I could have posted sooner. Lastly, where was my fervor? Well, back in November, it was directed towards my schoolwork (where it really should be directed now). And then you guys cleverly went underground to work on the Document, so I wasn't able to participate then. But it turned out alright anyway.

[BAD]

Well if you support our proposal and a vote of it's legitimacy is all you need, then please by all means start a poll for it. We will accept whatever terms you put in the poll.

We do NOT have a monopoly on the formation of this council and anyone willing to stick their neck out to give it more credence is more than welcome to jump in.

I will also concede that we will not close the GC voting polls for the candidates until the acceptance poll is satisfied.

Will that work?

[Chacal]

A simple "Do you agree with the specification for a guild leadership structure as proposed by some members in this post? " would work for me.

[Goofy]

hmmm nothing wrong with the proposal that I can see. I personally have been busy and really don't have alot of time to post in every thread. Also IC wise I'm not apart of the GOW only OOC wise. I'll give a hand where I can(like my avie Salerene is being acting janitor )

Also we really don't know what cyan is going to do when the next episode starts. We may have to completely redo everything(doubt it, but you never know)