Guild of Writers Leadership

[OnslaughtQ]

Let me preface by saying, I know you were just teasing.

I would envision the hidden forum would be a place to discuss communications from Cyan about things they don't want known publicly. This could be anything from storyline material on how to fit fan-made ages into the game, or an API to plasma so that the guild councilors can coordinate with Cyan how to make the information known (I would assume sort of NDA as well with that).
Of course, it probably won't be anything so grand though. Ahh, sweet sweet speculation.

[Aloys]

Yes there are. About age creation itself (there are Age spoilers you'd want to keep out of the public eye for instance) but also about the other aspect of administrating the guild, communicating with other guilds and forum moderation/administration.
Speaking of which:

Special Cases (...) If there is suspicion of the Guild Councilors in the publics eye, a member proposal can be submitted to have someone outside of the council be granted access to the private areas and freely quote any post therein.

I have to raise a big warning about that one. This is a recipe for a disaster. Private forums by definition host private discussions, and private discussions by definition are not meant to be public. If you know in advance that those private discussions might become public then you don't feel at liberty to speak freely on that forum and those discussions might as well take place on a public read-only forum (like the DRC public IC discussions way back). And if people who administrate a group can't speak freely among themselves then they can't properly administrate it.
There are times when administrating something where you just need secrecy; it's not an 'evil' attitude, it's not against any form of democracy, that's just the way it is.

I am speaking from experience here, I understand why you'd want such security in place but this is not the best way to do it. Also I think it won't be needed. We are not a very large group right now, and the council will be a very small and close knitted group, trust will be of prime importance, and should be enough. Should 'suspicion' ever arise regarding one of the council members I say we would have a bigger problem than looking at some private forum. The council is publicly elected and should be able to administrate itself.
If in the future the guild grows to something much larger (and I hope it does) then we might need to have some securities in place. But right now, and for the foreseeable future I think we don't need it.

Just my two cents about that specific point. As you know Trylon you have my support for the whole initiative.

[Chacal]

Let me preface by saying, I know you were just teasing.

I would envision the hidden forum would be a place to discuss communications from Cyan about things they don't want known publicly.

Ah, no. That would be unacceptable to me. That would create two classes of guild members: those who know, and those who stay in the dark. Also, this would provide a powerful and entirely wrong motive to seek election. Knowledge is power, and power corrupts.

I want Cyan to talk to the guild, not to a guild council who may or may not decide to share the information.


***Edit: when I say "unacceptable", I don't mean I want to fight it. I'm mainly arguing for discussion's sake. Let's say I'll be a little sad because we may be going down a very predictable path that I have seen happen so many times before, and I was hoping GoW would avoid it. Oh well.

[Nadnerb]

Simply "post your question and ask it" is not the answer, as we've tried that, and have little to show for it.

I'll have to take issue with this. You have posted and gotten answers on this forum quite a few times. If, (as in one case) you don't get an answer, it's quite likely that no one knows the answer. Communicating instead with some appointed council will not magically give them the answer.

Also, a "secret" forum is not an option. If there are communications to be had, the whole guild should know about them. If someone/group wants to private message certain people, fine, but these should not be simply accessible to a set group with access.

[Trylon]

Also, a "secret" forum is not an option. If there are communications to be had, the whole guild should know about them. If someone/group wants to private message certain people, fine, but these should not be simply accessible to a set group with access.

Which is exactly why there is the "internal discussions" forum, which should be used by the council the most. It's basically a private forum that every one can see.

The "private discussion" forum just there because it's a fraction more practical than PM'ing when you are with a relatively large group. Just consider it as a place for "Group PM's".

[Aloys]

Again privacy is *not* a bad thing, it is just needed. PMs can work two people, but as soon as you have more people involved you need something a little more practical. Like a forum.

there is the "internal discussions" forum, which should be used by the council the most. It's basically a private forum that every one can see.

I must be missing something here. You only want to have that forum? This is essentially like the old DRC IC news forum. It might be informative (and sometimes fun) for people to look at, but there are times when you will need a truly private board.

[Trylon]

I just wanted to point to that provision.
Privacy is a simple neccessity, if only e.g. to bounce ideas off wihtout everyone knowing each and every version of it.
However, when a discission has no need for privacy - as can happen, the internal discussions forum can be used.

It can be somewhat compared to a town council:
When the council is in session, everyone has access, and all discussions can be followed by the public, but the public cannot speak. (The internal discussions forum)
When the council retreats, there can be private meetings, in order to privately sort things out, or to form ideas that can be discussed in the council. (The private discussions forum)

Simply said: If there is no need for privacy, it is not a bad idea to use the internal discussions forum.

[Chacal]

Agreed. A private forum should be used only in exceptional cases.
Only thing is... we'll never know

[Aloys]

Ok, I was under the impression that you had only one forum set up. In that case, yes, the internal discussion forum should be interesting to watch..

[Dovahn]

And also out of curiosity, why do you not expect this to be met with the same criticism that met Pryftan and my earlier proposal at a structure?

Out of curiosity too: Why do you assume that we don't expect it to be met with the same criticism?

Touché!

Going back to an earlier point brought up, about how a "member" (or more accurately, a "voting" member) is defined, I think that this has the capability to become a sticky issue. Anything beyond "person who posts in the forum" (as it is in the current system) would be, I would think, a problem for some people (Not for me; from the beginning, I was in favor of limiting access. But of course, that's not the correct mindset at all. ). On the other hand, members of the GoMa post here, and we don't want to consider them voting members (or do we? or does it not matter? I don't know). So perhaps something else. We might be able to use the Writer's reference list in General Discussion, or the introduction thread.

As for the private discussion, I think that it is unnecessary, because for most of the things mentioned that it would be used for (or at least, for some of them) the other party involved wouldn't want to risk compromising the board security (for example, with APIs). And of course, if there is a way to "make them public" for an investigation or whatever, those would have to be withheld.

Any other things that I can think of could be conducted via PM (for example, should we ban the disruptive member so-and-so?)

Ah, just my opinion.

Dovahn