Guild of Writers Charter

[Dovahn]

So there's been some discussion about creating a council and all that, and a majority of us agree that some form of Council is good, but that they shouldn't have too many powers. So that we're all on the same page, I've written up a "Charter" that summarizes how our Council system could work.

DISCLAIMERS (READ THESE): I am not saying that this is what we will have. In fact, a lot of discussion should take place, and a lot of modifications should be made before it is voted on. I AM NOT insinuating that we need a strong central council by suggesting this; rather, it is (to some extent) just for fun, as is most of URU. In other words, wouldn't it be cool if we had a constitution?

It isn't a binding document or anything! There's no "contract" here. It's just kind of "fair play" like. We want to enjoy ourselves, and this is a way to keep it fair.

Also, the numbers are arbitrary! I say that the term is three months; we haven't decided on that! In fact, there will probably be a poll soon asking that question. Same goes for any other length of time and number of people.

One last thing: I included the position of Grandmaster (or guildmaster, or whatever). I know this is controversial. The grandmaster's only power here is to moderate over Council meetings, and nothing else. If everyone hates the idea, the guild master can go, no problem.

Anyway, here it is:

Official Charter for the Guild of Writers

Introduction/Mission statement: To be written

Article I: The Creation and Powers of a Guild Council and Grandmaster

Section 1: There shall be a Guild Council whose duties include ranking projects by priorities, acting as a liaison with Cyan, and managing members and project affiliations of members. Guild Council members are also the only members who shall have moderator privileges on the official forum

Section 2: The Guild Council shall be selected by the following process:
Part a) A week long period is to be given for nominations. Any individual may nominate any other individual besides themselves. Each individual may only have one nomination for an individual on the council.
Part b) A week long period following the previous step shall be provided for in which every member nominated at least three times will be part of a poll that will run for a week. At the conclusion of the week, the five highest voted candidates shall become the Guild Council. The highest voted member of the poll will become the Grandmaster

Section 3: The sole power of the Grandmaster is to act as a moderator whenever a Guild Council meeting is called. The Grandmaster has no other powers.

Section 4: After a period of four months after the conclusion of the poll described in Section 2, part b, the process for choosing a Guild Council shall begin again, and the old members of the Council shall be replaced when the final vote is completed.

Article 2: The Enactment and Amendment of this Charter

Section 1: A vote shall be made that has two options, “In favor of the Charter” or “In Disagreement with the Charter”. If after a period of one week 70% of the voters are in favor of the Charter, than this Charter shall be enacted.

Section 2: Any individual may petition for an amendment of this Charter. They shall do this by creating a poll with two choices, “Agree” and “Disagree” and present in the body of the post their proposed amendment. At the conclusion of a week, if over 70% of the votes are in favor of the proposed amendment, the Charter shall be changed to reflect this amendment.

Article 3: Guild Council Meetings

Section 1: A guild council meeting may be called at any point by any member of the Council. They shall do their best to make it at a time when all members are available (in other words, no meeting time will be chosen specifically to prevent the attendance of a Council Member)

Section 2: The topic and duration of Council Meetings shall be completely up to the individual Council members. The purpose of Council Meetings is to ease the communication between the Council Members. Council Meetings shall take place in the Writer’s Pub, and anyone else interested may attend, but not speak out of turn unless the Grandmaster gives them permission to speak. It is the Grandmaster’s sole duty to act as a moderator for these meetings.

Finally, I am in no mood for personal attacks. Use soft words, not fighting words. I would rather here "You should change this" than, "I'm sorry, but this sentence is disgusting", even if you're trying to make a point. Play nice, and remember, we're supposed to be having fun, right?

Dovahn

[Pryftan]

In compliance with your style I'll add the "Rules for Age Content" .

Article 4: Rules for Age Content

Section 1: Cyan reserves the right to reject our work upon its submission to their servers, or order us to stop working on a project even if it complies with the rules below. They are generalities and cannot possibly cover every situation.

Section 2: The names of our Ages must not be the names of any Cyan Ages. They can be named using either already existing D'ni vocabulary or complete orginality.

Section 3: Other than the engine itself (and Relto pages/clothing if we are permitted by Cyan explicitly), we are not to use any raw files of Cyan's, including textures, models, music, sound effects, animations, etc. Avatar animations and sound effects associated with an avatar (i.e. pushing buttons, footsteps) are necessary components of the engine and acceptable for use.

Section 4:
Part a) We may not use any characters from Cyan's storyline. We may not make anything we claim to be written or created by any characters from Cyan's storyline. We may reference Cyan characters, but we may not include original information about them, or anything outside of what Cyan has explicitly stated.
Part b) The histories of our Ages can only be contemporary to (rather than part of) D'ni history. We cannot claim causal connection to established D'ni events, as Cyan reserves the right to change any of those events at any time. If the events of our storyline are said to be contemporary to D'ni history, they may not take place on a large scale; they will be written so as to have taken place in the relative background of D'ni history.
Part c) The content of our Ages may not indicate any facts about the D'ni culture or practices, excepting those explicitly described elsewhere by Cyan productions.

Section 5: All content must be rated E and abide by the guidelines in the Uru Live Code of Conduct. Additionally, no Age may be submitted incomplete or untested.

I like your draft, and agree with it's general plan. However I would have set up a poll for the number of seats on the council. If anybody has a strong objection to five, I'll set one up, but I'm alright with it personally. I don't know if it's realistic for people to have to be nominated three times, that may have to be decided once we start the process. It's often very difficult to figure out what the level of involvement will be in advance.

Something needs to be add to answer questions like "can councilmembers be reelected, and if so, for how many terms?" I don't think a limit should be imposed, but even if it isn't it should be made clear. The way I see it is that previous councilmembers should all still be in the running without having to be nominated.. it's the people's choice whether a new nomination gets a seat instead of someone who wasn't helpful during the past four months. (This shouldn't be an "everybody gets a chance thing", realistically. Not everybody has the time to devote to it.)

[Dovahn]

Ha, I agree with your additions. I wanted to add those myself, but was too afraid of fighting, etc. I haven't been following the age content guidelines topic too closely, so thanks for writing that up.

However, before we take action on all this, I realize that so far (as far as I know) we're the only two who agree with this concept... We'll see the reaction of the general community.

And as far as reelections go, you're right in that it definitely needs to be made explicit, etc.

Dovahn

[Kierra]

I dunno guys, the thought of a "guild master" and council make me nervous. We've seen so many of those types of structures fail in this community, I'd hate to see anything like that in this Guild.

I agree that *some* kind of authority needs to be in place (mods, troubleshooters) but "authority" in the lowest possible meaning of that word.

Of course, the majority will rule in this matter, so whatever is decided I will go with...but I'm just saying, please be very cautious with these decisions.

~Kia

[Dovahn]

I dunno guys, the thought of a "guild master" and council make me nervous. We've seen so many of those types of structures fail in this community, I'd hate to see anything like that in this Guild.

I agree that *some* kind of authority needs to be in place (mods, troubleshooters) but "authority" in the lowest possible meaning of that word.

Of course, the majority will rule in this matter, so whatever is decided I will go with...but I'm just saying, please be very cautious with these decisions.

~Kia

Oh, certainly we'll take in everyone's opinion before voting on a final draft. We can't please everyone, of course, but I wanted to err on the side of "too much authority" rather than too little, so it could just be removed, rather than added. (and since the consensus here seems to be that too much is bad, we'll probably end up with that).

[Pryftan]

Well Kierra, despite all the wordiness, we're doing only a little more than what you're saying. The council would be mods, and the only power they would have past that is to "officially" endorse certain projects to push their completion. The idea is just to have somebody to say "This is the Showcase Age we're going to build. Let's do it." I don't think that'll happen otherwise, because people have too many ideas that they're passionate about.

But past that we don't want much authority either =)

[BAD]

I strongly disagree with the time frame of elections. We have seen that kind of time frame tried before, and it failed, in my opinion, because we rushed people into nominating and voting on the issue.

Not everyone checks in every day, week, or even month sometimes, we need to extend the time frames in order to keep this system from imploding on itself, and alleviating some of the pressure from the candidates, elects, and position holders.

I would go with this:

Section 2: The Guild Council shall be selected by the following process:
Part a) A 2 month long period is to be given for nominations. Any individual may nominate any other individual besides themselves. Each individual may only have one nomination for an individual on the council.
Part b) A 6 week long period following the previous step shall be provided for in which every member nominated at least three times will be part of a poll that will run for 6 weeks. At the conclusion of the 6 weeks, the five highest voted candidates shall become the Guild Council. The highest voted member of the poll will become the Grandmaster.

Section 4: After a period of 1 year after the conclusion of the poll described in Section 2, part b, the process for choosing a Guild Council shall begin again, and the old members of the Council shall be replaced when the final vote is completed.

I don't see any need to rush the election process, I also don't see any need to replace council members 3 times a year. With that kind of overturn, by the time you get used to being on the council, the elections to re elect would have started.

I also disagree that the guild council should be moderators for the forum. We should have permanent mods or separately voted in mods. The GMs will have enough to do without having to move posts around, or deleting swear words. If a mod is nominated then they should be given the choice to either step down as a mod, or reject the GM position, but I don't think they should do both.

Reading this over it seems a bit harsh. I don't intend it that way, I am trying to get my point across with as little words as possible. I apologize if anyone takes this as an angry post. It is not.

[bluewyvern]

I agree with most of what BAD said, except I think his timeframes are a bit too long...I would suggest four weeks for nominations and four weeks for voting.

I also agree that mods and leaders are two different things. I think we're fine with the mods we have.

I also have a suggestion about the leader's title -- "Guildmaster" and especially "Grandmaster" sound a bit grandiose. In D'ni they were positions of extreme authority and respect bestowed on the most venerable Guildsmen after long, dedicated careers. Even in our shadow modern guilds, it seems a bit presumptuous to grant this title to someone who was elected on a forum to oversee project development in a brand spanking new guild, untested and unproven. How about just having a Chair of the Guild Council? Plus it will stop all the Yeesha cultists crying "Proud!" the moment we unveil our new guild structure...

[BAD]

4 weeks each is fine too, I just figured I would throw something that would get my point across.

[Pryftan]

The reason I suggested the council mod is just because I figured people might want to have a say instead of the way it is now. But if people are happy with the current situation, I'm fine with keeping mod status. ;D