Guild of Writers

I have a problem with that last item, as it could become an exclusive channel to Cyan.
It is essential that individual contributions be regarded by Cyan in the same light as contributions from the Guild, otherwise we become a monopoly.

Chacal wrote:It is essential that individual contributions be regarded by Cyan in the same light as contributions from the Guild, otherwise we become a monopoly.

True, very true! But I don't think this would ever become an issue, as we are all way too free-spirited to allow it to happen

I have a problem with that last item, as it could become an exclusive channel to Cyan.

Don't read too much into that, he used a bit of a quirky sentence. He was just talking about incentive for people to write ages, so there would be something to show Cyan.

Here's my proposal for registered voters.

I think there should be a separate defined group of registered voters. It might also be nice to have a master list of "official" guild members, as opposed to people who just register for the forums (who might be members of other guilds, "supporters", search bots, and curious members of the general public who want to see what we're up to). A Guild Registry isn't strictly necessary, but it would be kind of nice to know who's who. The Guild Registry could be based on the initial introduction thread, but I think it's best just to open it to a new opt-in process, to see who's still with us.

These groups could be diagrammed as concentric circles, with forum members > Guild members > registered voters, each group being a subset of the one above.

These groups wouldn't be "discriminatory" in any way because signup would be voluntary, and there wouldn't be any approval process. First, register for the forum. Sign up for the Guild Registry and you're in the Guild. Then sign up for the Voter Registry and you're a voting Guild member.

The lists could be kept current by requiring members to re-register periodically or be removed from the list. There could be a re-registry period every six months, say, for voting members and every year for Guild members. If you don't reply during the renewal period, then you're probably no longer active around here and will be automatically removed until you re-register.

If we have a master list of registered voters, that way we know how many people total are interested or plan to vote, and we know when we have a quorum. Otherwise, we're just guessing based on the number of people who are active on the forum, many of whom may not be guild members or at all interested in participating in the decision-making process. An official Voter Registry, renewed every six months or less, will tell us how many people there are out there who are actually interested in voting on issues and who intend to be active and available. There could even be an e-mail sent out to registered voters whenever a new issue is put to a vote, to make sure they all know about it and show up.

I think both lists, a Guild Registry and a Voter Registry, should be opened for immediate signup. There's no reason not to do this now, and having our list of voters will make it easier to proceed with other election-based processes for setting up Guild structure.

Why should we set up a registry, when most people wanted guild membership to be as easy as registering on this forum?

If we do have people who are not interested in being members of the GOW on the forum, why would they vote on an issue involving the guild?

Are we expecting a large amount of people to join this forum with no intention to actually be active in the guild? Otherwise their votes would not significantly skew the results, assuming they all decide to vote, which wouldn't make sense if they had no intention of being involved in the guild.

What would be the worst case scenario if we kept this as it is?

Worst case scenario I can see is people outside the guild trying to change the Guild by voting in Guild-only polls. On one hand, this is a serious threat to this Guild's structure. I don't think it's too much to ask someone to post, PM, or reply to a mass email asking if they wish to be a guild member. On the other hand, if we get a pack of idiots with the low cranial wattage required to desire control over a game's guild, let them. I'll be too busy making ages to worry about such nonsense.

The worst case scenario requires someone dumb enough to want to disturb our little hobbyists guild. I doubt someone that dumb would be sophisticated enough to outwit our forum staff.

Someone would have a bit of trouble making many different forum accounts, with varying IP addresses and email addys too. Unless they had lots of friends help them out. I doubt someone of that caliber of meanness would have that many friends.

I just don't see any need for added complexity right now. Perhaps if we get into the thousands of members it would be wise to start voter registering.

Just cause I don't see a need for it, doesn't mean it is a bad idea. If you want to make that a proposal, we cold have a vote on it once we get everything rolling.

We have 199 members right now. If we suddenly see a spike in people joining right when the vote happens, we will notice. So at least for this vote I don't think we need to have registration.

On the plus side, we only need 32 people voting to have a valid vote! ( I calculated by the number of people who have posted at least once since the board began, since it was less than 6 months ago. 154 people have registered and posted at least once so far.)

BAD wrote:On the plus side, we only need 32 people voting to have a valid vote! ( I calculated by the number of people who have posted at least once since the board began, since it was less than 6 months ago. 154 people have registered and posted at least once so far.)

Could it be a requirement that voters have at made at least one post?

Generally everyone interested should have at least posted something in either the "Introduce yourself" or the "Reference List of Writers" thread. We do have quite a few users who haven't posted anything, and some of them will have accounts only for the purpose of lurking and making sure that they can see everything and reply if necessary.

I think the introduce yourself thread makes it fairly easy to get at least one post, and then spammers or bots or people registering multiple accounts would have to stretch their imaginations to the extreme in order to invent skills and background info for however many users they attempt to create

If we suddenly see a spike in people joining right when the vote happens, we will notice.

Ooh, I'd better get started with my electorate now then!

Paradox wrote:Could it be a requirement that voters have at made at least one post?

Generally everyone interested should have at least posted something in either the "Introduce yourself" or the "Reference List of Writers" thread. We do have quite a few users who haven't posted anything, and some of them will have accounts only for the purpose of lurking and making sure that they can see everything and reply if necessary.

I think the introduce yourself thread makes it fairly easy to get at least one post, and then spammers or bots or people registering multiple accounts would have to stretch their imaginations to the extreme in order to invent skills and background info for however many users they attempt to create

I fully agree - I do not think we can rightfully consider a forum member as active, if they have not at least posted once.
My interpretation of the "active forum member" is that an active forum member has at least posted one valid post in the last six months.

No, no, no, no.

Registering to vote isn't about proving that you're worthy or active or special enough to make decisions. It's not about a complicated approval process you have to get through, or about keeping meddlers out. Anyone who signs up is in.

It's about knowing, out of all the many people who have signed up for the forum so they could contribute ideas or just make post or two, how many of those actually plan on participating in the process. Say we have a forum with 600 registered members. We open up a vote, and over the course of a month we get 45 responses. What does that mean? Has the community spoken? Do we have a decision? Are people divided on this issue, do they not care, did we leave enough time to respond? Is the vote over?

Now say that we have an active voter registry of 50 people who registered within the last six-month period. We open a vote, and send an e-mail out to everyone in the voter group announcing it. Now when we get 45 responses to the vote, we know that we had a 90 percent turnout and that almost everyone who indicated they care about the decision-making has weighed in. The community has spoken. The vote is decided. (And the other 550 members of the forum who didn't register to vote are not active, not interested in voting, chugging along doing their own thing or just along for the ride.)

What's wrong with that?