Restructure proposal discussion

[andylegate]

The Maintainers have quite a nice system with groups for each Guild.

Thank you!

We like having everyone with different colored names....makes the forum look pretty.....

What we did to make sure no one that is not an Actual Guild member vote on a proposal or poll that is only meant for Guild Members is simple:

The Admin part of our Forum allows us to place each registered forum member in a group. We give all groups "read" access to just about everything. But if there is going to be a proposal on something that only Guild Members can vote on, we simply make sure that only the Maintainers Group has "Write" access to that post. Everyone can see it, but only a certain group can vote on it.

Of course going in and putting the right people in the right group was a LOT of hard work for Nynaveve, but we felt it was worth it in the end. Now we just ask, or we already know and put that registered forum member in that group automatically now.

[Lontahv]

My main worry is that people will just join the reps because they think "it's cool" or something. But at least we can just say "if you don't want to vote don't be a rep" which is much easier than if there was a per-member basis voting (could you imagine how crazy it'd be saying: "if you don't want to vote don't be a member of this guild" would be. ).


The reason (in my mind) that having the "Members" be voting parties would cause some problems (even though the idea is nice) is that people seem to connect to D'ni stuff about this guild and think that things with the same name as in the D'ni guild system are the same here. So this would mean that people would be members for all sorts of reasons (even if we posted info about what the position really means). The best is to try to get away from things that are even a shred D'ni-sounding (that is unless the position is rather like the D'ni position).

So yeah, "Representative" is pretty good, "Director", etc.

If we're going to have 3 people as Councilors that's not a "council" in the meaning of the word. The 3 Councilors could be more effectively called... er... _you_ think of another name.

Ok, that's all the disjointed-ranting that I have for you today.

[T_S_Kimball]

Just because you come here and make ages doesn't mean you care about XYZ Proposal.

Same goes for those who care about the future of Uru in general, regardless of their ability to participate in Writing/UCC. Though I do admit that this type of person may be problematic to fit in under 'Rep' or whatever you eventually call it, I think I've been a reasonably good example of its inclusion.

Since the 'Mods as independent' discussion has come up again, I do agree with the idea simply on its technical merit. There is already plenty for a Mod and/or Site Administrator to worry about (just from a security standpoint). In fact (despite my previous unpleasant experience with this [SL ResMod]), I'd be willing to help there if the need arose, so long as I kept my neutrality.

--TSK

[BAD]

We picked the Council jobs by the most influencial jobs that need to be taken care off.

The Director position is a general term for those who will be picked to do specific jobs for the guild. Just because a mod is called a director, does not mean that they have to swear fealty to the council or anyone. Mods will be as impartial as they want to be regardless of what their title says. So lets not harp on insignificant details. Names in the end, mean nothing, but to identify someone. Titles tell you only that they do a job. Beyond that, your making up your own meaning.

The important things are time limits and the balance of work and influence in the council.

I agree with Aloys that we should extend the discussion time. I think the discussions here prove that he indeed is correct in their extension.

I also agree with Aloys that 3 months is to long of a time to let a councilor hang on to the position if they take an extended leave.

So, How about we extend the discussion time to seven days (a complete week), and We shorten the councilor slide time to one and a half months. Remember that a councilor can be replaced quickly by the representatives if they feel they are shirking their responsibilities.. With the extended discussion time, it would now be 12 days, but that's still much quicker than a month and two weeks.

I am still unconvinced that anymore then three councilors are needed. Again, no one is giving any kind of solid argument other than they don't like the number three. I believe that this proposal clearly explains why three councilors will work, and I will not derail that because people are afraid three councilors will suddenly decide to do evil things for no apparent reason. The councilors no longer make significant changes to the GOW, the representatives make the major decisions, and the councilors ensure those decisions are carried out by handling the details.

[Lontahv]

I don't like the idea that this doesn't apply: "We are all one. We follow the same rules. If you are on the same "level" the person you are next to you have the same guild-authority/official-capacity as they have.".

It's like saying something completely far-out like: "We are all people! (except the ones with purple shoes who happen to be gods)".
I don't like this hidden-admin idea... this is starting to feel like some mean trick where some of the floor-boards are solid and some you fall though when you tread on them. If some of you councilors want do your own thing, make a new position for yourself, if the Mods are going to be Mods, then make a Mods group. In my mind this over-simplification is just making things more confusing and weaker.

I think our structure should match what we want _now_ (so we can stick with it 100%) rather than deciding on some structure and then bending it to fit our guild/people.

At least this current structure makes revamping easier.

[Trylon]

Lon, I think I'm missing something. I can't really figure out what your post refers to....

[Lontahv]

It's bugging me the idea of people like Mods and Admins not being in special positions. This means that the reps will have to be worried about booting them out of the councilorship (say Kato, BAD or Pryftan did something... awful--just saying ) the reps would probably have the risk of having the said person storm off leaving a large hole in the GoW that's not really politically related.

So, I think that the reps (as a group) should be able to do anything within reason without the fear of massive non-political destruction.

Basically, I want to have the reps (and councilors) to play with politics rather than super-serious things like the site going down (even if the GoW has no more people this site should stay because of all the info).

What I'd do is I'd have the separate and optionally councilors so if they lose their job they still have some form of authority. Then have it harder for the reps to vote someone out of the adminship or moderator position compared to the fairly easy job of voting someone out of the councilorship.

Or, maybe we should just make the thing we're calling "the representatives" called "the council" and then shift around what we currently call "the council".



Ok, I'm sounding like a broken-record here. Well, the idea is to morph the council (so it can survive) before it becomes so petty and problematic that it must be removed.

Also, the naming of the "council" is going to become sorta wrong when if officially contains only 3 people.

Somehow I feel like this is setting us on a collision-course with the dis-banding of the councilors which I don't think should happen.


These thoughts may need to be pieced together and the parts (of the letter burned by fire? ) may need to be guessed. Writing at a rather strange hour and don't have my full wits at my disposal.

[BAD]

I have no understanding of anything you just wrote Lon. Sorry.

Directors are appointed positions. Sure the Representatives could make a proposal to remove a director, but that proposal would be telling the councilor in charge of the director to fire them essentially.

Again, I don't see why your getting upset over a label. If you buy a pair of jeans, does the brand name really make a difference? Do Levis really fit better, or last longer then any other brand?

I don't really care what you want to call the directors jobs. We don't even have to call them anything. We could simply say the councilors will appoint people to positions and jobs within the GOW to facilitate the day to day work of the guild. These people will be given appropriate titles for whatever role they fill. An example would be calling the forum staff Moderators.

If people don't like the term councilor, then we can change that to. I really don't think names are important. I do think it would be bad to call them liaisons however....

[Lontahv]

Ok. I just don't want the councilors' number to grow smaller. Three is about as small as you can go--take one away and it's one-on-one, take two away and it's a monarchy. So as long as this three thing stays static rather than reducing as people step down I'll be happy.

[Nadnerb]

It's not a monarchy if they can't do anything.

This proposal moves all the power to the "representatives" whose number will probably be very large, and gives the councilors chores to do instead of giving them decision making power.