Since this proposal is so important, as long as the majority of votes are for it, the council will implement it. If however there are compelling changes submitted in this thread, the vote will be suspended until those changes can be implemented.
Here it is:
Guild Councilors
There will be three Guild Councilors.
The roles of the councilors will be changed to suit the current and future condition of the Guild of Writers. Previously we have tried to focus on general areas that the guild would focus on. These new position will instead give the councilor a well defined job and reason to keep working on things. The new positions will
be:
Councilor of Artistic Direction. This person would initiate, oversee, and seek to get approval of all guild projects for the GOW. An example would be the showcase age. This could be as simple as delegating work to Directors (see below), or taking the project manager roll him/herself on important projects for the GOW. This person would also be responsible for getting artists, authors, and musicians to be involved with the GOW in ways that they will find interesting and engaging.
Councilor of Technical Direction. This person oversees and approves tools, plugins, services, and any other technical needs of the GOW. This person will be the editor in chief of the Wiki, they will run all of the tool projects created within the GOW, and they will ultimately be in charge of any code the GOW recieves from Cyan.
Councilor of Intra-Guild Relations. This person Administrates the forums and any other server the GOW uses. This person would handle informational releases, events, and announcements.
Shared responsibilities: Inter-guild and Cyan related business, initial proposal creation or approving for vote, and anything else that falls between the alloted jobs listed here.
In most non-critical matters the Guild Council has the authority to make decisions without the need of a proposal or representative approval.
These non-critical matters include:
- Day-to-day guild operations, like forum layout, adding new features to the website or guild infrastructure.
- Start-up of (non-permanent) special projects, either inter-guild or intra-guild.
- Matters concerning any of the tools developed at the GoW
- Organization of events, public-relations actions and other one-time activities.
- Any other matters that are of a non-permanent nature.
Matters that are clearly structural or permanent in nature, will be excluded from this arrangement and will need a proposal.
Experiments:
For trying out possible structure changes or projects that may be made permanent parts of the guild, the Guild Council has the authority to start them up "as an experiment". In cases of possible permanent structural changes, the time for the experiment will be one month maximum. For any other experiments it will be two months maximum. After the time for the experiment has expired, the Guild Representatives (see below) will vote on its continuation as a normal proposal. All experiments must be completely reversible. The representatives can counteract on these decisions immediately. For the counteraction to be considered valid, the proposal procedure has to be started within 48 hours of the decision being made public knowledge. This means that a simple draft proposal to counteract the decision must be posted in the decision forums.
Added procedure for Guild Councilors removal
If a Guild Councilor has been inactive or unreachable for four months or more, and s/he has not stated a valid reason for his/her absence, they will be declared MIA and automatically removed. The Council (aided by the Representatives) will search for a replacement, which will then be instated through representative vote.
The Guild Councilors will find people to fill the new positions of the Guild Directors. The positions of Guild Directors will replace the Assistant Councilor position.
Guild Directors
The Guild Directors are expected to help the members of the Guild Of Writers. If they cease to be active, they should be removed at the discretion of the Guild Councilors. They are the responsibility of the current Guild Councilors to maintain and pick. The requirements below are for the Councilors to follow when picking new Directors.
Requirements for Guild Directors
A candidate for Guild Director must meet the following requirements:
* Needs to be a GoW Representative. If one is taken off the list of Representatives it will also mean automatic discharge from the Guild Director position
* Needs to have some experience in the field e.g. the Tool Development director should actually know how to make tools for age building.
Guild Director positions will be made as they are needed by the Guild Councilors. It may end up that a director's job ends once a project is done, there by eliminating the need for the position. As this is replacing Assn. Guild Councilors, it should be noted that since the director position is more fluid, permissions and access to areas will be decided upon when the position is created. Certain positions may require more or less access depending on what the job requires.
Some Guild Director jobs will be, for the most part, permanent. These positions will not be treated any different.
Guild Representatives
Becoming a GoW Representative
Membership of the GoW representatives is open to anyone who wants, provided the following:
a) You feel you are a member of this guild: You haven't just signed up for the forum discussions.
b) You are able to be contacted through forum or PM's at short notice (not counting vacations).
If you cease to fit these requirements you will step down. If you are inactive on the forums (and haven't been in contact otherwise) for more than three months, you will be automatically taken off the list. This is only for practical reasons (e.g. vote count), once you return, you are welcome to rejoin instantly.
Sign up will be done through a yet to be determined system.
Representative booting
If a representative exhibits undesired behavior, a proposal can be put before the council to expel said representative from the position for a specified or unspecified time. In this special case, a discussion for the proposal is not needed, as long as a good explanation for the removal is given in the voting poll itself.
Proposal voting and proposing things
As a GoW Representative, you are expected to vote on proposals. However, you can also select the abstain option in any vote.
All votes will have three options:
* Accept
* Reject
* Abstain
Before a Council proposal is formally introduced, it will be put before the representatives for comments and suggestions.
After four days of review, it will be put on as a formal proposal, which cannot be changed during the voting process.
Procedure for proposals
1. A proposal is drafted by a representative or the council.
2. A new topic is made for it in the "Representative Discussion" section called "Discussion: <proposal name>".
3. The representatives and the council have four days to suggest changes to your proposal. If valid suggestions are made, the proposal procedure is suspended until those changes can be incorporated into the proposal.
4. Once all discussion and changes are finished a new topic is posted in "Submitted Proposals" called "Vote: <proposal name>" and the discussion topic for the proposal is locked. This new topic will have a poll in it and the final proposal (after discussion) This poll will stay open for 5 days. The representatives (and other guild members if they so choose) will vote "yes", "no", or "abstain".
Vote quorum requirements
Proposals need a vote count of at least 60% of the representatives to pass.
Generic proposals must get more than 50% of the votes to pass (this is 50% of the reps).
Proposals to change the guild structure, or to remove a councilor from the council will need 60% yes vote.
If a quorum is not reached, the proposal will be considered as Rejected. It can be reproposed afterwards however, if the need arises.
Representative forums
The "Internal Discussion" subforum will be renamed to "Representative Discussions" and repurposed to serve as the discussion forum. It will be publicly readable, yet only representatives will be allowed to post there.
Official proposal polls will be put in the "Submitted Proposals" subforum. The "submitted proposals" subforum will gain two subforums:
* Accepted Proposals
* Rejected Proposals
This will help separate current proposals from past proposals.
Voting by non-representatives
Non-representatives who have special interest in a certain proposal, can request the status of "temporary representative" for one proposal only. This position will be automatically granted on request, provided that the member in question is not currently a banned representative, or otherwise banned from this position by the representatives.
This discussion will be open for four days barring that no compelling changes are proposed.
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